3-22-2008

Brian: Welcome to the Breakthrough Addition Recovery Hour. My name is Brian Fujii and we have with us today Jill Mattingly, my co-host, and also Dr. Neil Johnston is back with us again and we’re very excited about this afternoon.

Jill: Happy Easter everyone out there, and thanks for joining us today on Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour and we are going to talk a little bit later on about bipolar, about co-occurring disorders. And before we go there, I do want to go back to last week again. We started talking briefly about the new legislation about Sunday alcohol sales. We had such a huge response from the listening audience. A lot of opinions out there about this.

Brian: Very strong opinions.

Jill: And it seems like it’s kind of laying low right now. There’s no new movement from what I’ve seen. So when there is, we will be talking about it on our show. However, there’s a couple of other things coming out in the news that you start to see this time of year and it centers on the subject of spring break, and revelry, and binge drinking which seems to be, unfortunately in some cases, a right of passage for several young adults. And I thought, let’s talk about that just for a few minutes. Maybe we give the young adults out there listening, or parents listening, some information about binge drinking and how to educate yourself or your loved ones about this.

Brian: And if you’d like to be a part of this program, we’d love to invite you to call in at 770-226-0920. If you’re outside the listening area, 1-888-920-2665 and join us. We’d love to have your input at this time.

Jill: Right, and so Brian, you have a little bit of a definition there on binge drinking.

Brian: Well, the formalized definition says, and we all know that once you give a definition it doesn’t necessarily mean that was the only definition, but usually the definition is having 5 or more standard drinks on one occasion. What’s the definition of a standard drink? Well it is a shot of whiskey, a glass of wine, or a 12 oz. bottle of beer.

Jill: So 5 beers is binge drinking? I don’t think that that is exactly what is happening down in Florida.

Brian: They do load up with 6-packs though, I don’t see many 5-packs.

Neil: I’m pretty sure that a lot of businessmen go to dinner and over the course of dinner and discussions have 5 drinks at one time. So the binge drinking we’re probably focusing on is more the pint of alcohol, the 10 drinks, 15 drinks, etc., not the 5 drinks a day.

Jill: Filling up your hat with beer and putting a straw into your mouth from your hat, I think that’s probably binge drinking if it’s continuous. But it can be pretty dangerous. In recent years we’ve heard a lot of tragedies that occur because of drunkenness, and unfortunately young women tend to get into trouble because of not being aware of their surroundings or because of the people that they’re with, and finding out that they have made a terrible mistake after coming to. So I think that binge drinking has been something that very much has been on people’s minds, especially if they’re packing up their young son or daughter to go down to Panama City Beach with the guys or the girls for the week. I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there thinking about this.

Neil: And there’s the other worry about absolute alcohol toxicity, where people die from binge drinking. The usual occurrence is that someone will drink to the point that they either vomit and remove the alcohol from their system or that they pass out and sleep it off. But if people are using grain alcohol, which is 100% alcohol or 200 proof, they can drink a sufficient quantity to cause themselves to pass out, to go into respiratory depression, possibly vomit, aspirate it and choke to death from that or just from the respiratory depression from the alcohol itself. So alcohol poisoning is a real concern, both on college campuses during the rest of the year and during spring break when people are drinking more heavily.

Jill: So it’s not just accidents that can occur more readily, but obviously it can be a physiological problem that can happen too. I was reading a little bit about binge drinking in the last couple of days and some people look at it as possibly a reversal of seasonal affective disorder. I think that’s kind of interesting because seasonal affective disorder, Dr. Neil, can you give me a little bit of background on that?

Neil: Well seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is a depression that typically happens more in the northern latitudes where people become more depressed as the days become shorter and shorter and shorter. And as the days lengthen, people’s moods do generally elevate and improve. Now one thing that would support this hypothesis is the fact that when this occurs in the more northern latitudes, say in Alaska and in the Scandinavian countries, and during their summers they have prolonged periods of sunlight, some of them can actually become manic or hypermanic, their judgment can be impaired, they can be more energetic, they can feel that they’re more invincible. So that might correlate with people drinking more, but also just the environment . . . it’s beautiful outside, you’re outside enjoying yourself with a cocktail in-hand.

