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Saturday, June 7, 2014
Friday, June 6, 2014
Old Hershey Plant Switches From Chocolate to Marijuana Production
/By Join Together Staff
May 29th, 2014/
A former Hershey chocolate production plant in Ontario, Canada has become home to a marijuana production facility, The New York Times reports. The facility houses 50,000 marijuana plants.
The plant is now owned by Tweed Marijuana, one of about 20 companies licensed to grow medical marijuana in Canada, the article notes. When the government first approved medical marijuana in 2000, it allowed people to grow their own or turn over their growing to small operations, prompting complaints from law enforcement.
Canada now has a heavily regulated system to grow and sell marijuana. People with prescriptions for medical marijuana must purchase it from an approved large-scale producer such as Tweed.
“It’s just so rare that you have an industry that’s growing but which has a huge established market,” Tweed Chief Executive Chuck Rifici told the newspaper. “A year ago, if you asked me if I’d be working while looking at thousands of pot plants, I would never have thought that would be the case.”
In the United States, medical marijuana is legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and recreational marijuana is legal in Washington state and Colorado. Marijuana remains illegal under U.S. federal law, creating uncertainty in the marijuana growing business. The federal government recently banned marijuana growers in states where the drug is legal from using federal water on their crops.
/By Join Together Staff
May 29th, 2014/
A former Hershey chocolate production plant in Ontario, Canada has become home to a marijuana production facility, The New York Times reports. The facility houses 50,000 marijuana plants.
The plant is now owned by Tweed Marijuana, one of about 20 companies licensed to grow medical marijuana in Canada, the article notes. When the government first approved medical marijuana in 2000, it allowed people to grow their own or turn over their growing to small operations, prompting complaints from law enforcement.
Canada now has a heavily regulated system to grow and sell marijuana. People with prescriptions for medical marijuana must purchase it from an approved large-scale producer such as Tweed.
“It’s just so rare that you have an industry that’s growing but which has a huge established market,” Tweed Chief Executive Chuck Rifici told the newspaper. “A year ago, if you asked me if I’d be working while looking at thousands of pot plants, I would never have thought that would be the case.”
In the United States, medical marijuana is legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and recreational marijuana is legal in Washington state and Colorado. Marijuana remains illegal under U.S. federal law, creating uncertainty in the marijuana growing business. The federal government recently banned marijuana growers in states where the drug is legal from using federal water on their crops.
Old Hershey Plant Switches From Chocolate to Marijuana Production
/By Join Together Staff
May 29th, 2014/
A former Hershey chocolate production plant in Ontario, Canada has become home to a marijuana production facility, The New York Times reports. The facility houses 50,000 marijuana plants.
The plant is now owned by Tweed Marijuana, one of about 20 companies licensed to grow medical marijuana in Canada, the article notes. When the government first approved medical marijuana in 2000, it allowed people to grow their own or turn over their growing to small operations, prompting complaints from law enforcement.
Canada now has a heavily regulated system to grow and sell marijuana. People with prescriptions for medical marijuana must purchase it from an approved large-scale producer such as Tweed.
“It’s just so rare that you have an industry that’s growing but which has a huge established market,” Tweed Chief Executive Chuck Rifici told the newspaper. “A year ago, if you asked me if I’d be working while looking at thousands of pot plants, I would never have thought that would be the case.”
In the United States, medical marijuana is legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and recreational marijuana is legal in Washington state and Colorado. Marijuana remains illegal under U.S. federal law, creating uncertainty in the marijuana growing business. The federal government recently banned marijuana growers in states where the drug is legal from using federal water on their crops.
/By Join Together Staff
May 29th, 2014/
A former Hershey chocolate production plant in Ontario, Canada has become home to a marijuana production facility, The New York Times reports. The facility houses 50,000 marijuana plants.
The plant is now owned by Tweed Marijuana, one of about 20 companies licensed to grow medical marijuana in Canada, the article notes. When the government first approved medical marijuana in 2000, it allowed people to grow their own or turn over their growing to small operations, prompting complaints from law enforcement.
Canada now has a heavily regulated system to grow and sell marijuana. People with prescriptions for medical marijuana must purchase it from an approved large-scale producer such as Tweed.
“It’s just so rare that you have an industry that’s growing but which has a huge established market,” Tweed Chief Executive Chuck Rifici told the newspaper. “A year ago, if you asked me if I’d be working while looking at thousands of pot plants, I would never have thought that would be the case.”
