Author: Ed Baker
Ed Baker is a Licensed Alcohol/Drug Counselor and Licensed Independent Clinical Social Worker and Aspenti Health’s Education Specialist. Ed has practiced psychotherapy with individuals with Substance Use Disorder for over 30 years in both inpatient and outpatient private practice settings. Ed researches and reports on subjects related to psychoactive drugs and use trends, substance use disorder, treatment, and recovery. Ed himself is in personal recovery from addiction for 33 years.
Our Prevention Programs are working.
At a recent teleconference I attended led by Dr. Nora Volkow, NIDA Director, I learned adolescent tobacco use is at an all-time low since 1979.
Dr. Johnson of the University of Michigan, the Principal Investigator of this study for 42 years, stated that there has been a “tremendous decline in cigarette smoking since the mid-90s, the most prevalent cause of preventable death and disease in America.” Dr. Volkow also noted significant decreases in alcohol and pain-medication use.
Reasons For Celebration
I tuned in to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis’ announcement of its Final Report on November 1, with the hope that the Commission had independently done its homework and arrived at meaningful recommendations for our country’s health.
I was not disappointed.
While the broadcast itself lasted much longer than I had planned, (over two hours), I found myself thoroughly engaged from the opening comments to the unanimous vote to adopt the committee’s recommendations.
What was striking about the broadcast was the human emotion expressed by the committee, the empathy in the chamber, and the scientific data and decades of experience in this field available to the leadership. If the Administration chooses to fully utilize the potential at its disposal, as recommended by the Commission, we will be looking back at this era someday as history, rather than wondering why “history repeats itself”.
Dr. Bertha Madras, well-noted chair of the Division of Neurochemistry at Harvard Medical School, was the lead author of the 131-page final report. Dr. Madras advised “If we don’t stop the pipeline into substance use, if we don’t promote prevention, we are going to have an open-ended catastrophe that goes on for generations.”
The human tragedy and immeasurable anguish associated with this crisis was poignantly and powerfully communicated by Doug Griffin.
Mr. Griffin, a father from Newton, NH, talked about how his daughter, Courtney, struggled with opioids. Courtney died at age 20, from an overdose. Mr. Griffin, sobbing, ended his testimony with, “I pray your children are spared from this plague, and that you never know what it’s like to be me.”
As unimaginable as it may seem, to really understand the depth and magnitude of America’s drug crisis, we need to multiply Mr. Griffin’s pain by 64,000 in 2016; this is the estimated number of drug overdose deaths for that year according to preliminary data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One death every seven minutes.
The Commission’s Final Report was issued November 1, 2017…
This Blog was written on November 20, 2017…
One death every seven minutes equals 3,908 overdose deaths since the Commission’s Report. Yet there have been 0 words from the Administration regarding funding intentions or planning in response to the Report.
A link to the Commission’s Full report, and a link to a PBS analysis of the Commission’s formal announcement, including the video, are noted below. These are both worth a very close look when time permits.
Only a well-informed public can influence its leaders in meaningful and appropriate ways.
Commission’s Final Report
https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/images/Meeting%20Draft%20of%20Final%20Report%20-%20November%201%2C%202017.pdf
PBS NEWSHOUR Summary and Video of the Commission’s announcement (Please note there is a 44 ½ minute delay in the video’s beginning. Viewers can easily advance to the starting point)
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/watch-live-trumps-opioid-commission-slated-to-release-final-report
[post_title] => Opportunity Knocks: The President’s Commission On Combatting Drug Addiction And The Opioid Crisis’ Final Report
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[post_content] => As we saw in Part 1 of this series, the tendency toward impulsive decision-making as a response to stress is a risk factor in developing substance use disorder. The opposite of impulsive behaviors are behaviors that are consciously chosen as a response to stress because they are likely to result in healthy, or positive, outcomes.
Deliberative, weighed out responses to stress are a product of “executive function processes” carried out by the pre-frontal-cortex. These are learned during childhood and adolescence, primarily. This is the key component to what is known as “Resilience”. When a concerned, committed adult supports a child’s coping with stressful situations, there is an actual effect on the development of the child’s brain, on their learned ability to cope with stress in a productive manner. This skill or function, once developed, can last a lifetime. This is Resilience.
Resilience can be defined as:
I am reminded of an interaction with a colleague at a National Conference four years ago where I used the term “addict” during a conversation a small group of us were engaged in. Afterwards she approached me and pointed out that “we,” our profession, we're trying not to use pejorative or limiting terms any longer. She pointed out that the term “addict” limited the definition of the person to one aspect of the whole person and that “person-first-language” was more appropriate and not stigmatizing. She suggested I use the term “person with addiction” or “person with substance use disorder.”
I have been mindful of the language I choose ever since that afternoon, and I must say that there is a “softly spoken advocacy” present in many of my formal and informal conversations today as a result. This feels right to me.
Here are some examples of suggested changes in language from the Recovery Research Institute’s “Addiction-ary” you may be interested in:
Methamphetamine also known as crystal meth[/caption]
Here are some suggestions on proactive measures we can take to prevent yet another tragic epidemic in our country:
Parents/families and educators: