Posts Tagged ‘intervention’

The Genetic Link to Addiction

Wednesday, October 21st, 2009

An article on CNNMoney.com today spoke about the genetic link to addiction. Although widely acknowledged throughout the addiction treatment community, it’s nice to see additional research showing the link between addiction and genetics. According to Dr. David Goldman, the director of the Laboratory of Neurogenetics at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said that according to the massive study they completed of addiction in twins, addiction ranks “among the most heritable of mental illnesses.”

Dr. Goldman also said that social cues and environment obviously contribute to addiction, a valid point. Someone with the “alcoholic gene” who is never exposed to alcohol may never lead themselves down a destructive path. After all, genetics load the gun, and environment pulls the trigger.

“What’s interesting,” Goldman says, “is that the more addictive the substance, the stronger the role of heredity in causing an addiction to it.” Therefore, if someone is using crack cocaine or opiates and has the genetic predisposition towards addiction, the greater the chance of getting hooked. Other environmental things, such as abuse or other instances of trauma, can severely influence the nature of addiction.

Dr. David Oslin, a psychiatrist at the University of Pennsylvania, had this to say about the study, “It reinforces for the patients that they are not just a bad person or lack will power. It resonates with the notion that their brain may work a little differently than other people’s and that this really is an illness they can treat like any other.”

As a family member or a loved one, be sure to be aware of the genetic triggers in your family- if a parent struggles with alcoholism, be sure to be aware of your genetic history and approach your drinking carefully. After all, there’s only so much one can do after addiction has taken hold.

Be sure to check out our new Wikipedia page, located here.

For any questions or help with yourself or a loved one, call us directly at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction, addiction genes, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, alcohol, alcoholism, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, cnn, genetics, gentetics of addiction, intervention, recovery, recovery assistance, substance abuse
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Addressing Substance Abuse Concerns

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

A Family Educational Series in partnership with Hazelden.

Join Hazelden and Assistance in Recovery in the first of a series of free educational events that will provide information to family members and loved ones of those struggling with addiction.

Most people are aware that drugs and alcohol cause problems in our society. Our media sources daily blare the news of violence, traffic fatalities and broken homes due to drug and alcohol use. The aftermath of addiction seems easy to spot once the addiction has spun so far out of control that it has become a media event. We wonder why the addiction wasn’t spotted earlier and if it was, why didn’t “those people” just quit or do something about it?

This presentation “What is addiction?” answers these questions and more. Attendees will gain a better understanding of drug addiction and how to begin to identify the signals of problematic use within themselves, their families, and community.

Monday, November 9, 2009
5:30 p.m. Registration
6-8 p.m. Presentation, “What is Addiction?”

Hazelden’s Fellowship Club
680 Stewart Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55102-4199

Register online at hazelden.org/familyed by November 2. If you have any questions please give us a call at 877-320-0247.

Save the dates — more free educational events for family members and loved ones of those struggling with addiction:

December 14, 2009
Intervention
Presentation by AiR’s Gordon Brown. It’s not just about getting help for your loved one.

January 18, 2010
Families Living With Addiction
How to help loved ones get into treatment, how to work with insurance, and how to help ourselves.

February 8, 2010
Case Management with People in Recovery
Presentation by AiR’s James Stolz. Building resiliency and the management of substance dependence.

Tags: addiction education, alcoholism, assistac, drug addiction, hazelden, intervention, substance abuse education
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Recovery Assistance, and why it works

Thursday, October 8th, 2009

As was just announced yesterday, we at Assistance in Recovery recently celebrated our 500th Recovery Assistance Program (or RAP) participant. This is a huge step forward in the recovery world; after 60-plus years of people seeking treatment for alcohol and drug addiction, we’ve finally seen a change in how addiction in the long term is being managed. When people first started attending residential treatment centers, they generally would enter a 28 or 30 day program, followed by either outpatient or simply 12-step groups. Nowadays, with the expanding of extended care and sober living homes, we’ve been able to drastically improve the levels of care for clients in need of long term treatment.

But what happens when a client gets out of the safe haven of a treatment center? Besides themselves, and potentially their 12-step groups, there has been very little accountability. We at AiR have developed an amazing solution to this through our Recovery Assistance Program. With clients and families getting an individual case manager who can help the recovering person stay on track, it takes away the need for a family to be the “sober police.” A client can communicate directly with their case manager, ideally providing a safe person for both the family and the recovering individual to speak with when troubles arise. With an intensive collateral contact, featuring connections and support with therapists, psychiatrists, outpatient services, sober living homes and 12 step sponsors, as well as toxicology screenings, we are able to provide a recovering person with that level of accountability, and success, that they wouldn’t get just returning home.

