I had a chance yesterday to tour the new Sunrise Detox facility in Ft. Lauderdale. You can see some more photos here at the blog. If you’re interested in more details, leave a comment or use the contact link.
Where the chefs work their magic
In the 12-Step programs we’re encouraged to develop a routine of little rituals that begin our day in a recovery-oriented way and set the tone for the hours to follow. Many people meditate, perhaps after reading a bit of program literature. Some of us have an exercise routine that goes along with it. Others sit and think about their plans for the day, make notes in a journal, and then consider the best way to apply their program to the day’s progress.
There is no best way to do these things, but it is vitally important that we do something of the sort. Getting up and immediately plunging into the chaos of daily life can be daunting. A period of calm and consideration beforehand can make the difference between a serene approach and the hit-or-miss fumbling that is characteristic of the “old me.”
For the past few days I’ve been checking out a recovery app called “Today’s Step.” It’s available for both iPhone and Android, and is an interesting approach to say the least.
I like that they refer to the suggested activities as “practice,” rather than “working the program.” I have always thought that recovery is just that: practice in the sense of “The actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories….” We can sit around talking about our program for a long time, but if we don’t do anything about it we’re like the guy leaning on his shovel in the shade, telling everyone about how someday he’ll own the company.
The practice laid out in Today’s Step is easy to accomplish and deceptively simple. There is a theme for each day — “persistence,” for example — along with suggested ways to put it into practice. A daily video guides simple exercises based on Qigong, a gentle Chinese system of moving meditation, to stretch muscles and get the blood flowing. There are stories of people in recovery, and users are encouraged to submit their own. I read a couple. They’re pretty good. Just about any addict could relate. Keep an eye out for mine.
You can skip around in the app and check out past quotes, etc. There is even a system of rewards for completing various numbers of days practice, similar to the chips and key tags familiar to us all. The free demo has limited material, but is enough to get a feeling for the practice. The paid version (a great big four bucks!) has additional features. I plan to purchase it for my Droid as soon as I get finished writing this.
Here’s the developer’s list of features (paid version):
• Daily motivational quotations
• Weekly themes and actions
• Easy-to-follow exercise videos to promote health
• Audio guided meditations
• Share with a friend
• Favorites and previous history
• See additional quotations with “Skip Around”
• Inspirational success stories from the recovery community
• Virtual rewards for progress milestones
Verdict: Five stars from the old timer.
It’s unclear if there are long-term health impacts for children born to opiate-addicted mothers who get through their first weeks of life okay. Some but not all studies on the question have found those kids grow up with a higher risk of developmental problems, according to Patrick.
What is clear is that babies born in opiate withdrawal significantly drive up health care costs.
According to the study, the average hospital stay for a newborn in withdrawal averages 16 days, compared to just three days for other newborns. Care costs were more than five times higher.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/01/health-babies-opiates-idUSL4E8G10AH20120501
Really disappointing collection of “comics” at the Crossroads show this evening. Gross, by itself, isn’t funny — especially when that’s all you’ve got — and the program’s not about blow jobs, racial slurs, and slamming other fellowships. I wonder how many people thought they were attending a recovery benefit? And how many were turned off — maybe even from the fellowship.
Time to grow up, people. Time to call your sponsors.
A recent study has indicated that teen drinking is strongly related to problems in the neural network that controls impulsive behavior. Professionals have long known that the two go together, but had no indication of which came first.
This study settles that, and other questions regarding ADD and drinking.
Faced with a choice about smoking or drinking, the 14-year-old with a less functional impulse-regulating network will be more likely to say, “yeah, gimme, gimme, gimme!” says Garavan, “and this other kid is saying, ‘no, I’m not going to do that.’”
More from the Sunrise Detox Blog:
We all know that most relapses occur in the first few months after we get clean and sober. Many of them are related to Post-acute Withdrawal Syndrome. We talked about PAWS in a previous post, but I wanted to go into it more specifically here….
http://sunrisedetox.com/blog/2012/05/04/paws-post-acute-withdrawal-syndrome/
More details here: PAWS: Why We Don’t Get Better Overnight
This just went live over at the Sunrise Detox Blog, if anyone’s interested.
The comedian Dave Gardner used to remark, “Folks are always saying, ‘Let’s do this again!’ But friends, you can’t do anything again! You can do something similar!”
