Breaking The Cycles 03 – Why Letting Your Child/Teen Fail Can Help Them Succeed as an Adult from Peninsula TV on Vimeo.

Again, I want to thank Warren Slocum, CEO of Peninsula Television (PenTV); Arturo Samayoa, owner of Nimbus Design; and Rocky Robinson, PenTV’s Engineer and Editor, for making this show possible.

And, as you will hear at the end of the program, my objective with these 10 minutes shows is to encourage important “conversations” through viewer and reader comments on this Blog. So please feel free to add your thoughts and/or pass it along…

An estimated 25 percent of all children in the United States are affected by or exposed to a family alcohol problem. SAMHSA supports the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA) during its Children of Alcoholics (COA) Week. COA Week celebrates the recovery of the many thousands of children (of all ages) who have received the help they needed to recover from the pain and losses suffered in their childhood, and it offers hope to those still suffering from the adverse impact of parental alcohol and drug addiction.

During COA Week, we acknowledge the millions of children affected by a parent’s substance use disorder and celebrate that there is hope and healing for these children now and throughout their lives. This week—and throughout the year—remember to ask, “What about the children?” when speaking about recovery from substance use disorders.

Please check out NaCOA’s website for details>>>NaCOA website, and please do what you can to learn more about the impacts on families – especially children – when there is undiagnosed, untreated addiction (or substance abuse) in their family. Browsing through the “Help for Families | Codependency” category on this site is one place to start.

I get a lot of phone calls from people — especially family
members — husbands, wives, siblings, parents — desperate for answers about what to do for a loved one with a substance abuse problem. Recently, I was asked to write one or two paragraphs to explain what I tell them. Please find the following:

The behaviors you’ve described – not keeping promises to stop or cut down, not showing up as planned because they’d stopped for drinks, defending yourself in a fight over your criticism of their drinking – are the result of the chemical and structural changes that occur in the brain with substance misuse. The label does not matter right now. You do not have to know or prove it is substance abuse or substance dependence (addiction) to take action.  What you do need to know (and accept) is that the substance misuse IS the problem. It’s not you, it’s not the children, it’s not a job, nor a boss, nor stress nor…. Your loved one would not behave the way s/he does when consuming their substance if it weren’t for the brain changes caused by substance misuse.  [In other words, “normal” use does not cause behavioral changes.] BUT, there is a great deal of new brain and addiction-related research that is helping to explain how substance misuse changes / interrupts the brain’s neural networks responsible for memory, judgment, learning, motivation, pleasure and more. Given the brain controls everything we think, feel, say and do, changing how it works (the way substance misuse changes neural networks) changes how a person “thinks” and therefore how s/he behaves. There is also new research on what happens to family members and friends who repeatedly have to deal with a loved one’s substance misuse behaviors and what can be done to stop the negative impacts on their emotional and physical wellbeing – their relationships, work/school, and quality of life.

Bottom line, the label (abuse or addiction) doesn’t matter at this point. It will matter later because treatment is different for abuse vs. addiction. The best thing you can do for you and your loved one, right now, is not to panic, not to make threats, and not to excuse or blame the substance misuse on something else. Instead, gather information about substance abuse and addiction and the impacts on the family. You may wish to seek help with a therapist specializing in addiction or with a group that supports the family members and friends of substance misusers  There are many excellent resources out there. Just know – it really can and does get better if you take these kinds of action, now.

One of the services I provide to family members and friends and their substance misusing loved ones is a two-hour consulting session during which I explain the science of substance use | abuse | dependence (aka alcoholism or drug addiction); how substances hijack the brain and therefore change a person’s behaviors; the difference between abuse and dependence; and how coping with a loved one’s substance misuse can cause brain changes, resulting in physical and emotional impacts for family members and friends, as well. To learn more about this service, please print my brochure [FTB, short-side],
“Explaining Substance Use|Abuse|Addiction, Lisa Frederiksen.”