In the United States, medical marijuana is legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and recreational marijuana is legal in Washington state and Colorado. Marijuana remains illegal under U.S. federal law, creating uncertainty in the marijuana growing business. The federal government recently banned marijuana growers in states where the drug is legal from using federal water on their crops.
Free Community Seminar
Presented by
Livengrin's Family Services Department
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Monday, June 9, 2014, from 6-8 pm
Topic: Brain Chemistry: Addiction & Recovery
By William Lorman, PhD, MSN
Livengrin Counseling Center -- Oxford Valley
195 Bristol-Oxford Valley Road
Langhorne, PA 19047
Seating is limited.
These sessions often fill up, so please register as soon as possible.
To register for the sessions or for more information,
call Dana Cohen, Family Therapist -- 215.638.5200 x162
Ample free parking!
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I am excited to let you know about a new certificate program at the PRCC called Stress Reduction and Relaxation: Part of Your Recovery (flyer attached). Space is limited so please call in advance to register 215-223-7700. Thank you:
Certificate Program
STRESS REDUCTION AND RELAXATION:
Part of Your Recovery
What do you do when you feel anxious or stressed?
Learn simple practices of breathing and relaxing the body.
You can use them any time, to calm and center yourself.
Tuesdays, 2:00 - 3:30pm
6-week class, starting July 1st, ending August 5th
Certificate for those who attend all 6 sessions
Philadelphia Recovery Community Center
1701 W. Lehigh Ave., Unit 6
Philadelphia, PA 19132
Space is limited- Call today and register 215-223-7700
Thursday, June 5, 2014
JUNE 5 v 21 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB
For your ways are in full view of the Lord,
and he examines all your paths.
Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all .
It is written in the Bible absent from the body present with the Lord. First comes death then the Judgement ! Thats right we will have to give account for all we have done with our lives and that will decide our fate .If your heart stopped right now and you find yourself standing before the judgement seat of God . What is the first question God will ask . I think He will say , son or daughter , I have given you the gift of life , intelligence , laughter , and love how did you use those gifts and talents too help others , and how did you make the world a better place . Take out a piece of paper right now and write down how you helped others and changed your world . If your page is blank then you got some work to do ,it will start with asking God to help you change .We do that through prayer and sincerely working the steps . Number eight is one of the most important because , God already knows who you burned , He is waiting for you to take responsibility for your sins and mistakes and give forgiveness or seek forgiveness ! Forgiveness will set you free in ways you never dreamed possible ! If we show mercy here on earth ,then God will give mercy at His judgement seat.
and he examines all your paths.
Step 8 - Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all .
It is written in the Bible absent from the body present with the Lord. First comes death then the Judgement ! Thats right we will have to give account for all we have done with our lives and that will decide our fate .If your heart stopped right now and you find yourself standing before the judgement seat of God . What is the first question God will ask . I think He will say , son or daughter , I have given you the gift of life , intelligence , laughter , and love how did you use those gifts and talents too help others , and how did you make the world a better place . Take out a piece of paper right now and write down how you helped others and changed your world . If your page is blank then you got some work to do ,it will start with asking God to help you change .We do that through prayer and sincerely working the steps . Number eight is one of the most important because , God already knows who you burned , He is waiting for you to take responsibility for your sins and mistakes and give forgiveness or seek forgiveness ! Forgiveness will set you free in ways you never dreamed possible ! If we show mercy here on earth ,then God will give mercy at His judgement seat.
Matthew 6 - 14 : 15 For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.
By Joseph Dickerson
Innovative Campus-Based Model Supports College Students in Recovery
/By Alexandre Laudet PhD
June 4th, 2014/
With addiction best conceptualized as chronic for many, recovery support services are increasingly adopting a continuum of care approach. Acute episodes of intensive treatment may help initiate recovery but relapse too often follows lest ongoing support is available. For millions worldwide, 12-step fellowships provide that support with meetings available everywhere, around the clock in large cities, free of charge, without the need to wait for the next available appointment. Others turn to faith, counseling, and to the growing menu of community-based recovery support services. With education and employment consistently mentioned as top priorities among people in recovery, college attendance is a goal for many. However, substance use remains highly prevalent on college campuses, which may lead young people in recovery to either defer or postpone college, or increase the risk of relapse if they do attend: Peer pressure, the need to fit in and the ubiquitous temptations to drink or use drugs are just so many added relapse risks at a transitional life stage already characterized with new freedoms and responsibilities and therefore, stress.
