Usually, there are specific age groups or socioeconomic factors that may lead to higher instances of this type of love addiction. Estimates are that 25% of college students will experience some form of this, especially during their earlier years in college. However, financial stress, lack of resources, and limited access to mental health care can also contribute to emotional dependency in romantic relationships.

People in the early stages of intense romantic love show many signs of behavioral or substance addiction, such as euphoria, cravings, tolerance, mental and physical dependence, withdrawal, and relapse. Remember, romantic love is a natural (and often good) addiction that developed 4 million years ago to help people stay alive by encouraging pair bonding and reproduction.

Now, fMRI brain scans support this idea: intense romantic love activates parts of the brain’s “reward system,” especially dopamine-rich areas that are active during drug and/or behavioral addiction. Because of this, romantic love may affect the same reaction to drug and/or behavioral addictions because it shares reward pathways with a number of different addictions.

What Are the Signs?

It is possible for someone to become obsessed with being with their partner and the love feelings that come with it, which can make it hard to go about daily life. But love “addiction” is not really an addiction, and the symptoms of anxiety, trouble sleeping, changes in appetite, and a bad mood or feeling of sadness are not at all like the symptoms of real withdrawal from a drug your body depends on.

But there are some signs of an anxious-insecure attachment including:
1. a strong desire for closeness

2. relying too much on relationships
3. a constant fear about relationships and worry or insecurity
4. fear of being left alone

The symptoms may arise from many causes, most probably from early experiences of security and lack of love, and may indicate an inability for current growth without some assistance.

Researchers have found a link between separation anxiety and insecure attachment, especially when it comes to anxious types. Separation anxiety is the distress that people feel when they are going to be or are about to be separated from an attachment figure. This is a natural reaction that helps babies feel safe and close during early development. But if this worry lasts and gets worse after early childhood, it could be a sign of problems in the parent-child relationship, like insecure attachment, which could make it harder for the child to adjust to adulthood

During my years in practice, I have seen individuals who have an inordinate need for these types of relationships where they are “obsessed” with love and being loved. I’ve seen adult women who act more like teenagers than women who have developed the self-confidence and security we would expect at their age.

This ongoing need is highly disruptive of their lives and can result in somewhat bizarre behavior, such as stalking the prior loved one, intruding in the lives of those associated with that individual, calling on police for alleged protection from the loved one, etc. It literally becomes a wholly absorbing activity that they cannot shake.

While it is true that there is no DSM-5 category for this type of “addiction,” it does require some type of remediation for the person. Lacking some guidance in this development would mean that their behavior can, much like a pebble in a pond, circle out to all of the relationships in their lives. It is not a happy prospect and anyone who has found themselves in this situation would want to seek some help. Researchers have provided an indication of areas that can be of assistance and can distract the brain from one reward system to a similar one that is not negative in nature. What do they recommend?

Redirecting and Change

Although it is a problem in human development, this type of disturbed reaction attachment in adults can be corrected, if it is recognized by the individual who wishes to change. We must remember that therapy is not always an answer, especially when someone doesn’t feel they need to change or when they are ordered to therapy by the court. I believe court-ordered therapy is insufficient; many patients don’t change.

But, in less extreme cases, what may a person try to do to help themselves? Consider that there are other forms that redirect the brain’s reward system, and that can, in some instances, provide help.

Therapy, of a cognitive behavioral type, can offer help by:

1. figuring out why you are person is so focused on love
2. discovering new ways to love and care for themselves
3. changing unhelpful and unwanted habits of behavior
4. boosting self-esteem, which can help them approach future relationships in a healthier way

Finding other things to focus on is essential because one sign of this fascination is having constant, even overwhelming, thoughts about love and relationships.

Of course, this can mean many different things. They can choose things that keep their mind active and help them feel good about their self-worth. It might also mean, engaging in some activity where they will be able to develop self-confidence, such as a creative course in some school or advancing toward a degree in some area. If you note that financial stress can precipitate this type of involvement, one way to address this would be to seek an area of study that would promote one’s economic status.

Some other things that can make them feel the same “happy hormones” as love are working out, listening to music, getting a massage, and watching a funny movie. And, of course, everyone should learn to practice relaxation exercises, as well as breathing to reduce stress.

When we consider love addiction, we must also consider the person’s willingness for change. This is not an easy task, and many people will resist and offer reasons for engaging in this behavior that are not negative. There is a lack of recognition in too many people that they need to change and that not doing so will only result in poor outcomes in the future.

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Prize is a word that should be set off in neon lights that flash in a child’s brain because that’s the allure these machines have, and that’s where a simple coin in a slot can grow a desire, ultimately ending in addiction.

A study showed that people in their early 20s gamble the most. Many kids start even younger than that. A 2018 poll of over 38,000 Canadian teens and young adults, paid for by the government of British Columbia, found that almost two-thirds (aged 12–18) had gambled or played games similar to gaming in the past year.

I had my first encounter with gambling on a large scale when I was attending a meeting in Las Vegas. Whenever we had to go to a meeting room, restaurant, or anywhere else in the hotel, we had to pass through the casino and right by the slot machines, where people sat for the entire day and put coins into the machines.

