October 18, 2008 - Addiction and the Slow Economy
BREAKTHROUGH ADDICTION RECOVERY HOUR
OCTOBER 18, 2008
ADDICTION AND THE SLOW ECONOMY
Jill: welcome to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, my name is Jill Mattingly and with me is another person that has been with me before, Dr. Lois Dutton. I am keyed up today ready to come out of my seat, a rollercoaster ride so get ready.
Lois: I am advised of that and I won’t try to take over.
Jill: (laugh) Lois tell a bit about your background,
Lois: We have been down this road so many times but people should know that I have been around since Jesus was an alter boy and a hodge podge background that enables me to talk about a number of things. I have and undergraduate degree in nursing we know that, I have a masters in public health and epidemiology and a PhD in education and a certified addiction counselor so you can come at me with just about anything and I can at least fake it.
Jill: Yes, and I have seen you do that
Lois: That is what education does for you.
Jill: We are quite a team today and we are going to address things going on in the world and if you want to call and get in on our conversation or ask a question of Dr. Dutton, everything but how to can pickles, she can’t do that you will really be in trouble then,
So, anyway, if you would like to call in
Lois: or okra
Jill: Stop, if you want to call we are talking about addiction today and we are going to bring in what is going on in the world, in our economy and everything that is out there on the radio and tv, the election and everything and we are going to nail it down to the issue of addiction and how this could be a problem for some people this time of year and
Lois: It is a big problem right now
Jill: 770-226-0920 that is the number to call, 770-226-0920. If you are outside the Atlanta area it is 1-888-920-2665, if you would like to call and you can also listen live on www.920wgka.com, listening live if you have someone in another city they can listen too, I think a lot of folks can benefit from this topic. The economy and uncertainty fueling addiction. At Breakthrough we focus on Alcoholism and prescription drug addiction and dependency, mainly lortab, percoset or benzodiazepine like clonopin and we see an uptic in these uncertain times in addiction. There was an article just out we found a lot of information on the internet on this topic. This was called “Economy Driving People to Addiction.” It goes down that road and this fellow Dr. Mitchell Walick is Executive Director of Care Addiction Recovery and he is observing an increase in calls to his center. They are seeking addiction treatment because it is corresponding in the down turn of income and mortgage foreclosure and signs of economic distress, this is what is on people’s minds especially addiction professionals like us. It is on our minds because we see people effected in recovery and then there are those that never had a problem are developing an addiction.Lois: That is what is disconcerting to us, these real issues that face all of us in this country now leave none of us fully prepared to deal with the anxiety, the uncertainty and just plain fear that is very very real, this is not artificial it is true across the board and all of us are now put in the position trying to find ways to soothe ourselves and calm the internal fears that we have about tomorrow. When are we going to end up in a depression like the 19290’s. Nobody really knows and that uncertainty goes out like it is pervasive, it is everywhere and we all are put in the position of finding a way to get through these times and watching things like we were speaking of earlier. Unemployment rates, retirement accounts and with the loss of employment there is loss of healthcare and there is all kinds of fears that are generated and are very real.
Jill: I like what you said about calming the internal storm. These can be stirred up in these uncertain times, sometimes the internal is not dealt with. Most of us now we walk down the street and are not just dealing with the worst, we look around a people are experiencing problems. Like that so, as addiction professionals I believe that this is a good time to give important advice on how to handle the fear and what it stirs up and what it could create in terms of behaviors that could take you down a road you don’t want to go. People listening today are those that may go home at 5pm and look forward to a cocktail or a few glasses of wine to take the edge off, but when you throw into that the possibility of a foreclosure, or layoff, difficulty with the business making it you know we are looking at that turning into a whole bottle.
Lois: If two can do it then 3 to 5 can do more,
Jill: We want to talk about founded and unfounded fears and we want to talk about what fear is doing in our brain first of all. IF you don’t know how a disease works, it is very difficult to overcome it. We will talk about what fear is doing to your brain and how does it translate into a behavior that can create the problems we are talking about. I want to stir the pot too
Lois: I better hold on to my seat
Jill: We will get a lot of calls on this too; the crunch time going into the last 20 days of the election, is that right gene? 18 days, ok, Gene is on top of this. The last 18 days, what are some unfounded fears too, that should be fun to talk about, we will try to manage calls for that too, 770-226-0920 we are going to talk about addiction and the uncertain times we are living in today we will be right back.