A handful of colleges and universities started addressing students’ recovery support needs some 30 years ago, providing sober dorms and recovery support meetings on campus. As substance use on college campuses became increasingly recognized as a public health issue, experts and federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Education have called for campus-based services for recovering students. This fueled a growing interest in Collegiate Recovery Programs (CRPs), a recovery-support model designed to create a campus-based “recovery friendly” space and supportive social community to enhance educational opportunities while supporting continued students’ recovery and emotional growth. The number of CRPs nationwide has grown 10 fold in the past 15 years, from 4 in 2000 to an estimated 40 today, and others in development. Yet the model has not been systematically examined and the lack of data is often cited by academic institutions as an obstacle to gaining internal support to start a CRP. To fill that evidence gap, CRPs are now the focus of a NIDA-funded exploratory study co-lead by Kitty Harris of Texas Tech University and myself.
The study is surveying both the individual sites and the student membership nationwide. In a recent article published in the Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, my colleagues and I discussed the need for recovery support on college campuses, the breadth of services needed, and preliminary site-level outcomes from CRP published reports. CRPs have thus far started organically, either by students in recovery and/or university staff; differences in budget and program development stage result in broadly different range of supports available. While newer programs may provide little more than fellowship and a meeting room, the longer established and best funded CRPs, such as Texas Tech’s Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery, include peer-tutoring, academic advising and scholarships based on both academics and commitment to recovery. CRP participation is typically free of charge; most programs operate with a very small core staff as the model relies on peer-driven support, typically emphasizing 12-step principles though weekly recovery celebration meetings that embrace all students in recovery regardless of their 12-step affiliation status. Descriptive findings about the breadth of CRPs from 29 sites were presented at the 2013 annual conference of the College of problems on Drug Dependence (CPDD). In the aggregate, annual relapse rates range from 0 to 25% (mean = 8%) and academic achievement (GPA and graduation) surpass the host institution’s overall outcomes. Findings from the student arm of the study will be presented at the 2014 CPDD meeting and at the 5th Annual Collegiate Recovery Conference at Ausgsburg College in June.
Alexandre Laudet, PhD is Director of the Center for the Study of Addictions and Recovery at the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., in New York City.
/By Alexandre Laudet PhD
June 4th, 2014/
With addiction best conceptualized as chronic for many, recovery support services are increasingly adopting a continuum of care approach. Acute episodes of intensive treatment may help initiate recovery but relapse too often follows lest ongoing support is available. For millions worldwide, 12-step fellowships provide that support with meetings available everywhere, around the clock in large cities, free of charge, without the need to wait for the next available appointment. Others turn to faith, counseling, and to the growing menu of community-based recovery support services. With education and employment consistently mentioned as top priorities among people in recovery, college attendance is a goal for many. However, substance use remains highly prevalent on college campuses, which may lead young people in recovery to either defer or postpone college, or increase the risk of relapse if they do attend: Peer pressure, the need to fit in and the ubiquitous temptations to drink or use drugs are just so many added relapse risks at a transitional life stage already characterized with new freedoms and responsibilities and therefore, stress. A handful of colleges and universities started addressing students’ recovery support needs some 30 years ago, providing sober dorms and recovery support meetings on campus. As substance use on college campuses became increasingly recognized as a public health issue, experts and federal agencies including the U.S. Department of Education have called for campus-based services for recovering students. This fueled a growing interest in Collegiate Recovery Programs (CRPs), a recovery-support model designed to create a campus-based “recovery friendly” space and supportive social community to enhance educational opportunities while supporting continued students’ recovery and emotional growth. The number of CRPs nationwide has grown 10 fold in the past 15 years, from 4 in 2000 to an estimated 40 today, and others in development. Yet the model has not been systematically examined and the lack of data is often cited by academic institutions as an obstacle to gaining internal support to start a CRP. To fill that evidence gap, CRPs are now the focus of a NIDA-funded exploratory study co-lead by Kitty Harris of Texas Tech University and myself.