Jill: Kind of like a teenage point of view – no parents, nobody telling me what to do, I’m just going to behave accordingly because I’ve been under a lot of pressure in college, school, or something like that. But we do want to encourage you to really think about the changes that can occur with binge drinking. Of course the possibility of alcohol poisoning, but also in looking at some of the research out there, there can be brain changes that occur when an adolescent or young adult is drinking heavily, like say they’re doing it every weekend, like because they are in a fraternity of something like that, that there have been studies that show that they can actually harm the part of the brain, the hippocampus, that is actually important for memory and memory formation. It doesn’t seem to affect them as terribly with sedation and motor control, however the memory is affected. So this could go on into adulthood that there is a problem with memory formation because of damage to the brain from binge drinking. And you had another interesting point about binge drinking and memory also, Neil.

Neil: People don’t realize that the human brain continues to develop and mature well into the early 20’s, so alcohol or any other drug that impairs the functioning of the brain may interfere with the maturation of the brain ultimately. So doing damage to someone when they’re in their prime developmental years is obviously not a good idea. They can recover from it better than older folks, but they’re more susceptible than older folks as well.

Another issue that’s been on the national news recently about binge drinking, is the controversy over people considering trying to lower the age back to 18 for alcohol consumption. It’s something that I feel has always not made sense, that you can be 18 years of age and vote, drive a car – which can be a deadly weapon, especially for some adolescents – and go to war and be subject to all the violence and trauma there, but you can’t legally buy a beer. That just always seems very ironic to me. But the people who are now talking about changing this are hoping that if they lower the drinking age to 18, that college students would then go out to a bar, out to a party, drink legally and not have to do what they’re doing now which is often times stocking up on alcohol, drinking very, very heavily before they go out so that they can be drunk, buzzed, and then go out and then not drink because it’s illegal.

Brian: That sounds like a very interesting point of view and we’ve heard many of those types of argument about lowering the drinking age, if this is a topic that is of deep concern or of interest to you, give us a call at 770-226-0920 or 1-888-920-2665. Jill, it looks like we’re coming up to a break here in a few minutes.

Jill: I do want to say something to Neil just for a minute, and I bet you do too, I taught high school a long time ago and I had 18 year-olds in my class, as seniors, and I don’t know if I’d like to go back to seeing them go out in their jacked-up cars and all that and buy their 6-pack and be going down the road that I’m going down. I just knew too many 18 year-olds who had very poor judgment, and yes they can be drafted into the Army, but still . . . I don’t know Neil.

Brian: Okay, we’re coming up to the break. This sounds almost like Crossfire. So if you want to be part of the discussion, give us a call, 770-226-0920 and we’ll be right back.

Jill: Welcome back to Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour. My name is Jill Mattingly, and I’m here with my co-host, Brian Fujii, and our Director of Psychiatric Services, Dr. Neil Johnston is joining us in the studio today. And we’ve been talking a little bit about some interesting subjects, one of which we were talking about before the break about the lowering of the drinking age back to 18 years old and how that could possibly result in a little less problematic behavior.

Neil: I would ask you in retort Jill, let’s say 18 year olds that you don’t feel are responsible enough to drink – and I agree that there are plenty that aren’t, and there are plenty of 20, 30, and 40 year olds that aren’t responsible enough to be drinking and I don’t want them on the highway either, but if that same 18 year old that’s not responsible enough to buy beer and drink, are they responsible enough to be voting on who’s going to be the leader of the most powerful nation in the world? Are they responsible enough to go off to war and make the decision to risk their lives? Are they responsible enough to do all of those things? We can’t do a responsibility test on every individual. So I think we agree ultimately that excess drinking is bad, drinking in moderation is obviously going to be less likely in immature younger people, but where do we draw the line? And that’s something that we could argue about forever.

