The Addicted Brain: Interview with Marc Lewis

August 21, 2013

4033340-4x3-340x255Here’s a fascinating interview with Marc Lewis as part of the ABC Radio Big Ideas series here in Australia. Well worth putting your feet up and listening – or have it running in the background.

‘Marc Lewis took every drug imaginable over a 15 year period. He knows drugs can make you feel good, and he experienced the desperate lows of addiction. He’s been drug free for 30 years and is now a neuroscientist.

So what do the drugs he took actually do to your brain?  Why do they make you feel the way they do? And – crucially – how is the brain responsible for addiction? He speaks to Paul Barclay.’

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From Discovery To Recovery: My Emotional Journey As The Parent Of An Addict

August 16, 2013

iStock_000017274301XSmall1-300x199Powerful writing from Ron Grover, a parent of a son with a substance use problem, which appeared on the Intervene website.

‘What’s it like being the parent of an addict? I’m not talking about the day-to-day experience with a crisis and drama around every corner. I mean what is it like inside the mind of a parent who has gone from discovery (of a child’s drug use) to recovery (from a drug addiction)?

As I take stock of my current emotional state – examining all of the emotions I have felt over the last 10 years – I wonder: Am I normal? Am I a survivor? Am I crazy? Maybe I’m just a composite of these experiences and it’s simply who I am now.

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Recovery Vision: New paradigm, new questions, new answers

August 13, 2013

I’ve just watched this wonderful talk (from 2001) by Bill Anthony, one of the pioneers in recovery-based care in mental health. [Bill starts his talk at 25’20” into the video]

Bill describes a metaphor for explaining a paradigm shift, such as the paradigm shift to recovery-based care in mental health.

This metaphor is that mankind once thought the world was flat. This understanding led to certain questions such as, “How far do I sail before I fall off the end of the earth?” Once mankind learnt the world was round, these questions were redundant. We asked different questions.

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Book Review: ‘The Happy Addict: How to be Happy in Recovery from Alcohol or Drug Addiction’ by Beth Burgess

August 13, 2013

41+RPl0IiaL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX342_SY445_CR,0,0,342,445_SH20_OU02_We’ve heard quite a bit from Beth Burgess on this website. The reason for this is quite simple. Beth is always busy. Last week, I included her column from the Huffington Post, this week a review of her latest book from the website Drug Addiction Treatment.

‘It sounds like an oxymoron, The Happy Addict. How can an addict be happy, right? Leave it to a clever marketer to come up with a catchy title like this, one that literally draws the reader in. That is, if the reader has an interest in learning how it is humanly possible to be “happy” in recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction.

But, wait, that’s the rest of the title of this no-nonsense, witty and well-written book by Beth Burgess: The Happy Addict: How to Be Happy in Recovery from Alcoholism or Drug Addiction.

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Support for You – One Woman’s Story

August 12, 2013

Louise C. runs a successful family business in Scotland that employs 90 people.

But she very nearly lost all of this, and her life, due to chronic alcoholism. Louise thanks her family for getting her into treatment. She remembers the day her family dropped her off at Castle Craig: “It took three men to drop me at the door of Castle Craig.”

She admits that “the best thing to do with alcoholics is to gang up on them and give them no option but to try treatment and face up to their addiction.” Once that is done, “you’re half-way there.”

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Are you a Victim of ‘Compare and Despair’? by Beth Burgess

August 11, 2013

london recovery coach.jpgHere’s the latest article from Beth Burgess in the Huffington Post:

‘Much of our unhappiness comes from comparing ourselves to where we think we should be, or where others are, rather than seeing what is positive about our own reality. Instead of trying to keep up with the Joneses, we should be focusing on ourselves and ploughing our unique furrow.

As an addiction therapist, one of the things I regularly hear from clients who are newly sober is that they feel like they are behind everyone else when it comes to where they “should be” in life. Having “wasted years”, as they see it, stuck in a negative lifestyle, they feel like their peers have pulled ahead of them and have their “stuff” all sorted out.

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‘A Personal Story’ by Kerrie

August 10, 2013

IMG_3429This very moving Story was written for Wired In To Recovery in August 2011.