Going to breakfast, we found a gambling machine on our table, and if you went to a restroom, there was a gambling machine there, too. You couldn’t avoid them even if you wanted to, and I wanted to avoid them. The hotels are designed so that everyone must pass through the casino in order to get to any other part of the hotel. I don’t gamble and was rather surprised when I heard a friend say she loved to gamble.

As a psychologist, I know that several types of reinforcement can induce people to do something for a prize. We know these types as fixed interval, variable interval, variable ratio, and continuous reinforcement. The strongest pull is the variable ratio because the person never knows how often they have to do something before receiving a reward or prize.

Variable ratio is the most resistant to extinction and, therefore, the one most likely to cause a serious addiction, such as gambling. The couple I saw sitting at the slot machines kept pulling the lever (they each had three machines) and putting their money in to get that big jackpot because they never knew when it might come.

It was a pathetic sight. Yes, they occasionally received a small reward during their days at the slots to keep them going, believing that the big one was just another pull of the slot’s handle away. I had heard they had made money by selling a uranium mine, and now most of it was going into the slot machines.

Gambling and the Vulnerable

Based on data from the American Gaming Association from early 2023, sports betting is now allowed in 37 states plus Washington, DC. Six more states are thinking about passing similar laws. People can bet at any time, from anywhere, and more and more, at any age. This includes teens and even little kids who are not old enough to legally gamble.

As gaming has become easier for more people, psychologists and other experts are worried that more people will try it and that more of them will have problems with it. It is still too early to tell what the long-term effects will be, but there is more and more evidence that young people, especially boys and men, are more likely to become addicted to gambling. This is also the age group that most often engages in the newest types of gambling, like sports betting and gambling on video games.

There are agencies in the National Institutes of Health that deal with alcohol and drug abuse problems, but there are no official programs for gambling problems, and there are no government rules against ads for sports betting.

It is thought that 0.5% of adults in the United States have a gambling problem. Similar or slightly higher numbers have been found in other countries.

Most people who have problems with gambling also have at least one other mental diagnosis. Individuals who have issues with gaming are more likely to have problems with controlling their impulses, dealing with emotions, or feeling anxious.

The prevalence, prediction of certain groups and dangers increasingly seen in terms of gambling, would seem to mitigate some type of federal regulation, but that isn’t in effect. We have to wonder since gambling addiction is only going to increase as the advertising efforts blossom on all media platforms, what is the reason that an agency deemed to protect health has not acted?

The answer may lie in lobbying efforts, and the amount of money that is spent in states that benefit from encouraging gambling activities. Lotteries run by states, initially begun to support public education and regional funding of infrastructure, may have been diverted into other areas of use with public education not receiving what had been expected.

The time is now to rethink gambling and the addiction it can bring, just as we re-thought cigarettes and smoking, and it’s dangerous. Gambling addiction is here, it is increasing, and action must be considered.

The post If Gambling Is a Damaging Addiction, States Should Cease Lotteries appeared first on Medika Life.

It’s much easier to light up a cigarette, which is not a controlled substance than to pop a pill for which you need a prescription. In fact, our body has specific nicotinic receptors in the spinal cord and brain.

Once, when I stopped smoking, I was visiting a friend and her sister, and she kept indicating that I should light up with them. I didn’t want to, but she said, “But what will you do with your hands?” Such a serious matter—what to do with one’s hands.

I guess I would’ve done with my hands what anyone else did: put them in a pocket or on the table or chair where I was sitting. What would anyone need to do with their hands if they didn’t have a cigarette? Well, now there’s a new push to become one of the crowd, and it’s vaping.

The question, of course, is now not one of what I would do with my hands but whether vaping is safer than smoking cigarettes. Remember the major lawsuits that were tried over years and years where people died of lung cancer (John Wayne smoked several packs a day, as did Edward R. Murrow, and both died of lung cancer). How many people have died because they smoked? I have a few in my family, and even though one stopped smoking for at least 30 years, cigarette smoking proved to be her death knell.

How Is Vaping Safer Than Cigarettes?

No one else has ever thought about giving up smoking like you have, correct? Well, many people say they want to quit, and it’s good for your health to stop smoking because it can cause damage to almost every part of your body, including your heart.

Smoking or being around smokers is a factor in almost one-third of heart disease deaths. And, there’s danger even in second-hand smoke, or, some would say, third-hand smoke. What is third-hand smoke?

There are pollutants in the air that get spread when people smoke tobacco. This is called third-hand smoke. Chemicals that are found in third-hand smoke include nicotine and chemicals that cause cancer, like formaldehyde, naphthalene, and others.

Over time, third-hand smoke gets on most surfaces. It can get stuck on soft surfaces, like clothes, furniture, drapes, beds, and carpets. It also settles on hard objects like floors, walls, and cars as dust-like particles. There may still be third-hand smoke around for months after the person who is smoking has stopped.

You might want to try e-cigarettes, vape pens, and other reusable and throwaway vaping devices to make the switch from regular cigarettes to not smoking easier. If you smoke e-cigarettes (also called vaping), is that better for you than chewing tobacco?

Might e-cigarettes assist you in quitting smoking for good? And are e-cigarettes better than prescription products to help you stop smoking? Researchers are looking at these questions; some are weighing in on vaping, but I have doubts.