I think about Gardner’s bit of wisdom when I hear people in early recovery talking about returning to their families and friends and “making it up to them.” (This also brings to mind the idea of pushing toothpaste back into the tube.) We say these things with the idea that we will be able to return things to the way they were “before” — if there ever really was a before.
That’s a lovely idea, but it’s not the way reality works. Read More…
Such giveaways may have saved more than 10,000 lives since the first program was started in 1996 in Chicago, according to a survey by the Harm Reduction Coalition, a national group that works to reduce the consequences of drug use.
Opponents say that making the antidote so easily available is an accommodation to drug use that could make addicts less likely to seek treatment.
OK…most of my readers know more about this issue than the so-called “authorities.” What do you think? Will making it available to addicts and their families make folks more likely to get high? I say horsefeathers!
Please read the article before you comment. I’d like to get some reasoned thoughts here, not just knee-jerk reactions.
The DEA estimates that 7 million Americans abuse pharmaceuticals, leading to a 346 percent spike in overdose deaths from oxycodone alone from 2005 to 2010.
The trend is responsible for 11 deaths per day, on average, from oxycodone, methadone, hydrocodone, benzodiazepines and morphine, federal officials say. Prescription drug abusers include an estimated one in seven teenagers
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-24/lifestyle/sns-rt-us-usa-healthcare-drugsbre83o04w-20120424_1_prescription-drug-oxycodone-overdose-deaths
In my own case, I knew it some time before I got clean and sober, but I just didn’t think it was possible. I knew what happened if I went even for short periods without alcohol or a substitute, and there was no way (that I could see) to quit. But did I want to be free? Oh yes, desperately!
Read more… Sunrise Detox Blog
“No matter how big and tough a problem may be, get rid of confusion by taking one little step toward solution. Do something.” ~ George F. Nordenholt
I just heard a discussion of the film “Bullying” on NPR, and the asshole who opined that we “need” bullying because it teaches us to “stand up for ourselves” so enraged me that I had to turn it off.
I haven’t seen the film, and I don’t intend to. I know all too well what it’s about. I lived it, and that I survived had more to do with my ability to withdraw into books and similar pursuits, shutting out that part of my world, than it did with the quality of my character. I completely understand the kids who chose to leave theirs.
There’s no point in going into details, because I’m not looking for sympathy here. What is important in this is that I was bullied continuously from first grade through what they now call Middle School, and that it shaped my life. Rather than going through whatever normal evolution I would have, and becoming whatever I might have, I ended up with a fixation on martial arts, a fascination with firearms and other means of committing mayhem, and in a profession (police officer) for which I was spectacularly unsuited.
Until my alcoholism and other addictions made it clear to me that I didn’t belong in that line of work, and until my recovery forced me to look at my real interests and calling, I spent nearly forty (that’s 40) years fumbling around trying to find out who I really was. That’s what bullying accomplished for me. It taught me to stand up for a self that I wasn’t, and kept me from becoming whoever it was I would have been.
I’m pretty much OK now. I didn’t die, and I’m comfortable in my own skin. But it could have gone a different way. I wish the sphincter on NPR could have experienced one week of what it was like from the other side of the fence. Maybe he’d keep his mouth the fuck shut about things he has no chance of understanding.
On the other hand, maybe he did. The bullied sometimes make the best bullies. On the job training, sort of.
Not all of the terrorists are “out there.”
Therapists use a variety of tools to help newcomers and those formerly sober folks who felt the need to do some additional field work. One therapist I know likes to use the concept of the AA “Askit Basket”, adapted to a mixed group of alcoholics and other addicts, where participants put anonymous question slips into a basket or jar, and then the group uses them at random to stimulate discussions. With the permission of the group, she passes the anonymous questions on to me, and I try to craft explanations for a wider audience.
Lately there have been a lot of questions about sponsors and sponsorship, so I thought I’d devote a couple of posts to questions about that important subject. Read more at the blog…
For those of you who don’t know, I also write the blog for Sunrise Detoxification Centers (Sunrise Detox Blog). Some posts I link to here, but not all. I think there’s some pretty good stuff there, so go to the blog and look around the categories if you’re interested.
There is absolutely no reason why addicts shouldn’t attend AA meetings. However, AA has traditions that are important to the fellowship and to many of the members. One of those is that they generally confine their discussions to alcoholism and recovery from alcoholism….
http://sunrisedetox.com/blog/2012/03/29/addict-aa-recovery-addiction-alcoholism/