Commercial Break
Jill: Welcome back to the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour, the number is 770-226-0920. I am here with my co host for the day, Dr. Lois Dutton and the number is 770-226-0920 to call for more information. Dr, Dutton can explain anything in the world, so if you have questions just call her. Brian is on vacation this week my name is Jill Mattingly, again the number is 770-226-0920. Our subject is the economy and the uncertain times. Addiction and how it drives people into this addiction. We have talked a bit about fear in the first segment and as we come back we want to hit fear a little bit. Fear is nebulous and we need to squeeze it down to something that our audience can identify with.
Fear can be generated in a lot of different ways and you have given us a list of fears causing stress right now in the world.
Lois: Fear when manifested is uneasy uncertain unknown um, we don’t really know and understand what is going to happen we see things every day and experience with our neighbors and friends and family members, people losing their jobs because of uncertain economy and losing their retirement accounts. Some of us um that are near that threshold of our life don’t even bother to open our monthly statements because our blood pressure would go to the top of our head, it’s real when people lose security and healthcare benefits go away and what if they have an illness and what if they can’t make a mortgage payment and lose their home, the uncertain and unknown that all of us are facing today Jill, is just because of the economic problems that have occurred in the last month or so of this country. It is a matter of personal choice how you go about coping within yourself uh with your anxiety and discomfort and your uncertainty we all handle things in different ways and some folks we know um, are those individuals who because of past experience and past behavioral responses that have become so consistent that they now have reached the point of being almost always the way they chose to cope.
Jill: Lois I understand you know you are talking about the real things that are going on and I think what gets me is when I turn on the tv or listen to the radio and there is fear being generated artificially over ,
I was trying to bring up about the last 18 days of the election and people talking about something terrible happening after the election is over and then you are compiling on top of the unfounded fear, these people are having to deal with an artificially generated feeling about what candidate you know is going to do what and I thought it was interesting when you said that you choose how you will cope and something that happened beginning of the week, the Alfred E. Smith Dinner was an interesting way of dealing with the stress of the election using comedy as a stress reliever and that tells us that is a good way to let off some of the stress and let off some of the feeling of ringing someone’s neck, instead I will tell a joke. (laugh) I enjoyed it immensely and it started me thinking, if they can do this so can we but unfortunately we are out here feeling the stress from the election and economy and then you have the percentage of people around us that are looking for ways to cope with drug and alcohol addiction.
Lois: Jill you can barely take a step in our world today without being bombarded with someone’s opinion or someone’s take or someone’s view of what’s going on and of course my advice is always for people to decide for themselves and what they believe and how they feel about the issues that are facing us as a nation and get on with it and do not
Jill: The most important thing is old age vs. no experience, (laugh)
Lois: (laugh) that is one thing we hear all the time, that is one of the things that how do you decide between a man with tons of experience and sometimes looks
Jill: Ok, the number is 770-226-0920 we are not talking about fear itself, you have nothing to fear but fear itself,
Lois: and it was an old guy that said that
Jill: vs. inexperience. You know the way we cope comes from the way the brain interprets fear
Lois: We getting back to an area we know
Jill: Um, you have a part of your brain called the amygdula next to the limbic system where the control of emotions occur it jumps in and allows you to feel stress and elevation of anger or emotion towards the guy that just cut you off in traffic. The best way to describe what the amygdula does is, if you have a cat, do you:
Lois: used to
Jill: I have two and they are ruled by their amygdula, I know you will look this up but cats when they are afraid of something you know a person walks in that they don’t recognize or a dog and they get that look on their face their eyes are like saucers their ears puff up, that is a pure _response.
Lois: unadulterated
Jill: So that is fear personified, we don’t do that as much, um we don’t freeze in our tracks or puff up but what is happening in our brains is that the amygdula is stimulating other parts of our brains to figure out what to do about the impending problem. We are memory machines also we remember what makes us feel good ok? That is actually what makes addiction so difficult to treat because addiction is stored in the memory the memory of what makes you feel better. When this is stimulated it asks the brain what to do. Now, many people have put in their memory that when they drink or take a pill it will calm the way you feel right now and the brain follows suit with behavior to get that done. Let’s drink or take a pill, so what we are dealing with is fear can create a long line of responses in the brain before we are even aware of it and then before we know it we are in a full blown behavior that actually started maybe two hours before and it is just now you know translating into behaviors that will lead you into an addiction of the substance that is going to help with the way you feel modulating your emotion. So drinking and taking pills such as lorbabs, xanax, all of those can help you modulate you need to know where to interrupt your circuitry, after the break let’s talk about therapy and addiction treatment and teaching people how to interrupt that behavior process, so 770-226-7920, we are getting into the addiction treatment modality, stay with us this is the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery we will be right back.
