Category Archives: Recovery

1-800 Counselor Phone Support

800-counselorPalm Partners is a drug rehabilitation and recovery program located in Delray Beach, Florida. The organization provides a 24 hour hotline for individuals interested in learning about addiction treatment options.

Their website also provides an online chat alternative for speaking with an addiction counselor. Individuals facing addiction often alternate between being sick & tired of what they are going through and just giving in to the addiction as a result of being tired of the fight. Apprehension and feelings of fear have kept many addicted people from actively seeking help.

Speaking with supportive professionals (as well as others in recovery) can provide hope that people really can recover, and regain their quality of life.

From year to year, there has been a continual rise in the United States in the prevalence of addictive disorders. Over the past 5 years in particular, opioid addiction has moved into the forefront of both media coverage and general public awareness.

Some professionals contend that addiction treatment resources have shrunk over the last 15 years as a result of cuts in state funding and third party insurance coverage. What the next few years holds remains a question at this point in time. While there is interest in expanding addiction treatment services across the country, government funding is limited due to the growing national deficit and inability of government leaders to revitalize the economy through appropriate business incentives.

Cassava Recovery App For Mobile Phones

cassava-appA new mobile phone app for recovering people was released last month by Elements Behavioral Health based out of Long Beach, California. The app is called Cassava and it provides a number of nifty features such as a daily reflection, a support group meetings finder based on your location, and a personal sobriety tracker that measures one’s number of days drug free.

In addition to days sober, the app allows users to record in a personal journal format their moods, daily nutrition, and even sleep patterns. An important part of growth in recovery is following new disciplines and remaining aware of self-care needs. The Cassava app can function as a useful toot for recovering people aiming to feed their recovery on a daily basis.

Another potentially helpful feature of the app is the inclusion of “recovery tips”. These function as reminders and suggestions for ways to cope with relapse risks. Addicted people, particularly in the early phase of recovery, are more vulnerable to sudden urges to use and often need a means of redirecting their thinking in order to sidestep a build-up of thoughts that feed the urge to use. Reading recovery literature has always been a potentially useful action step that helps to short circuit urges and cravings.

The app is free and can be downloaded from the Apple website. While it is designed for Apple iPhone 5.0 and above, I was able to install the app on version 4.0 and it worked well.

Stepping Onto The Path of Recovery

the-pathAn important consideration in examining the disease of addiction is the recognition that “recovery” is an incremental process. Many people facing their addiction will experience brief setbacks, and some will struggle for years before they are able to remain on the path of positive change.

As a counselor, I have listened to many recovering individuals talk about their resistance to change. Addiction is a persistent disease of disruptive thinking and behavior highly subject to repetition. Addicts will repeat the same bad “choices” as a result of many factors. Scientific research has shown that habitual patterns of behavior are neurochemically driven deep within the brain. These patterns can be reinforced by one’s social connections, immediate environment, and underlying belief system.

With severe levels of addiction sustained over years, it can become difficult for people to shift their lifestyle, thinking, and decision-making toward a healthy, recovery-oriented mindset. In 12 Step recovery, there is the popular expression called “hitting bottom”. This expression is typically used to describe a specific time in which a person has lost so much, or suffered such a painful crisis, that their readiness for change finally emerges. This window of opportunity is often times short-lived. Hitting bottom will compel some people to finally take the right action – to seek help – to admit they have a problem. If this happens, then a decision to step onto the path of recovery may actually occur.

Active addition is often characterized by a short range view in which consequences are not thoroughly considered. Focusing on consequences interferes with the compulsive desire to use. And even then, a recognition of consequences to oneself and family is often not enough to change the decision to get high. With opiate addiction, the decision to use is overwhelmingly controlled by opiate withdrawal sickness. This never-ending physical sickness takes people away from recovery and keeps them trapped in a desperate existence centered around doing whatever is necessary to avoid being “dope sick”.

