The Introvert’s Guide to Non-Compulsive Drinking

If you like drinking a little too much, and don't like talking about your feelings in a self-help group, this is the guide for you.

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By Aaron Kuchta

05/09/14

Alcohol abuse is a serious subject, but a group setting is not the only way to address the issue. For some people, introverts and the socially awkward, talking about your feelings in a group is a waking nightmare. I’m not a people person. Large crowds stress me out. If I have a problem, and boy do I have problems, I'm going to try to fix it myself before I seek outside help. I was imbibing too much happy juice and it was getting in the way of my life goals. My drinking was like a leaky faucet, so I got out my toolkit, pulled my pants down to reveal just the right amount of plumber’s butt, and fixed that faucet.

Humans are habitual creatures, and habits keep us repeating the same patterns, even destructive ones. So, change the habit, conquer the problem. But I love my bad habit. I love drinking so much I can’t help sucking down drinks like they're water. There’s a line in The Empire Strikes Back where Yoda scolds Luke with “Control, control! You must learn control!” Control is a much better solution than abstinence when it's handled properly. I thought I was controlling my drinking by doing it at home. No need to worry about getting home safely or losing a wallet or phone. I was oh so wrong, but I can still have it all! It’s better to try to fix what’s broke before throwing it away, and the first step to fixing something is to figure out where the problem originated. 

STEP 1: REFLECTION. My underage drinking days were limited because someone couldn’t handle his alcohol. It tasted terrible. I gulped it down as fast as I could and tried not to puke, but everything led to puking. Dealing with the spins and upset stomach was too much and made for short nights. Peer pressure was never a huge factor because when I was done drinking, I disappeared. The old Irish goodbye. But puking, spinning, poor sleep, and zero energy the next day were major turn offs. That is, until I was introduced to the wonder of rum and coke.

After turning 21, rum became my one and only. I drank more because I loved what I drank and I set myself to conquering the cruel warriors of sickness. I went, as they say, balls to the wall. I stopped waiting for other people to be in the mood to drink and drank whenever I felt like it. My drinks were mixed strong and gone in a flash, but I was rarely without one. Binge eating relieved the upset stomach and spinning, and coffee and more booze were my uppers.

My friends defined me by my drinking, and I loved them for it. Being called an alcoholic was a high compliment. When I moved to the big city and my friends moved away, though, my drinking went from being a coping mechanism to the coping mechanism. My routine revolved around drinking and being alone. Everything else had to work around those two things. I couldn’t buy booze before I intended to drink it, and it never lasted more than a few days, no matter how much I bought. If, however, I was going to hang out with people, I expected to have drinks.

Drinking is fun, it releases the need to hold on to stress and it helps suppress feelings. Because ew, feelings. I got lost in the stereotype that all writers are heavy drinkers and I created a blog to show my support for the idea, but drinking and writing were not ideal combinations for me. It was one or the other and I was putting my dreams on hold to skip through a boozy meadow. The last straw came when I typed one word in my book and dropped everything to almost literally run to the liquor store. Even then I joked with my friend, but I knew I was flirting with danger like R2-D2 in the swamp waters of Dagobah.

STEP 2: REPLACE THE HABIT. The nagging voice in your head will tell you to drink, but you have to be strong and stubborn. Throw some choice expletives at that voice. I stopped cold turkey. Changed the routine. I was broke, so going out didn’t feel like an option. I had to substitute drinking with other things I loved to do, immersing myself in reading and writing, and even brushing up on my Spanish. Rough days at work, crying children, and loud neighbors were tough to deal with sober, but Friday night was the hardest. Game night with no booze was a major bummer. I had to settle for chugging water. Stubbornness paid off, though, and by the second week I not only had no desire to drink, but I wasn’t playing any video games, I wasn’t watching as much Netflix, and I was drinking a lot of water. Total lifestyle change. But I love drinking.

STEP 3: CONTROLLED REINTRODUCTION. The biggest key here is accountability. Start a rewards based system. If you don’t earn it, you don’t get it. When I got enough work done during the week, I was allowed a case of beer, but two weeks off had changed my taste buds as well as my tolerance. I tried to convince myself that the first taste was amazingly delicious, but honestly, it was kind of gross and I drank half as much as normal before switching to binge eating. The next day, I had no motivation or desire to do anything beyond watching Netflix. Epic fail. My other passions and dreams were put on hold yet again and it made mad, but sometimes failure is the best motivator. The rest of the case of beer sat in the fridge for a week and I was happy not to touch it. I was so determined to avoid another failure that when I finally did crack open the beer, I only allowed myself one or two, then switched to water. In a very short period of time, one drink every now and then became plenty.

STEP 4: CONSTANT VIGILANCE. A few months later, I find myself going a week or two without drinking. I still love it, but I can talk myself out of drinking most of the time by reminding myself that it’s not a priority. And I really hate the spins. Through stubbornness, not courage, I showed myself that I could be alone and have a good time without needing a boozy aid. Water is pretty good. I may have had to do some soul searching and deal with complex emotions I’d been burying for years and will be dealing with for years to come, but I convinced my mind and body that alcohol is a treat, not sustenance.

