Should Addicts be Sterilized?

Project Prevention has long paid poor, addicted women not to procreate. Now the far right is helping it go global.

BY JED BICKMAN, THE FIX

A volunteer outside a Project Prevention van

“Don’t let a pregnancy ruin your drug habit,” the slogan on the fliers reads. Another says, “She has her daddy’s eyes…and her mommy’s heroin addiction.” Then: “Get birth control, get ca$h.” These are posters that show up nationwide in homeless shelters and methadone clinics, in AA and NA meeting rooms and near needle exchange programs, distributed by volunteers for Project Prevention. Formerly called Children Requiring a Caring Kommunity (CRACK), the controversial nonprofit pays drug addicts $300 to either undergo sterilization or use a form of long-term, “no responsibility needed” birth control.

“What makes a woman’s right to procreate more important than the right of a child to have a normal life?” Project Prevention founder Barbara Harris told Time magazine in 2010. The question is entirely rhetorical: her self-professed mission in life is to zero out the number of births to parents who abuse illegal drugs, particularly crack cocaine. “Even if these babies are fortunate enough not to have mental or physical disabilities, they’re placed in the foster-care system and moved from home to home,” she says.

Critics of many stripes have piled on. They argue that Harris’ campaign deprives women who are addicted, poor and vulnerable of reproductive choice even as it feeds their drug habit.

Some opponents say that, since the financial incentive is tantamount to giving addicts money to buy drugs, Project Prevention should be illegal.

Others say that if addicted women are viewed as not responsible enough to have a baby, then they should also be viewed as not responsible enough to give informed consent to having a serious medical procedure in exchange for drug money.

Still others say that Harris is stuck in the past by targeting the wrong drugs: these days, more babies are born dependent on Oxy and other legal opiate painkillers than cocaine or heroin, according to a report published just this week in JAMA.

And many opponents say that the payment is a bribe, and some have even called Project Prevention a revival of the eugenics movement.

Harris takes none of these criticisms seriously. The California foster mother, age 59, started the program in 1997, following her failed effort to get the Prenatal Neglect Act through the California state legislature. The bill would have made it a crime for a pregnant woman to use illegal drugs. (Such laws exist in many states: last week’s Sunday New York Times Magazine profiled an Alabama woman named Amanda Kimbrough who is serving 10 years in prison for doing crystal meth while pregnant and giving birth after only 25 weeks to a very underweight baby who died.) Shifting tactics, the homegrown activist then began her campaign for a less punitive, if more final, solution to the “problem” of drug-addicted mothers bringing children into the world: pay them not to procreate.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/02/should_addicts_be_sterilized_salpart/singleton/

 

How Mindfulness Aids In Addiction Recovery

By David Sack, MD

For many of us, daily life is about “going through the motions.” How often do you drive from point A to point B without remembering how you got there?

Are you able to focus on one activity at a time or are you a multi-tasker who juggles five things at once?

Modern life is not always conducive to staying in the present moment, but as we are learning in the addiction field, the practice of mindfulness can bring greater joy into daily life and also help recovering addicts guard against relapse.

Increasingly, the field is embracing Eastern practices, including mindfulness meditation, as an adjunct to traditional addiction treatments.

Mindfulness vs. Addiction

Mindfulness, which has its roots in Buddhism, involves a purposeful and nonjudgmental focus on one’s feelings, experiences, and internal and external processes in the present moment. Rather than escape from painful feelings, mindfulness meditation encourages addicts to sit quietly with themselves and pay close attention to their thoughts and feelings without taking action to judge or “fix” them.

It is not about apathy or suppression of feelings, but rather the freedom to experience the full range of feelings and strategically choose how to respond.

Like yoga, tai chi and related practices, mindfulness is a portable skill that can become a regular part of the recovering addict’s life, both during and after treatment. It takes only a few minutes and can be done by anyone anywhere, and its effects are long-lasting.

A Life Skill with Wide Applicability

Mindfulness-based therapy has been used for a variety of ailments, including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, physical illnesses and addiction, but its usefulness extends even further. Mindfulness can be applied to every area of life, including the most mundane daily tasks like house cleaning, taking a walk or eating a meal. Even decades into recovery, mindfulness is a way to stay fully invested in life.