Jill: Well, I think what I’m going to do right now is give out the number, because if anyone else wants to get in on this discussion or conversation . . . I still do believe that Mothers Against Drunk Driving agree with me that 21 has seen an improvement in highway fatalities and things like that, but I do see your point too. Our number . . . 770-226-0920, and if you would like to call from outside the listening area, 1-888-920-2665. We have a website. We’re not talking about underage drinking or what the drinking age should be on the website, but it is full of information about drug addiction and alcohol dependency, and that website is BreakthroughAddictionRecovery.com, and if you’d like to call us, please do. And Brain, do you have a dog in this fight?

Brian: No, I was very nominal when I was going to college at that time. I think Coca Cola was the only thing I really drunk. Sad isn’t it, sad. Well one of the interesting things about binge drinking, and I noticed one of the statistics that you had shared with us is that it indicates that a lot of folks that have been doing a lot of binge drinking also have a lot of mental health disorders, like compulsiveness, or depression anxiety, and we see a lot of that in the people at our clinic, especially those that are really struggling with alcohol.

Look, we have a call in from Rick in Marietta, Welcome Rick, to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour.

Rick: Hey guys, I’m 50 years old and I’m just sitting here listening to your show, thinking how when the drinking age was 18, that was when I was first able to go out and buy alcohol. And I used to go on spring breaks . . . we used to go to Ft. Lauderdale rather than Panama City back in ancient history. But binge drinking was when you tried to down a whole pitcher of beer all at one time or what we called punch-punch, when you tried to kill a large quantity in a short period of time. This having 5 drinks, I thought binge drinking was just trying to zap yourself in the shortest period of time possible.

Neil: Well Rick, I agree with you. We academics and we intellectual psychiatrists, we get together and put these arbitrary definitions down, and that’s the professional accepted definition for binge drinking in what we call our statistical manual of diagnostic criteria, but what we’re talking about as far as the college student on spring break is what you’re saying, the drinking of grain alcohol, is incredible volumes of drinking, so that really is what we’re talking about when we say binge drinking.

Rick: Well it is dangerous to drink that much because I can remember, the worst thing that ever happened to me is to get drunk and throw up, but I could remember seeing some people get really sick especially when they would mix different types of alcohol and that’s what my concern is. I hear these stories now about people drinking wine and beer and liquor together, and that’s just under no circumstances, is that a healthy thing for any young person to do.

Neil: Well your body was doing what is healthy by causing you to throw up. We appreciate your call and your comment, and we’ve got other callers, so thanks Rick for calling.

Rick: Thanks.

Jill: Hey, it looks like we have Bill in Marietta. Hey Bill, welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour.

Bill: My pleasure, very interesting program. I’m a 67 year old father of 3 boys, 2 of which were permanently damaged in drunk driving accidents, and you would think I would be against alcohol in most any form for what we’ve suffered, but the interesting thing was that both my boys were teenagers when they were in the accidents and the harm to them was caused by drunks who were in their 20’s and 30’s. And so it kind of causes me to pause before I have a generalistic view about it, but it came to me conceivably that when we’re talking about the paradigm that’s always used in this discussion . . . are we old enough to sign up for the draft, vote for president, and so on. Those usually are decisions that are made at a conscious level with a lot of thought. My concern is that youngsters, and I think automotive surveys will show you that you don’t have a risk assessment capability until you’re somewhere around 25, fully matured in that ability. But when you’ve had 2 or 3 drinks and you’re down on the beach, your decision-making is impaired. So I think the fact that we’re talking about decision-making, whether it’s valid or not, when you’re sober it’s valid, so those other two areas of argument are ones when they have the best of their faculties to their utilization but when they’ve had 2 or 3 drinks and peer pressure, it’s a totally different story.