When it comes to handling vices, be it alcohol abuse or abuse by chocolate cake, you have to know what’s right for you. There’s a lot of introspection that goes on to find the cause of the problem and altering your behavior might not be something you can do alone. If you’re suffering from an out of control drinking problem, keep an open mind and focus on one thing at a time. You might not be able to make the root cause of the problem go away, but you can lasso the heck out of the drinking problem and bring it back into the herd. Learning control can be as daunting a task as Luke trying to get his X-wing out of the swamp, but with an open mind, a strong sense of accountability, and a great deal of stubbornness, any solitary minded individual can be like Yoda and accomplish the impossible.

Aaron Kuchta is a writer in New York City. He has a blog.

Sex and Drugs and Tennessee

There's a connection between America's biggest musical state and the drug epidemic there; our Tennessee correspondent investigates.

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By A.J. Dugger III

05/07/14

Nashville, Tennessee is the home of the Country Music Hall of Fame. It is also the place where Todd Harrell, bassist of the rock group Three Doors Down, wasarrested after a fatal car accident last year. At the time, he was allegedly under the influence of Lortab, Xanax and hard cider. According to reports, Harrell displayed signs of impairment during the field sobriety test. He checked into rehab shortly after the accident. The other driver in the accident, Paul Shoulers Jr, was pronounced dead not long after being transported to the hospital. Harrell was again taken into custody in February when police found him passed out in his vehicle at an intersection in Mississippi.

Memphis rappers are known for dabbling in drugs, particularly marijuana and Sizzurp—a mix of Promethazine with codeine (from cough syrup), the soft drink Sprite, and sometimes Jolly Rancher Candy as a flavor additive. The result is a feeling of lethargy and drowsiness. Lord Infamous of the Academy Award-winning rap group Three 6 Mafia shocked the rap world when he suddenly died in mother's house last December. 

"He had a heart attack in his sleep," said his half-brother and former bandmate DJ Paul. "His mother found him dead. He had been dead, the doctors say, for about five hours. And when she came home, he was sitting at the kitchen table with his head down on his arms. He had told his girlfriend that he was sleeping and he wanted to go to sleep. His girlfriend left and was like, 'You going to be fine?' And he was like, 'Yeah, I'm going to be good.' And she was like, 'You sure?' and he was like, 'Yeah, yeah, I'm positive, I just want to get some sleep.' So he laid his head in his arms at the kitchen table and he went to sleep and then when his momma came home, he was sitting at the kitchen table passed away.”

Though Lord Infamous' family and bandmates have never publicly mentioned drugs as a contributing factor to his demise, others have gone online with their suspicions. “Got a check, bought drugs, overdosed and died,” said a user named TucoTuco on the site hiphopdx.com. Some sources don't want to reveal their names but gave their own personal stories of witnessing Lord Infamous' alleged drug use. “I did a show with Lord Infamous a year ago and he was really bad on drugs,” said an anonymous commenter on hiphopdx.com. “He had an 'I need a Xanax bar' shirt on. While he was shooting a music video with my boy, Phsyco, he kept takin 'coke breaks.' Even being f*cked up, he rocked that show like no other. RIP Lord Infamous. I feel blessed I was able to perform n meet him. I just wish he would've got clean and sober because that man was a beast!”

Tabitha Smith, a 40-year-old rap fan in Memphis, followed the career of Three 6 Mafia. “They put the Memphis rap scene on the map,” she said. “Nobody was more excited than me when they won that Oscar (for Best Original Song) a couple of years ago. They deserved it. But what's so sad is that no one close to Lord Infamous is saying the obvious. I understand that they want to protect his reputation and legacy and all that, but drugs was one of the things Three 6 Mafia used to rap about. You write and rap about what you know. They were part of that street life and I think it caught up with him, sadly. His health was already bad.”

DJ Paul agrees with Smith's comment about his half-brother's health. In 2010, Lord Infamous suffered a stroke and a heart attack. "We don't know yet [if the two incidents were related]," he said. "It probably did. A lot of times people have heart attacks and a lot of people survive heart attacks and usually when they have that second, third one, it's pretty much over with." 

Another tragic drug-related death happened in 2010 when Memphis Musician Jay Reatard died ofcocaine toxicity and alcohol at the age of 29. With his long curly blond hair and arrogant attitude, Reatard was the epitome of a rock musician. He got his start playing in the underground punk rock scene with bands such as The Reatards and The Lost Sounds. He was a multi-talented musician, able to play keyboards, guitar, bass, percussion, as well as writing catchy songs and having a singular high tenor singing voice.

At the time of his death, he was receiving international stardom. His 2006 solo album, “Blood Visions,” made major waves far outside of Memphis and helped him cross over to the mainstream. According to Reatard's friend and fellow musician Daniel Stewart of the band, The UV Race, Reatard's upbringing might have had something to do with his sometimes hostile and addictive personality. “Jay grew up moving between small houses with paper-thin walls and trailers in the country. He also grew up poor in Tennessee, and he says he also felt very aware of being white. Jay grew up fast because he had to,” Stewart wrote on his website. Like many other addicts, Reatard struggled with his addictions, temporarily overcoming them but always regressing later. “He explained to me that his body had come to accept the delicate balance of stimulants and depressants that had defined his nocturnal activity since he was a teenager,” Stewart explained. “I know he was an insomniac because we usually crashed in the same hotel room where he’d basically talk until his mouth fell asleep. His drug binges had pushed his weight up and down drastically, and his back muscles were completely f*cked as a result, so he was in continual chronic pain.”

