Cirque Lodge

About
Cirque Lodge is a nationally recognized addiction treatment and drug rehab facility in Sundance Utah.

It offers the finest in a private and exclusive treatment experience for those struggling with addiction.
Company OverviewCirque Lodge is a private and exclusive alcohol treatment and drug rehab facility in Sundance Utah. For individuals and families seeking answers for problems with alcoholism, drug addiction or prescription drug abuse, Cirque Lodge provides a balanced and unique recovery experience.
DescriptionWe are dedicated to the effective treatment of individuals and families afflicted with the disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions in a healing environment where spirituality, recovery and hope are offered in the privacy and serenity of the mountains.


General InformationFor individuals in need of care of recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction, we encourage you to call us at 1-877-99-REHAB.







Website http://www.cirquelodge.com/

Charging into Recovery – Is Cash Really a Gateway Drug?

By TRI David Festinger, PhD; Karen Dugosh, PhD; Ashley Harron | October 26, 2012 | 7 Comments | Filed in Addiction, Recovery & Treatment


A recent article published in numerous outlets announced the debut of a special credit card for recovering substance abusers.

The card, referred to as Next Step, purports to help addicts stay clean and sober by shielding them from the powerful cravings elicited by cash. The pre-paid credit card prevents the user from making purchases at liquor stores, bars, escort services, casinos, tattoo parlors, and piercing shops. It also restricts the user from making ATM cash withdrawals or receiving cash back when making purchases. The article extols the virtues of the card and refers to cash as a “gateway drug” and a trigger for substance use.

Although the field of addiction treatment is always in need of new ideas and helpful tools, it is critical that the ideas/tools be based upon sound research. The idea that “cash in hand” is a trigger for drug use has long been an area of critical debate. Common sense suggests that cash, which is used to purchase drugs, “must” be a precursor and trigger to substance use and relapse.

However, research has found limited support for this common belief. Although some research has linked the occasional receipt of large sums of money to relapse, most studies indicate that individuals who receive money while in addiction treatment use the cash for daily necessities such as bills, food, transportation and household items. Our own program of experimental research (Festinger et al., 2005; Festinger et al., 2008) as well as research conducted by Dempsey et al. (2008) and Vandrey et al. (2007) found no connection between cash payments as high as $160 and new drug use. In fact, this was true even for individuals who were no longer enrolled in treatment.

Addiction treatment, and relapse prevention more specifically, typically focus on avoiding triggers such as old neighborhoods, substance abusing friends and items associated with prior substance use. The use of cash in our society would make long-term avoidance of it highly unlikely. Even assuming that cash on hand is a threat, the use of these specialty credit cards in the short term means that recovering individuals would not be exposed to cash until they are potentially out of treatment and have less structure and support. Either way, use of these new “drug-free” cards has very real and substantial costs. Their fees, admittedly among the highest in the market, stand to cause more harm than good as they further an unfounded assumption based upon the overly paternalistic view that people who suffer from addiction cannot be trusted with money. Equally interesting are the behaviors that the card company chose to restrict. Tattoo parlors and piercing shops must also have a well-documented link to relapse. Surprisingly there was no mention of limiting card purchases on rock or rap music.

Policies and programs like this one are based upon isolated events, individual observations and broad generalizations rather than empirical data. There is no doubt that individuals who abuse drugs most often use cash to purchase drugs. But they also use their feet, bikes, cars and other forms of transportation to meet their dealers. Should we enforce transportation limits on them as well? Are cars a gateway drug? Research to date indicates that cash is not, despite case examples and anecdotal reports, a major trigger to relapse.

Learning how to live with and use cash responsibly should occur as part of treatment and not come at an additional cost to those already struggling to rebuild their lives.

The writers are members of the Section on Law & Ethics Research at the Treatment Research Institute (TRI). TRI is a non-profit research and development organization dedicated to developing and providing evidence-based solutions to the problems of substance use affecting families, schools, businesses, courts and healthcare. To learn more, visit the TRI website.

Florida Sees Drop in Deaths Caused by Prescription Drugs

By Join Together Staff | October 26, 2012 | Leave a comment | Filed inCommunity Related & Prescription Drugs

The number of prescription drug-related deaths decreased in Florida in 2011, according to a new report. Deaths related to oxycodone decreased more than 17 percent, according to The Miami Herald.

The number of deaths due to cocaine, heroin and the cancer pain medication Fentanyl increased last year, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement announced this week. The department released a report based on data from every medical examiner in the state.