Commercial Break
Jill: 770-226-0920 that is the number to call and we are waiting on your call to talk about addiction and economic uncertainty and how to help yourself or your loved one stay in a clean and sober state during this time of uncertainty or how to seek help during this time of uncertainty and we do see an uptic in the amount of calls and the amount of people inquiring about addiction treatment during times like these. I want to make sure you know that at Breakthrough we can help you address the issues that you are going through in terms of the increase in your drinking and increase in your drug use or any other type of substances to help you through this time and we can do it by making a phone call and we can do a free consultation which is where we sit down with Lois or myself or Brian and we will discuss what is going on and it is not a situation where we say the same thing to everyone, no. Everyone is different and it is individualized when talking about many layers of stress and difficult times and addiction.
Lois: Part of what is very critical for folks to understand that part of our role and what we really uh diligently try to do with everyone who comes through the door is to sit down and look at options within that person’s life and within their circle that they can utilize to take the place of always going to a drink or to a drug let’s explore options and what else is out there for you that will help you to cope with what the internalized fears are and the internalized
Jill: No everyone will meet the criteria that we have for our addiction treatment and we are outpatient and we have many come in that absolutely do need an inpatient setting to give them the barriers to the substances that they need. There are people that come in and they are active in ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and it has worked for them to a point and they want more therapy or more information about the disease process and we have many different types of people who are helped by Breakthrough and so I want to encourage you if you or a loved one are struggling right now with addiction and you need help I want to say right away because when you start to go down a slippery slope or socio economic drift in uncertain times you can lose the ability to get the help you need such as losing health insurance and that can translate into limited resources available to you to get the help you need and also what if you have a physician or job that does not allow you to go inpatient or to do time in a addiction treatment facility. We try to remedy that by being outpatient in the evening, however, you may have a job that there is no missing anymore because too many lay offs are occurring and that would target you for losing your job. You have got to think about getting help as soon as possible if it is entering your mind that maybe I do have a problem and you may not know because it could be normal to drink one bottle of wine per night. If you feel like you are having consequences by using drugs or drink, um there may be a time or this may be the time
Lois: No question, just pick up the phone and call Breakthrough
Jill: A licensed professional will help you go through and choose the help you need, but also we at this radio show what we are trying to do is get people thinking about addiction treatment thinking about problems that occur from drug and alcohol addiction. That is what we are all about and I want you to call if you have a question or comment or to talk about your addiction treatment that has helped you stay firm during uncertainty. 770-226-0920 let me say it once more, 770-226-0920. How the brain reacts to fear there are a specific amount of occurrences and you don’t understand you will fall prey to the end behavior if it is drinking or drugs. So, getting into a facility or a situation that you can learn about this disease process is very important.
Lois: We are all about the biochemical bottom line for addiction it is a physiological that is our premise and we treat it as such.
Jill: I can’t believe I talked through that whole segment
Lois: You did
Jill: When we get back we will talk about what addiction treatment does for you in terms of helping you understand the disease process so call us at 770-226-0920.
Commercial Break
Jill: My name is Jill Mattingly I am the Director of Operations at Breakthrough Addiction Recovery and with me today is Dr. Lois Dutton our jack of all trades.
Lois: Correct
Jill: We are talking about addiction and how it pertains to uh, what is going on in the world today and the economic uncertainty and fear the underlying fear and stress causing an uptick in the use and addiction of drugs and alcohol. We spoke of fear and the brain reaction to stress and fear and the unnecessary fear that is out there right now in these last 18 days. Experimenting if I say President John McCain, do you have fear? President Barack Obama, do you have fear?
Lois: Can you believe she said that?
Jill: Um anyway we are talking about artificially generated fear and unfortunately that is muddying the waters for real fears and stressors that are out there in the economy with the financial state of many households or foreclosures and the fear response and how that can cavalcade come and talk to us before it becomes a problem.
Lois: Not only the escalation of use but people who have been struggling in staying sober, um, there is a real problem for people who have had periods of non use and now they find the fear and anxiety and uncertainty encroaching on the comfort level that they have not reached. People get so fearful so stressed so caught up in all of the uncertainty then the memory we talked about that famous piece of the brain will kick in and immediately people will remember that they know what to do to take the edge off, a beer or drink and it is going to be certain that it will take the edge off for me, so not only people who are not in recovery but people who have been in recovery for a while who are now experiencing that added stress so either way what we want folks to really really understand is that you can pick up the phone and call us we will talk to you on the phone, you can come and see us and sit down with one of us for free and let’s just look at what is going on let’s look at how do we shore up this sobriety you have had or how do we help you get into a position where drugs and alcohol are not your first choice. If you continue to use Jill we talk about the storm the external storm the internal storm that people are experiencing right now well we’re talking about the perfect storm down the road when all of these things come together and are fueled by drugs and alcohol and they have drugs and alcohol for any of us who want to use the drug and the alcohol has an incredible ability to calm those fears and it will happen it is a very powerful chemical response in the brain um, we could advise folks to go out and take a long vigorous run and they will kick in and get the endorphin but it is not going to be equivalent to an immediate rush of heroin or cocaine or bourbon or what have you, it is going to give you and not take the edge off but these are legitimate options that we can help folks explore if you will just come in and sit down and talk with us.
