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7th September 2015 Family Help & Advice

Dealing with Addiction for Families

Three years ago, when Rachel* got her freshman dorm assignment in the mail, the New Jersey teen excitedly logged on to Facebook to look up her new college roommate, Eleanor*. “She definitely seemed like that perfect, blonde, athletic, popular girl,” says Rachel, now 20.

But just a few weeks into their first semester, Eleanor, who had been recruited for the school’s soccer team, quit the sport when practice sessions interfered with her ability to party. Still, Rachel says she didn’t think Eleanor had a serious problem until the start of their sophomore year. “She’d go out a lot and get way more drunk than anyone else,” Rachel recalls. It also became difficult to be her roommate. “If we all went out, I’d go back to my room and go to sleep, and then she’d come in hours later with a guy — or just drunk and angry.” Rachel and her friends tried to talk to Eleanor several times about her drinking, but they couldn’t get through to her. Rachel says they didn’t know what to do.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 23.5 million people ages 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol abuse problem in 2009 — and that counts only those who sought professional help. Far more struggle with addiction issues in private. “Addiction is so common that, unfortunately, you could say it’s normal,” says psychologist and substance abuse specialist Patricia O’Gorman, Ph.D. “More kids are dealing with it in their lives than not.” And while chemical dependency takes an obvious toll on those struggling with it, it also affects everyone around them. Indeed, when you’re close to someone — be it a friend, significant other, or family member — who’s regularly drunk or high, it can be difficult to know how to deal.

13th August 2015 Family Help & Advice

Synthetic Drugs

The term synthetic drug refers to non-organic, chemically manufactured and unpredictably unsafe drugs such as Meth-amphetamine, MDMA, GHB, Kat and Ketamine. These drugs are manufactured by back street-chemists and are highly toxic and very often fatal.

Strength’s vary and the death toll is rising. There is a trend at the moment affecting the global population, where teenagers as young as 12 years old are trying these synthetic drugs and are having heart attacks and other major respiratory failures.
These drugs are seen as “club drugs” but kids who are not old enough to go to clubs still have access to these drugs and are abusing them at alarming rates.

Synthetic Cannabinoids and Cathinones

Synthetic Cannabinoids, commonly known as synthetic marijuana, K2 or Spice, are sold in legal retail outlets as “herbal incense” or “potpourri”, and synthetic Cathinones are often sold as “bath salts” or “jewellery cleaner”. They are labelled not for human consumption to mask their intended purpose and so that Governments around the world are not able to make it illegal.

Risk to the Public Health

The contents and effects of synthetic cannabinoids and cathinones are unpredictable due to a constantly changing variety of chemicals used in manufacturing processes devoid of quality controls and government regulatory oversight.
Health warnings have been issued by numerous public health authorities and poison control centres describing the adverse health effects associated with the use of synthetic drugs.
The effects of synthetic cannabinoids include severe agitation and anxiety, nausea, vomiting, tachycardia (fast, racing heartbeat), elevated blood pressure, tremors and seizures, hallucinations, dilated pupils, and suicidal and other harmful thoughts and/or actions.
Similar to the adverse effects of cocaine, LSD, and methamphetamine, synthetic cathinone use is associated with increased heart rate and blood pressure, chest pain, extreme paranoia, hallucinations, delusions, and violent behaviour, which causes users to harm themselves or others.

-source /www.whitehouse.gov

Lately we have seen very troubling viral videos and pictures going around on social media channels of people using these synthetic drugs and having seizures and fits. There have been posts on Facebook of people dying because of these drugs. Mothers and fathers begging and pleading for other parents to look out for the signs of drug abuse because the reality is, people are dying from addiction every day.

29th July 2015 Family Help & Advice

Detoxification from Substance Addiction

Often and quite rightly so the detox part of treatment for someone addicted to a substance is the most worrying and difficult to successfully overcome. Many people worldwide remain trapped in addiction for years while avoiding the withdrawal effects during detox.

Over the past 20 years through science and medicine, chemists have created substances specifically designed to ease and in some cases almost remove the withdrawal symptoms of addictive substances. Home Detox South Africa specialise in detoxification from substance addiction both with home and rehab treatments. They also provide help, assistance and advice to many general practitioners and medical staff across Africa. It is medically safer now than ever in history to detox from addictive substances.

28th July 2015 Family Help & Advice

Relationships in Early Recovery

Relationships in addiction become toxic and unproductive. Trust is gone, lying, stealing and cheating feature in the dynamics of the relationship and it leaves both or all parties angry and confused. From the loved ones perspective, the person using is slowly killing him/herself and regardless of what you’ve done and said, nothing makes a difference. Against all your advice and love, they don’t seem to want to listen. They repeat the same mistakes over and over again, they lie and hide and keep secrets from you. They dish out false hope and false promises that “this time will be different”. What more can you do?

From the using addict side, it looks a bit different.
Yes the damage is there, you can see the destruction. You will stop this time, you promise and swear on everything you love and cherish that it won’t happen again. The strangest thing about that is, you really mean it!
Fleeting moments of clarity show you just how much damage you have caused, all the hurt, all the dishonesty and all the shame comes to the surface. Determination is running at full tilt, statements like I can do this, I’m stronger and smarter than this problem run through your mind. The truth is your determination is killing you. If you’ve ever been around treatment and a fellowship meeting, you would have heard the word surrender. Cliché’s like surrender to win come up often and it’s very important that you understand the surrender in Step One. Admitting you are powerless over your drug or drugs of choice is a vital factor to actually starting the process of change.

9th July 2015 Family Help & Advice

This Is Your Brain On Neuroscience

By Zachary Siegel 07/05/15

Addiction science and neuroscience will make your head spin.

It’s not brain surgery Shutterstock

It’s the age of what people are calling the “neuro-disciplines.” It all began with a now well-known branch of medicine called neurology, the study of the nervous system, whose first registered use was in 1681. The Ancient Greek prefix has since attached to, well, just about every discipline under the sun: neurolaw, neuroengineering, neurotheology, neurophilosophy, neuroethics, neuroeconomics, neuropedagogy, neuromarketing.

And of course, addiction cannot escape the long-armed “neuro” prefix as there is aburgeoning body of neuroscience dedicated to the study of need, desire, and addiction. Last month, The Fix interviewed Dr. Nora Volkow, the pre-eminent neuroscientist directing research at the National Institute of Drug Abuse. Dr. Volkow said there is “physical evidence that addiction hijacks not only the ability to feel normal pleasure, but also the very circuits in charge of exerting free will.” NIDA, then, essentially determines what is mainstream addiction neuroscience.

In preparation to get the other side of the story, The Fix reached out to a number of not-so-mainstream but equally brilliant scientists and neuroscientists who are wary of the reductive simplicity—a leap from brain to behavior— put forth by an institution such as NIDA that informs drug war policymaking, what kind of research gets funded, and ultimately affects how one with addiction gets treated.

6th July 2015 Family Help & Advice

How Do Addicts Make Decisions

Learning about the economics of decision-making could mean the difference between relapse and long-term sobriety.

Most, if not all, addicts and alcoholics struggle with quitting and staying sober. And many have an equally hard time understanding why. What if would-be recovering addicts and alcoholics knew more about what goes into the making decisions—and how setting and achieving goals, and putting value on rewards, goes wrong in addiction? Learning about the economics of decision-making will not only make life in recovery easier, but it could mean the difference between relapse and long-term sobriety.

Temporal discounting

The concept of temporal discounting is not new. In fact, it can be traced back to the earliest philosophers. In temporal discounting, people put less value on more distant rewards. “A bird in hand is better than two in the bush,” as the saying goes—the distant, seemingly-uncertain reward, even while greater, appears less valuable than the more immediate, certain one.

Many studies have shown that addicted people show higher temporal discount rates.And that’s at the crux of a substance use disorder. If all the reward from using heroin, let’s say, came 20 years down the road, and the problems with relationships, or the law, came immediately, addiction wouldn’t exist in the same form as it does now. “The immediacy [of the reward] is integral to the problem of addiction,” says Dr. John Monterosso, a professor at the University of Southern California and author of an intriguing article with Dr. George Ainslie on the behavioral economics of will in recovery.

29th June 2015 Family Help & Advice

Pushing Through

It’s not always rainbows and sunshine in early recovery. Gone is the myth, just because I’ve stopped using everything will be okay now. On the contrary, because you’ve stopped using or acting out on your addiction you will start to see the REAL wreckage of your past. All those feelings that have been pushed down for so many years start to surface. Don’t back away, it’s now time to move forward and start sorting through it all.

Pushing Through To Recovery

My experience with this was particularly moving. There have been very few times in my life when I have experienced such an immense amount of freedom through turmoil. Digging into the shame and guilt of the past was difficult but I noticed the harder it was to feel and deal with, the more freedom I experienced.

It isn’t and hasn’t always been easy since those days.
I’ve often heard people say “Life on Life’s terms” and I realize that I’m not only powerless over my addiction but I’m powerless over people, places and things.

5th June 2015 Family Help & Advice

Social Media Linked to Substance Abuse

Plenty of research has demonstrated that the addictive quality of social media is very real. And according to a new study, heavy social media use may also contribute to a different type of addiction.

Psychologists at the University of Albany found that not only is social media (particularly Facebook) itself potentially addictive, those who use it may also be at greater risk for impulse-control issues like substance abuse.

The researchers surveyed 253 undergraduate students, asking questions about their social media use, Internet addiction, emotion regulation and alcohol use. They found that roughly 10 percent of users experience “disordered social media use,” meaning that they exhibit addictive behaviors in the way they use platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. To assess disordered social media use, the researchers included questions that reflected modified diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence, such as, “How good does Facebook make you feel?” and “Do you check Facebook first thing when you wake up in the morning?”

22nd May 2015 Family Help & Advice

Life on Life’s Terms

As we all know life throws out some curve balls. Nothing is to be expected except the unexpected. People pass away, friends leave, plans change. The only constant is that life has its own terms and conditions. I can’t control the way other people are, I can’t change the way life works, I can however change the way I react to life. Being clean has given me the ability to understand these principals. I have also come to understand that I’m powerless over people, places and things and no matter how much time I put into trying to change others it will never happen.

All I have control over is me and my reaction to life.

15th September 2014 Family Help & Advice

Personal Time

Our primary goal at Cherrywood House is to steer clients and families through their chaos and pain, to a place of freedom, reconciliation and joy. Our team and our program is specifically geared towards ‘relentless but sensitive therapy’. We believe that we have to dis-empower the dynamics of the addiction in order to empower our clients with the motivation and confidence to take personal responsibility for their life and growth.

An essential ingredient of lengthy and successful recovery, is the self-discipline of developing a healthy ‘personal time’ where clients learn how to participate in enjoying our beautiful planet and start to stop and smell the roses. The simple things of life that addiction robbed us of like walking the dog, playing on the beach, preparing a family meal or just reading in the quiet of the morning, are within our reach once recovery begins.

Once those life controlling urges of ‘getting and using and looking for ways and means to get more of the drug’ have been dis-empowered or removed, other healthy activities have to be created to exist it their stead. If life becomes all about sitting around doing nothing, or busy-ness busy-ness busy-ness, it gets terribly dreary or really tiring and these then become the climate for a relapse.

Our desire is that our clients can start to learn how to simply ‘be’ and to ‘know’ the splendour of freedom and to break away from the destructive hiding places that they ran to in chemicals.

Category: Family Help & Advice