Stewart witnessed many occasions when Reatard would do well for a noticeable length of time but then submit to the temptations. It happened once when the two were on an international tour. “He stayed off the drugs entirely until we got to Perth where we were given a handful of acid. In the hotel room, buzzing, we sat around listening to each other's iPods, enjoying Hawkwind and Antidote as we fried.”

Steward has a clear memory of one of the last times Reatard dedicated himself to recovery. “One time when I spoke to him he was really drunk and depressed. He told me he’d started drinking again. He told me that his girlfriend had left him because he was being a f*ckup and that he’d fired the band. I was very sad to hear this, as I knew how much he loved their company, speaking about them with the kind of affection and frustration usually reserved for older siblings. He told me he was going to get his sh*t back together soon though and quit drinking, and he was excited to play some shows in the Midwest with us if we made it to the US.” 

Sadly, the shows never happened because of Reatard's sudden death at his Midtown Memphis home. “He was a legendary individual with a reputation for completely insensitive asshole behavior, but what I really appreciated about the time I spent with him was the self awareness that he had — that he knew his time was limited and he wanted to make his mark on the world through music. His favorite topic was himself, but unlike most people with incredibly uncomplicated existences who like talking about themselves, Jay had lived a very long life rich with hilarious, mortifying, disgusting and tragic experiences that made for great late night conversation.”

Drugs was also part of the story of The Dealers, a regionally successful funk band from Memphiswho were label-mates with the late pop megastar Michael Jackson on CBS Records at the height of their popularity. On any given night, The Dealers could be in any city in the country or in Canada sharing the same stage as Marvin Gaye, The Eagles, Jerry Lee Lewis, Kool and The Gang, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder and other acts. Roy McClaine was once a club owner who booked The Dealers many times during the 1970s and '80s. “They were the best band in Memphis for two decades straight,” he said. “The dance floor was flooded with people whenever they played. They put on a hell of a show.” “They were the best,” added a former Memphis Musician named Randall Pearson. “They had songs on the radio all over the country and seemed poised to take off.”

Being on the same record label as Michael Jackson during the Thriller era hurt the band because CBS spent most of their time and money on promoting the new King of Pop. In addition, some of the band members let their addictions get the better of them. The Dealers' bassist and lead choreographer Elton Johnson succumbed to congestive heart failure in 2007 at the age of 49. Though he was clean for several years before his death, his family agrees that his fast living lifestyle and years of drug use caught up with him. “He used the hard stuff - cocaine, crack, marijuana, and other substances,” said a family friend who wished for anonymity. “Elton was so talented. He was the best bassist in Memphis. I'm serious. He could sing, dance and play the bass all without missing a beat. But those drugs, man. Women and drugs. When you have access to whatever you want, you take it. Fame and money will change you.” 

Ricky Townes, who has been The Dealers' drummer since 1975, says that he's seen musicians rely on drugs because of their hectic schedules and lifestyles. “I saw a lot of people party too much,” he said. “If you're running your body nonstop, you can easily become dependent on drugs to sleep and do your shows. When you get that big, it's hard to balance your time. A lot of hard workers don't get rest.” Townes also points a finger at alcohol, which can also become a drug of abuse. “Alcohol is a drug too, but a lot of people don't acknowledge that. Some people say they're more creative when they're high or drunk. I don't agree with that. I never smoked or was high on stage. To me, performing is a job. If you're a lawyer, you wouldn't be drunk or high in the courtroom, would you?”

During the band's heyday, Townes says drugs and women were easy to get. “We have to be careful as musicians. Whatever your drug is, they (the music industry) will flood you with it. They'll do anything to manipulate you. Enablers give you anything you want to make money. This happens with athletes, too.”

Tennessee's most famous example of this is the late King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley. His personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos (whom Presley affectionately called “Dr. Nick”), wrote Presley 199 prescriptions from January through August 1977. The total was more than 10,000 doses of amphetamines, narcotics and sedatives. Presley had problems sleeping that only got worse after his mother's death and his stint in the United States Army during the late 1950s. In addition to taking medications to improve his sleep, he also took amphetamines, which kept him awake and helped him maintain his slender frame. As the years went by, Presley became more and more dependent on prescription drugs. When Nichopoulos refused to provide them, he would suddenly find his job in jeopardy. "He'd get mad at me, and he'd get on his plane and fly to Vegas or Palm Springs or California and stay for a few days and get what he wanted. And I'd have to take it away from him when he got back home," Nichopoulos explained. Despite the warnings that his friends and family would give him, Presley thought his prescription drug-intake was fine. "Elvis's problem was that he didn't see the wrong in it. He felt that by getting it from a doctor, he wasn't the common everyday junkie getting something off the street. He was a person who thought that as far as medications and drugs went, there was something for everything.” With Presley, one addiction would often lead to another. He overdosed twice on barbiturates in 1973. He then became addicted to Demerol, and to combat that addiction, Nichopoulos would give him methadone. Eventually, Presley overdosed in his Memphis Mansion, Graceland, in August 1977. When he died, the drugs in his system included Dilaudid, Percodan, Placidyl, Desbutal, Escatrol, Ritalin and others.