The study is surveying both the individual sites and the student membership nationwide. In a recent article published in the Journal of Social Work Practice in the Addictions, my colleagues and I discussed the need for recovery support on college campuses, the breadth of services needed, and preliminary site-level outcomes from CRP published reports. CRPs have thus far started organically, either by students in recovery and/or university staff; differences in budget and program development stage result in broadly different range of supports available. While newer programs may provide little more than fellowship and a meeting room, the longer established and best funded CRPs, such as Texas Tech’s Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery, include peer-tutoring, academic advising and scholarships based on both academics and commitment to recovery. CRP participation is typically free of charge; most programs operate with a very small core staff as the model relies on peer-driven support, typically emphasizing 12-step principles though weekly recovery celebration meetings that embrace all students in recovery regardless of their 12-step affiliation status. Descriptive findings about the breadth of CRPs from 29 sites were presented at the 2013 annual conference of the College of problems on Drug Dependence (CPDD). In the aggregate, annual relapse rates range from 0 to 25% (mean = 8%) and academic achievement (GPA and graduation) surpass the host institution’s overall outcomes. Findings from the student arm of the study will be presented at the 2014 CPDD meeting and at the 5th Annual Collegiate Recovery Conference at Ausgsburg College in June.
Alexandre Laudet, PhD is Director of the Center for the Study of Addictions and Recovery at the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., in New York City.
Chicago Lawsuit Alleges Drug Companies Contributed to Prescription Drug Epidemic
/By Join Together Staff
June 4th, 2014/
A lawsuit filed by the city of Chicago against five drug companies alleges they contributed to the nation’s prescription drug abuse epidemic through deceptive marketing of their opioid painkillers, Reuters reports.
“For years, big pharma has deceived the public about the true risks and benefits of highly potent and highly addictive painkillers in order to expand their customer base and increase their bottom line,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday against Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutions and Actavis. The suit alleges the companies aggressively marketed opioid painkillers as rarely addictive, while misrepresenting the drugs’ benefits for treating common pains and concealing the risk of addiction, overdose and death.
Emanuel said the result has been a dramatic increase in opioid addiction and overdose in Chicago and other cities across the country. The city said it is not seeking to ban opioid painkillers, but wants to end the companies’ allegedly deceptive marketing practices so doctors and patients can make informed decisions.
According to the lawsuit, the companies violated Chicago city laws against consumer fraud, misleading advertising and submitting false claims to the city employee health insurance plan, the article notes. The city wants to recover the companies’ profits from the alleged illegal marketing, and is also seeking civil penalties and punitive damages.
Last month, two California counties sued the same five companies, accusing them of causing the country’s prescription drug abuse epidemic.
/By Join Together Staff
June 4th, 2014/
A lawsuit filed by the city of Chicago against five drug companies alleges they contributed to the nation’s prescription drug abuse epidemic through deceptive marketing of their opioid painkillers, Reuters reports.
“For years, big pharma has deceived the public about the true risks and benefits of highly potent and highly addictive painkillers in order to expand their customer base and increase their bottom line,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement.
The lawsuit was filed Tuesday against Purdue Pharma, Cephalon, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Endo Health Solutions and Actavis. The suit alleges the companies aggressively marketed opioid painkillers as rarely addictive, while misrepresenting the drugs’ benefits for treating common pains and concealing the risk of addiction, overdose and death.
Emanuel said the result has been a dramatic increase in opioid addiction and overdose in Chicago and other cities across the country. The city said it is not seeking to ban opioid painkillers, but wants to end the companies’ allegedly deceptive marketing practices so doctors and patients can make informed decisions.
According to the lawsuit, the companies violated Chicago city laws against consumer fraud, misleading advertising and submitting false claims to the city employee health insurance plan, the article notes. The city wants to recover the companies’ profits from the alleged illegal marketing, and is also seeking civil penalties and punitive damages.
Last month, two California counties sued the same five companies, accusing them of causing the country’s prescription drug abuse epidemic.
U.S. House Measure Would End Federal Interference in State Medical Marijuana Laws
/By Join Together Staff
June 4th, 2014/
A measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week would end federal interference in state medical marijuana laws. Under the measure, the federal government could not spend funds to stop states from implementing their own medical marijuana laws, Reuters reports.
The amendment passed as part of a bipartisan funding bill. It now moves to the Senate for consideration, the article notes.
The amendment was offered by Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, who called its passage “a victory for states’ rights, for the doctor-patient relationship, for compassion, for fiscal responsibility.”