‘Hi, my name is Kerrie. I am 37 years old. Both my parents died as a result of heroin addiction. My mum when I was 8 years old and she was 28, and my dad when I was 15 and he was 43.

I grew up in the madness of their addiction; needless to say we were a very dysfunctional family. I don’t remember my parents ever getting any real support. The only people involved with our family were the police and social services.

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‘A Family Illness’ by Phil Hughes

August 8, 2013

IMG_5024This excellent blog was written three years ago to the day on Wired In To Recovery. 

“I was like a tornado causing as much devastation as I possibly could in my family. But the problem was, I couldn’t even see it because all I cared about was me. I was caught up, obsessed with finding ways and means to get my next drink. When I didn’t have it, I was a nightmare to live with.

My mother felt so helpless, slowly watching her son kill himself through drink and drugs and not knowing whether she was coming or going half the time. It’s through that feeling of helplessness and frustration that the anger started to rear it’s ugly head.

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‘A Day With Dave’ by Annalie Clark

July 29, 2013

My lovely daughter Annalie heads back to the UK tomorrow, having spent a year here in Perth working as a doctor (along with her boyfriend Max) in the emergency department of  a local hospital. I will miss them both greatly, but I’ve had such a special year with them.

Here’s an article that Annalie wrote in the summer of 2005, when she had just finished her first year of medical training at the University of Edinburgh. It appeared in a June edition of Drink and Drugs News. The article is about Dave Watkins who used to be a top-class support worker at a treatment centre in Swansea.

What is striking about this article is that Dave’s role resembles what I envisage a recovery support worker (or recovery coach) would be doing today. Annalie highlights Dave’s extensive contacts within, and knowledge of, the local community, which helps the lives of the people with whom he works. In the video above, you can see one of the magic tricks that Dave used to engage the people he was working with.

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‘What’s Next for the Truth?’ by Suzanne Beachy

July 29, 2013

Any diagnosis of mental illness results in a complicated and uncertain fate for those it strikes. When you lose a son as a result of such a diagnosis, it ignites a search for answers. Suzanne Beachy has gained a perspective on life as a result of her loss but is still asking, “What is the truth?”

Suzanne gave this talk at the TEDxColumbus event in 2010.

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“Creating Connections through Dialogue” conference

July 28, 2013

‘We live in an increasingly interdependent and interconnected world. The Creating Connections conference was an opportunity to explore various aspects of connectedness and the implications for recovery.

Health and mental health providers, people with the lived experience of mental health challenges and recovery, family members and others were invited to participate in workshops and joined in facilitated dialogue sessions to connect and learn from one another to become more effective in our lives and in our work.’

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‘Stuck not broke’ by AntiHero79

July 27, 2013

IMG_1870Hello, as this is my first entry I’ll (try to) keep it short. I am two and a half years into my recovery. I’d love to say that it’s all plain sailing, but in fact has been the darkest and most confusing time of my life up to now.

“I always knew I was different”… Well it’s true, I did. Always felt apart, weird, somehow isolated from even my closest friends. I had a rough childhood, no doubt about it, and when I found drink and drugs it was like I was liberated.

My first round of addiction (to cannabis, from age 14 – 15) saw me walking round school in a virtual coma. In retrospect, it must’ve looked like there was something severely wrong with me. There was, I know now. As a nine year old, I was molested by a family ‘friend’. It was reported to the police but stopped there. Lack of evidence.

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Needle Exchange

July 26, 2013

Needle Exchange tells the story of Spencer and Glenn, two best friends who helped each other swap their heroin habits with a passion for tattoos. Ink is their link, but their bond is tested when a new romantic relationship threatens the friendship.

Winner – Best Short Documentary, Galway Film Fleadh 2011

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‘Keeping the monkey off your back: top five tools to sustain recovery’ by Peapod

July 24, 2013

P1011013“Just because you got the monkey off your back, doesn’t mean the circus has left town” George Carlin, comedian and author.

Getting sober and drug-free is hard enough for most of us, but staying that way is a challenge. The evidence is that many people coming out of abstinence-oriented treatment will relapse in the first year and most of them in the first few weeks. Recovery initiation, the start of the journey, is just that: a beginning. In the past, we’ve treated it like the main event and had little thought for what happens next.