Alcohol continued to be the most common substance found in drug-related deaths, the report found.

The decrease in prescription drug-related deaths comes as the state has worked to close down “pill mills,” pain clinics that sell pain medications to people shopping for narcotics.

Between 2010 and 2011, the number of people who died with a fatal amount of prescription drugs in their system decreased 6.37 percent. The number of people with prescription drugs in their system, which may or may not have led to their death, dropped 2.8 percent.

According to a Department of Law Enforcement news release, the drugs that caused the most deaths in Florida last year were benzodiazepines, oxycodone, methadone, cocaine, ethyl alcohol, morphine, hydrocodone and diazepam.

Web-Based Recovery Study Runs Through October 31

By Join Together Staff | October 25, 2012 | Leave a comment | Filed inRecovery

A web-based survey for people in recovery from an alcohol or drug problem will be available until October 31. The “What is Recovery” study is funded by the National Institutes of Health. The researchers hope the study will help dispel the stigma that those in recovery face.

The goal of the “What is Recovery” study is to develop a definition of recovery that reflects the wide range of people who say they are in recovery, or recovered, or used to have a problem but do not now, or are in medication-assisted recovery. More than 8,700 people have completed the survey so far.

The first part of the study included 238 people who completed online surveys, and 54 who completed in-depth telephone interviews. The second phase of the study contains 47 possible definitions of recovery, which were developed based on the study’s first phase. The researchers hope to reach more than 10,000 people with Phase 2 of the study, to obtain as many perspectives on their definitions of recovery as possible.

The researchers hope to answer questions such as whether recovery requires abstinence, whether someone can be “in recovery” if they are still drinking or using, and if recovery is more than just being clean and sober.

People participating in the study, conducted by the Alcohol Research Group, do not have to provide any personal identifying information. The researchers will not be able to identify participants. Answers to the web survey are confidential. To participate, you must be at least 18, and consider yourself as being in recovery from an alcohol or drug problem. Visit the “What is Recovery” website to take the online survey.

Doctor Visits for Drug or Alcohol Use Increased 70% Between 2001 and 2009

By Join Together Staff | October 23, 2012 | 1 Comment | Filed in Alcohol,Drugs, Healthcare, Prescription Drugs, Research & Treatment


The number of doctor visits for substance use disorders increased 70 percent among American adults between 2001 and 2009, according to a new study. The increase appears to be driven in large part by prescription drug abuse, the researchers said.

The availability of effective treatment also contributed to the increase, lead researcher Dr. Joseph W. Frank of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston told Reuters. Frank estimated that 22.5 million Americans are dependent on alcohol or drugs.

The researchers analyzed data from two national surveys of physician visits, and found the number of visits involving drug or alcohol abuse or addiction rose from 10.6 million between 2001 and 2003, to 18 million between 2007 and 2009. The number of visits involving a diagnosis of opioid abuse rose almost sixfold, from 772,000 to 4.4 million.

“This finding is consistent with trends in substance use disorder-related utilization at the nation’s community health centers and emergency departments and, sadly, use of its morgues,” the researchers wrote in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study found the number of people prescribed medications to treat substance use disorders during doctors’ visits rose from 643,000 to 3.9 million during the study period. Buprenorphine and methadone were the most commonly prescribed medications. Talk therapy was used in about 25 million patients during the same period.

Hustlers Anonymous

Money, women, guns—these are what make a street drug dealer's life so addictive. But a ghetto version of a 12-step group is offering these young men a future other than death or prison.

By Jeff Deeney  The Fix

10/14/12

“Hustlers Anonymous is a fellowship of members whose lives have become unmanageable due to the choices they have made. The only requirement for membership is the desire for a better life and a willingness to take certain suggestions. Many of us have experienced negative consequences as a result of our hustler lifestyle: incarceration, broken families, police harassment, and near death experiences. Due to the lure of the streets we have time and again chosen the seemingly easy way out over our mothers, children and our own personal freedom. If you are tired of handing over control of your life to the system, missing your children grow up, or just ready to get out of the game, then you are ready to take certain steps. Some of these may seem hard but if you are ready to gain true respect for yourself, from your family and from your community, then you are well on your way.”

So goes the Hustlers Anonymous preamble—read, in traditional 12-step style, at the start of every meeting. Printed on unadorned white paper, blotted with fingerprints photocopied into the page, it looks a mess because it’s been passed around, copied and recopied so many times. In fact, since the group’s start early this year, copies of the original have circulated to most of the drug treatment sites in Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods. Following the preamble are 10 steps:

“1. We admitted that our values have become distorted and that the streets is a game you cannot win.