In a news release issued last month, Rohrabacher said, “Patients and providers currently run the risk of having a federal SWAT Team-like police force raid their home or their place of business because of consumption of a plant. The militarization of the police force in order to prevent grandma from smoking an herb that will ease her pain during her last days on this earth is the type of thing that ought to make every conservative shudder.”
While medical marijuana is legal in 21 states, the drug is still outlawed by the federal government. The Obama Administration has indicated it is willing to allow looser enforcement, the article notes. It recently provided banks with federal guidelines for conducting banking transactions with legal marijuana sellers, enabling a legalized marijuana industry to operate in states that approve it.
/By Join Together Staff
June 4th, 2014/
A measure passed by the U.S. House of Representatives last week would end federal interference in state medical marijuana laws. Under the measure, the federal government could not spend funds to stop states from implementing their own medical marijuana laws, Reuters reports.
The amendment passed as part of a bipartisan funding bill. It now moves to the Senate for consideration, the article notes.
The amendment was offered by Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, who called its passage “a victory for states’ rights, for the doctor-patient relationship, for compassion, for fiscal responsibility.”
In a news release issued last month, Rohrabacher said, “Patients and providers currently run the risk of having a federal SWAT Team-like police force raid their home or their place of business because of consumption of a plant. The militarization of the police force in order to prevent grandma from smoking an herb that will ease her pain during her last days on this earth is the type of thing that ought to make every conservative shudder.”
While medical marijuana is legal in 21 states, the drug is still outlawed by the federal government. The Obama Administration has indicated it is willing to allow looser enforcement, the article notes. It recently provided banks with federal guidelines for conducting banking transactions with legal marijuana sellers, enabling a legalized marijuana industry to operate in states that approve it.
Wednesday, June 4, 2014
JUNE 4 v 24 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB
Put away from you a deceitful mouth,
And put perverse lips far from you.
STEP 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
The Proverb is asking a lot . It is a scary thing when you get so entrenched with life's issues
that you cannot even tell when your telling the truth or not . Getting sober and staying in your old self is worse than a blind man walking across a highway during rush hour . Sometimes we cant change these behaviors if we refuse to accept constructive criticism . We need to take our mistakes make change , grow , and mature . Step 7 is important because there are some behaviors that are so ingrained we would never be able to get rid of on our own. The best thing we can do in any situation especially when are buttons are being pushed is keep our mouths shut and walk away . Easier said then done but our sanity and sobriety are worth it .
James 3 v 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
Put away from you a deceitful mouth,
And put perverse lips far from you.
STEP 7 - Humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings
The Proverb is asking a lot . It is a scary thing when you get so entrenched with life's issues
that you cannot even tell when your telling the truth or not . Getting sober and staying in your old self is worse than a blind man walking across a highway during rush hour . Sometimes we cant change these behaviors if we refuse to accept constructive criticism . We need to take our mistakes make change , grow , and mature . Step 7 is important because there are some behaviors that are so ingrained we would never be able to get rid of on our own. The best thing we can do in any situation especially when are buttons are being pushed is keep our mouths shut and walk away . Easier said then done but our sanity and sobriety are worth it .
James 3 v 6 The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.
By Joseph Dickerson
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desperate, and suicidal, I still felt blessed for a moment of clarity:
acceptance set in that I was the problem. I was graced with the
willingness to change... The process of working on me had finally
begun." 
requires a bundle of supports and services. 
services at our Recovery Community Centers; and advocacy for removal of barriers to long-term recovery. 
| DONATE |
Donations help us to reduce the impact of addiction for more individuals and families. The Council is a 501(c)(3) organization.
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Suboxone Diversion Concerns Some Experts
/By Join Together Staff
June 3rd, 2014/
Diversion of the opioid addiction treatment Suboxone concerns some experts, who say in some cases it may be a gateway drug to heroin or opioid use, The Christian Science Monitor reports.
Suboxone, which contains the drugs buprenorphine and naloxone, is being sold on the street along with heroin and prescription painkillers, according to the newspaper.
“The benefits of the appropriate medical use of Suboxone probably far outweigh the potential for abuse,” said Eric Wish, Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland. “But those benefits will be jeopardized if we don’t take care of this abuse issue.”
In contrast to methadone, which is only dispensed at clinics, Suboxone can be prescribed by certain physicians for at-home use. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a generic version of Suboxone and a generic version of buprenorphine without naloxone.