The stories of Memphis musicians using drugs do not end there. Eric Gales is a blues musician from Memphis who was arrested there for cocaine possession as he was unloading band equipment in June 2010. Over a year before his 2010 arrest, he served 21 months of a three-year sentence after violating probation four years earlier for gun and drug charges. “I was smoking weed on the road and I didn’t want to risk them telling me to come home in the middle of the tour because of a dirty urine sample,” he said in an interview. He was released in March 2010 but was arrested again that June. “I got caught up on Beale Street, man. I had some cocaine and some Xanax pills on me and wound up going to jail again. After that I made a decision that it wasn’t conducive for me to stay any longer in Memphis, Tennessee. I knew too many of the wrong people, and too many of the wrong people knew me.”

“I think there's a real conspiracy about this stuff,” said Evan Marshall, a bassist from Memphis who currently resides in Nashville. “I've seen it all. When you reach a certain level, they give you what you want. They don't give a damn about you, personally. They just want to make money off of you. It's a game to these record industry folks. And it ain't just them doing it. When you get big like that, people come from out of the shadows and want a piece of the pie. They want to get on your good side and enable you.” Marshall has played with different bands over the decades and witnessed several stars, including Presley, getting whatever they desired, despite the toll it took on them. “My girlfriend at the time worked for Mr. Presley,” said Marshall. “I met him a few times. He was a nice guy but he used to pace around and looked so bulky and sweaty. I remember after one show he couldn't calm down for nothing. But there were people around sitting by trying to act normal or giving him his drugs of choice. My girlfriend was afraid to say anything for fear of losing her job. Everyone else on Elvis' staff felt the same way.”

When asked if things will ever improve regarding this situation, Marshall closed his eyes and shook his head. “I've been in the business for over 30 years. Tennessee has a blessing and a curse regarding this. The blessing is the great music booming from these cities, especially country in Nashville and blues and rap in Memphis. No other cities do it better. The tragedy is that drugs and leeches always find their way to these talented musicians. That happens to musicians everywhere.”

A. J. Dugger lll is a journalist based in Clarksville, Tennessee. He recently published his first book, The Dealers: Then and Now. His last piece was on the prescription drug epidemic in his home state.

Psychedelics As a Healing Tool - Here Is the Current Research

Though we have a basic understanding of their processes, finding out what those changes are and what they mean to cognition and behavior is still in early stages of research. 

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By Sarah Bon

05/06/14

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In 1957, psychiatrist Humphry Osmond wrote in a letter to Aldous Huxley:

To fathom Hell or soar angelic

Just take a pinch of psychedelic. 

Osmond coined the word psychedelic, from Greek root words psyche (breath, life, spirit, mind) + delos (clear, manifest) to refer to a class of drugs that he had been conducting research on; a class of drugs which was thought to make consciousness visible. The psychedelic drug is a psychoactive hallucinogen, i.e., a drug that crosses the blood-brain barrier to induce altered states of consciousness. Classical psychedelics such as LSD, magic mushrooms, mescaline, and DMT (as opposed to other hallucinogens such as dissociatives,e.g., ketamine; and deliriants,e.g.,datura) are also known as serotonergic psychedelics. These serotonergic psychedelics are known as such because they are5-HT2a agonists, explanation follows.

Serotonin, a neurotransmitter (a chemical that transmits signals from one brain cell to another), activates the serotonin receptors, also known as the 5-HT receptors. The 5-HT receptors modulate the release of various neurotransmitters and hormones. These receptors play a role in biological and neurological processes, such as appetite, cognition, mood, and sleep. An agonist is a chemical that binds to a receptor and activates that receptor. 

Essentially, classical psychedelics activate the 5-HT receptors, and more specifically, the 5-HT2a receptors (though some activate additional receptors). The 5-HT2a receptor is expressed throughout the central nervous system, with high concentrations in the prefrontal (brain region considered responsible for the organization of thoughts in accordance with goals, among other responsibilities), parietal (integrates sensory information), and the outer layer of the cerebral cortex (associated with, not exclusively, memory, attention, thought, language, and consciousness). The 5-HT2a receptor modulates learning, anxiety, behavior, and neuronal excitation in the central nervous system. 

The molecular structure of many psychedelic drugs is very similar to that of serotonin. This may account for the psychedelic drugs' affinity for the serotonin receptor. Serotonin has been likened to a “key,” by Franz Vollenweider, in which the receptors are the lock. If the “key” is slightly different, it may still go in the lock, but it won’t quite fit, and will make modifications to the neural process. Given that the areas in which the 5-HT2a receptors are the most dense are associated with cognition and perception (the posterior cingulate cortex), and where the receptors are the least dense are associated with motor control (the primary motor cortex), it makes sense that subjective accounts of psychedelic drug use find that motor skills are not generally impaired, whereas consciousness is greatly altered. 

The theory that psychedelic drugs interact with serotonin receptors is widely accepted; largely because of work by Dr. Franz Vollenweider demonstrating that the hallucinogenic effects of psilocybin can be blocked by a 5-HT2a receptor antagonist like ketanserin. However, the serotonergic system is complex; while the drugs may begin in the 5-HT2a receptor, they go on to change intracellular signalling pathways, and possibly alter gene expression. How these drugs create changes in the brain, through their role as serotonin agonists, is becoming basic to the understanding of their processes; but finding out what those changes are, and what they mean to cognition and behavior is still in early stages of research. 

