Understanding How Addiction Hijacks Rationality

Sep 19 2022

Addiction Hijacks: When I’m High, I Really Want to Be Sober

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Addiction, Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, The Field of Treatment, Therapy, Treatment, Yeshaia Blakeney

WHAT TO EXPECT

Understanding How Addiction Hijacks Rationality

Addiction Hijacks our “semi-rational” thoughts to justify ego desires.

The simplest way to put this is to tell a story.

Dealing with Cravings

I remember working with a client. He was about a week sober, had gotten out of detox from opioids. He was a week sober and still somewhat obsessed about using heroin.

He very earnestly approached me as a counselor at the time. He said, “Can I talk to you for a little bit?” I said, “Sure.”

We went back in my office, and he said, “I’m craving. I really want to use heroin, you know, will you help me?”

I said, “Well, tell me what your plan is. How are you– let’s lay it out. How are you going to go use heroin?”

Semi-Rational Plan to Use

He said, “Well, I go to Inglewood. I’m going to get some heroin.”

I said, “Slow down. Do you have any money on you right now?”

He said, “Yeah, I got 10 bucks.”

“Well, first of all, give me that 10 bucks.” I took that 10 bucks. Then I said, “So, how are you going to get ahold of your dealer?”

And he said, “I’m going to call him.” I said, “Do you have a cell phone?” He said, “No. You like picked up on my game, right?” And I said, “Okay, well now, if you don’t have a cell phone, how are you going to call the dealer?”

He said, “We go to the gas station, and I’m going to call him.” I said, “But you don’t have any money.” He said, “Well, I’ll panhandle and then I’ll call my drug dealer.”

I said, “Okay. So, we’re going to walk to the gas station on the corner over there. You’re going to call your drug dealer. He’s going to come drop it off.”

He said, “No. My dealer doesn’t deliver. I got to go to Inglewood. I got to get there. So, I’m going to take the bus.”

I said, “Okay. So, you’re going to take the bus to Inglewood and you’re going to meet your dealer. Where?” “There’s Burger King in Inglewood.”

I said, “Okay. And then what?”

“So, I’m going to use.”

“So, where are young going to use?”

He said, “I’m going to use in the Burger King bathroom.”

I said, “With what?”

He said, “With foil and a straw.”

I said, “Okay. So, using in a Burger King bathroom. And then what are you going to do?”

He said, “I’m going to be high.”

I said, “Okay. And then what?”

And then he said, “I’m going to come home.”

I said, “Yeah. You’re going to go back to your mom and dad’s?”

And he said, “No. They kicked me out. I’m going to come back here.”

“Okay, so you’re going to go use at the Burger King. You’re going to get high in the bathroom. You are going to catch the bus back after you’re high. You’re going to come back to this treatment program. And then what are you going to do?”

He said, “Then I’m going to get sober.”

Addiction Hijacks the Mind’s Rational Thought

And I, of course, you know, I said, “But you’re sober now. You’re already there. You don’t have to do the loop de loop.”

And he looked at me, and he said, “Yeah, but when I’m high, I really want to be sober.”

And I said, “Okay, so what I hear you saying is that in order for you to get and stay sober, you have to get high again.”

He said, “Yeah.”

Semi Rational Reasoning

The ego self had basically taken the rational ability and created a little narrative and story that makes semi-sense.

But obviously, if you use that rationale in your life, you’d never get sober, right? Because every time I try to get sober, I have to get high and be motivated to get sober again. You just do that rinse and repeat, over and over. It’s actually what a lot of people do.

The Ego and Justifications

The ego self can hijack the rationale to create justifications.

It’s a reality. And with this particular person, he actually did it. He didn’t do it that night. But a couple of days later, he left, and incredibly he was right. He got high at Burger King.

We ended up referring him to a program out of town. And he’s, I think, sober eight, nine years now. So, he happened to be right. But it’s not a good equation as to how to get clean. As an example of how the ego self can hijack the rationale in order to create justifications to continue to enable addiction.

