Category Archives: Addiction

It's possible to seek freedom from drug usage during the COVID pandemic.

Should I Still Seek Drug and Alcohol Treatment or 12 Step Meetings During COVID-19?

By on April 17th, 2020 in 12 Steps, Addiction, Alcoholism, Articles

Who knew how much the Stay At Home Order would affect our substance abuse recovery?

Over the past month, we’ve all had a lot of time to think, pray, and reflect on the implications of our current situation. As of this writing, we have been under quarantine for one month, and I was reminded of this moment today:

After the last in-person 12 Step meeting I attended before the stay at home order, one of the regulars in the meeting joked, “I’m not sure what’s worse for us alcoholics, to risk getting COVID-19 by attending meetings or to risk drinking by not attending meetings.”

It was a sullen half-joke. We both chuckled, but in the back of our minds we thought of the countless alcoholics and addicts around the city, country, and world who would struggle in this unprecedented situation. In a very real sense, we both knew that access to recovery resources is a matter of life and death for many. We exchanged phone numbers with one of the newer members of the group and went home.

It’s been over a month since that moment, and at the time, none of us in that meeting realized how long this quarantine would last. We also didn’t realize how serious this pandemic would be.

A friend of mine recently wrote an article in which she indicated that she had spent her entire recovery fighting her natural desire to isolate. How ironic that, for our own good, we are now being directed to isolate! As a recovering person, that sentiment really resonated with me.

However, a few questions that have come up over and over throughout this process:

  • What are the newcomers to recovery going to do? (I couldn’t imagine having 30 days sober at this moment in time)
  • Are the drug & treatment programs even open right now? (Yes, they are on the essential services list)
  • Is it even worth it to see drug and alcohol treatment right now? (Hint: yes, it is)
  • My son or daughter is using drugs; how am I supposed to help them with everything shut down?

I’ve noticed that while there has been a lot said about the struggles of the recovering person, I haven’t seen very much said about the solutions that are still available to us and to our families. For that reason, I’ve decided to compile a list of resources that I KNOW are available to each and every one of us, right now:

COVID-19 Stay At Home Order Alcohol & Drug Recovery Options For the Newcomer & The Recovering Person:

  • Recovery meetings (12 Step and otherwise) are available virtually over Zoom, GoToMeeting, Skype, and other platforms. You can find links to those resources…
  • Treatment centers are still open. As an essential service, in-person and virtual IOP’s are open. Please, please, please do not hesitate to seek treatment for yourself or a loved one who needs it during the COVID-19 crisis.
  • You’re probably carrying an $800 recovery supercomputer in your pocket right now. Your phone is your friend. Call your safety nets, sponsors, and friends. Share, laugh, cry, do whatever you need to do. If you don’t have phone numbers, Alcoholics Anonymous help lines are up and running. You can also call SAMSHA’s helpline 1-800-622-HELP (4357).

Resources For the Parents of recovering (or using), teenagers, young adults, or loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic:

Tools for anyone Affected by Drug Use or Recovery During This Time

The stay at home order has forced me to be reminded that, as we say in recovery, happiness is an inside job. Here’s some things that any of us can do:

  • Finish some Stepwork. You know the inventory you’ve been putting off? Yeah, THAT one. Go ahead and write it.
  • Write a Gratitude List.
  • Read Page 60-63 in the Big Book – or any other of your favorite passages. 

My challenge to recovering people & families over the next week:

  • Utilize ALL of the recovery tools listed above that apply to you.
  • Write your own gratitude list. You might be surprised what you come up with.
  • Do all things with love.
  • Follow Rule 62: DON’T TAKE YOURSELF TOO SERIOUSLY.
Marijuana or weed is one of the most popular drugs used by teens and young adults today

My Teenage Experience Using Marijuana

By on April 10th, 2020 in Addiction, Adolescent and Young Adult Substance Use, Articles

As a substance abuse counselor for young adults and adolescents, the use of marijuana by young people is a topic that comes up daily. On one side of the discussion, there are those who speak of the multitude of health benefits from marijuana. On the other side of the discuss, there are those who argue that a drug is a drug and that it is never acceptable to use drugs. In this article I hope to provide a personal testimony of my own experience with marijuana and my opinion on marijuana’s effects on teenagers specifically.

