Answer Addiction

Tag: substance use disorder

  • Does The Disease Model Of Addiction Empower People To Get Help?

    Does The Disease Model Of Addiction Empower People To Get Help?

    A new study examined whether the messaging that addiction is a disease made people more or less likely to get help. 

    New research compared how differing approaches to substance use disorder affect how a person manages their addiction.

    For the study, 214 participants with substance use disorder were placed into one of two groups—a group that was exposed to a “growth mindset” and a group that was exposed to messaging that emphasized addiction as a disease.

    “The growth mindset message stresses that human attributes are malleable, and we know from previous work that it encourages better self-regulatory strategies such as seeking help from others,” said Jeni Burnette, associate professor of psychology at North Carolina State University and first author of the paper published in the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. 

    The growth mindset group read an article that explained the various roots of substance abuse and emphasized that there are multiple pathways to recovery, while the disease mindset group read an article that explained the effects of addiction on the brain.

    After reading the articles, members of each group completed a survey asking them about their approach to dealing with their addiction.

    The findings suggest that the disease messaging limited the participants’ approach to managing their addiction, while the growth mindset made participants feel more empowered to handle their substance use problem.

    The growth mindset group reported feeling more confident in dealing with their problem, and reported “stronger intentions” to seek counseling or cognitive-behavioral therapy.

    “When we began talking about addiction as a disease, the goal was to decrease stigma and encourage treatment,” said Sarah Desmarais, associate professor of psychology at NC State and co-author of the paper. “That worked, to an extent, but an unforeseen byproduct was that some people experiencing addiction felt like they had less agency; people with diseases have no control over them.”

    The study found no difference between the groups when it came to how much they blamed themselves or whether they would seek medication-assisted treatment (MAT).

    “It’s promising to see the growth mindset group express a greater willingness to seek treatment via counseling or cognitive-behavioral therapy,” said Desmarais. “And the lack of difference between groups on medication treatment is also good news, because it reflects the fact that both groups equally appreciate the medical aspects of addiction.”

    The authors conclude that their findings support “moving away from messaging about addiction solely as a disease.”

    “It’s more complicated than that,” said Desmarais. “Instead, the finding suggests that it would be more helpful to talk about the many different reasons people become addicted.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Programs Aim to Bridge Addiction Treatment Gap After Jail

    Programs Aim to Bridge Addiction Treatment Gap After Jail

    Treatment programs both public and private are working to keep newly-released inmates on the right track.

    Programs are popping up around the country aiming to help people with substance use disorder stay sober after they are released from jail—a time that can be especially dangerous for those who have been in forced sobriety while behind bars but were not given the necessary treatment to stay sober on the outside.

    “A lot of people come out of prison, and they don’t have anything, and it’s really hard to be successful,” Judge Linda Bell, who presides over an opioid court in Las Vegas, Nevada, told News3 Las Vegas.

    The program that Bell oversees helps people released on parole stay sober by connecting them with medication-assisted treatment, housing, counseling and other supports.

    “If it’s still available, I’d like to stay an extra month and continue to stay in sober living,” parolee Clayton Dempster told Bell during a recent court hearing.

    Bell does her best to help people like Dempster stay sober, but also imposes consequences if they’re not adhering to the terms of their release by staying in recovery.

    “I have frequent status checks to make sure all of that is going well. If it’s not, I might impose community service or even a short jail sanction,” she said.

    While programs like the one Bell runs, which is grant funded, are part of the criminal justice system, other programs outside the system are also trying to help newly-released inmates stay sober.

    In Baltimore, a privately-funded van parked outside the city jail helps people connect with many of the same services provided in Bell’s courtroom, like medication-assisted treatment—bridging the gap that opens when people are released from jail but not put in touch with ongoing services.

    “This program works,” Michael Rice, a client of the van, told Vox.  

    Without a functioning government system to help people, especially in cities like Baltimore, private organizations and foundations are left providing lifesaving treatment to people at risk.

    “There are plenty of high-threshold options, but not enough low-threshold options,” said Natanya Robinowitz, executive director of Charm City Care Connection, which provides treatment services in Baltimore. “If you had a functioning system, it would be very low-threshold.”

    Because access to treatment can be prohibitively expensive, especially for people who don’t have insurance, jails have become the default detox and treatment facilities for people with substance use disorder.

    Because of that, there has been more recent support for evidence-driven treatment options like medication-assisted treatment, but still only about 12 percent of jails provide it. Fewer still provide services after a client leaves. However, even in the law enforcement community people are beginning to realize that treatment provided in jails and after release can be lifesaving.