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Jul 19 2022

Men’s Addiction Treatment, Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Sober Living

Sober Living Programs for Successful Recovery

Kevin Gruzewski

WHAT TO EXPECT:

Some individuals choose to live in sober homes to increase the chances of a successful recovery.

But what are sober homes? And how do sober living programs benefit those in early recovery?

What is a Sober Living Program?

Sober living programs, including sober housing, are the bridge between inpatient rehab and returning to the “real world.” These programs provide a safe environment for an individual to practice and build on the skills learned while in inpatient care.

Who Benefits from Sober Living Homes?

While in treatment, individuals learn that they must avoid the people, places, and things that trigger their addictive thoughts and behaviors. This isn’t always easy. Returning home after inpatient drug rehab may set some individuals up for failure.

Certain home circumstances cause triggers that derail a successful recovery. This includes:

An unstable home environment with unresolved issues
Sharing a home with those using drugs or alcohol
No accountability for actions
Lack of structure
Difficulty accessing a support network
Living with people that don’t understand the needs of someone in early recovery

What Happens in a Sober Living Program?

Individuals that choose these sober living arrangements enjoy a safe, structured environment that supports recovery.

Qualified addiction professionals manage sober living homes around the clock. When an individual in early recovery is struggling or triggered, they have access to someone that can help them work through these difficulties. Recovery gets reinforced. Disasters averted.

Those in sober living homes practice the skills they learned in higher levels of treatment. They build on those skills as they develop healthy routines. As they progress through treatment, they get more responsibilities and freedom to choose how they spend their free time.

Sober living programs encourage individuals to find work, develop their support network, and continue to build the essential life skills that support recovery.Daily check-ins, group therapy, and skills training reinforce healthy leaving, clear boundaries, and establishing recovery.

Why Sober Living for Long Term Recovery?

Recovery is a journey that lasts a lifetime. As with any journey, there will be transitions. Sober living homes are a transition point.

Individuals choose these living arrangements after completing inpatient drug rehab. The decision isn’t always easy. They often wonder, is sober living for me?

We’ve already talked about who benefits from sober living homes. But what are the benefits for those entering a sober living program?

Sober living helps by:

Offering continuous support: Getting sober isn’t easy. Many people self-medicate to avoid relationship difficulties, past traumas, and distressing feelings. Without drugs or alcohol, the things they avoided may become overwhelming. Staff at sober living homes are trained to help individuals cope and work through difficult times–even relapse.
Developing crucial life skills: The structured environment allows individuals to work on areas of their lives neglected while using. This can include communication, emotional regulation, financial, vocational, and healthy living skills.
Encouraging meaningful, sober relationships: An individual in recovery often loses contact with using peers. The ability to create meaningful relationships while sober allows an individual to develop relationships with like-minded peers.
Embracing independence: As an individual progresses through treatment, the ability to be successful at handling more responsibilities builds confidence and motivation.
Solidifying recovery: The longer an individual goes without using, the more they realize they can navigate life with the crutch of drugs or alcohol. The structure and accountability in sober living homes allow someone in recovery to take small steps towards a bigger, brighter future.

The benefits of sober living make the transition to a fully independent, sober life more attainable

Los Angeles Sober Living

Is there sober living in LA? Yes! There are several options to help your recovery in Los Angeles. Sometimes the options can make it hard to decide which sober living is right for me.

Here are some things to consider while deciding:

Does the sober living program resonate with my needs?
Is it a broad program for “everyone” or designed specifically for people like me?
Can I get vital outpatient treatment while living in the sober environment?
What evidence-based addiction treatments are available?
Do other people recommend the program?
Am I willing to honestly invest the time in sober living housing?
Can I afford the program?
Does the sober living home provide the amenities I desire?

Not all sober living programs are the same. Many individuals in early recovery benefit from sober homes that also provide outpatient addiction treatment. The added support and structure reinforce the foundation built during inpatient drug rehab.

Ultimately, you want to choose a sober living home that feels like home. One where you can feel comfortable and motivated to continue your recovery.

Luxury Men’s Los Angeles Sober Living Program

Men accustomed to a certain way of living may find difficulties adjusting to some sober homes. Luckily, men in sober living that desire luxury amenities can find options in the Los Angeles area.

