Addiction recovery with excellence

This is a selective news site with commentary on addiction recovery, but I do have a point of view. This is important, so here is a special post to dig into it.

There is a traditional fight in the addiction treatment world. On one side, people say that addiction is a disease. On the other, they say it is a matter of will and morality. But that is a false alternative. There is a third way—both are right, or both are wrong, depending on whether you are a shot-glass half-full or half-empty kind of person.

It’s funny that everyone agrees that no two people are alike, yet they fight over which one-size-fits-all model of addiction is true. I hold there are many elements involved and they are present in different people to varying degrees. But that is another discussion for another day.

The point of this post is that I am adopting an attitude of excellence in addiction recovery. When I comment on a news item, I will mention how it promotes excellence or is a trap leading to relapse. You might ask, isn’t it just enough to get someone clean or sober? Why excellence?

My answer: this is a commitment to a higher view of living. Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, both of which I joined when I needed to, claim that you must have a spiritual awakening in order to get clean and stay that way. A commitment to excellence is not a belief in God, but it is a lasting pledge if taken in earnest. So it resembles a moment of profound inner enlightenment.

You just can’t be an addict and maintain excellence in your life. You can get away with some excellence for some things for some time, but you will not have an excellent existence. You need your aware mind in focus—a lot—to achieve that result. And, as anyone who has travelled the dependency byway knows, addiction grows into a monster all by itself. Before too long, satisfying the craving is your priority, not anything spiritual and certainly not excellence.

This means that, if you are my kind of person and you truly want to get and stay clean, after you acknowledge any self-pity you may feel, you have to let it go. There’s no reason to feel guilty abut it. Just let if flow and know you feel it. But you have to exchange the self-pity for moving up spiritually. Excellence is the path that will help keep you clean. Self-pity will take you back down.

As many former addicts have discovered, addiction recovery is its own reward. It’s great to be rid of that awful mess and suffering, if only for a day at a time. The hidden prize is that excellence is its own reward, too.
Getting recovery right is not just about changing your past shortcomings.

It is also about hope. You can change your future for the better—for an excellent future of excellent achievements and beautiful relationships. You have to dream to feel alive.

You also have to commit to being good just because it’s the right thing to do, but that’s another story for another time.

Who said addiction recovery was easy?

But who said it couldn’t be great?

Technorati Tags: addiction

Amphetamine addiction of an anecdotal kind: Adderall

Have you ever wondered about how serious amphetamine addiction is here in the USA? Or, to use a street name, speed addiction?

A writer for the Huffington Post, Lawrence Diller, M.D., wrote an entire 5-part series called “United States of Adderall.” In the last installment, he gave a horrible overview. Talking about the previous four articles, Diller said:

… I've detailed that in 2010, almost 84,000 tons of legal speed were approved for production in the U.S. In 2009 America, representing 4 percent of the world's population, produced 88 percent of the world's legal amphetamine. The drugs are used ostensibly in this country primarily for the treatment of ADHD in children and adults. While ADHD exists throughout the world, the U.S. by far and away leads in ADHD diagnosis rates and treatment of this condition with medication.

Then he focused on Adderall and other legal prescription stimulants like Ritalin and Concerta. Note that the reason for these drugs is to help relieve attention disorder, not enhance normal attention. The pervasive use of these drugs in America for studying or getting high has practically made the clinical terms, ADD and ADHD, meaningless. More from Diller:

Jim Swanson is a professor of pediatrics at the University of California - Irvine's Child Development Center. Jim is a long time researcher in ADHD and its treatment.

. . .

Dr. Swanson also knows of many young adults who have required hospitalization for Adderall abuse. He thinks the questions of appropriate ADHD diagnosis are complicated by amphetamine's universal improvement on concentration. Dr. Smith feels many college students have gone online to learn the symptoms of ADHD and then repeat them to doctors in order to obtain the drug. There is no biological or psychometric test for ADHD. Someone can act perfectly normal in the doctor's office and still qualify for the diagnosis by history or report. Therefore, the opportunity to obtain the medication legally from a doctor is relatively easy. A local drug representative for the company that makes Adderall told me there were doctors offices close to the UC Berkeley campus that were well-known among the students for obtaining the shorter acting (and preferred) form of Adderall.