My Story with Teenage Marijuana Use

I remember being in elementary school, learning about various drugs and sitting in the classroom making a personal vow to never to use drugs. Especially hearing these various stories of people overdosing from drugs, getting caught by the police, or losing everything they love. It was easy as a child to determine that drugs were bad and that I wanted to avoid them. As I grew, however, that perspective began to shift. I began to see TV shows and movies where kids sneak out and smoke weed or get drunk at a party. They made it look like a lot of fun! By middle school I had friends who were cool to me that used marijuana, and they were the rebels. My personal vow was losing it’s appeal. My idea condemning marijuana lost the foundation of its argument.

I tried marijuana for the first time when I was 14 years old. I didn’t get high, but another thing stood out about that experience – I got in no trouble whatsoever! I didn’t get caught by the police, my family had no idea, and I didn’t experience any adverse health effects. This immediately changed my perspective on marijuana and I decided to try it again.

The next time I smoked marijuana, I actually experienced its effects. At that point I felt I had every reason to continue smoking marijuana! At the age of 14, I was concerned with one thing more than anything else: having fun. Despite the fact that I had a basic understanding that drugs were bad, I did not care. I had a host of new friends that I thought were cool and getting high felt extremely positive to me. Like many teenagers who begin abusing drugs, I wouldn’t start to experience real consequences until much later in life.

Consequences of Marijuana Use and Recovery

The first time I got caught doing drugs was spring break when I was 15. My friends and I stole a little alcohol from the top of every bottle from a friend’s parents’ liquor cabinet. We drank the liquor in my room, and a few hours later one of my best friends was puking all over himself and barely conscious. Worried, I woke up my mom. She was upset at the scene she found, but I was careful to insist that “it was the first time and I won’t do it again.” I took my month’s grounding and moved on.

Gradually, using drugs and alcohol took over my life. I continued to drink, but primarily used marijuana. By the time I was a senior in high school, there were a few distinct changes in my life. I constantly argued with both of my parents. I had manipulated my mom to the point where she was okay with me using marijuana because she believed I was limiting my use to once a week. Little did she know that I was using drugs every day! At this point, my life centered around my marijuana use. I viewed it as essential to be able to use marijuana. It had become more important to me than sports, extracurricular activities, or my schoolwork. I had changed groups of friends multiple times to people who used drugs the same way I did. I tried other drugs, including LSD, prescription stimulants, and prescription benzodiazepines (Xanax). I believed that I was having fun, and looking back, the insane part is that I didn’t see anything wrong with it.

Not unsurprisingly, I began experiencing more significant consequences. I found myself in the hospital. I was nearly expelled from high school. By this time, I was completely dependent on drug use to get through the day.

Something had to change.

Thankfully, it was during this time that I was introduced to sobriety. At my family’s urging, I begrudgingly agreed to have an appointment with a professional. I got into a good treatment program that specializes in adolescent drug use in my area. Though I fought it every step of the way, I began to abstain from drug use.

During my first six months of recovery, I began to understand and accept the consequences of using other drugs besides marijuana. I gained new tools to cope with life and rebuild my broken relationships. However, I could not part or wrap my head around the negative consequences of marijuana. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I had become everything I had sworn not to be when I was younger. I talked loftily about how marijuana was actually good for the brain and led to better decision making, rather than worse.

However, around the six month point, some things finally clicked. After months of staying clean, I began to clearly see some of the real consequences from marijuana specifically.

The Turning Point in My Recovery

The counseling staff and my peers in my recovery group used to use the term “three degrees off” to describe marijuana users and pot smokers. This is not intended as an insult, it’s simply a description of the effect of marijuana on our brains.

It’s important to remember that in marijuana users, cognitive functions are affected until 28 days of abstinence. Click here to read one of the many clinical studies on the topic. What this meant for me was that my decisions were not only affected for the few hours that I felt intoxicated, they were also affected, on some level, for up to 28 days after using marijuana. Compound this with daily marijuana use, and we end up with somebody who makes chronically bad decisions and doesn’t experience the true emotional repercussions of their actions.