That being said, the luxury should also include holistic addiction treatment that helps develop the skills and lifestyle habits for a successful recovery.

Recover Integrity is a values-based intensive outpatient drug rehab that offers luxury sober living as part of our step-down program. What sets Recover Integrity apart from other sober homes is its focus on innovative, evidence-based treatment. Our exclusive V.E.G.A program, cognitive testing, and luxury amenities provide a safe place where individuals recover their lives.

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Jul 07 2022

How Long Do I Need Addiction Treatment?

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Addiction, Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, The Field of Treatment, Therapy, Video, Yeshaia Blakeney

WHAT TO EXPECT:

One of the questions that people have when seeking treatment is: How long do I need to do it?

I’m always trying to empower people by thinking deeply about their questions.

If you put that question in perspective it’s more like: How long is it going to take for me to change? There isn’t an exact number of days that you can say.

Is 30 Days Enough for Addiction Treatment?

There’s a model out there for 30-day treatment.

But what is that based on?

Is that based on some science that people break addictions in 30 days? Absolutely not. It’s based on the way that insurance billing works. The 30-day treatment model may not provide the kind of change that people need.

The standard answer these days is recovery takes around 90 days. I think that has more to do with the amount of time that people can afford to spend away from the system of their lives. Most people can’t just drop out of their lives for six months or nine months unless they’re young and maybe have good insurance. Or have strong support from the family. Or possibly getting resources from the county or the city.

Our treatment program is 90 days. Still, the 90-day program is sort of a compromise. It’s trying to get people as much treatment as they can get realistically.

In my mind, 30 days means maybe you’re starting to sleep good. Maybe you’re feeling safe. You’re beginning to approach recovery, but you’re nowhere near where you need to be to move on. By 90 days, you should have built a decent foundation…not a solid foundation, but a decent foundation.

Effective Treatment: Engaging in Recovery

A lot of TV programs, they portray good treatment. But the goal of treatment is not to do treatment well. The goal of treatment is to engage people in recovery so they can do their lives well. That’s the real trick.

The immersive experience is upfront: experience with the recovery culture, knowledge and tools, understanding therapy, psychiatry, all the things you need. And then you really want to kind of move that person into life to build those peer and family support structures outside that they have forever. So that they can keep recovery sustainable.

Ninety days in relatively contained care, as I see it: first 30 days real contained, second 30 days less contained, and much more freedom in the third 30 days. Then you’re back in your life but with a lot of support and resources to help you along the way…

That’s really good treatment and it works phenomenally well when the circumstances lineup to be able to do that.

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Jun 14 2022

Developing A Recovery Identity

Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Yeshaia Blakeney

What to expect:

One of the places where people really get stuck in their recovery process is in their identity.

My Struggles with a Mixed-Raced Identity

Super easy example: I’m mixed black and Jewish. I used to keep my hair really short–like a little tight fade–because I wanted to fit in with the black crowd that I was hanging with.

When I first got sober. I was like, oh, I’m gonna grow my hair out. But my hair…I have these Jewish curly locks. I would start to grow my hair out, and I would feel less black, less tough. And then I would immediately cut it.

I was really stuck between who I thought I should be and how I thought about myself. My hair was like a metaphor for that. So, for years of my early recovery, I would try to grow my hair out. Then I would feel softer, feel different, or wouldn’t feel like me, and I would cut it again.

Then I remember really setting myself free at around four or five years sober. I was like, I have to break out of this identity. I’m trapped in this hip-hop cool, tough way of being. If I really want to be free, I have to let go of that.

I started growing my hair longer and longer until it is just like how it is now. For me, it was really a symbol of letting go of one identity and embracing whatever I was becoming.

Letting Go of Old Identities During Recovery

Letting go and changing identities is a huge struggle in recovery. One of the ways that it’s challenged right up front is at a 12-Step meeting.

You’re sitting there and people are identifying. Somebody will nudge you with their elbow as they’re identifying and say, “Are there any alcoholics in the room?”