The circus may not have left town, but there are ways to avoid ending up in a ringside seat and having that pesky monkey trouble you again. These things are the tools of recovery. There are plenty of them and we need to find the ones that work for us. Some however are more reliable than others according to the evidence we have. Here are my own top five tools:

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‘Addictions Expert, Veronica Callanan Speaks on TV’

July 24, 2013

“I was born feeling different. I just felt uncomfortable in my own skin. I felt that the whole world was behind a glass screen and I was one side. I just couldn’t figure it out…”

How often have I have words similar to these from people who went on to use drugs and/or alcohol to help them deal with these feelings… and then developed a substance use problem. I’ll be talking about the role of disconnection in addiction in later blogs.

Veronica goes on to describe her recovery and provides a message of hope for people affected by alcohol dependence. Please check out her website, there’s some good stuff on there.

 

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‘Social Inclusion and Recovery: A Model for Mental Health Practice’ by Julie Repper & Rachel Perkins

July 22, 2013

41F08WRN58L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX342_SY445_CR,0,0,342,445_SH20_OU02_I am very impressed by this book and highly recommend it for all people working in the mental health and addiction fields. It is informative, easy to read and considers a wide range of practical issues. It focuses on how we can best help people with mental health problems gain meaningful and satisfying lives.

I’ve written one blog based on material in this book – What is Recovery? – and more will appear shortly. Here is what appears on the book’s back cover:

‘The starting point of this book is the lived experience of mental health problems and recovery, articulated by many of those who have survived and thrived with mental health difficulties.

On the basis of the myriad individual journeys contained in their accounts, the book explores the day-to-day supportive and facilitative role of nurses and direct care staff as allies in the recovery process.

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‘Personal medicine, power statements and other disruptive innovations in healthcare technology’ by Pat Deegan

July 22, 2013

patdeegan_photoI’ve just found this exciting article by Pat Deegan which she wrote for the Scottish Recovery Network (SRN). In my humble opinion, Pat’s CommonGround approach will have an enormous impact in the mental health field.

The SRN writes: “Given her hugely influential writing and personal reflections, research interests and involvement in various policy and practice initiatives, Pat Deegan is arguably the single most influential person within the international recovery movement. Her work today is strongly focused on shared decision making approaches and here she describes how the CommonGround approach, which she has developed, has real potential to encourage systems change towards recovery.”

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Research on Spirituality and Recovery From Addiction

July 18, 2013

Robert Weathers PhD of California Southern University summarises two recent and authoritative research studies (from Harvard University and the University of Michigan) which focus on the crucial contribution of spiritual resources in the process of recovery from addiction, for example, in 12-Step programs.

I found this video to be very interesting. Robert also mentions the Buddhist Recovery network website which contains a number of resources and is well worth a look. This network was co-founded by the late G. Alan Marlatt, one of the all-time great researchers and clinicians in the addiction recovery field.

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Journeys into and out of Heroin Addiction, Part 3: Trying to Stop

July 17, 2013

IMG_2644The decision to stop using drugs is fundamental to the process of recovery from addiction. It is the initial part of the process by which people overcome a drug addiction.

However, whilst making the decision to quit is of great importance, it does not follow that the person will in fact stop using and maintain this abstinence for a prolonged period or indefinitely. There are a wide variety of factors that influence ‘stopping’ and ‘staying stopped’.

In looking at a person’s decision to stop using heroin, we must consider the external reality and circumstances of their life, as well as the internal thought processes that occur when they make the decision to stop.

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A wonderful blog from a recovery ally

July 15, 2013

DSCF1611_2Please check out Jim’s blog. Jim is the executive director of a counseling center in the States that specialises in addiction, dual diagnosis, and trauma.

I quote from the introduction to this blog: “Every day he [Jim] works to bring people to a deeper understanding of themselves in order to help them find their way to a meaningful recovery. He has a wonderful perspective on what it takes to walk that path – and how patients and counselors can work together to accomplish lasting recovery.”

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