Our goal is to improve treatment outcomes; with the introduction of Recovery Assistance, we’ve been able to see rates of recovery around 84%…a truly amazing figure. We can help guide families through that treacherous time of trying to find resources for their loved one, and help the recovering individual get through the minefield that is early recovery. 500 people have come through our doors so far; with millions of other addicts out there, we can only hope for the number to increase, and seeing more and more people achieve long-term recovery.

For questions about our Recovery Assistance Program, or any of our additional services (including intervention), please call us directly at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, alcohol, alcoholism, assistance in recovery, intervention, pain addiction, prescription drug abuse, Recovery Assistance Program, substance abuse, Treatment
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Overdose News

Thursday, October 1st, 2009

According to an article posted yesterday night on USA Today, prescription drugs and other pills are now the leading cause of overdosing, ahead of things like heroin and cocaine. According to the Center For Disease Control, prescription pills now account for the majority of the over 26,000 fatal overdoses each year. In previous years, up through the 1990s, the majority of overdoses were brought on by illicit substances like heroin. However, with the upswing in prescriptions and the lack of knowledge surrounding the abuse of these pills, the dangers have continued to increase and, as a result, created a dangerous epidemic of abuse and addiction.

Leonard Paulozzi, a researcher at the Center for Disease Control, said that the numbers show that overdoses in rural areas have now come to equal those in cities, which is lead, according to Paulozzi, by the availability of prescription pain killers and opioids.  With chronic pain become a new term, the prescriptions of opioid pain killers have started to increase, and therefore leading to additional overdose danger. And with a rise in stress and depression, the dangers of addictive behaviors are brought to the forefront.

“At the high doses used by drug abusers, the margin of safety is small,” Paulozzi said. “Combining such drugs on your own or using them with alcohol increase the risk.” The number of overdose deaths due to prescription drugs, like morphine or codeine, has more than tripled since 1999, according the new CDC figures. “The biggest and fastest-growing part of America’s drug problem is prescription drug abuse,” says Robert DuPont,  former White House drug czar and former director of NIDA.

We’ve been speaking out on the dangers of prescription drugs for years, and will continue to do so until the appropriate levels of education and awareness of the dangers are reached. Here’s a clip of our CEO, Andrew Wainwright, on CNN’s American Morning talking about the dangers of prescription drugs.

For assistance with prescription drug problems, or if a loved one is struggling with addiction, please visit our main site or call us directly at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, andrew wainwright, chemical dependency, cnn, cnn american morning, intervention, overdose, prescription drug abuse, prescription drug overdose, recovery assistance, substance abuse, Treatment, vicodin addiction
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Heroin for Heroin Addicts?

Monday, September 28th, 2009

An interesting post in Time Magazine today touched on a new British trial, over the last four years, of providing free daily heroin injections as a method to wean them off the drugs. Since the results of the trial were positive (i.e. lower street drug use, lower crime rate among participates, etc.), officials are talking about making this a permanent addition of state-funded heroin clinics for the drug addicts in the U.K.

A quote from John Strang, one of the researchers with the National Addiction Centre (who helped lead the project): “It’s a less than perfect treatment, but for entrenched addicts, it gives them the first steps toward getting their life together. Some make a virtually complete recovery, but others, we get them from a bad place to a less bad place.” According to the research, those treated with heroin had better results than those treated with methadone. However, Paul Hayes, head of the National Treatment Agency, stressed in the Guardian this month that the services would be available to only a  “very small proportion” of the nearly 200,000 heroin addicts in treatment.

So, government, if this works so well, why is it only available to a very small population? Shouldn’t this be the course of treatment for everyone? Obviously not. By giving drug addicts more drugs, aren’t we simply condoning and encouraging their habit? Why not fund a comprehensive, state-funded detoxification program followed by residential treatment? And harm reduction, in the long run is, in the words of our CEO Andrew Wainwright, simply a “band-aid on a bullet wound.” With addiction being a disease, and a malady of the physical, social and spiritual, simply medicating the addict’s “need” for the drug will not create a long term solution. We need to be moving people into comprehensive treatment, not helping them sustain their addiction.

For more information on heroin addiction and getting your loved one help, please call us at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, air, AiR Assistance in recovery, alcoholism, andrew wainwright, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, drugs, heroin, heroin addiction, intervention, legal heroin, Legalization of Drugs, mental health, substance abuse, Treatment
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Legalization?