You’re supposed to kind of raise your hand–you don’t have to, but it’s culturally normative–and say, “Hi, my name is Shai. I’m an alcoholic.”

If you haven’t seen yourself in that way, it really kind of puts you off. You’re like, God, I don’t want to, is this me? I’m not sure, etc.

There are all kinds of problems with labeling yourself. But one of the things it does do is cause you to question the identity that you’re trapped in. Part of the reason why people feel stuck in addiction–and even in early sobriety–is because they’re trapped in the idea of who they think they should be as opposed to allowing themselves to become who they are.

The Recovery Identity and Transformation

Becoming who you are has to do with letting go of ideas. It doesn’t mean you have to take on the label of alcoholic. That’s a personal choice that depends on how you relate to that idea, but it does mean that your identity has to change.

Think about it. If my identity doesn’t change, how am I going to make the deep kind of transformation that I need to sustain recovery and live a fulfilling life? How can I go from being a pessimist to an optimist? How can I go from being depressed to being happy? How can I go from being anxious to being calm without letting go of how I see myself?

That’s a sacred process that needs to be held. It’s not something that happens in 30 days. It’s not even something that happens in a couple months. It’s something that we work at; it’s a developmental shift that happens over the course of years.

I call it developing a recovery identity. It doesn’t have to be somebody else’s definition of what it means to be a person in recovery, but you do have to have some definition of what it means for you to be in recovery. You have to identify that with who you are.

So when I think about myself, I think about myself as a husband, hip-hop MC, leader in an organization, father, and as a person in recovery.

What that all means…I could talk about that forever. But I identify as a person in recovery, because that’s part of who I am…It’s part of my story.

It’s part of why I’m here right now.

Aug 01 2021

The Power of Framing

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Addiction, Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Therapy, Yeshaia Blakeney

In therapy, there’s a term we use…Framing.

I actually believe that the term originated, and the way they use it in therapy, is from Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP).

Even though a lot of therapists don’t respect NLP, a lot was stolen from it. And one of those notions, I could be wrong about this, is the notion of framing and reframing.

What is Framing and Reframing?

Framing and reframing has to do with the interpretive structure of consciousness of what reality is or is not given.

So I’m sitting in this room with the light and the microphone and the camera. Several people here…But that’s not given to me.

That’s actually kind of a complex interpretation of what’s going on, you know. I mean, first of all, I’m inferring that there’s a thing called people, there’s a thing called light, there’s a thing called camera, and there’s a thing called room.

I mean, if we try to define all of these things–like what exactly is a room and what’s not a room– does it have to have four walls, only three? Does it have to have a ceiling, or no ceiling? Does it have to be built by man or can it be a natural room…or is it a cave?

It’s a lot to consider.

Interpreting Our Reality

There’s a certain interpretive structure that goes into how we interface, understand, and cognize our reality, that’s called framing. We frame things in a certain way. The way that we generally think about that in therapeutic terms has to do with what we emphasize in any given experience.

So I can have a very scary experience. What I’m thinking about that experience may be in order to communicate it to somebody else later. How I frame that experience is how I hold it. You know, that was very scary.

Let’s say I was on an airplane and there was terrible turbulence. That was very scary and I never want to do that again. You know, that plane could have crashed.

I can frame that completely differently. It’s unbelievable that human beings were able to build these flying machines that take us from one island to another. You know, now and then, there’s turbulence. It’s very scary, but it’s much safer than even driving in a car or possibly riding a bicycle, right? It has to do with how I frame my reality.

So I think that the term and the deep understanding of the term is super important.

Feelings Are Choices

Rabbi Mordecai Finley, who’s a great teacher of mine, says something very controversial. I don’t think it’s an original thought of his, but he says, “At a deep level, feelings are choices.”

What does that mean? Feelings are the one thing we don’t have a choice over, right?

I don’t wake up and choose how I feel. And I think what he’s saying is that we have a deep pre-linguistic, emotional framing structure that we have a say in every day.

I’ll say that again because it’s a complicated notion. At a deep level, feelings are choices. We have a deep pre-linguistic–underneath language–framing mechanism that relates to our experiences.