And by all means, feel free to email or call me. I don’t track email addresses so your contact information will always remain yours and confidential.

This is a repost of a 10-minute show that I did with Pen TV in which I shared the science and brain research that explains why a person may “choose” to drink and risk getting a DUI and why knowing this may stop a person from doing so.

Again, I want to thank Warren Slocum, CEO of Peninsula Television (PenTV); Arturo Samayoa, owner of Nimbus Design; and Rocky Robinson, PenTV’s Engineer and Editor, for making this show possible.

And, as you will hear at the end of the program, my objective with these 10 minutes shows is to encourage important “conversations” through viewer and reader comments on this Blog. So please feel free to add your thoughts and/or pass it along…

If you are looking for treatment for your or a family members’ drug abuse problem, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has created a new resource to help. “Seeking Drug Treatment: Know What to Ask” lays out five key questions you will want to have answered as part of your decision-making process:

• 1. Does the program use treatments backed by scientific evidence?
• 2. Does the program tailor treatment to the needs of each patient?
• 3. Does the program adapt treatment as the patient’s needs change?
• 4. Is the duration of treatment sufficient?
• 5. How do 12-step or similar recovery programs fit into drug addiction treatment?

To download a copy in PDF, ePub or Kindle or to order a hard copy, click here>>>

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, nutrition is one of the four key “things” a person can do to heal / rewire their brains, regardless of any other programs, therapy or recovery-type activities.  Nutrition / healing the brain can help with recovery from an addiction or from the chronic stress and brain changes caused by trying to cope with a loved one’s untreated substance misuse. [The others include: exercise, sleep and mindfulness.] Check out my related post, “Nutrition and Addiction/Secondhand Drinking/Drugging Recovery,” >>>

So… when I saw this sales video by Beyond Diet, “5 Things to NEVER Eat,” I though I’d share it for its information value. While this video is about burning fat and about enrolling in their program (Beyond Diet), I share it because of the information on how foods go together in the body – vitamins, fiber, protein, nutrients… (which in turn is good for the brain). Basically — the program creators explain the importance of eating a variety of foods in their most whole, unprocessed form. While it does take a few minutes to get into the information I’m talking about, it still may be worth the watch. Please know this is NOT an endorsement for their program — just the video for it’s information value. Watch the video >>> ”5 Things to Never Eat”

A dual diagnosis [aka co-occurring disorder] is the name of the diagnosis given when a person has both a mental illness and an addiction. According to the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT), 50-75% of Americans who seek treatment for a substance abuse problem (and that’s only of those who seek treatment!) also have a co-occurring mental illness. The old method of treating these individuals was to “dry them out” — meaning to detox and put them through rehab — and then treat the mental illness (because it was believed one needed the substance to be out of the system before the mental illness could be identified). Not anymore.

According to the National Alliance of Mental Illness, (NAMI), “Dual diagnosis services [aka treatment for a dual diagnosis] integrate assistance for each condition, helping people recover from both in one setting, at the same time. Dual diagnosis services include different types of assistance that go beyond standard therapy or medication: assertive outreach, job and housing assistance, family counseling, even money and relationship management. The personalized treatment is viewed as long-term and can be begun at whatever stage of recovery the consumer is in. Positivity, hope and optimism are at the foundation of integrated treatment.” Read more >>>

To learn the status of treating co-occurring disorders [a dual diagnosis] in the U.S., read the Partnership at DrugFree.org | Join Together’s January 17, 2012, post, by Kris Van Hoof-Haines titled>>> “The Status of Treating Co-Occurring Disorders in the U.S.”

The following is an opinion piece by Scott Simon, “A Fan’s NOtes on Pro Sports, Brain Damage,” appearing on NPR on January 28, 2012.

There is nothing more to say, really, other than, please listen – click here>>>

Be on the lookout for a New Can In Town — the 12 ounce can of scotch. Learning of its arrival prompted me to want to share information that can help a person stay in control of their drinking and avoid the regrettable behaviors that can happen when they unintentionally have too much. This became the basis of the 1st 10 minute Breaking The Cycles show now appearing on Peninsula Television (PenTV), a nonprofit, member-supported community television station.