Brian: Absolutely, I really agree with that thinking process because when a person is under the influence, and then driving, and them making the other kinds of activity decisions, this certainly is something that’s different than when you’re logically thinking about who to vote for or whether you’re going to sign up for the Army, Navy, or Air Force, or Marines, that’s certainly done on a conscious level and I really understand that. I believe that there is a difference between conscious decision-making when you’re clean and sober versus that when under the influence.

Neil: Bill, and I want to say I’m so sorry for your losses, for what you’ve been through, and I agree with you on a lot of that as well, but before you take that first drink you also have that responsibility to decide whether you’re going to take it or not. And to designate a driver and do all of those types of things as well.

Bill: I agree with you. Good comments, great show, I’m listening to it intently, and I think these are issues of major importance.

Brian: Thanks, Bill. Hey, we’ve got another call. John from Marietta. Welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour.

John: Hey, how ya doing. I appreciate you talking about this topic. I grew up in New York, an Irish-Catholic family, both parents alcoholics, extended family alcoholics. My mom ended up taking her own life in her 60’s, about 10 years ago, and I actually have the perfect example of why not to drink and I never have really. Once in a while I go out and do a shot or something, but I saw my mom who grew up in the south and never had any emotional or mental illness at all and then started drinking more being around my dad’s family. The whole had this problem. I moved down here about 15 years ago. My father’s family was very wealthy and my mother’s was very poor and the way the alcoholism ran across and I work in a high school now and I see – we just had a prom last week – and I see these kids and how they came to the prom lit up. Like the other gentleman said, it’s a different situation when you’re drinking, you’re judgment is impaired. I tell some of the kids where I teach about the things I went though as a child and sometimes it scares them a little, sometimes they laugh it off, with car wrecks and things, the way it destroys families and things. I wouldn’t be here today if I was drinking.

Jill: And you’re talking about coaching, and I was a high school teacher back when, and I remember a lot of times I said things or just made comments about things and I know that they were listening and I know they wanted to be the person that I saw them as. And so I really do appreciate that you are living your life in front of these young people and letting them know where you came from. I think that is huge because they’re dealing with peer pressure when they leave your classroom, when the leave your field.

John: They don’t see things the way we did though. I’ve got three children, and they don’t see things the way I did. I’m sure a lot of these kids have the same problem.

Jill: Hey John, we are coming down to the end of the segment and I think that is an excellent statement. Thank you so much for calling in. We’re going to continue talking a little bit more about this – this is obviously a very intense topic. But thank you so much for calling. And we’re going to be right back – stay with us.

Brian: Welcome back to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour. My name is Brian Fujii, and I have with me Jill Mattingly and Dr. Neil Johnston and we’ve been having a lively discussion here this afternoon, especially as it comes to the issue about lowering the drinking age, but one of the things I’d like to segue into is, we’ve said some of the studies indicate that when people get into strong binge drinking that it has some very severe mental health consequences and we begin to see people with high compulsiveness and depression and anxiety and of course what Dr. Johnston also said, alcohol poisonings, and there are some big issues tied around here. And we kind of want to look again at how alcoholism really impacts the body as well as the brain and of course we have a lot of this information on our website at BreakthroughAddictionRecovery.com. If you would like to be part of the discussion, give us a call at 770-226-0920.

One of the things I see, Dr. Johnston, is many of our clients now seem to be having issues with alcoholism and bipolar disorder. And I do know that one of the big issues, especially in being able to accurately diagnose bipolar disorder is that we have to find some way to get them clean and sober so that we can really make an accurate diagnosis. How is that issue when a person is coming in, maybe they need some drug detoxing, but they’re experiencing maybe some mania and when they finally begin drug detoxing, I’d see some severe depression. How do we make that distinction whether it is just alcohol induced depression, or maybe they’re experiencing bipolar?

Neil: Well that’s a very good question Brian. It is a difficult decision to make in that, which came first – the chicken or the egg? Indeed, the alcoholism or the bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder just so happens to have its age of onset in late teenage to early 20’s, the same time where the drinking for many people is starting out.