It’s so deep it relates to the part of us that we would call primitive and emotional. The deep brain. And I actually have a say in how that interpretation happens.

Posture and Your Reality

Jordan Peterson is a controversial figure. I should probably do a video about his journey with Xanax or, at least, what they’re reporting about it. It makes no sense to me as an expert in that field.

He talks in his book,12 Rules for Life, about making your back straight. On one hand he has kind of a silly piece of advice: ”Okay Grandma, thank you for telling me to sit up straight.”

On the other hand, what he’s saying is, how you hold your body changes how you interpret and interface with your reality. It changes how you frame yourself.

Do I think about myself as somebody who’s low confidence and has no backbone? Or is my pushing–my framing–who I am in such a way as to be assertive and to matter in the world? And my posture says a lot about that, right? About how I’m oriented…Framing orientation.

And so, that notion, however true it is, is a helpful notion. It’s empowering because it means I have the power in some ways–and at most moments–to frame what’s happening with me.

Framing and Grief

I’ll give one really deep story about this. I was having lunch with a friend of a friend. He’s an older gentleman and we were just kind of chit-chatting.

As we were chit-chatting, it came up that he had a child that died when she was about 12 years old. He kept talking so I couldn’t say, “Oh, my condolences.” The normal decorum when somebody says that.

He just kind of kept talking.

So when he finally finished talking, I said, “By the way, you know, I wanted to offer, you know, my condolences. That’s just terrible and tragic.”

We were having a deep spiritual conversation, so he kind of pulled me aside and said, “You know, I wouldn’t say this to most people, but I think you’d understand the fact that she passed is not a bad thing. Well, most people, if I say that, they’d think I’m crazy, but I think you get it.”

And he walked me through the experience of her sickness and how she held it and how he held it. He shared what the experience of her actually passing was like. He didn’t see it as bad…he didn’t frame it as bad.

And I don’t know that I could do that. I definitely wouldn’t want to find out.

It struck me at a deep level. For this man, it was kind of like, at some soul level, this man is in touch with something where he’s able to frame a tragedy and hold it in such a powerful and good way that if we all could do…Well, the whole world would be in a better place.

So that’s the power of framing…it reaches down in the past turns the therapeutic into the spiritual.

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Apr 19 2021

Ayahuasca: An Opportunity for Healing?

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Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Yeshaia Blakeney

One of the most popular plant medicine experiences–and it’s just kind of out–is Ayahuasca. It’s a South American brew, a tea, that has hallucinogenic properties largely coming from DMT–a compound produced in certain plants. The Ayahuasca vine allows the DMT to pass the blood-brain barrier.

Using Ayahuasca is a seven-hour experience. They call it psychedelic, but these are loose categories.

Ayahuasca vs. Other Psychedelics

I mean, there’s a difference in the psychedelic experience of psilocybin and Ayahuasca. I would say that the Ayahuasca experience can be a lot more metaphysical. It’s a lot less predictable, deeper, and stronger in ways that aren’t easy to articulate. We’re talking about complicated complex phenomenological experiences, but people have been using Ayahuasca for healing for a long time.

Traditionally shamans used Ayahuasca to be able to diagnose the diseases and problems of people in the tribes so that the tribe’s people wouldn’t drink it. The shamans would drink it, so they could see in the spiritual realm where others were broken. Then the shamans help them heal–usually with song and medicine rattles, sometimes potions, and things like that.

As of late, people have been drinking Ayahuasca to see…maybe for a lot of reasons.

But, you know, the healing context to experience the brokenness for themselves and begin to heal in those spaces while actively on Ayahuasca, as well as do the integration work afterwards, is complicated.

So, it’s an interesting thing to think about like I’ve talked about in previous videos, the sort of realms, like the realm of the imaginary or the archetypal realm, and even an angelic realm–who knows what these realms are and where they are.

But when you drink Ayahuasca, you get access to those dimensions of being whether they’re being produced by the brain or they actually exist somewhere…You’re there.

