Your loved one, friend, colleague has found recovery resources and is pursuing their recovery. Finally! Hallelujah! But, wait a minute. This is all new to you. No one gave you a primer on living with someone who abuses alcohol or other drugs or who has become addicted. Now you realize the same is true for recovery. What’s going on for your loved one? What’s going on for you? What is your role in all this? In this article we will review a few thoughts given to family members whose loved one has entered recovery. Importantly, in our view, we will also suggest that you achieve a focus on yourself.

Early recovery is a confusing time. The admonition to “surrender” seems contrary to everything they have known before. Too, fear is a very powerful motivator making it difficult for people to allow matters to evolve beyond their control. Also, trust issues make it difficult to now believe that “letting go” will be an effective strategy. It is very common for those in early recovery to ignore the example of three million people to lease control and, instead, they try to solve the problem their way. Here’s why.

Spend any time with a person in recovery or visit a recovery group and you will hear about “an attitude of gratitude” or about a “grateful recovering addict/alcoholic/gambler. It seems incessant. Why all this gratitude?

In this article we explain the roots of gratitude in recovery, the benefits, the practice, and how peer recovery reinforces this pillar or recovery.

Although use of the term denial from a behavioral health perspective has entered everyday lexicon, the meaning of the term is not well understood. As part of our attempt to create a greater awareness, in hopes of more effectively addressing this national problem, in this article we attempt to define that term as it applies to substance use disorder.

After the very initial experiences with recovery it seems inevitable that the individual will be overwhelmed with those memories of bad behaviors that occurred during active use. Most often these are feelings of guilt but sometimes they involve feelings of shame. While we have all experienced guilt, and many have known shame, there are factors that make these issues more acute for the person newly recovering from active abuse and addiction. Continuing recovery may well depend on how the individual negotiates this stage of recovery. To be certain, there are cases of shame becoming toxic and that requires attention from a specialized clinician. In this article we discuss how recovering people negotiate guilt and shame.

Several long standing factors contribute to people with behavioral health conditions including substance use disorder, and their families, feeling outside the mainstream, even unique. This perspective actually works against treatment and recovery as individuals avoid the very tools that would help them.

Of course, they are not unique. SUD is a disease not unlike other behavioral health and physical disease such as type 2 diabetes and cardiopulmonary disease. 40 million Americans suffer from SUD. Further, people with stressful if less permanent situations also exhibit this withdrawal from the very tools that would help them manage their situation. Uniqueness as a self orientation is not unique to people with SUD and their families.

In this article we encourage the SUD sufferer and the codependent to abandon this self perspective and find treatment and recovery.

Is caffeine addictive? Can it be harmful? Our original premise has been that America does not understand its drug problem and that until we do we will not solve it. We have attempted to expand our awareness and understanding. Today we discuss caffeine. 90% of Americans use caffeine. Here we discuss the safe uses and those harmful effects and when they may evidence.

Is there value to those AA (and NA, GA, Al-Anon etc.) meetings? If so, how does it work? Why does it work? Study after study discuss that these peer group meetings make a substantial difference. Here we discuss what those meetings are like and why they work.

Last week we discussed our friend “Bob” and his realization that there are recovering people all around him and that he been previously unaware. We wondered why it is that we have a general awareness of early recovery but know much less about mature recovery. This week we discuss what long term, mature recovery looks like. The reason Bob does not know about his friends and colleagues is that they have successfully treated this chronic disease substance use disorder.

Most of us work, play, and worship alongside someone in long term recovery and we do not know it about them. It is very common for us to realize that someone is in the early stages of recovery so why do we not know about those in long term recovery? They were once those in early stages after all. This begs the question of what mature recovery looks like. Lets get there through two steps. Today, what are the precedents that cause people to be cautious about declaring their recovery status? Why do we know much more about early recovery yet less about mature recovery?

First attempts at recovery from substance use disorder often result in relapse. This is devastating to the addict and to their loved ones. However, relapse is a part of treatment for chronic diseases and not just substance abuse but type II diabetes, heart disease, and asthma. While we do not think that one should just accept relapse, it is also not the end of recovery but for many the beginning of reinvesting in recovery.

After 200 years of discussing substance use disorder in moralistic terms, and seventy years after the American Medical Association declared addiction a disease, we might think that these stigmas are gone. Sadly, remarks from very public people show us that we are wrong. Thinking of addiction as a moral failing continues. This stigma exacerbates the problem by retarding treatment. It is well time we got over this stigma

Those who lament NIH recommendations on responsible or moderate alcohol use on economic grounds are missing the point. The science is clear that alcohol is a harmful drug that is misused by far too many. At the same time, prohibitionists are pursuing a strategy that we know will not work. The middle ground is responsible drinking. Sadly, at least 50 million Americans over use every month. We should not argue for a substance that kills 178,000 Americans every year because it is good for the economy.

Weight Watchers’ filing for bankruptcy protection resulted from many factors but most acutely from the weight loss pharmaceuticals GLP-1. What implications does the evolution of pharmaceuticals that may come for substance abuse and addiction portend for Twelve Step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous?

Drug overdose deaths have declined by 26.9%. The Centers for Disease Control attributes this reduction to availability of treatment, enhanced interdiction of drugs at the border, and the availability of Narcan that can reverse the effects of certain drugs. Treatment availability has not increased and is woefully inadequate regardless. There has been an increase in arrests for smuggling at the southern border but there is no data saying that the volume of drugs has decreased. Of these arguments the availability of Narcan is the most likely element. Yet, the recently passed House Bill would all but eliminate federal support for the availability of this life saving option.

Addicted Newborns

Estimates are that every year 300,000 American newborns have been exposed to drugs of addiction during pregnancy. 32,000 are born in drug withdrawal. This cruel beginning involves use of similar drugs shortly after birth to avoid seizures and the pain from withdrawal. Adverse outcomes during childhood and adolescents have been well documented. The long term costs to the nation are just now being studied but are predictably damaging.

Clinical Pathway To Recovery II: Pharmacology

In 1966 the discovery of methadone as a pharmaceutical for use with heroin addiction started the search for pharmaceutical solutions to addiction in America. Progress has been limited for several reasons but today there are several drugs in increasingly widespread use. Today we discuss those drugs, their potential and their limitations