I need to stop this

What If My Child Isn’t Motivated to Get Treatment for Addiction?

Suggesting Treatment to a Loved One

Intervention – a Starting Point

Drug Use, Stigma, and the Proactive Contagions to Reduce Both

Details: Published: 10 August 2023; Hits: 1204

We have seen an increasing number of autistic adolescents and adults with signs of substance addiction, usually alcohol but also illegal substances such as marijuana, amphetamines and opiates and the misuse of prescription medication such as benzodiazepines. Why are autistic individuals at risk of developing substance addiction? The simple explanation is to engage or escape reality and moderate intense emotions.

A study by Helverschou et al.and colleagues (2019) found that typical interventions for treating addiction are often unsuitable for autistic adults. They recommended regular staff education on autism and accommodating the characteristics of autism in group sessions. The study also affirmed the perception of autistic participants in therapy as being drug ‘experts’ and who could provide advice to staff and fellow residents on drug doses and combinations of drugs. The research also identified a tendency for autistic individuals to end their drug use their own way and not follow a recommended reduction plan. Most addiction treatment services offer abstinence-orientated treatment only. However, research indicates that controlled substance use may be justified for autistic individuals (Kronenberg 2015).

Our clinical experience confirms that sometimes the autistic person can decide to end an addiction without a therapeutic plan and support. This takes great determination and relies on one of the characteristics of autism: once a decision has been made, the person is unwavering in seeking a resolution and the desired outcome.

The stress of group engagement, accepting treatment models, and staff not understanding autism can lead to premature voluntary discharge from residential rehabilitation services. The autistic person may become convinced that such services can never be effective. Rehabilitation services need to become more autism-friendly, and psychologists and psychiatrists need to develop an addiction treatment model specifically designed for the characteristics of autism and reasons for substance addiction in collaboration with autistic adults who are or were addicted to substances.

(For more: Professor Tony Attwood and Dr. Michelle Garnett https://attwoodandgarnettevents.com/autism-and-substance-addiction/ )

Details: Published: 13 July 2023; Hits: 1131

Abstinence From Drugs of Abuse in Community-Based Members of Narcotics Anonymous

Results: Respondents were 71.5% male; the mean age was 38.1 years; 68.2% were White; and the principal drug problems comprised cocaine (28.5%), heroin (27.5%), other opiates (13.4%), methamphetamine (12.9%), alcohol (8.6%), marijuana (6.6%), and other stimulants (2.5%). Eighty-seven percent had prior treatment for a substance use disorder. On average respondents had first encountered NA at age 26.9, they had been abstinent an average of 5.7 years at the time they filled out the questionnaire, and 47.5% had served as sponsors. Ninety-four percent designated themselves as spiritual, and only 29.6% designated themselves as religious.

Conclusions: NA offers support for long-term abstinence from diverse misuse of drugs among users of different backgrounds.

(Source: Journal of Studies on Alcohol & Drugs)

Details: Published: 20 June 2023; Hits: 1191

Portraying Abstinence Recovery as Puritanical Is in the Interest of Those Who Sell Addictive Drugs:

Abstinence has long been a central facet in recovery as defined by people with severe SUDs as their lived experience. Abstinence is critical for people on the far end of this spectrum for whom use often leads to suffering and death. Lumping it all under the term recovery is unhelpful at best, doing so conflates substance misuse that may respond to attempts to moderate with more severe conditions in which a person uses until death unless they abstain from use

…We also have to be careful to do so in ways we do not normalize problematic drug use and addiction in ways that we allow people to continue to suffer under the guise of choice. Addiction is a brain condition impacting cognition. This movement is unintentionally creating additional suffering for persons with severe SUDs.

For Complete Article

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Details: Published: 04 June 2023; Hits: 1199

The Longer You Abstain from Alcohol the Lower the Risk – After 20 years of alcohol abstention, the increased mortality risk disappeared.

Best health practices should always be on the table – always. The continual couching of abstinence as a ‘bridge to far’ is not only disingenuous to those self-harming with alcohol, but also disempowering. One thing best-health care practice should do is empower, enable, and equip people to not only discover, but persist in health maximising endeavours. (Source: American Journal of Preventative Medicine May 2023)

Details: Published: 01 May 2023; Hits: 1357

How the former 'heroin capital of Europe' decriminalised drugs (Winning the War on Drugs?)| SBS Dateline

The How is not the issue – that’s easy. What has it achieved and why are key public figures wanting things to change? Portugal Mayor Supports Recriminalizing Public Drug Use
Some points one may miss in the ‘showcase of progress’ that isn’t?

Treatment and recovery but you must have the desire to stop.
Underground drug trade is thriving. 24:00 Minutes
All drugs in Portugal are no longer treated as a criminal offense but are still illegal.
Person can have up to 10 days’ supply e.g. 25 grams marijuana
Selling is a felony.
Drug use is widespread with decriminalisation.

(For complete episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0BwrwB0wno )

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