Franz Vollenweider, Director of the Heffter Research Institute in Zurich, has over 80 publications, most of which investigate the mechanisms of psychostimulants and hallucinogens in humans. In 1997, Vollenweider employed the functional imaging technique, Positron Emission Tomography (PET), to view the brain under the influence of psilocybin. The hypothesis was that excessive activation of serotonin receptors by psilocybin will result in a “sensory overflow of the frontal cortex associated with the sensory flooding and cognitive fragmentation seen in psilocybin and naturally occurring psychosis."

Ten volunteers with no drug experience were chosen from hospital and university staff. They were administered 15-20mg of psilocybin (depending on the weight of the volunteer) orally, via capsules, 90 minutes before the FDG injection (fluorodeoxyglucose - a substance necessary to the PET scan process). Vollenweider devised methods for plotting subjective data in order to compare it with objective readings from the PET scan, and reach working conclusions about the areas in the brain responsible for various processes - and how those processes are altered by psilocybin. He compared findings from the psilocybin scans to known information on the mechanisms of psychotic states. Vollenweider found that psilocybin, “variously increased absolute cerebral metabolic rates of glucose in most of the brain regions examined...Whole brain glucose metabolism was increased in all subjects” and that the increases significantly correlated with the amount of psilocybin administered. 

Results were as expected, namely that psilocybin “leads to hyperfrontal metabolic pattern associated with acute psychotic symptom formation." However, it was noted that patients were able to recognize their altered consciousness as abnormal and attribute it to the drug. The findings are said to be in line with studies done on mescaline, and LSD testing in rats. 

The conclusion reached by Vollenweider was that an increase in metabolic activity in the frontal cortices of the brain might contribute to ego disintegration and derealization phenomena. It was also speculated that functional integrity, or the communication between brain regions was compromised by psilocybin. 

Functional connectivity under psychedelics is an idea explored in a study by Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris et al., Broadband Cortical Desynchronization Underlies the Human Psychedelic State, 2013. Post-doctoral researcher Dr. Robin Carhart-Harris at the Centre for Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London, has conducted a number of clinical trials studying the effects of psychedelic drugs on the human brain. This is the first study to use the neuroimaging technique magnetoencephalography (MEG) to look at the brain under the influence of psilocybin. The MEG records magnetic fields produced by naturally occurring electrical currents in the brain. For this study, 15 volunteers with previous psychedelic drug experience, though not in the last 6 weeks, were administered 2mg of psilocybin intravenously. When administered this way, the drug takes hold within seconds. Similar in some ways to the results of the Vollenweider study, the functional connectivity of the brain was compromised. Meaning that areas of the brain which normally operate in conjunction, were no longer. There was a general collapse of the normal rhythmic structure of cortical activity. Particularly affected are key structural hubs within the brain; the medial prefrontal cortex (implicated in planning and personality) and the posterior cingulate cortex (implicated in emotion, autobiographical memories and awareness) significantly decreased in positive coupling under psilocybin. 

The MEG study also replicated the results of a number of other fMRI and EEG studies conducted by Carhart-Harris et al. Namely that psychedelics decrease cerebral blood flow in high-level association regions and important connector hubs.

It should be noted that many of the studies by Carhart-Harris have aspects that contradict those undertaken by Vollenweider and team. Whereas Vollenweider found increased activity in the brain,particularly in the frontal cortex, Carhart-Harris found that psilocybin caused a decrease in brain activity. However, the recent study by Carhart-Harris in conjunction with Suresh Muthukumaraswamy et al., reports the findings as entirely consistent with related research as “excitation of deep-layer pyramidal cells is consistent with decreased brain activity." Essentially, the cells that are excited by the presence of the psychedelic in turn decrease functional connectivity in high-level brain regions. 

Carhart-Harris has presented the most accessible model of the psychedelic effect on the brain, however reliable. His paper The Entropic Brain takes the current research a step further by updating Freudian psychoanalysis to reflect findings in neuroscience. He presents a theory of the brain which consists of two states: primary and secondary. The primary state is one of high entropy - disorganization - likened to that found in infancy, in dreams,in psychosis, and in the psychedelic state. The secondary state is one of low entropy - high organization - and likens an entropy-free brain to one of complete rigidity, as seen in sedation, seizure, OCD, depression, and addiction. His theory, based on sound neuroscience, though interpreted with certain enthusiasm, may be a way of understanding mental illness. 

The Default Mode Network is a central hub in the brain which organizes brain regions responsible for high-level thought (self-reflection, autobiographical memory, daydreaming). It is when this network is relatively suppressed and entropy is limited, that we are able to view a stable reality as opposed to one informed by wishes, fantasies and fears. 

Brain scans using fMRI of long term practitioners of meditation have found both long and short term differences within the main nodes of the Default Mode Network: the medial prefrontal and the posterior cingulate cortex. Namely, that the mPFC and the PCC are “less active in meditators." But interestingly, there is an increase in DMN connectivity, suggesting that the reduced mental activity during meditation is mediated by an increase in connectivity of networks controlling internal attention. The mind of the meditator is essentially trained, able to focus on internal processes without the negative rumination indicative of depression. 

