New Screening Test Predicts Odds of Addiction Treatment Success

by John LeeGoogle+ Twitter Facebook

A team of American and Irish researchers have developed an assessment test which seems to reveal which people are most likely to benefit from addiction treatment.

The computer module test, named the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), requires participants to give very fast and accurate answers to a series of questions regarding attitudes to drug use. Both the answers given and the reaction and answer time for each question are recorded and analyzed in the scoring of the test.

Explaining the test procedure, the researchers say that in traditional questionnaires where participants have a moderate amount of time to formulate answers responses are more likely to be consciously or unconsciously deceptive. When participants must answer very rapidly they are less able to mask the truth and their answers may also reveal unconscious or deeper truths.

The Study

In an experiment, the researchers compared the effectiveness of the IRAP against standard admission treatment questionnaires.  The IRAP test seeks to measure a person’s true feelings about drug use – such as beliefs about positive and negative consequences of drug use.

Twenty five New Yorkers seeking 6 months of outpatient cocaine treatment were asked to complete the IRAP and a standard admission treatment questionnaire prior to treatment onset.

The Results

Standard questionnaires did not reveal which participants would stay in treatment and have success as measured by negative urine tests for cocaine.

On the IRAP test, however, study participants who scored highly on positive feelings for cocaine use were most likely to exit treatment early and most likely to test positive for cocaine use in urine tests.

Commentary

The researchers say that the test may be useful in identifying which people need the most support in the treatment process, such as those at greatest risk of treatment exit and relapse

Study author Professor Dermot Barnes-Holmes commented on the significance of the findings, saying, "Participants' beliefs about their substance abuse and the negative or positive consequences that follow, appear to have an impact on the success of their treatment - and these beliefs aren't currently being identified through standard drug abuse treatment.”

The full study results can be read in the current edition of The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.

Read more: New Screening Test Predicts Odds of Addiction Treatment Success 

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY

My wife and I just spoke with a dear friend of ours.  He mentioned the words...."Its my own dumb fault".  Lets not start the day with that thinking.  Though we have made mistakes that doesn't make us dumb.  It makes us human.  Poor choices do not determine who we are.  They shape us and make us stronger as long as we try not to repeat them.  Take these mistakes and look at them from that perspective.  That this is a learning and growing experience and I know I am not going to do that again! and move on.  My favorite book states that through trials and sufferings we learn to have faith, and through faith comes hope and after hope perseverance.  Let these trials finish their good work so that we become mature and complete.

"Blood on the Walls" Biker Bar Transformed Into House of Recovery

Once the roughest joint in town, the Eastwood Tavern has been renamed the Eastwood House of Recovery - Now healing instead of hurting.

by John LeeGoogle+ Twitter Facebook

Once a Biker bar known for violence and with literal blood on the walls, the Eastwood Tavern in Comstock County Michigan has been rechristened the Eastwood House of Recovery, and now tends to the very people who used to drink heavily within its walls.

Mike Green, a retired truck driver and ex addict opened the reincarnated Eastwood facility last year. Now serving hope instead of whiskey, the community center is open 12 hours a day to those in the community looking for sober support and recovery fellowship. Home to six 12 steps meetings a day, pot luck dinners and weekly euchre tournaments, the facility has met a real need, and the response has surprised even the optimistic Mike Green. About 100 people walk through the doors on an average day.

Steve Somers, 24, says he comes to the Eastwood House of Recovery just to chat sometimes, and describes it as "a place to come where I know alcohol won't be an issue - there are some days when I'm here 12 hours a day."

The building is owned by the non-profit Geek Group, and Mike Green pays the organization half of what he collects through "pass the hat" donations as rent each month.

Green, who spent 19 years abusing heroin and alcohol now suffers from stage 2 Hep C, and doctors say he won't make 60, but he explains "if it weren't for people in the recovery community helping me out when I needed it most, I wouldn't be alive today. This is my way of giving back to people in recovery who need somewhere to go."