Vaping is not without consequences, and the CDC released a report a few years ago that indicated people who were vaping had deaths associated with it. They hypothesized some fatalities resulted from using illegal vaping products, which might have contained harmful ingredients. There have been 2,807 cases of e-cigarette or vaping use-associated lung injury (EVALI) and 68 deaths linked to this disease, according to the CDC.

What’s in vaping? An analysis by a major university startled even the researchers, who found products they had difficulty identifying. Researchers found and measured six possibly dangerous additives and contaminants in e-cigarette liquids and aerosols.

Metals, carbonyls, free radicals, and phthalates are just some of the known toxicants that have been found and measured in e-cigarette liquids and fumes so far. If we’re concerned about having smoke with a carcinogenic product in it, how do we feel about having smoke that has metal in it? No one needs or wants metal fragments in their lungs.

Research is clear at this point that vaping carries with it specific dangers that may be as bad or even worse than cigarettes. However, if someone were smoking and wanted to stop, would it be better to vap or take the prescription product? That research has now been published, and it leans in the direction of vaping rather than the prescription product. But there’s another issue related to vaping.

The smoke in an e-cigarette product does contain nicotine and researchers have concluded that those who vap do so constantly during the day. As a result, they are exposed to higher levels of nicotine and all the other damaging products. Higher exposure, therefore, would lead to an addiction that may be as serious or even more serious than cigarette smoking. Heavy smokers may smoke more than a pack a day, but how many vap products does a vaper use during the day?

The big difference is that while there is a prescription product to help people stop smoking, there is no product that would help people stop vaping. Therefore, we have a new addiction with no apparent remedy at this point. Not only is the addiction potentially life-threatening, but many people believe it is a benign activity. The lack of information regarding vaping needs to be addressed, just as cigarette smoking was addressed when its cancer potential was revealed.

The post The Dangers of Fighting Cigarette Addiction With Vaping Are Not Vague appeared first on Medika Life.

DANDRIDGE, Tenn. — Rachel Solomon and judges hadn’t been on the best of terms. Then Judge O. Duane Slone “dumbfounded” her.

Solomon was given her first Percocet at age 12 by a family member with a medicine cabinet full. It made her feel numb, she said. “Nothing hurt.” By 17, she was taking 80-milligram OxyContins. A decade later, she was introduced to heroin.

During those years, Solomon was in and out of trouble with the law.

Then, five years ago, at 32, she arrived in Slone’s courtroom, pregnant, fearing the worst. But the state circuit court judge saw promise. He ruled that Solomon would serve jail time for an outstanding warrant for aggravated burglary and then would be placed in a program for pregnant or parenting women recovering from addiction. She would retain custody of her son, Brantley, now 4.

Slone also offered an option that many judges, particularly in rural jurisdictions, at that time were averse to extending: medication for opioid use disorder, or MOUD.

A study conducted a decade ago found that barely half of drug treatment courts offered medication treatment. Those that didn’t cited uncertainty about its efficacy and noted political, judicial, and administrative opposition. But research in the years since has persuaded many of the most insistent abstinence-only advocates.

According to Monica Christofferson, director of treatment court programs at the Center for Justice Innovation, amid an accelerating opioid crisis there has been a “huge shift” among judges, prosecutors, and law enforcement agencies away from the stigma associated with medication treatment. Simply put, “MOUD works,” Christofferson asserted.

By 2022, more than 90% of drug courts located in communities with high opioid mortality rates that responded to a survey said they allow buprenorphine and/or methadone, the medications most commonly used to treat addiction. The study also found that 65% of drug court program staffers have received training in medication for treatment, and a similar share have arranged for clients to continue receiving medications while serving jail time for program violations. Still, almost 1 in 4 programs told researchers they overrule medication decisions.

Federal legislation has lowered the barriers to it. And Bureau of Justice Assistance funding for treatment-court programs now mandates that medication for substance use disorder be provided.

Solomon experienced that shift in real time in Slone’s courtroom as the judge allowed her access to medication to treat her addiction to opioids.

As a young prosecutor in the 1990s in mostly rural eastern Tennessee, Slone was embedded with a drug task force and was well versed in efforts to counteract the supply side of the opioid crisis. Then, as a circuit court judge, he’d put his share of people behind bars on drug-related convictions.

As the crisis deepened, he started to wonder if addressing the demand side would be more effective.

Like so many other prosecutors and judges, Slone believed abstinence was the only path to recovery. But in 2013, after consulting with substance use disorder experts, he relented, introducing medication as an alternative to incarceration for pregnant women. By 2016, he had fully embraced it throughout his recovery courts — even as most judges, he said, “still believed that it was substituting one drug for another.”

Building from evidence-based research, Slone has launched programs that show how a judge, and a region, can trade an abstinence-only, lock-’em-up approach for one that offers a full range of paths to recovery.

Before witnessing medication treatment’s efficacy, Slone said, he would tell a defendant charged with a drug offense, “‘This is your second chance. If you violate the conditions of your probation, I’m going to put you in jail.’”