Ayahuasca and the Psyche

And so, if you think about that, Ayahuasca is giving you access to what we call the realm of the psyche. I don’t limit that to the brain.

I call the realm of the psyche like, “What’s going on in there?”

And you can also maneuver in there, change things, ask for things, and get clarity about what’s in there. And so what Ayahuasca is doing is giving you a kind of access to yourself and maybe to other realms that you normally don’t have.

In that sense, anything can happen. People have reported cancer being cured. Others say their PTSD, depression, and anxiety were cured. In addition, people go from being atheists to believers.

When you get that kind of access anything can happen and that’s what’s phenomenal about Ayahuasca.

Dangers of Ayahuasca

It’s also what’s dangerous about Ayahuasca…Anything can happen.

You might get access to something that further traumatizes you–that means you might get stuck. It could be painful; you could get PTSD.

So it’s a very deep, powerful experience but it’s one that we should approach with reverence and caution, which is, you know, not the American way.

I like to be kind of a voice that says, “Hey, let’s take this slow, let’s figure out what this is. Let’s figure out how to integrate this into our culture in a healthy, reverential way.”

As opposed to: “Hey let’s just go drink this as tea…it’s going to cure everybody.”

Ayahuasca…Moving Forward

So it’s a fascinating subject. It breaks into many domains. It’s interesting to think about it in terms of recovery–that you could use this powerful, hallucinogenic brew to heal from a lifelong addiction.

It’s happened many times. I know plenty of people personally that have done that. It’s not addictive. So, there is absolutely no risk in terms of being addicted to Ayahuasca. It’s not an experience a person is going to want to have every day and you know, build a tolerance to it.

So the risk factors are more around PTSD. The benefits are unpredictable but there is certainly a potential.

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Mar 08 2021

When Do We Acquire the Knowledge of Self?

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Recovery Blog, Video, Yeshaia Blakeney

So when it comes to the notion of authenticity, RZA is like “He is my guy.”

RZA is a producer and also a hip-hop MC of a group called Wu-Tang from Long Island. I grew up listening to him.

And I remember being 13 years old smoking weed in my cousin’s bedroom, listening to an album called Liquid Swords. And it was like an alien had landed and delivered an album from another planet.

We were like, “Who are these guys?”

And it is because their hip-hop lineage–like where they got their sound from–actually was not other hip-hop artists. They got their sound from Kung Fu movies. So it is a mix of hip-hop, boom-bap drums from the East Coast, Kung Fu sounds, and the Soul samples. It was really amazing.

Anyway, I heard this interview with Rick Rubin and RZA, and, basically, Rick was like, “Man…” (kind of like me) “Hey man, you are like an alien, but you are making–you started making this kind of music at like fifteen years old. Like who are you? How did you create Wu-Tang?”

And RZA goes…He has his phrase. I will never forget it. He says in the interview, “Rick, I had knowledge of myself at a very young age…like 11 years old.”

And just the way that he said it…I am familiar with Wu-Tang, RZA, and hip-hop. The way he said, “I had knowledge of myself at a very young age.” For me, it was like a theory about how human beings develop in a way that I had never thought about it.

So I give a lot of credit to RZA for this because I think about human development and psychological development. I actually know about stage development from Kohlberg and Piaget. I know about how humans grow, learn, and transform. I know the great thinkers on the subject.

But for me, my favorite right now is RZA…because there is not a category in developmental psychology that says, “When do we get knowledge of self in the way that he is talking about?”

Because he is implying that he knew who he was supposed to be and what he was supposed to be doing at 11 years old.

This idea is so crucial. I am raising kids and I have expectations about how they are behaving in the world but they are also individual and unique souls. One of the things I want to understand is: when does this kid have knowledge of self?

Because at that point, I have to trust what they are doing. I mean, I do not know if RZA’s mom, when he was smoking weed and watching Kung Fu movies was like, “Well, he knows himself and he knows exactly what he was supposed to be doing. So let me let him do his thing.”

The other thing that struck me when he said that…For me that experience happened much later. I got sober at 21 years old. But if you were to ask me in the way that RZA was implying–or at least my interpretation of what RZA was implying–when I had knowledge of self, I would probably say not until my 30s.