Individuals with depression are thought to have overactive DMNs (specifically in the medial prefrontal cortex), i.e., to be low in entropy, which is somewhat of an antithesis to the psychedelic state. A drug like psilocybin has the ability to suppress the over-active Default Mode Network, allowing for disorganization; for well-tread paths to grow over; if only long enough that one can have a glimpse of a world outside of themselves. 

It has also been indicated in early studies with psilocybin and LSD that psychedelics are effective in treatments for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The entropy theory rates OCD high on a scale of entropy suppression and rigidity, making it a candidate for the DMN suppressing qualities of psychedelic drugs, and in fact, research suggests positive results:

“...a study showing that psilocybin given on four different occasions at escalating doses (ranging from sub-hallucinogenic to hallucinogenic doses) markedly decreased OCD symptoms (by 23%-100%) on the Yale-Brown obsessive compulsive scale in patients with OCD who were previously treatment resistant."

Like depression and OCD, the Default Mode Network and its associated brain regions may have some role to play for those with addictions.

An analysis of data regarding LSD and the treatment of alcoholism over the past 40 years compiled by researcher Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen finds a significant beneficial effect of LSD on alcoholism in the short and medium term. A total of 6 trials and 536 patients were analyzed. Participants were all involved in alcohol treatment programs, 38% of which showed improvement without LSD; 59% of which showed improvement after receiving between 210 and 800 micrograms. Given the results, the paper states that it is “puzzling why this treatment approach has been largely overlooked." 

In fact treating alcoholics with LSD was one of the earliest clinical uses of the drug. In 1952 Dr. Abram Hoffer and Dr. Humphrey Osmond began investigating LSD as treatment for alcoholism. Preliminary research was positive, and the word began to spread. Author Gerald Heard, friend and mentor to Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson introduced Bill to writer Aldous Huxley. Huxley is known for his experiments with psychedelic drugs and suggested to Wilson that he work with Hoffer and Osmond. Apparently, Wilson was initially “unthrilled” by the idea, but later found great value in their work. Of Wilson’s experience, Huxley has written:

A friend of mine, saved from alcoholism, during the last fatal phases of the disease, by a spontaneous theophany… has taken lysergic acid two or three times and affirms that his experience under the drug is identical with the spontaneous experience which changed his life...There is, obviously, a field here for serious and reverent experimentation.

- Aldous Huxley to Father Thomas Merton, 10 January 1959

Of psychedelics, pharmacologist Dr. David E. Nichols states that the feature which distinguishes them from other classes of drugs is their capacity to induce states of altered perception that are not otherwise experienced except in times of dreams or religious exaltation. A drug that can induce exaltation, epiphany, profundity, is by definition, in a class by itself. The study of these drugs is essential to the understanding of consciousness and psychiatric disorders. If not for the panicked response by the US DEA and FDA (as well as analogous organizations in other countries) to suppress 1960s counter-culture and control irresponsible psychedelic drug use by over-regulating professionals and ignoring high-level government experimentation (CIA), psychedelic drug research may be farther along today. With applications from alzheimer's to autism, psychedelic drug research is incredibly important to the future of cognitive neuroscience. 

Sarah Bon is a writer based in Ottowa. She last wrote about the connection between intelligence and addiction.

The Brilliant Diary of Mary Rose, Truthteller

An addict youth's tell-all for a new generation from Legs Mcneil and Gillian McCain. “I think for parents who actually talk to their kids, this book is a great conversation starter. For parents who don’t talk to their kids, this is going to be a time bomb.” 

authors via Jonathan Marder + Company

By Jessica Willis

05/09/14

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What lies at the intersection of the best years of your life, the best writing some of you may ever do, and abject humiliation? Ladies, you already know the answer. Gents, you may only have experience taking a knife to its cheap little lock.

I’m referring, of course, to your diaries. 

There is a lot of fun and misery to be had when you crack one open after, say, 30 years of closure, and have a read. That’s some good shit right there.

"I wish I had a dick, so I could tell the world to suck it," is one of co-editor Legs McNeil's favorite lines in Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose (Sourcebooks), the new book under discussion today with McNeill and co-editor Gillian McCain.

Perhaps the modern batch of teen solipsists will quit the microblogging and go longhand, for a change.

A diary can equal some dollar signs, if you’re so inclined. There’s Lesley Arfin’s Dear Diary from 2007. In it, she looks up the players who starred in her entries during her ‘tweens to twenties and tries to find out what they remember. The original entries and the updates play side by side in her book. Doesn’t that kind of pervert the purity of the diary, though?

Diaries don’t even have to be real in order to sell. They just have to reek of a lurid tell-all. When I was devouring the classic Go Ask Alice back in my wasteoid salad days, I assumed the entries from a nameless good girl gone way bad in the late 1960s were all real. It turns out the author (billed as Anonymous on the book cover) was a novelist named Beatrice Sparks. Knowing this now turns the diary writer’s death by O.D. at the end of the novel into a cheesy cautionary tale: One more “drugs are bad” rant.

Good thing I had my own real diary going, where the drugs were very, very bad indeed. That is, when they weren’t being gooood.