Often, six months later they’d be back in his courtroom, charged with a low-level crime and having tested positive for drugs. “They’re 19, maybe 20 years old, and I’m executing a five-year sentence. It makes me sick to my stomach now.”

Slone was sure there must be a better way.

A drug recovery court, which he co-founded in his 4th Judicial District in 2009, was a first step. It allows defendants with nonviolent drug-related charges to avoid jail time by entering treatment and counseling. They’re closely monitored by a team that includes a judge, case manager, public defender, prosecutor, and probation officer. If the participant violates the terms of the agreement, the first step is a reassessment of treatment needs. Multiple violations may result in incarceration.

Because this form of drug court is resource-intensive, relatively few people can be enrolled. So in 2013, Slone introduced the Tennessee Recovery Oriented Compliance Strategy, or TN-ROCS, an alternative to jail for those who aren’t considered at high risk of recidivism but are deemed in urgent need of treatment. Many are pregnant women or mothers of young children.

Given the reduced need for supervision, the program can accommodate more participants. So far, more than 1,000 people have been on the district’s TN-ROCS docket.

Both the recovery court and TN-ROCS offer three medication options: buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone.

Since TN-ROCS’ launch, Slone said, his community has seen a decrease in property crimes and its jail population. Over its first five years, all 34 pregnant women in the program gave birth to healthy babies and 30 kept custody of their children. TN-ROCS is now being replicated across the state.

One barrier to broader acceptance of medication treatment in both rural and urban communities, Christofferson said, is a lack of education.

Corey Williams agrees. He advocates for educating criminal justice system officials. Williams is an officer with the Lubbock, Texas, Police Department and is a consultant with the Law Enforcement Action Partnership, which promotes drug policy and criminal justice reform. He believes that if more criminal justice officials had personal experience with medication to treat substance use disorder, they’d view it differently.

Williams’ wife, Brianne Williams, became addicted to opioids in medical school. She participated in a series of abstinence-only programs and was free of the drugs for seven years, then relapsed. She was arrested for writing herself a prescription for opioids and placed on probation.

She had entered a Suboxone treatment program, but her probation officer incorrectly informed her she couldn’t remain on Suboxone on probation. Williams relapsed, failed a drug test, and served 30 months in federal prison. After her release, she went back on Suboxone — a brand-name combination of buprenorphine and naloxone — and has maintained her sobriety. “It improved my life drastically,” she said. She now hopes to regain her medical license and specialize in addiction treatment.

The relative unavailability in rural areas of medication treatment is certainly a problem. A shortage, Christofferson noted, is not only an issue in itself, but also a barrier to overcoming stigma. More openings available, more success stories. More success stories, less stigma. Fewer provider options also means one bad actor — a provider who overprescribes or is otherwise negligent — perpetuates the stigma. Strict oversight is essential.

Physician Stephen Loyd influenced Slone’s decision to embrace medication treatment and is now a member of Slone’s recovery court team. Loyd was practicing internal medicine in eastern Tennessee when he developed a 100-pill-a-day addiction to prescription opioids. He was the inspiration for the character Michael Keaton portrayed in the Hulu series “Dopesick.” Loyd overcame his addiction and served as the state’s “opioid czar” under Gov. Bill Haslam from 2016 to 2018.

While in state government, Loyd helped plant the seed for TN-ROCS. He told Slone the first judge to take such an initiative would “be on the cover of Time magazine, because your success rates are gonna go up dramatically; you’re gonna save a bunch of lives.”

“He didn’t get on the cover of Time,” Loyd allowed, “but he did win the William H. Rehnquist Award.” The William H. Rehnquist Award for Judicial Excellence is among the country’s highest judicial honors.

Rachel Solomon contends one of those lives saved was hers.

Today she and her son are together; she’s employed. She remains on Suboxone. She feels good. And she feels fortunate she arrived in Slone’s courtroom when she did.

“He’s the reason I am where I am today,” she said. “He really is.”

The post Once-Resistant Rural Court Officials Begin to Embrace Medications to Treat Addiction appeared first on Medika Life.

The interim sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, posed the question in 2018 as he and Andricks discussed the community’s needs. When she responded that she’d have to do some research, she was told not to take too long because the offer wouldn’t be there forever.

“I thought: ‘Oh, my God, he’s serious,’” Andricks said.

That sheriff was Howard Buffett, the philanthropist son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The younger Buffett ended up giving Crossing about $30 million from his charitable foundation to build an addiction treatment center in Decatur, a city with a population of just over 69,000 in the heart of Macon County.

There was a caveat, though. The donation to Crossing was a one-time gift to pay only for the buildings. It was up to Andricks and her team to find money to run the programs. And that has proven difficult.

The covid-19 pandemic upended everything mere months after the facilities opened in October 2019. An audited financial statement said the inpatient recovery center had lost $2.5 million by June 2021, and management worried about its ability to continue operating. Even so, the center remained open while other addiction treatment facilities around the country shuttered.