    “We know if you are an opiate user you come in here, you detox, and you go out—it’s a 40% chance of OD-ing,” said Carlos Morales, the director of correctional health services for California’s San Mateo County. “And we have the potential to do something about it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Clark Gable III, Grandson of Hollywood Legend, Dies At 30

    Clark Gable III, Grandson of Hollywood Legend, Dies At 30

    The 30-year-old actor had reportedly battled addiction prior to his death. 

    Television host and actor Clark Gable III, whose grandfather was iconic Hollywood actor Clark Gable, died on February 22, 2019 in Dallas, Texas.

    Variety confirmed with the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s Office that the 30-year-old Gable, who was the host of the TV show Cheaters, was found unresponsive in his home in Dallas by his girlfriend that morning and transported to an area hospital, where he died from undisclosed causes.

    In an interview with Radar Online, an ex-girlfriend of Gable’s claimed that he had suffered from substance abuse issues. Heather Chadwell claimed that he had struggled with addiction during the course of their relationship. 

    “We were together on-and-off for several years, and during that time, we went through a lot,” said Chadwell. Gable would disappear for “days on end,” which strained their relationship. “We were battling our own addiction issues, and it was too much.”

    Chadwell also said that after the pair split, she received a call from a hospital where Clark was being treated for a stab wound in his lung. The lung later became infected and collapsed, according to Chadwell, and required surgery. “It was just so hard on him, and it was hard to watch him suffer.”

    Gable’s mother, Tracy Scheff, told Radar that she learned about her son’s death from his girlfriend, Summer, with whom he had a daughter in 2017. “I got a call from his girlfriend, and I didn’t even know what she was saying, she was so hysterical,” said Scheff. Gable’s sister, actress Kayley Gable, posted a tribute to her sibling that same morning.

    “My brother was found unresponsive this morning… I love you Clarkie, I’m so sorry we couldn’t save you,” she wrote. “My heart is broken and shattered.”

    In 2011, Gable served six days in jail for pointing a laser at a Los Angeles Police Department helicopter as it flew above Hollywood Boulevard. He later apologized for the incident and said he was glad to have served his time and be “able to set an example.”

    At the time of his death, Gable was reported to have appeared in a feature film, Sunset at Dawn, which also featured his father, John Clark Gable. He was also reportedly working on a documentary about his grandfather, who starred in such films as Gone with the Wind. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Everclear's Art Alexakis, Nearly 30 Years Sober, Talks Addiction & Recovery

    Everclear's Art Alexakis, Nearly 30 Years Sober, Talks Addiction & Recovery

    “I spent most of my teens trying new drugs, and learning how to lie about them. My priorities in my teens and early 20s were drugs, alcohol and sex,” Alexakis revealed.

    The lead singer of the band Everclear, Art Alexakis, has been sober since June 15, 1989, which is one of his proudest accomplishments.

    As My Horry News reports, Alexakis spoke about his long-term recovery at an addiction and recovery event at Horry-Georgetown Technical College.

    For Alexakis, June 15 is a remarkable date because it was the date his older brother died of an overdose in 1974. On the same date in 1984, Alexakis himself almost died from an overdose. And finally, on the same date, he was ready to clean up his life in 1989.

    Alexakis told the audience, “People like to tell me their war stories and ask, ‘What was your drug of choice?’ I tell them, ‘Whatddaya got?’”

    In addition to the trauma of losing his brother, Alexakis also confessed that he was sexually abused when he was eight years old. He smoked his first joint when he was 9, and took LSD at a concert at 11.

    Then Alexakis discovered that a local ice cream man was a heroin dealer, and Alexakis’s brother helped him sell drugs as well.

    “I spent most of my teens trying new drugs, and learning how to lie about them,” Alexakis continued. “My priorities in my teens and early 20s were drugs, alcohol and sex.”

    One night, Alexakis suffered a near fatal overdose after injecting cocaine. His heart stopped, and thankfully a next-door neighbor who was an EMT saved his life with a defibrillator.

    Six months later, Alexakis stopped the drugs, but he kept drinking heavily. Finally, a record store clerk called him out by saying, “You know, you have a problem,” and offered to take him to a meeting.

    After going on a bender, Alexakis decided he was ready to get sober. He went to two meetings in a day, which cemented his desire to get sober.

    Before hitting the road in early recovery, where temptation is everywhere, Alexakis would hit up meetings to prepare himself.

    “It’s all about choices,” Alexakis added. “Don’t put yourself in places you don’t want to be. If you can’t make good choices in those places, don’t go to those places. You have to find that desire to be clean and sober and to be in recovery.” 