An addict without a diary is sorry indeed. For the junkie and boozer who cheats death every day and gets amnesia almost as soon as anything happens, the diary is a way to remember - or to rewrite history, if the first version didn’t suit you. 

It’s also a message to whomever - or whatever - follows in the wake of your certain death.

Which brings us back to Dear Nobody: The True Diary of Mary Rose, a teenage girl’s collection of diary entries written in the late '90s. Unlike Go Ask Alice, the entries are real; unlike Arfin’s Dear Diary, the entries stand alone without the author’s present-day meddling.

Mary Rose couldn’t meddle even if she wanted to. She died of cystic fibrosis when she was 17. As she journaled, she knew the disease would eventually kill her. And if the cystic fibrosis didn’t get her, her boozing and drugging - including heroin - may have finished the job. According to McNeil, Mary Rose didn’t bother sobering up because she knew she didn’t have long to live. Her illness “makes it kind of moot,” he says. “‘Oh, you should stay sober, you shouldn’t do drugs.' Why? Why not.”

BOREDOM AND BAD HYGIENE

Mary Rose owes a lot of her style to McNeil, who co-founded Punk, the seminal '70s magazine dedicated to soft-spoken, marginalized people who make loud music; he was also a founding editor atSpin and currently writes for Vice. She also owes a debt to McCain, the New York-based writer and poet who was at one time the president of The Poetry Project. The duo's Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk is unarguably the definitive book about the culture of Punk.

Which turned out to be one of Mary Rose’s favorite books. This isn’t surprising; the spirit of Please Kill Me’s players in the seminal days of punk - by turns sweet and nihilistic - is mirrored in Mary Rose. Her writing has a gleeful “I don’t give a fuck” mentality without any preachy overtones.

“What I found remarkable about Mary Rose was that she knew she was an alcoholic and drug addict at such a young age and she wasn’t in denial about it,” McCain says. “I think that’s pretty rare.”

No, Mary Rose wasn’t in denial, and she was very funny about it. “My life has become a dormant haze of boredom and bad hygiene,” she writes at one point. In that one sentence, she captures all of the squalor of being young and fucked up.

One facet of Dear Nobody's inception is that while McNeil has an affinity for much of this material, his partner in crime McCain is coming from a somewhat more prosaic perspective. "Legs has had a much more wild past than me," she says about the process of co-editing Please Kill Me and, perhaps, of their current project. "And [he has] first-hand experience with addiction. But i think it was beneficial to have someone who hadn't been 'there' at the time to partner in the book. He was the seasoned professional who had lived the life, I was more like the wide-eyed girl who moved to the city in order to meet all of these people. And to write a book like this!"

Dear Nobody could have been consigned to the closet or the couch if McNeil hadn’t asked his postmaster’s daughter what she had been reading lately.

“She listed the popular titles of the day but then she said ‘but the best thing I’ve ever read were these diaries that my best friend’s older sister wrote,’” he says.

McNeil and McCain began reading the diaries and they were enthralled. Working with Mary Rose’s piles of spiral bound notebooks - filled with 600-plus pages of short stories, schoolwork, poetry, and diary entries - they edited the work down to 330 pages of teen joy and misery compressed: abuse, pleasure, fighting with her mother, being wasted, coming to terms with the reality that, in her words: “I will never be the happy, healthy girl with the nice boyfriend and the perfect home. This is my reality … I awake to the bitter veneration of nauseating medicine as the taste of a ‘treatment’ fills my mouth and lungs.”

“You could really see her experimenting and trying to become a better and better writer,” McCain says.

Would Mary Rose have wanted her diary to reach the public? McCain thinks Mary Rose would be tickled by it.

“She was such an extrovert,” McNeil adds. “She liked having all the attention.”

It’s true; at the end, Mary Rose writes that she hopes her death is mourned with honor and respect. She doesn’t want to be forgotten.

Or, as she whiplashed between the poles of love/hate about a boyfriend: “God I love him. It’s just like every once in a while, he’ll say something really brilliant and pretty … [t]hen he’ll say something really stupid and I’ll think he’s fucking retarded.” And her parting salvo to him, shortly before her death: “You’re a loser and a dickhead fag asshole. There is no life after Mary Rose. You’ll be sorry babe. Goodbye.”

And yet this is the same girl who could write “I’ve just got to remember to be nice and warm-hearted in my overall relations to people.” But of course.

AND HOW WILL YOUNG ADULTS RESPOND?

Dear Nobody is being marketed to a young adult audience; this is a population that doesn’t get a great deal of non-fiction. Or they get something that looks like a memoir, like Go Ask Alice. It’s a “convoluted” terrain, McCain points out: some readers don’t know the difference between fiction and nonfiction. 

So when Dear Nobody drops into a kid’s grimy hands, what will happen? Will this be the book that sends the kid down the vodka and heroin highway? The book that doesn’t glamorize addiction and abuse -but still makes partying in the woods, and being incoherent and angst-ridden, seem like the best solutions to the problems at hand.

“I think for parents who actually talk to their kids, this book is a great conversation starter. For parents who don’t talk to their kids this is going to be a time bomb,” McNeil says.

He didn’t think Dear Nobody would send anyone down a path they hadn’t already chosen.