It was very interesting. So it is interesting to think about that as a category of being and how it relates to a notion of authenticity. How can you be authentic without having knowledge of self? Without knowing who you are?

And I do not mean that in some complete sense. I just mean that in some sense where you wake up and you kind of just know who you are and you know generally what you are supposed to be doing and how you are supposed to be.

It is not some fancy academic concept, but I think it points to something so important and so real about the human journey and the human soul.

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Feb 15 2021

The Potential Fallout of Suboxone Treatment

Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, The Future of Addiction

What to Expect:

Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) uses prescribed drugs to help individuals struggling with opioid addiction manage their withdrawal symptoms and stay engaged in treatment.
Suboxone (or Subutex) is popularly prescribed to save lives and reduce the harm of opioid addiction.
What are the potential long-term effects of Suboxone in an individual’s overall quality of life?

Understanding Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)

Opiate use in the United States is at a crisis level–too many people are dying from abusing and overdosing on these powerful drugs. Opiates are highly addictive and a single overdose can prove fatal.

As a result of the opiate epidemic, lives are needlessly lost or destroyed, families devastated, and the socio-economic impacts widespread.

In an effort to save lives, medications have been developed as a means of harm reduction.

Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) gives an individual struggling with opiate addiction a fighting chance to recover and return to a normal life. That being said, a simple medication is not going to solve all of one’s problems–it is often a starting point where extensive counseling and therapy is necessary.

But is MAT just substituting one drug for another?

Not necessarily.

Drugs like heroin are unregulated and dangerous. Even prescription opiates are very dangerous when not taken as directed.

MAT offers those struggling with opiate addiction safer, FDA-approved medications. MAT medications–like Suboxone–help reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms without producing that euphoric high.

Using Suboxone to Treat Opiate Addiction

Suboxone is one commonly prescribed medication to treat opiate addiction. It is actually a combination of two different drugs–buprenorphine and naloxone. Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist that blocks the brain’s opiate receptors to reduce urges. The effects are similar to an opioid, but weaker.

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist. It counters the effects of opioids in the system. In fact, Naloxone is a commonly used medication by first responders encountering an individual experiencing an opioid overdose.

Suboxone is usually self-administered once a day as a film or tablet placed under the tongue to dissolve.

Potential Future Challenges for Suboxone Users

As a result of the opiate crisis, we have a percentage of young people that are on some sort of opiate blocker or opiate substitute–the most common being Suboxone.

The first crisis we may face in the future of addiction is the vast number of individuals taking Suboxone or Subutex for up to 10 years. We don’t really understand the long-term effects of these drugs.

We don’t know how these medications affect people’s development. What happens when an 18-year-old is put on Suboxone. How will it affect their development as they reach the mid-20s? Maybe it’s hardly at all. Maybe it’s a big deal. BUT…we don’t know for sure.

Will it be a future challenge?

Will people start having mental health challenges as they reach their 30s, 40s, or beyond? Can it be related to Suboxone?

And then there is the issue of getting off Suboxone. It’s well known coming off Suboxone is harder than kicking heroin. So, Suboxone may be saving an individual’s life, but the detox and resulting depression can last months if not years.

So, in a nutshell, we are putting a band-aid on a gaping wound to help save a life. If we don’t tend to that “wound” with counseling, treatment, and teaching life skills, that “band-aid” may save lives, but not QUALITY of lives.

Will we have the capability to deal with these issues? If we think proactively, there certainly is a potential.

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Jan 24 2021

Awareness: Know When You Check Out and Need to Check In “Being Present”

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Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Yeshaia Blakeney

There is a term you will hear in yoga, in therapy, therapy groups, in the transformational arenas, in recovery, in treatment–it is this idea of “being present.”

It is not something that was a common phrase twenty years ago–when I first started out in the arena of recovery. But it is something that has become more and more popular. And so has notions of disassociation.

So people, being aware that they check out–people are more aware of that, generally. In the population now–and people are more aware that–you might need to check in which we call “being present”.

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