Now communities nationwide are preparing for an unprecedented windfall of their own for addiction treatment from a nearly $26 billion national opioid settlement and a more than $300 million expansion of a federal pilot program for mental health. The experience at Crossing offers them a model but also a warning: It will take more than a single shot of money to build a treatment program that can last.

https://www.marketplace.org/2023/01/19/a-30-million-gift-to-build-an-addiction-treatment-center-then-staffers-had-to-run-it//popout

Drug addiction wasn’t on Howard Buffett’s radar, he told KHN, until he joined the Macon County sheriff’s office as an auxiliary deputy in 2012. While the county has had some treatment resources, like a behavioral health center, it has one of the state’s higher death rates from opioid overdoses.

Buffett moved to the area in 1992 to work for food-processing giant Archer Daniels Midland. He runs a farm nearby and his Decatur-based foundation donates hundreds of millions of dollars for initiatives ranging from helping people kidnapped by Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa to revitalizing the cacao industry in El Salvador.

Soon after Buffett was appointed interim sheriff in 2017, he toured Crossing to learn more about local social services. The health center offers primary care, including mental health, for all ages and sees roughly 17,500 patients a year. Most Crossing patients are on Medicaid, the public health insurance for people with low incomes.

“He was impressed with what we were able to provide patients,” Andricks recalled. “I don’t think he expected the scope and size of what we do.”

Addiction treatment, though, is notoriously difficult. Evidence supports treating addiction like a chronic illness, meaning even after difficult short-term behavior changes, it requires a lifetime of management. Research suggests relapse rates can be more than 85% in the first year of recovery. So any new treatment program is likely to face headwinds.

Buffett didn’t set Crossing up for failure. In fact, he has helped fund other aspects of the organization’s work. Part of the idea behind paying for the addiction treatment buildings but not the operations, Buffett said, is to keep his foundation “creative.” If it spends all its money on the same programming every year, that means less is available to fund other work around the globe. Buffett said it’s also about sustainability.

“If Tanya can show ‘with this investment I made this work,’” Buffett said, “then other people should be making that investment.”

Crossing’s inpatient recovery center holds eight beds for medication-assisted detox, 48 beds for rehabilitation, and a cafeteria where meals are cooked with input from dietitians working with patients. An outpatient treatment center also has classrooms for continuing education, a gym with a small bowling alley, and a movie theater. Buffett insisted on the last two amenities. (“People have to feel good about getting better,” he said.)

A separate building holds 64 beds of transitional housing, and just across the street are 20 rent-controlled apartments. Buffett spent an additional $25 million on buildings at that campus for other organizations focused on housing, workforce development, and education, among other things.

“There’s a lot to like in this program,” said Dr. Bradley Stein, director of Rand Corp.’s Opioid Policy and Tools Information Center.

As positives, Stein pointed specifically to the spectrum of care offered to patients as they progress in their recovery, the use of medication-assisted treatment to help stave off physical cravings for opioids, the connection to the health center, and even the involvement of law enforcement.

Laura Cogan, a 36-year-old mother who has struggled with addiction since she was 14, is one of the patients working their way through the system.

Cogan said she was the first patient in the doors when the recovery center opened. Less than 24 hours later, she was also the first patient to walk out.

The biggest challenge with Cogan’s previous attempts at recovery, she said, was never being sure about her next steps: What was she supposed to do after getting out of detox and residential treatment?

Crossing’s approach was designed to address that by providing transitional housing, easy access to outpatient services, and educational programming.

On her third attempt, Cogan got a round of applause after completing the first three days in detox. After six days, she joined residential treatment. After a month, she moved over to transitional housing, began outpatient treatment, and started offering peer support at Crossing. She tutored other patients, taught a writing class, and helped them get on computers and fill out job applications.

Then the pandemic hit.

Like other health centers around the nation, Crossing turned its attention to providing covid testing and vaccines. Meanwhile, just about every aspect of addiction treatment became more expensive. Crossing halved the number of residential treatment beds so each room would have only one patient and converted the rooms into negative pressure chambers to reduce the risk of covid transmission.

Staffing grew harder amid a nationwide nursing shortage. The number of patients in residential treatment dropped, Andricks said, because few people wanted to live inside a facility and wear masks. It was common to have as few as 10 beds occupied on a given day. The women’s unit was temporarily closed due to lack of demand and staffing constraints.

Cogan said several other transitional housing residents left once the $1,200 pandemic stimulus checks arrived, with some resuming treatment when that money dried up. But Cogan continued. Eventually she moved into Crossing’s rent-controlled apartments, where she has been one of just a few tenants.

Without the federal Paycheck Protection Program’s $1,375,200 forgivable loan in 2020, Andricks said, the outpatient treatment program might have had to close altogether.

But momentum at the recovery center started to change last spring as covid cases tapered off, Andricks said. Hiring became easier. More patients arrived. In October, the center received a grant to use the apartments for women with a history of substance misuse who are pregnant or who have given birth within the prior year. They’ve placed six women, in addition to Cogan, there already. The inpatient recovery center now averages about 27 occupied beds a day, within striking distance of the 30 that Andricks said the inpatient center needs to survive.

Rand’s Stein suggested another measurement of a treatment program’s success: whether people in the community get into treatment when they need it. National “secret shopper” reports have found significant barriers to service, such as long wait times.