Suboxone can be life-saving, by helping to prevent opioid overdoses, some experts note. After Maryland expanded access to buprenorphine, heroin overdose deaths dropped from 312 in 1999, to 118 in 2009.
Physicians who want to prescribe buprenorphine must get a waiver from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, take an eight-hour training course, and prescribe the drug to no more than 100 patients at one time. Patients prescribed the drug must be given regular urine tests, and are supposed to attend counseling. Doctors must keep detailed records showing the patients are taking buprenorphine as directed.
Some patients sell some or all of their buprenorphine on the street. In some cases, they use the proceeds to buy heroin. While some people buy buprenorphine to medicate heroin withdrawal symptoms, others start with buprenorphine and move on to stronger opioids.
Nationwide police seizures of buprenorphine rose from 90 in 2003, to more than 10,500 in 2010. The number of emergency room visits related to the drug rose tenfold over five years, reaching more than 30,000 in 2010. More than half of the incidents involved nonmedical use of buprenorphine.
/By Join Together Staff
June 3rd, 2014/
Diversion of the opioid addiction treatment Suboxone concerns some experts, who say in some cases it may be a gateway drug to heroin or opioid use, The Christian Science Monitor reports.
Suboxone, which contains the drugs buprenorphine and naloxone, is being sold on the street along with heroin and prescription painkillers, according to the newspaper.
“The benefits of the appropriate medical use of Suboxone probably far outweigh the potential for abuse,” said Eric Wish, Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Research at the University of Maryland. “But those benefits will be jeopardized if we don’t take care of this abuse issue.”
In contrast to methadone, which is only dispensed at clinics, Suboxone can be prescribed by certain physicians for at-home use. The Food and Drug Administration has approved a generic version of Suboxone and a generic version of buprenorphine without naloxone.
Suboxone can be life-saving, by helping to prevent opioid overdoses, some experts note. After Maryland expanded access to buprenorphine, heroin overdose deaths dropped from 312 in 1999, to 118 in 2009.
Physicians who want to prescribe buprenorphine must get a waiver from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, take an eight-hour training course, and prescribe the drug to no more than 100 patients at one time. Patients prescribed the drug must be given regular urine tests, and are supposed to attend counseling. Doctors must keep detailed records showing the patients are taking buprenorphine as directed.
Some patients sell some or all of their buprenorphine on the street. In some cases, they use the proceeds to buy heroin. While some people buy buprenorphine to medicate heroin withdrawal symptoms, others start with buprenorphine and move on to stronger opioids.
Nationwide police seizures of buprenorphine rose from 90 in 2003, to more than 10,500 in 2010. The number of emergency room visits related to the drug rose tenfold over five years, reaching more than 30,000 in 2010. More than half of the incidents involved nonmedical use of buprenorphine.
Tuesday, June 3, 2014
JUNE 3 v 1 v 2 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB
My son, do not forget my law,
But let your heart keep my commands;
For length of days and long life
And peace they will add to you.
STEP 11 Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
Get sober , follow God and find peace ! That is not a bad deal ! I lived for myself in addiction ,had nothing but shame sorrow pain guilt anger fear and the list goes on .This is your choice insanity or sanity ! Follow God read His book (Bible ) and work the steps.
Psalm 118:5
In my anguish I cried to the LORD, and he answered by setting me free
By Joseph Dickerson
AA Critic Lights Another Fire
Dr. Lance Dodes co-authored the latest book arguing why AA is not effective treatment for alcoholics. Lots of people are angry.
haters hate Dodes
By John Lavitt
05/30/14
By co-writing The Sober Truth with his son Zachary, Dr. Lance Dodes has ignited a familiar brushfire in the recovery community. His anti-AA book is making more of an impressionthan the usual attacks. His book takes a slash and burn approach to dealing with 12-step programs. Dodes talked to The Fixabout how he came to his convictions and the options that he thinks exist for treating alcoholism.
Anti-AA sentiment regularly comes up in the news. Why do you think this is the case? And how is your work different?