Jim Wickline, 82, an appreciate patron of the new facility sums up the transformation as "A place of destruction has been turned into a house of construction."

Read more: "Blood on the Walls" Biker Bar Transformed Into House of Recovery 

Former Meth Users Can Regain Impulse Control; After About a Year of Abstinence

Researchers at UC Davis have shown that although meth users in recovery have a very difficult time with impulse control, that after 1 year of abstinence, the brain regains much cognitive control.

by John LeeGoogle+ Twitter Facebook

Some good news for those in recovery from meth amphetamine addiction…it does get easier, in time.

Ruth Salo, out of UC Davis, has spent a career studying the behavioral neuropsychiatric and cognitive consequences of meth addiction. She says that while researchers used to believe that meth addiction caused global irreversible brain damage, her latest research reveals that in time, recovering meth addicts can expect to see some improvements – after about 1 year of sobriety.

Salo led a research team at UC Davis that tested the cognitive control capabilities of 65 former meth addicts. All study subjects had been abstinent for at least 3 weeks; some had been abstinent for years. The pre abstinence duration of amphetamine use ranged from 24 months to 28 years.

Salo had users complete a computer mediated Stroop Attention Test, a very well proven test that has subjects focus on a task while trying to ignoring distractions, which measures cognitive control abilities.

She found that those very newly in recovery (6 months clean or less) fared significantly worse on the test than subjects who had been abstinent for a year or longer. In fact, subjects clean for a year or longer performed the Stroop Test as well as a control group of non-drug using subjects.

Saol also found that subjects with longer histories of meth use did more poorly and longer histories of abstinence are associated with increasing test scores.

What Is Cognitive Control?

Cognitive control enables longer term planning and effective decision making.

Sola explains the importance of cognitive control by saying, "The test taps into something people do in everyday life: make choices in the face of conflicting impulses…For meth users, impairments in this decision-making ability might make them more likely to spend a paycheck on the immediate satisfaction of getting high rather than on the longer-term satisfaction gained by paying rent or buying groceries."

She says that the study offers a lot of hope to those in recovery wondering 'if they are ever going to feel better' and that it also offers insight into why the first year of methamphetamine recovery can be so challenging. She hopes that treatment providers will take this information into account when designing programs for the early days of meth recovery.

The results of this cognitive decision making study reinforce study data from one of Salo's earlier experiments, which used MRI imaging to reveal a recovery in some brain chemical functioning after about 1 year of meth abstinence.

Salo calls meth use a "pandemic" affecting 35 million worldwide and states that although recovery is difficult, it is possible.

Read more: Former Meth Users Can Regain Impulse Control; After About a Year of Abstinence 

Get Involved Please!

I heard a long time ago that its not what you know but who you know. The more people we can connect with in our quest for sobriety the more success we will have. The more options we have the easier the transition into sobriety can and will be. So I urge all of you that are reading this post , especially those who have found success and remain sober. Its our obligation as people who are in recovery to give back and this is your opportunity to give back. Share your resources and post them on the Recovery Connection page , If I cant help than maybe you can, hence the name recovery connections. So lets get connected, stay connected and help those who we once were! Thank you, Joseph

St. Joseph Institute | 134 Jacobs Way | Port Matilda, Pennsylvania 16870

The Best in Drug and Alcohol Treatment

St. Joseph Institute offers a superior path to recovery for adults struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. We use proven methods of addiction treatment and state-of-the-art techniques combined in a faith-based approach that heals the whole person - body, mind, emotions and spirit. Most importantly, our program is very personalized.  All of our counseling and therapy is one-on-one, enabling participants to focus on the individual issues and needs that underly their addiction.

Located on a beautiful mountain-side campus in central Pennsylvania, our environment facilitates healing.  Elegant log and stone lodges, miles of walking trails, a spa and wellness center, gym, library, chapel and very private grounds all contribute to a successful recovery experience.

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