Crossing’s program quadrupled the number of residential treatment beds in Macon County, according to Andricks. In the three years since the inpatient recovery center opened, it has had over 1,300 admissions. While most patients haven’t stayed in recovery, staffers have seen a pattern of success with those like Cogan who stay on campus and become involved with recovery offerings — although Andricks estimated that’s fewer than 10% of the patients.

Cogan said she hopes Crossing doesn’t get discouraged. People are going to mess up, she said, but she’s living proof of the impact the recovery center can have.

“I’m one of the lucky ones and I don’t know why,” Cogan said, sitting on a couch in the apartment on Crossing’s campus that she shares with her 12-year-old son since regaining custody of him. “I just know that today I am. And I hope that more people get the opportunity.”

The post A $30 Million Gift to Build an Addiction Treatment Center. Then Staffers Had to Run It. appeared first on Medika Life.

Our taste for junk food high in fat and sugar has been cultivated, and it alters the brain’s reward circuitry, driving an addiction-like behavioural phenotype of compulsive overeating. But it doesn’t stop at obesity.

There is growing evidence to suggest that there is an association between the consumption of ultraprocessed foods and cognitive decline. In a cohort study of 10,775 individuals, higher consumption of ultraprocessed foods was associated with a higher rate of global and executive function decline after a median follow-up of 8 years.

Ultraprocessed foods often contain additives such as artificial flavors, colors, and sweeteners. They are typically high in calories, fat, and sugar. But it’s not simply these foods, but how our body processes food and our gut microbiota.

Research is pointing to the relationship between our gut and neurodegenerative disorders with recent studies denoting an association between Alzheimer’s and changes in the gut microbiome. The belief is that there is a link between how high fats and simple carbohydrates are processed in the gut resulting in changes in cognition.

The idea that what we eat is mind-altering has been explored for over a decade, but it is now coming to the fore. The exact pathways between impaired cognition and food choices are still under consideration.

The evidence related to neurologic disorders and emotional disturbances, such as depression, has established a gut-brain axis interaction (GBA) at work. Both healthy and unhealthy diets provide meaningful, previously unknown connections in our nervous system and our brain’s functioning. Who thought a life of hot dog eating could cause dementia? Scientists now see how careful food selection may ward off cognitive decline.

When you are next tempted to go for those highly processed goodies, do your brain a favor and pass them up. Practicing this type of personal food-selection discipline will be well worth it in your future functioning.

The post The Road to Dementia May Be Paved With Processed Food appeared first on Medika Life.

There is growing evidence that even moderate alcohol consumption has negative effects on the brain. However, the underlying mechanisms are unknown. “Moderate” drinking was defined between 7 to <14 units of alcohol a week for women and 7 to <21 units for men. There is a possibility that accumulation of iron in the brain may play role as excess brain iron has been described in several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

In the study, published in the journal PLOS Medicine, researchers showed evidence that alcohol directly related to cognitive decline. In this study, scientists studied the relationship between self-reported alcohol intake and iron levels in the brain — which represents a potential mechanism for alcohol-related cognitive decline. Magnetic resonance imaging was used to ascertain iron content of each brain region and liver tissues, a marker of systemic iron.

Researchers collected data from 20,965 participants from United Kingdom, whose average age was 55 and 48.6% of participants were female. A total of 2.7 percent of the participants involved did not consume alcohol, while the rest consumed an average of 18 units of alcohol per week. For the record, 18 units is almost equivalent to six glasses of wine or 7.5 cans of beer.

“Drinking more than seven units of alcohol per week was associated with the accumulation of iron in the brain.”

The researchers, Anya Topiwala believed that this study was the largest study to date. She said that drinking more than seven units of alcohol per week was associated with the accumulation of iron in the brain. Higher brain iron is associated with poorer cognitive performance — poorer executive function and fluid intelligence and slower reaction speed. Iron accumulation can be a cause of alcohol-related cognitive decline.

The basal ganglia — an area in the brain that helps us perform cognitive, emotional and movement-related functions had some of the highest iron concentrations in the brain and suffered the greatest aging. There is a significant alcohol-age interactions with susceptibility, suggesting that alcohol may magnify age effects on brain iron.

Though light alcohol intake (drink <7 units of alcohol) is better than moderate intake, abstinence is still the best option. Never drinker had the lowest amount of brain iron and the best cognitive performance. This can indicate that there may be no safe level of alcohol consumption for brain health.

There may be no safe level of alcohol consumption for your health

Previous study from the same author support these findings. Using 30 year longitudinal data on alcohol consumption, the researcher found there was no protective effect for light drinkers compared with abstinence. Compared with abstinence, moderate alcohol intake is associated with increased risk of adverse brain outcomes and steeper cognitive decline.

According to NHS, it’s recommended to drink no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, spread across 3 days or more. That’s around 6 medium (175ml) glasses of wine, or 6 pints of 4% beer. There’s no completely safe level of drinking, but sticking within these guidelines lowers your risk of harming your health. Here’s how you can cut down on alcohol:

• Don’t keep alcohol in your house. Having no alcohol at home can help limit your drinking.
• Drink slowly. Sip your drink. Drink soda, water, or juice after having an alcoholic beverage. Never drink on an empty stomach.
• Choose alcohol-free days. Decide not to drink a day or two each week. You may want to abstain for a week or a month to see how you feel physically and emotionally without alcohol in your life. Taking a break from alcohol can be a good way to start drinking less.
• Choose drinks that are lower in alcohol. Try lighter beers — under 4% ABV. As a rule of thumb, white and rosé wines are lower in strength than reds. Or try swapping some or all of your drinks for no or low-alcohol alternatives..
• Stop people pleasing. Practice ways to say no politely. You do not have to drink just because others are, and you shouldn’t feel obligated to accept every drink you’re offered.
• Ask for support. Cutting down on your drinking may not always be easy. Let friends and family members know that you need their support. Your doctor, counselor, or therapist may also be able to offer help.