When we talk about why AA has been so fabulously successful in being accepted by the general public, it’s the same answer as to why all of the other books seem to fade away. The people who are pro-AA and getting something out of it - the people who are devoted to it in a quasi-religious sort of way - have a huge influence. Many of them are successful in other ways and they have risen to positions of prominence. This has always been the case as we reviewed in the book. From the incredibly positive and completely inaccurate review of AA written by Jack Alexander in the 1940s [the article was originally published in the Saturday Evening Post] that helped to promote the idea that AA was the best treatment for alcoholism
On the other hand, it’s also true that there’s a kind of silent majority, although I hate to use that phrase. Most people with addictions do not belong to 12-step programs, and many of those people have tried them and failed. But those people don’t talk about it and this is what we call the sampling bias in the book. We hear from the people who do well and we don’t hear from the people who don’t do well. If you go to the recovery section of a bookstore, you’ll see book after book about how AA saved my life, but you won’t see any books about how AA didn’t save my life. People don’t write those books and no one reads them.
The basic answer is that AA is sort of self-sustaining. It’s now added a bunch of people who should know better because they are scientists and researchers and now they have done studies to try to prove AA’s effectiveness. That’s why we wrote the book; to see if those studies are valid and it turns out that they’re not. They are riddled with errors and the science that supposedly is supporting AA is no good. The bottom line is that AA does have a five to ten percent success rate and that’s fine. We need AA and it should be there for those five to ten percent. The problem is that because of the power structure, we prescribe AA for everybody and that’s just a mistake.
The answer to your second question if my book will make a difference is I don’t know.
Do you see a distinction between theory and practice when it comes to the 12-step programs in general and AA in particular? Is the theory behind the 12 steps as expressed in the Big Book the same as the practice of the program in the rooms? Shouldn’t the two things be distinguished?
Okay, that’s a good question, and we tried to address that in the book as well. Since AA is intentionally unregulated, anyone can start an AA group. AA groups are very different from each other. Any one AA group may be composed of thoughtful, mature people who are simply there to help each other stay sober. You go to other groups and they have a power structure within them in which there are fundamentalist people who will berate you if you are not doing well and who insist you buy into the religious aspect of AA - which is very powerful in many groups that are much less thoughtful and much less flexible. If you look at the practice of it, it’s all over the map and that is actually one of our main issues with AA. Namely, there are groups which are much better than others. As a result, the overall practice of AA is not so great because there are places where people have had a terrible experience and we know this from first-hand testimony.
As far as the theory goes, I don’t think the theory has any merit whatsoever actually. If you look at the 12 steps themselves, if that’s the theory behind it, it’s based on an idea that this deeply religious stockbroker Bill Wilson came up with based on the Oxford Group which was, of course, a very fundamentalist Christian organization [The Oxford Group was a Christian organization founded by American Christian missionary Dr. Frank Buchman in 1928]. There is no reason to think that a spiritual approach to addiction makes any sense at all. Nothing against spirituality, but it is the same as saying you should use a spiritual approach if you have a compulsion to keep the things on your desk parallel to each other or a compulsion to clean the house.
There is just no role for it. Bill Wilson just dreamed it up and even though a lot of people can find some use of it, it is still one of the main things that limits AA from being truly useful. We put a suggestion to AA in the book that to make it more popular, they should take out some of this religious stuffbecause it has no bearing on the problem. Bill Wilson originally said that addiction is a failure by a person to be closer to God and he later changed this for marketing reasons into a failure to be closer to a higher power. If the idea is that we are sinners and we need to be closer to God to be free of our addictions, I think that’s utter nonsense.
Can you clarify your position on the genetic background of alcoholism? Although your book refutes the disease model of alcoholism, you seem to agree with the idea of a genetic predisposition. For example, you mention how alcoholism plagued the family line of Bill Wilson. Is there a genetic predisposition towards alcoholism, and what does such a genetic predisposition imply?
I have no personal opinion about it at all, and I tried to avoid putting any opinions whatsoever in the book. There is, however, a lot of scientific literature about it and the literature suggests that there is some evidence for some genetic loading or some genetic influence in some people with alcoholism. But those studies also are quite inconsistent.
The one study we cited specifically in the book was the twin study. If you take two people who have exactly the same genes and one of them has alcoholism, the statistical likelihood is that the other doesn’t. It would be hard to say it’s a genetic illness if that’s the case. Of course, you can have some genetic influence on almost anything. And that is true. The analogy I’ve seen from geneticists - I didn’t make this up - is that the inheritance for alcoholism is probably similar to peptic ulcer disease or essential hypertension which is ordinary high blood pressure.