    Without getting sober, Alexakis says, “I’d be dead. It’s not even a maybe. I’d have been dead.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

    Artie Lange’s Celeb Friends Beg Him To Get Sober

    A group of sober comedians and actors took to Twitter to ask Lange to get help for his addictions.

    Artie Lange became well-known for his long-running gig as a sidekick and comedian on the infamous Howard Stern Show. Lange is now in the spotlight for his long-running struggle with addiction as his famous pals plead with him to go to a rehabilitation center and accept help.

    Comedians are understood to often have a dark side, and many famous comedians have succumbed to the disease of addiction, including John Belushi, Chris Farley, Lenny Bruce, Mitch Hedberg and Greg Giraldo.

    In December, Lange narrowly escaped jail time after testing positive for cocaine and amphetamine. In June 2018, Lange was given four years’ probation after pleading guilty to heroin possession found during a 2017 traffic stop.

    In December 2018, Lange shared on Instagram a photo of his self-proclaimed “hideously deformed” nose, which, according to Fox News, is the end product of accidentally snorting broken glass mixed into Oxycontin as well as almost 30 years of drug abuse.

    Lange’s friends and colleagues were quick to respond.

    Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Richard Lewis, who has been sober since 1994, tweeted out to Lange, “Artie, this is my 1000th request over decades to beg you to surrender to your addictions. We had the most laughs sober. I love you. You’re beloved and a magnificent comedian cursed with self loathing and fear. Give it up and live.”

    Comic Jackie Martling added, “coming up to 18 years [sober] in May. in early 2001 I’d have laughed at the idea of not drinking for 18 *days.* Art, I know you know the laughs are just as hearty on this side. I love you and am of course 100% in your very crowded corner.”

    Patton Oswalt, a famous comedian who had roles in The King of Queens and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. followed up with support: “What Richard said. Come ON, Artie.”

    Final Destination actor Devon Sawa added his experience, “Sober for 12 years. My life changed. Things just keep getting better and better and better…..”

    Maurice LaMarche joined the chorus, saying, “I’m echoing @TheRichardLewis. Artie, it CAN be done. Richard’s living proof.”

    He added, “And now I’m echoing @markschiff. While we’re on the subject, I too stopped trying the desperate experiment of the first drink or drug on 1/20/89. (This is sounding like a show @JerrySeinfeld might create: Comedians In Meetings Getting Sober) C’mon, Artie. Join us. You can do it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Conditions Under Addiction "Umbrella" Continue To Evolve

    Conditions Under Addiction "Umbrella" Continue To Evolve

    “Whether it’s drugs, sex, gambling or whatever, you’re looking at impulse-control disorders where people have difficulty refraining from maladaptive use,” said one expert.

    Video gaming, shopping, social media use, sex—according to The Guardian, the scope of what falls into “addiction” has broadened in recent years. Rather than just including alcohol, tobacco and drugs, other substances and habits now fall under the definition. 

    This is because those in neuroscience have determined that the same brain chemical, dopamine, is responsible for these cravings. 

    “The range of what people are getting addicted to has increased,” Michael Lynskey, professor of addiction at King’s College London, told The Guardian. “For my parents’ generation, the only options were tobacco and alcohol. Now there are more drugs, including synthetics, along with commercialisation and ways – especially online – of encouraging prolonged use of different things.”

    Henrietta Bowden-Jones, a consultant psychiatrist involved with the UK’s future NHS internet-addiction clinic, said many of these newer conditions are behavioral instead of physical.

    “I saw [a gaming disorder patient] yesterday,” she told The Guardian, “who then went on to spending money on objects and clothes. You can somehow shift the behaviour but it’s an illness we don’t yet know enough about.”

    Even so, not everyone in the field agrees that emerging disorders necessarily classify as addiction. According to The Guardian, the only two to officially make the WHO list of addictions are gambling and gaming.

    However, Lynskey argued, many of these conditions do meet the standard criteria for addiction diagnosis, including the inability to stop as well as withdrawals.

    “If a teenager becomes irritable when a gaming session is cut short, there’s some discussion as to whether that’s a sort of mild withdrawal,” Lynskey said.

    According to the research of Terry Robinson, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan, dopamine is the neurochemical behind cravings in any form. 

    “Whether it’s drugs, sex, gambling or whatever, you’re looking at impulse-control disorders where people have difficulty refraining from maladaptive use,” he told The Guardian. “There are certainly similarities in terms of the psychological and neurobiological mechanisms involved.”

    Robinson said three factors—an environment full of craving-inducing stimuli, dosage and access—combine to increase the likelihood of problematic habits and uses.

    Lynskey told The Guardian that like with anything else, there is a range when it comes to problematic behavior.