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Doug is a self-professed drug addict (his words, not mine). And his poison of choice is crack cocaine. Several years ago, he owned and operated a tooling company and befriended someone who gave him the rock to sample. In a rapid turn of events, his life spiraled downward fast.

My biological dad and I met for the first time when I turned 40 after I requested a search through a Private Investigator. He, and my biological mom, placed me up for adoption as a newborn baby. Fast forward to today, I count my blessings that I didn’t endure the hardship and uncertainty of what it must have been like to grow up under Doug’s influence.

Despite the addiction, I find Doug utterly fascinating; how he continues to live is beyond me. Physically, he looks like he’s been warped through a blender; the man has one leg, a dangling colostomy bag, and one eye. Yet he manages to wobble around on a cane and remain mobile — with a cheeky smile!

Although we don’t get a chance to talk often, given his penchant for dialing relatives at 3 or 4 AM, I see glimpses into his true self and where some of my unique personality traits originate. Doug is a visionary, a big-picture thinker. When he dreams, he shoots for the stars, the moon, and beyond. Although my bio-dad (as I affectionately call him) is a storyteller on auto-repeat, he shares his desire to create the “Billy Fund,” a billion-dollar charity designed to eradicate poverty and pay for educational expenses for Canadian children. A noble aspiration. Doug wants to accomplish his goal by walking across Canada, following in the footsteps of Terry Fox. Whenever dad shares his heart with me, I feel the realness of his intention, despite Doug’s reality being a fantasy.

Doug is a man of the people, and they like him too. He learned the art of the street hustle, evident in the amount of loot the man brings home. Christmas is an especially lucrative time for filling the coffers with coins, bills, and snacks. The real draw is his infectious sense of humor; he’s hilarious and loving while existing on an entirely different planet. What I love about Doug is his unwavering faith in other humans, his family, his adoration of animals, and his belief in God almighty.

No amount of rehab will bring Doug back to his original form. I believe he has suffered too much damage to return to normalcy. And this is why on the stifling hot Saturday, I arrived at the shelter, and Doug was nowhere to be found — despite my brother Chris informing him I was going to visit. Doug didn’t pick up his phone when I called twice, nor did the shelter staff know where he was.

In the heat of the moment, I felt a flush of anger arise from the depths of my stomach. Didn’t he know Saturday is my only day off? That I drove two hours just to see him? Why can’t he be where I need him? Of course, Doug can’t; he exists on an entirely different plane of consciousness.

On the drive home, I had time to process my emotions and come to terms with our loss of missing each other:

• In my first wave of emotion, I was overcome by selfishness, focusing on “I” rather than “We.” For some time, I allowed my feelings to be, observing the ebb and flow within my body. Over time, I asked myself — what did I expect would happen? That Doug would be standing at the entrance of the homeless shelter with flowers in hand?
• Doug is a creature of habit, on a mission to panhandle, source funds, and procure his next fix. Deviating from the normal routine is not in Doug’s repertoire; his addiction will always trump familial relationships. And knowing Doug is consumed by his own needs, my rage melted into compassion towards his restless soul.
• Through the newfound sense of empathy regarding Doug’s absence, I was able to switch my mindset and consider all the magnificent qualities I see in my dad; the beautiful shards of his soul shining through the darkness.

My story resembles the multi-millions of others affected by long-term heavy substance abuse. All we can do is try. I showed up to be with my dad, even if he couldn’t.

And here lies a choice as to how we respond when people don’t appear how we want them to. Either we allow anger, resentment, and abandonment to construct a permanent hornet’s nest in our hearts, or we can choose to “see” and “accept” people for who they are moment to moment, with all their glorious blemishes, flaws, and impurities. I choose love. What about you?

The post How To Respond To A Family Member Steeped In Addiction appeared first on Medika Life.

But is moderate alcohol consumption okay, or does the drinking pattern matter? Can you be a weekend consumer of alcohol, drinking four drinks on Saturday and three on Sunday, and still call yourself a light or moderate drinker?

“I began to think vodka was my drink at last. It didn’t taste like anything, but it went straight down into my stomach like a sword swallowers’ sword and made me feel powerful and godlike.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Alcohol problems among moderate drinkers

In their provocative recent report, researchers observe that “a significant amount of binge drinking among adults escapes public health scrutiny” because it occurs among people who drink at a moderate average level.

A new observational study looks at a binge drinking pattern in predicting alcohol problems among moderate drinkers in the United States.

Is moderate alcohol consumption safe, regardless of the drinking pattern? Researchers examined over 1,200 current drinkers enrolled in the study of Midlife Development in the United States.