For the first time, I took stock of the real effects of marijuana use on my life:

I didn’t become a drug using teenager overnight. However, with my slightly altered, “three degree off” decision-making, the end result was same. Over time, I had gone from a respectable, athletic, smart teenager to someone who lied to family and friends, cheated those around him, and stole from those he loved to be able to use marijuana and obtain drugs. I was willing to manipulate and argue to get high. While my brain was in the its peak of cognitive and emotional development, I was using a substance that blocked its normal functioning.

Manipulative and dishonest behaviors became easier and easier to justify. It wasn’t a bad kid, but I was willing to do anything to protect getting high. Over time, I even moved on to using other drugs, answering the age old question of if marijuana is a gateway drug. One national study by Secades et al shows that for people who were life-time marijuana users, 44.7% moved on to other illicit drugs. Comparatively, this is significantly higher than someone who never tries marijuana in the first place. In my professional experience counseling drug using teenagers, young adults, and their families, nearly every young person who receives counseling services started with marijuana.

Why Teenage Marijuana Use is So Damaging

I especially take notice of teenagers who use marijuana. The results are in: this 2014 evidence based study showed that marijuana users who began before age 17 experienced long-term issues with executive functioning. This includes problems with abstract reasoning, verbal fluency, verbal learning, and memory. This differed from users who began using after 17.

Another study showed that users who began using marijuana before 18 were 4-7 times more likely to develop some sort of substance use disorder.

From personal experience, I see that my marijuana use held me back from gaining the real tools to succeed long-term. Rather than coping with the problems in my life, I resorted to using marijuana. Marijuana created such a strong instant gratification that I had no need to develop real friendships. Rather, I made a decision to choose friends based on whether or not they used marijuana. As my tolerance for marijuana developed, I had nothing to fall back on to create lasting self-esteem and happiness.

Giving Back

Today, I want to help prevent young people from moving backwards because they didn’t give their brains time to develop. It is not surprising to me that marijuana is the number one drug used by teens. My goal is for teenagers and young adults to find long-term happiness. In my life, I ended up finding and utilizing real self esteem building tools. I utilize the 12-steps, a sponsor/mentor, and positive relationships to help accomplish this. The result of this has been a life that is more fruitful than anything I attained when I was using marijuana or other drugs. Even if it is “only marijuana” I hope to encourage any young person to seek sobriety to support long-term success.

References

Crean, R. D. Crane, N. A. Mason, J. M. (2011, March 1) An Evidence Based Review of Acute and Long-Term Effects of Cannabis Use on Executive Cognitive Functions. Journal of Addiction Medicine, 5(1). Retrieved From https://journals.lww.com/journaladdictionmedicine/Abstract/2011/03000/An_Evidence_Based_Review_of_Acute_and_Long_Term.1.aspx

Pope, HG Jr., Gruber, A. J. Hudson, J. I. Huestis, M. A. Yurgelun-Todd, D. Neuropsychological performance in long-term cannabis users. Archives of General Psychiatry                (2001, October) Retrieved from ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11576028/

Secades-Villa, R. Garcia-Rodriguez,O. Chelse, J. Jin. Wang, S. Blanco, C. (2014, August 2). Probability and predictors of the cannabis gateway effect: A national study. International Journal of Drug Policy, 28(2). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2014.07.011

Winters, K. C. Lee, C. S. (2008, Jan 1) Likelihood of developing an alcohol and cannabis use disorder during youth: Association with recent use and age. Drug and Alcohol Dependence, 92(1-3). Retrieved from https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0376871607002979?via%3Dihub

Depression and strained family relationships are symptoms of substance use disorder

What is Substance Use Disorder? (SUD)

By on April 6th, 2020 in Addiction, Alcoholism, Articles

When you’re looking for help for yourself or a loved one, it can be difficult to navigate terminology and information when you’ve never been exposed to the recovery or treatment world. The purpose of this article is to break down some of those barriers. The term “substance use disorder”, or SUD, is a term related to drug addiction and substance use that you may hear and/or read often on this journey. We want to provide you with definitions for the terms you will hear and see, as well as give you some insight into recovery terminology.