So could there be a genetic factor? There could, but you have to understand one more thing. When people study this, their studies are flawed by the fact that they are looking at a behavior, namely drinking. But if you look at a behavior, you are not looking at the right thing because genes don’t control complex behavior. They may control something else, but if you look only at this specific behavior, you are leaving out people who are compulsive in other ways. What happens if you add those people in? What happens if you have people who instead of compulsively drinking are compulsively cleaning their house. Same problem, but they don’t get included in the data.
I would say that I don’t deny there is a genetic influence because there is for almost anything. But I don’t think the studies are good because they [don't include] everybody who has this kind of trait - if you want to call it that, but I would rather call it a symptom. I don’t think the statistics are very good for that and you can’t rely on them. Now if you said to me, “If there were a genetic factor, how would I explain it?” I can’t explain it because obviously no gene ever told anyone to walk into a bar. It would be very complicated and nobody actually has a valid explanation for it even though they like to tap these faulty statistics.
In your book you conclude that addiction is a psychological challenge, not a disease, and that the challenge of addiction can be overcome through a therapeutic process that engenders self-knowledge. It is well-known that such therapeutic strategies of treating addiction have not worked in the past. Why would the results be different this time around?
Okay, that is the one place in the book where you could say that you might criticize the wording of it. What I should have said is that everything I say about that works for some people. It was unintentional to suggest that that is the way to treat everybody. However, I will stand my ground about the idea behind it: To call addiction or alcoholism a disease, doesn’t help understand it, and I have always felt it interferes with understanding it. When you add the label in there, it tells you nothing and kind of confuses matters. Second of all, I don’t think it’s accurate because we know that people can switch from addictively or compulsively using alcohol to addictively or compulsively gambling or addictively or compulsively having sex or shopping. We know that because that really happens in the real world.
So what’s the disease? If the disease is that you have compulsions that shift from one thing to another, I don’t need to call that a disease because I already know what that is. It’s called a compulsion and it’s been well-studied for over a hundred years. It does have a psychological basis. Your point that it’s been studied and it doesn’t work well is true. But I’m not sure it has been well-studied. People have been studying and using cognitive behavioral therapy, but the kind of treatment I’m talking about hasn’t existed. It really hasn’t been studied and I wish somebody would study it.
When I wrote my first book, The Heart of Addiction, I described a way of thinking about addiction and, in my second book, Breaking Addiction, I described a way of treating it that nobody was doing. I do believe it’s accurate to say that that approach has not been studied. I think what has been studied is old-fashioned treatment which I agree with you is not effective. I don’t think you can walk up to somebody and say to them, “Okay, let’s start talking about your mother” and hope to treat the addiction. That’s not good treatment for addiction. You may get to your mother eventually, but that’s not going to deal with the issue. What I came up with was a way of dealing with the issue and dealing with the underlying factors behind it. No one has tested that.
I want to say one more thing to further muddy the waters. The harm reduction movement is quite important because to consider that you are not doing better if your addiction is improving is wrong, and that’s part of my criticism of AA. If you relapse, you go down to zero in terms of the number of days sober and you have to start all over and that just makes no sense - to criticize people for not being absolutely abstinent. When you do a kind of introspective therapy which is designed to root out the cause of it, naturally there are going to be up and downs in the behavior and the behavior may last for a while. If you’re only looking at complete abstinence, then you’re going to say that it’s an ineffective treatment. Like with all psychodynamic therapy, the longer you follow it, the more effective it is because instead of looking at the superficial system, you are looking at the changes in the human being.
To recap, I think that the way it was worded in the book overstated the case. Of course, this isn’t the treatment for everybody and it isn’t the treatment for the 10 percent who are doing well in AA. I stand behind the idea because I think it is an effective psychotherapeutic approach.
You refer to Carl Jung as “the eminent psychoanalyst” in the book so you clearly must respect him. Why do you disagree with Carl Jung’s belief that a spiritual solution is necessary for an alcoholic or an addict?
I don’t have any particular respect for Carl Jung, and I believe your reading of that is not what we intended. He was an eminent psychoanalyst at the time - eminent meaning well-known - not because he was such a great analyst because he was not. His backing of AA is one more example of why I don’t respect him or his work. He recommended religion as a way to be cured of alcoholism, and it’s a position I do not respect and it’s one of the reasons he’s not well-respected today in my field.
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