Here are the study results:

Independent of the average amount of alcohol consumption, binge drinking appeared to be associated with an almost 3-fold increase in the number of alcohol-related problems and a 40 percent increase in the number of alcohol problems nine years later.

Interestingly, moderate average drinkers accounted for most cases of binge drinking and multiple alcohol problems. Among this group, binge drinking appeared to be linked to a nearly five-times increase in concurrent multiple alcohol problems.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defined moderate drinking as an average of no more than one drink daily for women and two for me. High drinking is an average of more than one drink for women and more than two for men.

A separate question separated a regular versus binge drinking pattern on one occasion. Researchers asked the subjects: Considering all alcoholic beverage types, how many times during the past month did you have five or more drinks on the same occasion? The scientists defined binge drinking as five or more drinks on the same occasion.

Alcohol problems and moderate drinkers: My take

Moderate average-level drinkers accounted for the majority of cases of binge drinking and multiple alcohol problems. Note that the findings represent correlation and do not establish causality. As the study participants self-reported data, there may have been recall bias.

The surveys defined binge drinking as five or more drinks on occasion for both men and women. Today, binge drinking in women is more commonly defined as four or more drinks on a single occasion; thus, the study findings may have underreported binge drinking in women.

Moderate drinkers need to be aware that they can cross into binge drinking. Everything in moderation, as we have all heard. Thank you.

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One of the ways is to indicate that a patient required more pain medication than was administered or to collect any containers that have medication in them and that were to be carefully discarded.

As noted in a professional journal, “Too many of us have known of a colleague with substance use disorder (SUD) whose behaviour resulted in severe consequences to the person or to others. SUD is not specific to our specialty, but doctors are at the top of the occupational risk ranking and the anesthesiologist is at the top of these….”

In fact, “Anesthesiologists experience substance use disorders at a rate reported to be 2.7 times that of other physicians.”

How do we know that any health care personnel working on a unit is or isn’t addicted? Also, how do we know that all of the physicians caring for patients are not cognitively impaired? I knew of one physician who had to be guided by the nurses on the unit whenever he was prescribing a medication.

There was no question that he should have retired, but he had a position of authority and was seen as an expert in his field, and no one wanted to step on his toes. I don’t know what happened to him, but I hope there were no serious mistakes because of his impairment.

Another physician at a nursing home, where he was the medical director, was a known alcoholic, and again the nurses always covered for him. He only left the position when the nursing home was acquired by a large corporation that cut back staff and brought in new management.

A third physician, a surgeon, was known to abuse alcohol and come into the operating room with alcohol on his breath. He was never reported. Once again, neither the nurses nor anyone else ever told anyone.

The Addicted Physician

I once worked at a hospital where a new psychiatrist came to one of the units where a colleague was working. His appearance was somewhat odd. He wore suits that were rumpled and outdated and were too flashy. We chalked it up to his not having done very well in the profession and let it go at that.

Imagine our shock when we discovered that another psychiatrist in the hospital was supervising him because he had previously been an anesthesiologist and was forced to change his specialty to psychiatry. However, the addicted physician found a way to continue his addiction, and it was simple. All he had to do was remove prescription sheets from the back of the pad of his supervisor. The supervisor had left the prescription pad in an unlocked office desk drawer.

How was his deception discovered? Foolishly, the addicted physician took the scripts, using patient names, to a local pharmacy to have them filled. In addition, the scripts were all for quaaludes. The pharmacist found this quite curious and called the director of medicine at the hospital to ask why this psychiatrist was handing in so many prescriptions. It was then that they discovered his ruse, and he was, once again, sent to an addictions rehab hospital. He had already been a patient at two prior addiction rehab facilities.

The cleverness of this deception was thwarted once the state in which he worked required all prescription pads to be printed on special paper and copies sent to a state database by pharmacists. This was not a unique instance, and other states quickly determined they needed to revise prescription pad production and recording databases to prevent misuse. But addiction isn’t the only challenge for medicine.

Setting Standards for Continued Practice

In the past few years, professional literature began discussing when a physician should retire or what types of evaluations should be put in place to maintain a license after a certain age. It doesn’t crop up often, and it is a tough call to make.

The state’s medical licensing board is one place where all physicians can be subjected to a review of their work or where complaints can be lodged. They examine both professional and consumer reports sent to them. If someone wishes to check on a specific physician’s credentials, there’s also a place for that, and it is here on Docinfo.

Unfortunately, another database, the National Practitioner Data Bank (NPBD), is accessible only to specific groups. It was created by federal law to protect consumers, and its site states, “Although these reports are not available to the general public, various entities (e.g., hospitals and other health care entities) may query the NPDB to obtain information on a specific licensee or entity.” I doubt that patients know the database exists or if it contains material on cognitively impaired physicians.

A “graying” of the physician workforce was noted before the 21st century, but there is a reluctance to report or to require evaluation of older physicians. How should this question(s) be resolved? “…the authors issue a call for an expert consensus panel to convene to make recommendations concerning aging physicians with cognitive impairment who are at risk for medical errors.”

We are awaiting such a panel and, in the meantime, let the patient be vigilant and keep good notes on their care and from whom they received it.

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