“If kids are going to get fucked up and get high they’re going to find an excuse,” he says. “It’s like people who went and read Burroughs so they could do heroin. And all the people who read Bukowski who wanted to go drink. I think the kids that are not gonna get high are not gonna get high from reading this book. And the kids that are gonna get high - who have the genetic predisposition for alcoholism and addiction - will get high, sure.”

However, a good drug book may be found, not coincidentally, at the bedside of a dead addict.

“People died from heroin overdoses [while] reading Please Kill Me,” McNeil informs, adding that he believes Smashing Pumpkins keyboardist Jonathan Melvoin was reading the newly released book when he died of a heroin overdose in 1996.

Every generation needs its Go Ask Alice. Hopefully Mary Rose, with her big loopy girly handwriting (“she almost had hearts over the "is" but didn’t,” McCain says) and her sweet spirit in a damaged body will speak to a new generation of addicts, near-misses, or teen addicts-to-be. Perhaps the modern batch of teen solipsists will quit the microblogging and go longhand, for a change.

“Maybe this will spur other kids on to keep old-fashioned journals,” McCain says.

Along with Go Ask Alice, maybe Dear Nobody will be a Naked Lunch or Fear and Loathing for some other unsuspecting slob: It will be the book that sent you on your junkie boozer way. The manifesto for a very different and dirtier way of life. Perhaps it will be like Please Kill Me was for Mary Rose and so many of us.

“You surround yourself with things that make you happy,” McNeil says. “And if heroin makes you happy, then you surround yourself with Please Kill Me, you know?”

Jessica Willis, a former editor at Time Out New York, has written for the New York Press, New York Times and Black Book among others.

May 9, 2014Lighthouse Network's Weekly eNews Update

Featured in this issue:

News: May is Mental Health Month

Dr. Benzio Joins Focus on the Family Physicians Resource Council

Resources: Made for Good Works

Free Stepping Stones Devotional

Mental Health Month Aims to Grow Awareness, Dispel Stigmas

Mental health issues affect millions of adults and children in America, along with countless others when spouses, families, friends and co-workers are considered. 

"A healthy mental state, whether dealing with depression, addictions, eating disorders or a multitude of other issues certainly involves every part of the human being-the mind, body and spirit," said Lighthouse Network's Dr. Karl Benzio." To be healthy mentally, we must also nurture our bodies and feed our spirits. When Lighthouse recommends counseling or therapy, we always ensure that the entire person is being treated, looking at health from a three-pronged view." Continue reading...

Dr. Karl Benzio Joins Focus on the Family Physician Resource Council

Dr. Karl Benzio is pleased to announce that he has joined the Focus on the Family Physicians Resource Council.

The goal of the Physicians Resource Council is "to professionally strengthen and spiritually equip medical doctors and their spouses." 

Benzio will be one of five psychiatrists on the council. 

Resources: Made for Good Works

DVD (25 mins) with Karl Benzio, MD

This video focuses on assessing your options and making good choices. In this video you will learn about the Lighthouse Network decision making process, S.P.E.A.R.S. This process walks you step by step through the characteristics of every decision and situation that you encounter in your life. By learning this process and implementing it's methods you will have a tool for evaluating your life situations, understanding the feelings you are encountering, evaluating your options, effectively responding to life situations, and evaluating the outcomes of your choices. God has specially designed us all for good works and to be about His will and plans. This video will help you determine how to make decisions in line with your beliefs and life goals. 

Click here for more information or to order.

Free Stepping Stones Devotional

Click here to receive The Stepping Stones Daily Devotional, which will encourage and challenge you while helping you grow in your daily walk with God. 

If you or someone you love needs help, 

call our FREE 24/7 Lighthouse Network addiction and counseling helpline, 1-844-LIFE-CHANGE. 

Lighthouse Network 

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Doylestown, PA 18901 

www.LighthouseNetwork.org | Email | 1.844.LIFE.CHANGE

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About Lighthouse Network: 

Lighthouse Network is a Christian-based, non-profit organization that offers an addiction and mental health counseling helpline providing treatment options and resources to equip people and organizations with the skills necessary to shine God's glory to the world, stand strong on a solid foundation in the storms of their own lives, and provide guidance and safety to others experiencing stormy times, thus impacting their lives, their families and the world. 

Lighthouse Network offers help through two main service choices:

Lighthouse Life Change Helpline (1-844-LIFE-CHANGE), a 24-hour free, national crisis call center, where specialists (Care Guides) help callers understand and access customized treatment options.

Life Growth and self-help training resources for daily life, including online and DVD series and training events to help individu

MAY 9 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

Instruct the wise,

and they will be even wiser.

Teach the righteous,

and they will learn even more.

STEP 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others , and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

We never stop learning or growing . I try too stay tuned too all the latest treatment methods , laws , treatment centers and the list goes on and on. Whats most important is , continue to pray and seek GOD in all you do. Never , ever forget where it is you came from and how hard it was too get where you are now . Complacency can take out the most seasoned recovery veteran if we are not careful . Always open your heart too others who are still enslaved and suffering , never give up on anyone . GOD still does miracles !Make sure your feet are on solid ground pray in all situations be positive , encourage , support and if its working don't change it .

1 Corinthians :13 4: 5 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

By : Joseph Dickerson