Breaking The Cycles 01 – The New Can In Town from Peninsula TV on Vimeo.

I want to thank Warren Slocum, CEO of Peninsula Television (PenTV), for taking a chance on me and my 10 minute show, Breaking The Cycles. And, I want to thank Arturo Samayoa, owner of Nimbus Design, for the introduction to Warren and partially funding the show, as well as Rocky Robinson, PenTV’s Engineer and Editor, for a great job pulling it all together.

And, as you will hear at the end of the program, my objective with these 10 minutes shows is to encourage important “conversations” through viewer and reader comments on this Blog. So please feel free to add your thoughts and/or pass it along…

This sentence in Abigail Sullivan Moore’s January 20, 2012, article, “A Bridge to Recovery on Campus,” appearing on NewYorkTimes.com, really grabbed my attention:

“….Until recently, public policy focused on prevention and treatment. “We never talked about recovery as a kind of separate entity — it was almost like treatment was the end in and by itself,” says R. Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, which is joining with the Department of Education to urge colleges to consider recovery programs.” [A Bridge to Recovery on Campus]

The common perception is that finally getting a loved one with a drug or alcohol addiction into a 28-day residential treatment program will take care of the “problem” and that all will return to “normal” as soon as treatment is done. Unfortunately, ALL is not well, nor does it return to “normal” for some time.

According to the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), effective addiction treatment should follow a disease management approach and include: 1) detox/stabilization, 2) rehabilitation (rehab) [what the majority think of as "treatment"], and 3) continuing care. Often, people engage in a combination of treatment options during rehab, but it is important they continue these in order to “re-wire” / heal their brain. In other words, engage in “continuing care,” aka after care. This is referred to as “being in recovery.”

Why?

Because addiction – whether it’s an addiction to illegal or prescription drugs or to alcohol — is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease. The very nature of this disease is that it causes chemical and structural changes in areas of the brain that are vital to a person’s ability to think straight, behave normally and act responsibility. Of course the addict/alcoholic can make great progress in a 28-day residential treatment program — no doubt about it. Additionally, 28-day programs, also known as rehab,  are but one of the ways a person goes about beginning their recovery, which is defined as abstinence AND an enjoyable life. Other options include: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), medications to curb cravings, a 12-step program such as AA or NA, mindfulness programs (for example, yoga), spiritual and/or religious programs or activities, healthy nutrition, exercise, group meetings, counseling, intensive outpatient (the person does not live at the treatment center but attends treatment programs at the center during the day and/or evening), and others. [And, please know, that if there is a dual diagnosis, treatment must also include treatment of the mental illness.]

However, healing the brain takes time, which is why continuing care – the 3^rd phase in the disease management approach — is so equally important to recovery.  21st century brain and addiction-related research now shows that treating addiction must follow the same treatment protocols as treating other diseases, such as cancer, diabetes or heart disease.

Just as a person with diabetes, heart disease or cancer has a continuing care program/plan to help them continue their recovery once the acute care/rehab treatment (e.g., surgery, radiation, chemo) is complete, so too must the alcoholic / addict.

Now back to the article, “A Bridge to Recovery on Campus” — it was marvelous to read there are such comprehensive continuing care kinds of programs on college campuses for students wishing to continue their education after detox and rehab. Again, quoting from Ms. Moore’s article, “But students at Rutgers, Texas Tech and Augsburg have been breathtakingly clean, with abstinent rates averaging in the mid- to high 90s.” Those are HUGE, SIGNIFICANT abstinent rates and point to the importance and of having on-going, long-term support programs and activities to carry treatment into long-term recovery — in other words, continuing care.

So please, pass this article along!

[And, for more information on the importance of continuing care, please read “28-Day Residential Treatment – What More Could You Want?” and/or visit Continuing Care | Recovery Coaching on this website.]