All of these reports are "anecdotal," and researchers and concerned clinicians continue to seek the "smoking gun" evidence needed to confirm this seeming-historic inevitability. Swanson says, "Our evidence is insufficient and not precise. Nobody has asked the question in a way that we can definitely determine there's a problem. But I think there's something definitely there."

Full article here…

To be or not to be--are amphetamines addictive? Well, that’s not the question. Everybody knows you can get addicted to amphetamines. But how about an Adderall addiction? Is this drug the dastardly speed that has ruined the lives of so many people or it is just a benign pill for improving mental clarity?

It’s anecdotal so far, but there are an awful lot of folks seeking drug addiction treatment for Adderall. (Just Google Adderall and addiction and look at all the results.)

Meanwhile the pharmaceutical companies get richer. Do they really expect us to believe that their astronomical sales are to people with some form of mental illness? And are all those folks who seek Adderall addiction treatment merely suffering from an odd form of ADD or ADHD that makes them pretend to be hooked?

What do you think? Do you have any stories to share?

Technorati Tags: ADHD,Adderall,addiction,amphetamines,stimulants

Photo by Arenamontanus

Not all drug treatment centers are created equal

Just because you call something a drug treatment center, that doesn’t mean it is a saintly place. Sometimes you come across news that just makes you mad. Take the case of Phase Piggy Back, located in Harlem, New York City.

You would think that Abukarriem Shabazz, the CEO, would make sure taxpayer funds are used for drug rehabilitation and the firm’s local rehab centers, not for monkey-business.

In a recent New York Post article, matters are looking pretty ugly. And as a former addict, this kind of stuff galls me. Addicts go to these rehab centers because they are tired of the mess addiction to drugs and other substances causes in their lives, not to visit people addicted to money.

Taxpayer money can be addicting.

Phase Piggy Back, a Harlem-based drug-treatment center, used more than $1 million in state money to pay for jewelry, beauty supplies and tuition for its CEO and employees and made nearly $400,000 in unauthorized interest-free loans to an affiliated group, state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli charged yesterday.

Phase Piggy Back received $13.2 million from July 2004 to June 2010 to provide chemical-dependence treatment and prevention services for hundreds of people.

. . .

The comptroller called on the state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services to investigate Phase Piggy Back for the spending — which he said included $27,000 at Zales Jewelers, the Home Shopping Network and a beauty-aid supplier, $49,000 for staff tuition and $17,000 “unaccounted for” for food purchases.

But Phase Piggy Back Inc. President and CEO Abukarriem Shabazz claimed his 43-year-old center has done “nothing that would speak to malfeasance or anything criminal.”

Full story here…

Is this a drug treatment center of what?

Somebody should remind Mr. Shabazz and his folks that they run a drug treatment center, not a social shopping club. They are not in business to alleviate the misery they have with jewelry, beauty products, loans or whatnot. Their mission is to clean up addicts and thereby help improve Harlem and, frankly, the world.

If these folks want money so bad, why don’t they sell drugs instead of combating addiction and abuse? I hear there’s more a lot more money in dealing.

(Man, does this make me mad.)

Technorati Tags: drug treatment center,Phase Piggy Back,addicted to money,taxpayer funds

Some friendly advice on evasion and drinking alcohol

I cannot drink alcohol because I abused it in my life. I wish I could drink nowadays. It is very pleasurable. I have many fond memories...

Still, every attempt I have made since I stopped has resulted in failure. I can't find the pleasure in it anymore, just the need. Here is some friendly advice that I wish I had been given before the abuse took hold.

If you drink frequently