Friday, September 18th, 2009

As we’ve talked about before on the blog, some of the most dangerous substances of abuse are already legal- pain medication, alcohol and cigarettes are in the mainstream and on the rise. As a matter of fact, a recent study in the British medical journal Lancet stated that one in 25 deaths around the world is now alcohol-related- making alcohol just as dangerous as tobacco was ten years ago. These numbers are dangerous, and that’s talking about LEGAL substances!

Now what about marijuana? There has been a lot of controversy lately about drug policy, and it’s been all over the news. Colorado has decriminalized marijuana possessionof under an ounce to now a petty crime, or a ticketable offense. In California and other states, marijuana has been deemed a valuable medical resource, and now with Mexico decriminalizing the possession of small amounts of even harder drugs (such as cocaine and heroin), it seems as though it’s only a matter of time before this becomes a huge issue in the US. As we know, there has already been talk about California legalizing marijuana and taxing it to try and rescue themselves from a crippling budget deficit (although that idea has been shot down as of now).

We at AiR are from the stance that keeping drugs illegal prevents widespread abuse- easier access will create more problems, not less. However, as it’s obvious to us, the current U.S. structure of the “War on Drugs” isn’t working either. Our CEO, Andrew Wainwright, talked about this on CNN a few months ago. We need complete policy reform on this subject- basically, without an overhaul, we’ll be seeing an unnecessary amount of drug addicts go to prison and not get the help that they need, creating a cycle of addiction and imprisonment- none of which is good for our society as a whole. With reforms, we can create a route that pushes drug addicts into treatment and drug pushers into jail- the way the war should be fought. The addicts on the street, currently penned up in prisons and NOT getting help, aren’t the real problem here. By providing a viable solution for those addicts, we can help the drug market get smaller.

For more information about this topic, or for help for you or a loved one, please contact us at 877-320-0247.

Tags: addiction, andrew wainwright, assistance in recovery, california drug policy, chemical dependency, intervention, Legalization of Drugs, marijuana, marijuana legalization, pain addiction, pain killers, substance abuse
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The Problem with Pills

Friday, September 11th, 2009

After reading a couple of articles, one from the New York Daily News focusing on prescription sleep medication and another from Salon Magazine talking about the new book “This is Your Country on Drugs,” it was obvious that we needed to address the growing pill problem in America. We’ve talked before about pain killer addiction on the blog, especially addressing Michael Jackson and DJ AM’s recent passings. What we haven’t addressed is the problem in households across the country- that some of the most dangerous drugs in our world are kept in our medicine cabinets, accessible by even the most innocent children. This is a particularly hard problem to combat, as most of the drugs are prescribed legally.

Recently, a survey of 1,300 school nurses participated in a survey conducted by the National Association of School Nurses showed that an amazing 78 percent cited prescription drug abuse as a growing problem. According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, more than 2.1 MILLION teens abused prescription drugs in the past year- a startling figure. When we look at access to these drugs, it seems that it’s becoming easier for our kids to get their hands on these pills. We need to do something about it- be sure to talk to kids about the dangers of these pills- they can be deadly on even their first use. And just because they’ve been legally prescribed, it doesn’t make them any less dangerous OR addictive. As we just saw with DJ AM, even being prescribed pain medication for a reason can lead to addiction, and even death.

If you or your family member is struggling with a pill addiction, be sure to contact us today at 877-320-0247. We will be there to walk you through the process of getting help. For more information on prescription drug addiction, be sure to click on our main site and call us for additional information. We’re here to help.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, assistance in recovery, hazelden, intervention, Legalization of Drugs, michael jackson drug abuse, prescription pill addiction, vicodin addiction
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Another high-profile addict loses his battle

Tuesday, September 1st, 2009

On Friday, we lost another high-profile drug addict, Adam Goldstein- also known as DJ AM. DJ AM had a long history of addiction and recovery, but he lost his final battle with his inner demons. Having recently survived a plane crash that killed four other passengers, he could add that to the long and terrible history of trauma in his life. A sad tale, but one that had a happy ending until this past week. Goldstein was noted for his compulsive behaviors; having struggled with overeating, he lost nearly 150 pounds following gastric bypass surgery and got clean in the late 90s. He had a long and detailed list of abuses from his father, who was verbally abusive and dealing with his own demons. Goldstein also talked about his suicide attempt where a gun jammed, saving his life. So Goldstein wasn’t just doing drugs to do drugs; he was masking and blotting out his pain.