2. We came to believe that the power to change is within us.

3. Made a decision to embrace the concept of faith.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

5. We were entirely ready to give up our old behaviors and attitudes.

6. We admitted to ourselves the harm we caused others.

7. Made a decision to be part of the solution and not part of the problem.

8. Made a commitment to be honest in all our affairs, except when to do so would cause injury to others.

9. Continued to work the concept of faith in our daily lives.

10. Having gotten out of the game and experienced a productive life we pass on what we have learned.”

The origins of Hustlers Anonymous are murky, but its use spread quickly across Philadelphia this year because it helps solve an increasingly common problem facing urban drug-treatment sites: What to do with drug dealers stipulated into the substance-abuse treatment system by the courts? As probation offices and diversion programs use the drug treatment system more heavily as a way to keep nonviolent offenders with drug arrests out of prison, counselors find themselves saddled with a growing number of clients who refuse to identify as addicts and insist on qualifying themselves as hustlers.

The reach of courts into the clinical realm of drug treatment is a long, hotly debated trend with armies of friends and foes. President Barack Obama strongly backs these initiatives, claiming that they improve public health while monitoring public safety. The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy’s Criminal Justice site details the broad array of pretrial and post-conviction drug treatment–related interventions it supports. On the opposing side, there’s a chorus of voices arguing, for example, that there’s little evidence for the efficacy of such interventions and that courts shouldn’t intervene in issues of public health. Some critics say that such tinkering with the justice system is another way to not admit defeat in the War on Drugs.

Regardless of its benefits or harms, the justice system’s change in focus from incarceration to treatment has inarguably—and drastically—altered the landscape of substance abuse treatment, as users who don’t fit a typical addict profile wind up in outpatient groups. In urban settings like Philadelphia, this new type of treatment consumer is a self-described “hustler.” He’s young and typically black or Latino, was caught selling drugs like heroin and crack, and reports using heavy daily amounts of marijuana and frequently other popular hustler drugs like Xanax (an anti-anxiety prescription drug), wet (the anesthetic PCP) or codeine cough syrup.

Hustling is his best opportunity to make a decent living, the sole job available that he finds appealing, and an essential part of his personal identity.

According to treatment sites, hustlers meet the clinical definition of a substance abuser necessary to fit the criteria for placement in an outpatient group—low level, inexpensive care. And some hustlers do self-report consuming mind-boggling amounts of less harmful drugs like marijuana while working the corner: 20 or 30 blunts a day is not uncommon. But hustlers unequivocally do not see themselves as drug addicts; in fact, they find the “drug addict” description insulting. On the streets there is a social hierarchy, and those who run the corners are locally viewed as on top, those coming to the corner to cop drugs as on bottom. Hustlers resent even being near someone they used to serve.

This new mix of weed-smoking, pill-popping, crack-selling hustlers sent to groups mingling with hardcore addicts who came voluntarily off the streets has created other complications which in retrospect seem obvious and unavoidable.

“I ain’t real proud of this,” admits Fredo, a 24-year-old Latino from the Badlands barrio in North Philly who has since left the game. “I stood right outside the [drug treatment] place and served everyone in my group. I knew that wasn’t right—honestly, I regret that. Those people were trying to get help. But what was I supposed to do to eat?”

Fredo says that he was placed in drug treatment by the courts because he tested positive for Percocet and Xanax after being arrested for selling heroin. Taking pills was moderately problematic for him, he says, and impacted his hustling judgment in a way that led to his getting arrested (“I got sloppy”). But he doesn’t identify as an addict and had no difficulty abstaining from drugs in order to complete probation. But abstaining from selling drugs was another matter.

“My probation officer had me on house arrest so I was off the corner, out of the game,” Fredo says. “I was looking for work but I couldn’t find anything. How was I supposed to support my kids? So I worked where I could to make a little bread, which was on break outside [the treatment facility] during group.”

Treatment sites of course know about their potentially toxic new mix of sellers and users, and some have tried to use it as an opportunity to innovate. They are most often creating separate tracts of curriculum for court-stipulated participants, where the focus is less about drug addiction and more about the hustling lifestyle. While no hustler will admit to being a drug addict, nearly all will admit to being “addicted” to the lifestyle. Once the program is overhauled to become truly relevant to them, hustlers suddenly become very active in the treatment process.