Jill: Let’s talk about some of the programs that might work for people struggling right now, we are talking to people right now who are trying not to go past one bottle of wine per night. The bottle of wine per night in succession for many months every single night may be a problem in itself. If you are really trying not to go beyond that it is probably time to talk about this. The programs we offer are intensive outpatient which is basically a combination of understanding the disease process of alcohol and drug addiction and understanding how to create a road map for recovery out of that type of behavior and also what are the triggers and what are the craving levels you are at and how to fight that in order to fight you need to understand the neurobiology of addiction which is very important.
Lois: That is the major part of psycho education teaching individuals so that they understand the disease they have acquired and how to manage it going forward.
Jill: And the need for a support system. Many come with it in place with ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS and are looking for more intensive services and uh we do offer also groups in the evenings and we also offer Smart Recovery which helps to kind of do you know interact with peers if you are not already in a group setting outside of Breakthrough. We also very much encourage especially if you are dealing with co-occurring disorders um, therapy from a licensed therapist that can understand the marriage of the addiction and the co-occurring disorder like anxiety and depression.
Lois: We have also built in to our program as a family and as such we build into the program an opportunity for the family to participate and it is a necessity.
Jill: We are going to the break and when we get back we will discuss the family and how they can help. 770-226-0920 the number again is 770-226-0920 we will be right back.
Commercial Break
Jill: Welcome back the number is 770-226-0920 for the Breakthrough Addiction Recovery Hour and I am thinking for some reason about pumpkins and I don’t know why, when I came back in….oh, they are sitting in front of us, why am I thinking about pumpkins, ok, radio show host, Breakthrough, get back on track Lois
Lois: We have to be serious here
Jill: We are talking about our program at Breakthrough and the things that can help a person get through uncertain times and the possibility of having with drugs and alcohol and you were talking about our family programs.
Lois: Family education, families are so critical to the recovery network because of the support that they can either um, give to the recovering person or the road blocks that they can throw up for individuals and this is the power of the family um, we bring families in and we include them in part of the addiction treatment process to give them the same benefit of education and so we understand the disease that has come into their family and has caused problems that is very important, the we know that the success in any addiction treatment program goes up proportionately when we increase that network and that support system that gets cocooned around the individual who is struggling. At Breakthrough we become part of that support network because we have a long extended um, opportunity to work with our clients just because they come in for the intense part of the program the beginning, then the follow up with after care that can last a year or more depending on how long the folks want to stay with us and how long we are being therapeutic for them and that is very important and what we offer to those coming Jill is the therapeutic relationship that we develop, all of us whether we are intentionally involved one on one or otherwise, people coming in know us by name and know that they can come in any time and sit down with any of us for a conversation that we are all open and available and all willing to work with them. I think that the other piece of the program and I am going to say it right out loud we can never underestimate the power of prayer and the power of reconnecting for a lot of our individuals reconnecting with the spiritual program that many of them have sort of divorced themselves from either because of their own feelings about themselves or because they feel that they have strayed so far from God as they understand Him that they can not um, get to the place of being forgiven again and it is extremely important that people reconnect with the spiritual base because in the darkest hour the power of prayer is still operative.
Jill: I will let you go there, I agree with you. I think that as people are facing the things they are you know I am facing certain things as you are in these times but we have an overwhelming need to band together and make sure we are talking about it with another person and not let it take us down the pathway into worsening drug addiction or alcohol addiction and also just like you said to reconnect us with what is important and the vertical relationship as well as horizontal and we do embody that at Breakthrough. We are at the last minute of our show today and I just want to say that you can find a lot of information on line at our website www.breakthroughaddiction.com we are in Norcross a simple drive and I say that because there are not as many on the road these days with gas prices a simple drive from anywhere in the nation. You can call us for a free consultation at 770-734-8091 if you would like to come in and talk to us, ask for Lois by name and she would be happy to speak with you.Lois: I do hope that anyone listening that just our bantering between friends our words I hope have had meaning for you, call us and let us talk with you and show you that there is hope.
Jill: Join us next week 3pm this is the Breakthroug