What I tend to is try to ask the patient about their history before they were using alcohol on a regular basis and see if I can glean anything from that. If I can and can substantiate a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, I will go ahead and begin addiction treatment for that while we drug detox them and get them off the alcohol. If once they’re off the alcohol and their moods have evened out – and by the way for those of you listening for the first time, bipolar disorder means “two poles” and it’s synonymous with manic depression – just so you’ll know what we’re talking about there. So I will treat both – drug detox the patient off the alcohol or other substances and treat the bipolar disorder at the same time. If they get better with regards to mood swings from the bipolar disorder, then maybe we’ll pull them off the addiction treatment for bipolar disorder and see how they do off the alcohol and off the bipolar. Bipolar disorder can be such a dangerous disease in some people, I don’t want to leave that for 6 weeks of sobriety just to see if it’s still there, not to mention that it may impairing their ability to stay sober. I think we have a phone call, Jill.

Jill: Yeah, looks like we have Arthur in Atlanta. Hey, thanks for calling the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour.

Arthur: Hi. You talk about youngsters drinking and driving, and you say that they’re not really old enough to make a decision about whether to drive after they drunk or not. Well, these same 18 year olds have going into the military and they’re making that decision at 18 years old, and I’ve spent 20 years in the military both during the draft period and after the draft period, and you watch one of these 18 year olds bleed out after a fire-fight or in a battle zone and there’s nothing you can do about it. And this same kid can’t buy beer legally in some states. I fail to see where there’s a difference between them being mature enough to make the decision to join the military and fight for this country and die, and being mature enough to decide whether or not they want to drink.

Neil: Well you know Arthur, that is exactly the debate that’s going on right now. The legislators are looking at that and people are weighing their opinions on it and in both directions.

Arthur: I feel like if you want to deny them the right to drink, then you should deny them the military at 18, wait until they are 21 before they go off and decide to die for this country as well. Okay, I’m going to hang up and listen to the discussion from this point.

Brian: Thank you for calling, Arthur. When you take a look at the ability for people to make that kind of decision Arthur, about going to war and being able to make that decision to drink, we have to take a look at the way that the mind is being influenced, and I know we have some issues about being able to drink versus being able to go to war, but we also know that so many times, as people tend to drink at an earlier and earlier age, the tendency is that their emotional decision-making process seems to take over more so than probably their logical thought process. And that is always a challenge. There’s not going to be a clear-cut answer to this. That’s why it’s an ongoing concern, and again that’s just my opinion and I certainly know we have others.

Neil: I’d like to comment that we’re coming on a break right now.

Jill: Yeah, we’re coming on a break. Let’s make some more comments when we come back after this break. Stay with us, interesting information coming.

Jill: Welcome back to Breakthrough Addiction Recovery hour. My name is Jill Mattingly, and my co-host Brian Fujii, and we have with us Dr. Neil Johnston, and we’re having a pretty lively discussion and there was another comment I think Dr. Johnston, you were wanting to make for Arthur.

Neil: Yes Arthur, and I do appreciate what you’re saying about the thought that we should wait until people are 21 to allow them to make such an important decision in their life, but for so many people when they are 18 when they graduate from high school, the military is their career choice, and they want to make their life and they go into military wanting to serve their country and I personally think that they are responsible to make that decision. If they are responsible enough to make a decision of which college to go to, I’m saying I think they’re also responsible enough to make a decision about whether to drink a beer. I’m not in any way trying to suggest that we should hold off on the military, but I do understand where you’re coming from and why you’re saying that, because it would have to have been hard to be where you’ve been and go through what you’ve gone through.

We were also talking about bipolar disorder . . .

Brian: Right Dr. Johnston, and one of the things that might be helpful for our listening audience, is we understand that it’s “two poles”. One is feelings of mania and then also feelings of depression. Could you help us define what would be some manic types of behaviors that loved ones would be absorbing, possibly this might be the first time, because we know between like it’s like 18 years old maybe up to 25 or 26 they actually begin to find this being manifested. So if someone is out there with some young family members, what would be some behaviors that they might be observing that could be defined as that?