Relapse can happen, even to those who have a history of recovery. These losses, as grave as they are, are good reminders to those of us in recovery to keep up our daily maintenance. Recovery is like any other disease; should you stop treatment, the disease will come back in full force. For DJ AM, his disease crept back- possibly through pain killers- and just was too much for him. Did the doctors know about his addiction? Were his sober friends monitoring his pain medication intake? Did Goldstein admit he was having problems with his sobriety to anyone? These are the answers we may never know. With a long history of making it through the fire relatively unscathed, he lost his final battle with his addiction.

His final message to the world: “New york, new york. Big city of dreams, but everything in new york aint always what it seems.” A sad ending to a tragic life. But there is hope. If you or a loved one are suffering today, call us at 877-320-0247. Help is out there, when you ask for it.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, crack addiction, dj am, drew pinsky, intervention, pain addiction, pain killers, pain medication
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Turbulent Economic Times Don't Slow Expansion

Monday, August 31st, 2009

With the news today of Caron Foundation’s expansion into Dallas (an adult residential program) , we continue to see treatment centers continuing their growth process. Caron will add 40 beds in a facility outside of Dallas to their programs both in Pennsylvania and Florida. Last week, it was announced that Hazelden, one of the nation’s leading treatment centers, would be opening a new residential program in Naples, FL. With an additional 48 beds adding to their over 200 now, Hazelden will have a facility in each region, including Springbrook in Oregon, Hazelden Center For Youth And Families and Hazelden Center City in Minnesota, and the new Florida program. As we can see, during times of economic distress, there are more and more people needing, and seeking, help for their drug or alcohol problems.

In times of an economic downturn, more and more families are affected by alcoholism and drug abuse. We here at Assistance In Recovery have seen an upswing in families in crisis- and we’re here to help. Even in the economic downturn, there are many resources available via insurance and scholarships to help addicts who are in trouble. The biggest piece here is that, regardless of a family’s current economic status, there IS help available. As we’ve said before, the WORST thing a family can do is wait it out. Hoping someone gets better isn’t effective; taking action, providing resources, and being proactive is the way to get a loved one out of trouble. Waiting for an addict to get better is like waiting for a sinking ship to patch itself- it’s just not going to happen without outside help. We can be your lifeboat.

With the help of programs like Caron Foundation and Hazelden, we’ve been able to create plans of action for families around the world. Contact us at 877-320-0247 for help today.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, air, AiR Assistance in recovery, alcoholism, caron, caron foundation, chemical dependency, drug treatment expansion, hazelden, intervention, substance abuse, Treatment
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Grace After Fire and AiR

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

One of the great things we at AiR get to do is work with struggling families to help them find the right direction; however, we also get to work in avenues that can truly help a very selective population, our veterans. We have partnered with Grace After Fire, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing addiction treatment and trauma treatment for women veterans. With more and more women in the military reporting instances of severe mental and emotional trauma, even more resources are needed- especially ones not currently available via government resources. With a long and detailed history of Vietnam veterans suffering large instances of trauma, one would think we’d be better prepared for our returning soldiers. Alas, that is not the case. However, Grace After Fire is there to help bridge the gap in resources, and we’re excited to be a part of their cause.

One of the founding board members, Tia Christopher, provided a great testimony at the Veteran’s Affairs Committee meeting, and a video can be seen here. Women veterans can also find resources and help via their community message board, available here.

Issac Skelton, the publications director for the Drug Policy Alliance, puts our veterans’ addiction and trauma problem into focus in this editorial in the New York Times. The main point that he focuses on is this, that “…thousands of returning veterans who cope through self-medication are risking addiction, arrest and jail time.” He wrote this in response to another New York Times article that spoke directly about the problem of returning veterans and healthcare- that the Walter Reed Hospital and its neglected outpatient programs weren’t the main problem- they were only a symptom of a broken system.  We need the resources available to provide the best care possible for our returning heroes.

We strongly encourage any family to get help, but we especially want to put resources in the hands of families of veterans. Should you, or someone you love, be struggling with their transition back into the civilian world, please call us at 877-320-0247 for assistance. With the help of organizations such as Grace After Fire, we can help put a healing hand out for the veterans that really need us.

Tags: addiction, addiction intervention, AiR Assistance in recovery, assistance in recovery, chemical dependency, Grace After Fire, intervention, prescription drug abuse, recovery, recovery assistance, substance abuse, trauma and addiction, Treatment, veterans, veterans and trauma
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