Thursday, July 10, 2014

July 10 Chp 84 v 11 TWELVE STEPPING WITH STRENGTH FROM THE PSALMS


For the Lord God is our sun and our shield.
He gives us grace and glory.
The Lord will withhold no good thing
from those who do what is right.


Step 11- Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood God, praying only for knowledge of God's will for us and the power to carry that out .


Keep moving forward ! What a promise from the Psalm , God will not withhold anything good . I discovered from steps 11 and 12 the more we do for others the more fulfilling our lives become . Now that I have found myself it is not about me anymore . It is all about you ! Yes you the one reading this and if their is anything I can do to help you with your recovery all you gotta do is reach out .

Acts 20:35


 In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’
By Joseph Dickerson

Recovery High Schools Show Promise, But Face Challenges
July 9th, 2014/



High schools designed to support students in recovery from substance use disorders show promise in helping students sustain their abstinence, but face a number of challenges, according to experts.

Recovery schools offer an alternative to students who have left their high school to deal with substance abuse issues. If they return to their regular high school after treatment, they often find that getting thrown back in with old friends quickly leads to relapse. Around the country, a small number of recovery high schools offer a safe and sober alternative for students struggling to avoid falling back into old harmful routines.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is funding a five-year study, now in its fourth year, to compare the outcomes of students attending recovery high schools with those who return to a regular high school environment after substance abuse treatment. Dr. Ken Winters, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota Medical School, who is one of the investigators in the trial, spoke about it at the recent annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.

“The school setting is natural for promoting continuing care for these students,” Winters said. “Promising indications are that recovery schools have been shown to be quite effective in promoting abstinence, or at least very improved outcomes, for teens following formal substance abuse treatment.”

Preliminary data from the current NIDA study, which have enrolled so far about 185 students, showed those who were enrolled in recovery high schools reported significant improvement in terms of frequency and use of substances, Winters noted.

A descriptive study of recovery high schools conducted in 2007 also showed promising results for student substance use and academic outcomes. The study found 80 percent of students reported doing better with alcohol/drug issues, 71 percent academically, 59 percent emotionally, and 57 percent with family issues.

Recovery schools vary widely in how they are run. Some are part of the public school system, while others are independent charter schools. While some schools allow students to stay for their entire high school career, others have a time limit. The first recovery high school was established in the late 1980s in Minnesota. Currently, the Association of Recovery Schools has 16 member high schools in 13 states. It is estimated that there are about 35 recovery high schools in the US.

Some schools, including several in Minnesota, have closed because of funding issues. “Some schools find it’s tough to survive if they depend solely on public dollars, or if they don’t have enough students,” Winters noted. “The schools need a rigorous team of professional counselors along with the teaching staff.” Public schools generally set funding levels based on how many students are in a given school in the fall, but recovery school students flow in and out throughout the year. “A lot of students come into these schools in the late fall or early winter,” he said.

Counseling, which can substantially add to costs, is especially important in recovery high schools because so many students have mental health issues in addition to substance use disorders, Winters observed. “Often with teens, drug use is secondary to other problems, so a well-trained staff is essential,” he said. “It’s not just about maintenance of abstinence.”

A recently published review of studies on recovery high schools revealed a number of challenges the schools face in addition to funding. The schools are small, and must accommodate students of different grade levels and preparation. Some students have missed a significant amount of school because of their substance use and treatment. With limited resources, some schools struggle to maintain adequate academic standards while providing treatment.

“We need favorable local or state laws and more flexible funding formulas,” Winters said. “It may be more feasible to put recovery high schools into existing public schools in a modified form so recovery services are provided a few hours a week. This could reduce overhead and accommodate school budgets more easily, while still providing some important continuing care services for young people.”

Winters also presented new data on college recovery programs from a study by Dr. Alexandre Laudet of the National Development and Research Institutes in New York. She studied almost 500 students in about 30 college recovery programs around the country. The programs varied widely. Some are very structured, providing many services, including living quarters with counselors assigned to students, while others have less extensive recovery services.

Laudet found almost half of students said having a recovery program available was somewhat or very important in their decision to attend or return to college. Most said having a college recovery program was very or moderately helpful to them. As with high school students in recovery, many of the college students in the survey were dealing with co-occurring mental health problems.