    “There is a spectrum,” he said, “whether it’s alcohol or drug dependence or shopping addiction and people have become a bit happier with placing the point at which behaviour becomes problematic at a lower level of use.”

    According to Bowden-Jones, there are a number of ways to treat such disorders. However, certain ones become unique because they are impossible to avoid, such as the internet.

    “Younger generations will be socially cut off,” said Bowden-Jones, “and what our patients say is when they feel they’re missing out, it pushes them more toward the virtual life that they already have a problem with rather than engaging properly in their face-to-face lives.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The High Financial Cost Of Addiction & Recovery

    The High Financial Cost Of Addiction & Recovery

    A new survey highlights the financial hardships that people with addiction face.

    Addiction and recovery come with huge emotional costs, for the person with substance use disorder and for their family members. Yet, there is also a very real financial cost to both active addiction and recovery — one that can affect family members and people with substance use disorder in the short and long term.

    According to a recent survey by True Link Financial, 82% of family members said their loved one’s finances have been affected by their addiction. People who are addicted need a constant stream of cash to fund their drug purchases.

    Survey respondents also said their loved ones had made irresponsible financial decisions to fund their addiction: 48% said their family member had used savings or retirement money to purchase drugs; 42% had family members who sold assets to fund their addiction; and 11% had family members who had declared bankruptcy in part because of their addiction.

    However, the challenge doesn’t stop when people get sober.

    “Treatment is extraordinarily expensive, and it often takes a couple of tries,” Kai Stinchcombe, True Link’s co-founder and CEO, told Forbes.

    Eighty percent of respondents said that getting on track financially is one of the biggest challenges of recovery for their family members.

    “Being able to make typical day-to-day purchases, like putting gas in your car to get to work, or taking a new friend out for coffee, is critical,” Stinchcombe said. “Having no safe, dignified way to pay for basic items makes it harder to build yourself a new life. Recovery is not just tough physically, mentally, and spiritually. There are financial barriers in place that make it harder to build yourself a new life.”

    True Link is known for making debit cards that have limitations, like only working at certain locations, helping family members guide purchases for adults. Although it’s usually used for adults with disabilities, Stinchcombe said that the cards can be a tool for people in recovery.

    Eric Dresdale, who is in recovery, said he was used to borrowing money when he was addicted, but when he got sober and had access to more money, he began spending recklessly.

    “I realized I could take out money and in about a week I spent $500 on silly things to fill an emotional void,” he said, adding that he was about $7,000 in debt by the time he left a half-way house program. After regaining control of his own finances, Dresdale went on to help develop a prepaid debit card for people with substance use disorder and mental illnesses. He says that cards like this can help family members provide support, without enabling.

    “I’ve worked with families and there’s a fine line between helping and hurting,” he said. “You might think you are saving or protecting someone by giving financial support, but you could be making the problem worse. I believe in providing financial help with boundaries.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ryan Adams Celebrates Sober Milestone

    Ryan Adams Celebrates Sober Milestone

    Rocker Ryan Adams took to Twitter to announce that he’s been sober for two months.

    Singer Ryan Adams, who was once married to actress Mandy Moore, celebrated 60 days sober on December 27. In a tweet, he expressed his appreciation for his situation.

    “2018: you brought me to my knees,” he wrote on his Twitter post. “It turns out that’s where I needed to be: in prayer for everyone here or lost. In these trying times, God bless everyone struggling or on the path to empathy, kindness and recovery.”

    Adams also attached a photo showing off his 60-day sobriety token.

    He topped off his post with well wishes: “Keep the Faith. & may the Faith keep you.  XO.”

    The good news comes a few months after some Twitter drama with Moore. The actress tweeted that she married the wrong person when she married Adams in 2009, staying with him for six years before divorcing in 2015. Things got ugly when Adams replied.

    “She didn’t like the Melvins or BladeRunner. Doomed from the start … If only I could remember the start lol,” Adams wrote in a tweet on October 10th.

    A few days later, Adams woke up to the fact that participating in the drama wasn’t cool and issued a public apology.

    “I apologize for my remarks. I was trying to be funny. But I have and will always choose to remember the amazing moments. It isn’t classy or ok lessen what was,” he wrote apologetically. “I am happy for everyone and doing my best.”

    Later, on Thanksgiving, the tone of Adams’ tweets were more supportive, full of words of encouragements for those who may be going through the same thing he was.

    “Today I am thankful for my sobriety, my friends & for the program & all the Jedi passing along wisdom,” he wrote. “I know people are struggling & alone on the holidays. But you are NOT ALONE. Everyday is a new opportunity to grow, to reach for the light. Keep the faith. You are loved. XO.”

    View the original article at thefix.com