Neil: Sure, and let me throw out that bipolar disorder can occur even as young as childhood, so that’s just the peak time of incidence of bipolar disorder. But mania is defined as someone who is having expansive, or elated mood, or irritable moods. Those are sort of the threshold symptoms that have to be there. And then some of the other symptoms that people will have are increased energy, decreased sleep, feeling grandiose – in that they are very special in some ways – they’re more talkative, their speech is also very pressured, very fast, sometimes they’re sleeping less, their thought processes sometimes don’t make sense, they will jump from idea to idea to idea and no one can follow what they’re talking about. Sometimes also they will have increase in goal-directed activity, such as working harder, doing more activities at home, cleaning the house, etc. Sometimes they can get caught up into risk-taking or dangerous behaviors, such as excess spending, speeding on the highway, things of that nature. All of those things are tied up in a manic episode. And also we talk about hypomania. The difference between mania and hypomania is that mania is much more severe and tends to interfere with every aspect of life in a very severe way, whereas hypomania tends to interfere with functioning, often times more so with family or mildly with jobs where the individual can be irritable because they’re is talking so much or because they are a little bit more boisterous, etc. So those are roughly some of the symptoms and some of the definitions there.

Brian: That’s great. And again even when people start to feeling that depression, they can be having lack of interest in a lot of things that normally meant something for them, we call it “anhedonia” where they’re not really feeling happy about anything, they start feeling a sense of worthlessness or helplessness. If someone is experiencing some of this, then some of these characteristics could possibly, not that it means definitively, but possibly could be issues of a bipolar disorder. I know our time’s getting real short, but what are some medicines that typically could help an individual who is struggling with this?

Neil: We have a whole gamut of medications. The classic ones are Lithium, Depakote, we don’t always start with those anymore, but Lithium really is the gold standard. It probably works the best. It also has a lot of side effects – can cause damage to certain organs, have to monitor blood levels, etc. It’s a little bit harder to work with. Other medicines include Tegritol, a newer one onto the market is Lamisil that’s showing quite a bit of promise, and the Depakote, Lamisil, Tegritol are all anti-convulsive medications. The theory behind those medications are that they may lower the seizure threshold, or the level at which the brain may experience a seizure at deep levels of the brain which might be affecting those states. Another group of drugs are called atypical antipsychotic drugs, such as Seroquel, Geodon, Risperdal, Abilify. This whole group of medications also helps to stabilize moods and if bipolar disorder has gotten bad enough, and occasionally it can where the patient becomes psychotic and beings hearing voices, seeing visions, etc., it controls those symptoms as well. Studies have also shown that using a medicine such as Lamisil or Lithium or Depakote along with one of these atypicals, improves people’s long-term wellness, because they stay well from the illness longer than just the Lamisil, Depakote or Lithium alone.

Jill: Okay, so when people are coming into Breakthrough Addiction Recovery and they may not even have a diagnosis of bipolar and what are some of the things that you see – I’ll just toss this back to you Dr, Johnston – what are some of the substances that they tend to gravitate towards? Alcohol? Prescription drug use? What?

Neil: It depends on the stages of whether they’re manic or depressed. In the manic stages often times some sort of downer – alcohol, benzodiazapines, things of that nature. In the depressed stage sometimes it will be cocaine, or stimulants. Now throughout all of this, we see alcohol being used as some sort of numbing agent no matter which state they’re in. So it can be any one of the drugs at any time, but that often times will be what they’re doing when they’re trying to treat themselves.

Brian: Well Jill, it looks like we are coming to our last break here. And if you are interested in joining us in this discussion and you might have some questions or concerns to express to Dr. Johnston, give us a call here at 770-226-0920. And we will be right back.

Jill: 770-226-0920, that’s the number to call if you’d like to do one last comment about our show today. It’s been pretty lively here at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour. And we were talking about bipolar disorder and some of the problems with addiction.