What does the term SUD mean?

SUD is a commonly used acronym in the treatment field that stands for Substance Use Disorder. Prior to 2013, providers would use the 4th edition of the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statical Manual (DSM-IV) to diagnose an individual with either substance abuse or substance dependence, but not both. The manual gave a list of symptoms, such as tolerance, withdrawal, the presence of legal consequences, etc. Substance abuse was defined by the presence of 1 or 2 symptoms, whereas substance dependence was defined as 3 or more.

In 2013, a new edition of the manual was released. In the updated DSM-5, SUDs are not characterized by abuse vs. dependence. Without this distinction, an individual would receive a “use disorder” label with a reference to a specific drug class (i.e. “cannabis use disorder” or “cocaine use disorder”).

This new classification and symptom criteria for SUDs came on the heels of professionals recognizing that many different synergistic factors contribute to addiction tendencies involving alcohol and other drugs. This means that it is usually not just one thing (i.e. trauma, strained family relationships, negative peer groups) that causes addiction.

What this means for treatment of Substance Use Disorder

The new classification recognizes that not all substance use disorders are driven by a single cause, and not all of them can be labeled as “drug addiction”, “drug abuse”, etc. Use of drugs, alcohol, nicotine, whether legal or illegal, is a multi-factorial issue.

This is especially true of young people. Not everyone that that meets the criteria for a substance use disorder identifies as an addict or an alcoholic; however, we believe that the treatment for an individual should be consistent regardless of their personal admission of being and addict or alcoholic. This means assessing each person individually to determine the severity of their substance use disorder and to uncover underlying issues that may also be at play.

Signs and symptoms of Substance Use Disorder

The diagnosis of substance use disorder is done in an assessment with a drug and alcohol treatment professional. We take a look at the various signs, symptoms, and consequences of an individual’s consumption of drugs, alcohol, or other substances over the course of the last 12 months. Using information from the assessment, we determine things such as:

  • Did the individual’s consumption increase over the 12 month period (tolerance)?
  • Did the individual experience cravings for the drug or substance?
  • Did the person desire to cut down or quit and find they were unable to?
  • Did the individual miss out on school, work, or family obligations as a result of their substance use?
  • Many more factors

What Substances Qualify for the Diagnosis of Substance Use Disorder?

Substance abuse disorder is a diagnosis that can be applied to any substances or drugs that are causing a problem or issue in the patient’s life. We are often asked if this applies to legal substances like nicotine, alcohol, or prescription drugs. The answer is YES. The legality of the substance is not a deciding factor in the diagnosis – the main factors are the ones described in the section above. Namely, we want to assess what the effects of the substance have been on the user’s life. Substances that could qualify someone for the diagnosis of substance disorder include:

Other important definitions for treatment of substance use disorder:

  • MAT- Medicated Assisted Therapy: involves the use of medications (such as Buprenorphine) to assist in the detox and treatment of a patient.
  • Co-occurring disorders: condition in which an individual has a co-existing mental illness and SUD.
  • Intervention: A process by which family and friends confront an individual about their addiction in order to seek help for the individual. Interventions are usually facilitated by a trained personnel. Contacting a trained interventionist is the best place to start when seeking help for a loved one, as the interventionist will help with the process by providing assessments for appropriate levels of care along with referrals to treatment centers.
  • Residential Treatment Center (RTC): Intensive treatment for individuals outside of their home in which individuals participate in a live-in health care facility under trained staff supervision. Not everyone is appropriate for RTC, so be sure to have yourself or a loved one participate in an assessment to determine the appropriate level of care.
  • Intensive Outpatient (IOP): Usually 10-20 hours of group and individual therapy each week. IOP is a step down from residential treatment, and is usually recommended as follow-up care after successful completion of an RTC; however, completing a residential program is not always necessary prior to participating in an IOP program. Refer to a professional to determine which level of care is an appropriate starting point.

Visit https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-high-functioning-alcoholic/201106/understanding-addiction-treatment-levels-care for more information regarding levels care for SUD treatment.