“There’s a growing interest in college recovery programs; colleges can more easily fit them into their budget than high schools,” Winters said. “Colleges can provide specialized housing, and have a lot of health services on campus. There is clearly a need for these programs, because college can be a tough environment to stay sober in.”

Underage Drinkers’ Favorite Alcohol Brands are Heavily Advertised in Magazines
July 9th, 2014/



The top alcohol brands consumed by underage drinkers are the same ones most heavily advertised in magazines read by those under age 21, a new study finds. The researchers say their findings suggest alcohol ads can encourage young people to drink, HealthDay reports.

The study also indicates the alcohol industry’s voluntary advertising standards are insufficient, the researchers add. “All of the ads in our study were in complete compliance with the industry’s self-regulatory guidelines,” lead researcher Craig Ross, of Virtual Media Resources in Natick, Massachusetts, said in a journal news release.

The guidelines suggest that alcohol ads should be restricted to magazines with less than 30 percent of readers who are younger than 21. Ross called for stricter standards, including limiting ads to magazines where fewer than 15 percent of readers are under 21.

The study analyzed alcohol ads that ran in U.S. magazines in 2011. The researchers found the top 25 alcohol brands consumed by underage drinkers were advertised more heavily in publications read by young people than 308 other brands less popular with young drinkers. The most popular brands were five to nine times more likely to heavily expose 18- to 20-year-olds to their magazine ads, compared with other brands.

The findings are published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

“We can’t speak to what advertisers’ intentions are,” said study co-author David Jernigan, Director of the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “But we can say there is clear evidence that 18- to 20-year-olds are the most heavily exposed to these ads. That’s concerning, because that age group is at high risk of alcohol abuse and negative consequences from drinking.”


Heroin Addiction Treatment Should Include Inpatient and Outpatient Therapy
July 9th, 2014/


Treatment for heroin addiction is most effective if it includes both inpatient and outpatient therapy, according to a new study.

Researchers at Boston Medical Center compared two groups of patients addicted to heroin: those who started buprenorphine treatment while in the hospital and then were referred directly to an outpatient buprenorphine treatment program, and patients who took a tapered dose of buprenorphine in the hospital to help with withdrawal, but only received referral information about local community treatment programs. Buprenorphine is an opioid substitute used to treat opioid addiction. It helps curb opioid withdrawal symptoms.

The study found 37 percent of patients in the group directed to the buprenorphine treatment program reported no illicit drug use in the month after leaving the hospital, compared with just 9 percent of those who only received general referral information, according to HealthDay. Patients in the outpatient treatment group reported fewer days of illicit drug use, and less drug use overall during the six months after they left the hospital.

The study of 139 patients appears in JAMA Internal Medicine.

“Unfortunately, referral to substance abuse treatment after discharge is often a secondary concern of physicians caring for hospitalized patients,” lead researcher Dr. Jane Liebschutz said in a news release. “However, our results show that we can have a marked impact on patient’s addiction by addressing it during their hospitalization.


Soldiers Almost Four Times More Likely Than Civilians to Use Prescription Painkillers
July 9th, 2014/
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Soldiers are almost four times more likely than civilians to use prescription opioids to treat their pain, researchers at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research have found. Almost half of U.S. soldiers returning home report chronic pain.

Three months after returning home from Afghanistan or Iraq, about 44 percent of members of an Army infantry brigade said they suffered chronic pain. In contrast, the rate of chronic pain among civilians is about 26 percent, according to HealthDay.

The researchers report in JAMA Internal Medicine that about 15 percent of the soldiers reported using narcotic painkillers in the past month, compared with 4 percent of civilians.

The main source of chronic pain among returning soldiers appears to be combat injuries, the article notes. The researchers defined chronic pain as lasting 90 days or more. Soldiers with a combat injury are almost three times more likely to say they have chronic pain, and twice as likely to take a narcotic painkiller, as those without a combat injury.

The study found 48 percent of soldiers reporting chronic pain said it had lasted a year or longer, while 55 percent said they had daily or constant pain.

“War is really hard on the body,” said study author Lt. Cmdr. Robin Toblin. “People come home with a lot of injuries, and as you can imagine they experience a lot of pain. There seems to be a large unmet need of management, treatment and assessment of chronic pain.”

Soldiers who suffer from depression or post-traumatic stress disorder were twice as likely to report chronic pain, the study found. The findings come from confidential surveys completed by almost 2,600 soldiers.
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