Fortunately, this dilemma can be addressed through medication-assisted treatments (methadone, suboxone, naltrexone). These do not replace the need for a recovery program, but they become an important part of one’s overall personal recovery program. Staying on the path of recovery is the next critical phase after stepping onto the path. Medication-assisted treatment greatly aids recovering addicts in staying on the proper path. Science has proven that those with the greatest chance of long-term, successful sobriety are those that remain in treatment and recovery. Said differently, a person’s chance of recovery success is statistically improved the longer they remain in treatment.

When a person no longer has to face the crippling weight of daily withdrawal sickness, they have a chance to re-approach their overall recovery and the opportunities that lie ahead of them.

Evzio For Reversal of Opioid Overdose

evzio-naloxoneEvzio is an FDA-approved emergency treatment that counteracts the effects of opioid overdose. It is an “auto-injector” designed to contain a retractable needle and a 0.4 mg dose of naloxone. Naloxone is a powerful opioid antagonist that reverses the effects of overdose with heroin or other opiates. Naloxone has been used throughout the country in the past few years and literally saved hundreds of lives.

evzio-imageKaleo Pharma is the manufacturer of Evzio. The company specializes in innovative solutions for serious and life threatening medical conditions. Kaleo Pharma is based out of Richmond, Virginia, USA.

As has been documented in national media, very potent forms of heroin have become available much of it laced with other opiate derivatives like fentanyl. These combinations have proven lethal in a large number of cases often with younger people being the victims of overdose due to not understanding the extreme potency of the drugs being sold.

Products like Evzio in the hands of family and local emergency response teams can yield life saving interventions within minutes.

When addicted people survive a near fatal overdose, this often acts as a necessary catalyst to enter treatment and to step onto the path of personal recovery. Overdose survivors sometimes reflect on what has happened to them and may realize the pain that their death would have caused their children, friends, and family. The vast majority of overdoses are accidental and are nearly always preventable.

It is important to remember that addiction is an illness and that addicted people can recover, and can go on to live much improved lives when they are ready to change. Evzio will most likely save many people and give them that opportunity to live a life of real recovery.

For more about naloxone

Maine’s Governor LePage May Undermine Opioid Addiction Treatment

Maine2Paul LePage, the governor of Maine, has announced that he is considering ceasing state-funded support for methadone. As an alternative, Maine is proposing that patients prescribed methadone be switched to a more affordable suboxone option as part of a $727,000 state budget cut. The story is here.

This is an indefensible decision with dire medical implications for opioid addicted patients currently receiving methadone. It equates to government officials making medical decisions that will negatively impact the health and well-being of thousands of people.

Representative Drew Gattine (a member of the Health & Human Services Committee) is quoted as saying the proposal shows a lack of understanding of the societal costs of addiction throughout the state of Maine.

Methadone and suboxone are both effective medications, but offer very unique characteristics and applications depending on the severity & chronicity of a patient’s opioid addiction. Buprenorphine (the actual opioid agonist contained in suboxone) has a much lower ceiling effect than does methadone meaning its effectiveness would be insufficient for a potentially large percentage of stable methadone patients on 60mg or more of methadone daily. Many patients on a moderate to high maintenance dose of methadone would not have their opioid withdrawal symptoms managed by even the maximum dosage allowed for suboxone – which is generally around 32 mg per day.

For a politician to, in essence, prescribe inappropriate medical treatment for a diagnosable medical condition is a huge state liability. The repercussions are alarming. Hopefully, the local medical establishment and other state officials will step in before irreversible damage is done. Methadone works. This cannot be denied.

Methadone has a long, proven track record of medical efficacy and cost effectiveness. Maine, in particular, has suffered in recent years with a severe opioid addiction epidemic. Reducing access to appropriate medical treatment like methadone will likely result in overdose deaths across Maine and an explosion of condemnation for the governor and his office.

Medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid addiction is not a fad. It is scientifically proven effective and endorsed by multiple state & federal regulatory agencies as well as ASAM.