Brian: That’s right, Jill. And we had wonderful information here from Dr. Johnston about wonderful new medication that we have in to be able to help people who are suffering from the mental illness of bipolar disorder. We know it’s a very destructive and a disease that disrupts lots of lives, and with the medications we also provide other support systems at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery. We provide things like individual therapy, group therapy, and also a very intensive day addiction treatment program that really helps people understand the disease process of alcoholism and also integrating that with the information related to mental illness. We do know that if people are not addressing both of these issues – the alcoholism or drug addiction along with taking the right medications for their mental illness that usually that’s not going to work very well because so many times people are using their drugs or alcohol to self-medicate and to avoid those very, very uncomfortable feelings.

Neil: And Brain, that’s a pattern that a lot of people have that they continue even into addiction treatment. They continue trying to self-medicate and make the decisions for themselves, feel better and stop taking their medicines. Frankly, if you don’t do what your doctor says, don’t work the program, don’t invest yourself, then you’re probably not going to get better. You got to make a person commitment to do what you need to do.

Brian: Absolutely. And that’s the real challenge that we as therapists have, is constantly trying to remind them that when they come in, ‘Oh this medicine is not working,’ or, ‘I feel real miserable,’ and what we need to say is hey listen – you got to give the medicine some time. And we do know that that is the case with these medications don’t just take perfect action immediately. We really have to educate our clients and help them under that the medication is going to work – you have to give it some time, you may have some side effects, that’s what we need to find out.

Jill: And you think about it, they’ve been drinking alcohol for an immediate effect, to help to medicate the mania or something and then you give them a medication and tell them it may not work for 3 or 4 weeks, you’re dealing with someone that’s going to be at a high frustration level for quite some time. And that makes it a challenge for not only the medical personnel dealing with them, but also the clinical, the therapists.

Brian: Yeah, because we try to help them understand it take time.

Jill: And the family.

Brian: Oh absolutely. How many times do we have family members coming and saying how much longer is this going to take to work?

Neil: Not to be flip, but if we had a pill that worked overnight, we’d all be on an island someplace in Fiji, we wouldn’t be here.

Jill: I really do want to encourage family members, if you are noticing these symptoms that Brian and Dr. Johnston are talking about, it is well worth it to get your loved one to investigate and see if there are some underlying mental health issues going on, and it could be in a young person like we were talking about, you know they’re binge drinking, they’re doing at-risk behaviors, they’re doing things that just seem crazy. But there could be an underlying problem. And that brings us to a good subject we could do next week, which is ADD. I think a lot of parents are out there going, ‘Oh yes, oh yes. Let’s talk about ADD. I need to hear more about that.’

What would you say about that? Would you want to do a show like that?

Brian: We definitely could do that. And again, you’re so right about the way that people are looking a their loved ones and trying to figure out what is happening to them and because at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery, we do offer a free consultation. Because I know people are listening today and they’re going, ‘You know, that’s just sounds just like one of my loved ones out there. I don’t know what to do.’ I get this call a lot. ‘What do I do?’

Bring them in, let’s get a chance to do a free consultation. Let’s get them appropriately screened. Let’s find out what’s going on. And then we can help them provide the right types of support, maybe the right kinds of medications to get them back on track and really help them get their lives back. And again, we have some great information at our website at BreakthroughAddictionRecovery.com, and you can reach us at our local office at 770-734-8091.

It looks like we’re coming to the end of our show, Jill.

Jill: We just want to say from the family at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery, happy Easter, have a wonderful time with your loved ones this weekend and enjoy this fantastic weather.

Neil: And this is a family at Breakthrough Recovery. Anything that Jill and I have said to each other today is all in fun. We’re just trying to get people involved, get them to call in and ask questions.

Jill: Well tune in next week. We’ll be back at 3 o’clock next Saturday, we’re probably going to talk a little bit about ADD and whatever else is in the news that might get people to get in on the discussion.

Brian: See you next week, and thanks for listening.

Jill: Yeah, happy Easter!