Source: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/addiction-recovery/2012/04/how-mindfulness-aids-in-addiction-recovery/

Related Online Continuing Education Course:

Mindfulness: The Healing Power of Compassionate Presence

This course will give you the mindfulness skills necessary to work directly, effectively and courageously, with your own and your client’s life struggles. Compassion towards others starts with compassion towards self. Practicing mindfulness cultivates our ability to pay intentional attention to our experience from moment to moment. Mindfulness teaches us to become patiently and spaciously aware of what is going on in our mind and body without judgment, reaction, and distraction, thus inviting into the clinical process, the inner strengths and resources that help achieve healing results not otherwise possible. Bringing the power of mindful presence to your clinical practice produces considerable clinical impact in the treatment of anxiety, depression, PTSD, chronic pain, high blood pressure, fibromyalgia, colitis/IBS, and migraines/tension headaches. The emphasis of this course is largely experiential and will offer you the benefit of having a direct experience of the mindfulness experience in a safe and supportive fashion. You will utilize the power of “taking the client there” as an effective technique of introducing the mindful experience in your practice setting. As you will learn, the mindfulness practice has to be experienced rather than talked about. This course will provide you with an excellent understanding of exactly what mindfulness is, why it works, and how to use it. You will also develop the tools that help you introduce mindful experiences in your practice, and how to deal with possible client resistance.

Course #60-75 | 2008 | 73 pages | 27 posttest questions

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Learn More: http://www.pdresources.org/CourseDetail.aspx?Category=AllCourses&PageNumber=1&Profession=Other&Sort=CourseID&Text=60-75&courseid=972 

 

Should Sexual Addiction Become A Legitimate Mental Health Diagnosis?

By ROBERT WEISS LCSW, CSAT-S

Is Sex Addiction Real?

There will always be controversy – as there should be – when any form of inherently healthy human behavior such as eating, sleeping, or sex is clinically designated as pathological. And while the power to “label” must always be carefully wielded to avoid turning social, religious, or moral judgments into diagnoses (as was homosexuality in the DSM-I and DSM-II), equal care must be taken to not avoid researching and creating diagnostic criteria for healthy behaviors when they go awry due to underlying psychological deficits and trauma.

Pre-Internet sexual addiction research in the 1980s suggested that approximately 3 to 5 percent of the adult population struggled with some form of addictive sexual behavior. Those studied were a self-selected treatment group, mostly male, who complained of being “hooked” on magazine and video porn, multiple affairs, prostitution, old-fashioned phone sex, and similar behaviors.

More recent studies indicate that sexual addiction is both escalating and simultaneously becoming more evenly distributed among men and women. This escalation in problem sexual behavior appears to be directly related to the increasingly high-speed Internet access to both intensely stimulating graphic pornography and anonymous sexual partnering.

Today these connections are furnished not only through the use of home and laptop computers, but also via smart-phones and the related geo-locating mobile devices we now carry in our pockets and briefcases.

Lamentably, at the very same time that sexual addiction disorder began its technology generated escalation, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) backed away from the provision of either a diagnostic indicator or a workable diagnosis. Consequently, the past 25 years have wrought a somewhat anguished and inconsistent history in the attempts of the psychiatric, addiction, and mental health communities to accurately label and distinguish the problem of excessive adult consensual sexual behavior.

Today, American outpatient psychotherapists and addiction counselors are reporting a marked increase in the number of clients seeking help with self-reported crises related to problems like “I find myself disappearing for multiple hours daily into online porn” or “I feel lost on a never-ending treadmill of anonymous sexual hook-ups and affairs,” not to mention the tens of thousands who daily struggle with the dopamine-fueled nightmare combination of stimulant (meth/cocaine) abuse fused with intensely problematic sexual behavior patterns.

It would seem that these clinicians and clients would benefit greatly from the guidance the APA and DSM might offer them, but does not currently provide.

Read more: http://blogs.psychcentral.com/sex/2012/04/hypersexualitydisorder/

 

The Crucial Role of Alcohol Awareness Month

By Deann Jepson, MS

For 25 years, April has been recognized as Alcohol Awareness Month. So how does this campaign continue to be of value after all of these years?

Alcohol misuse and abuse still have a tremendous impact on our country today. As prom and graduation season are beginning to unfold, April is also a key month in which to highlight the dangers of underage drinking, as well as increase public awareness and understanding about alcohol.

Consider these facts:

• In 2010, more than 10,000 people died in alcohol-impaired driving crashes – one every 51 minutes (National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2012).
• Alcohol is the number one drug of choice for America’s young people, more than tobacco or illicit drugs, and underage alcohol use alone costs the nation an estimated $62 billion annually (National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc., 2012).
• More than 14 million people in this country are currently living with what can be defined as an addiction to alcohol.
• Each year, more than 100,000 people die as a result of alcohol-related issues.
• Every year, more than 13,000 people die as a result of liver disease related to alcoholism (rehabinfo, 2012).

As indicated by these statistics, alcohol is still creating a widespread problem of serious personal, physical, social and economic consequences. Yet, at the same time, there are many misconceptions about alcohol use, abuse and alcoholism today. One common misconception is that alcoholics lack willpower, and they could quit if they really wanted to stop drinking. This statement couldn’t be further from the truth. Unfortunately, misinformation, as well as stigma, is often perpetuated through peers, media, family and individual experimentation.

What is important to know and be aware of is that changes occur within the mind and body when alcohol is consumed, regardless of the amount. Therefore, even when drinking in moderation, there can be subsequent consequences (National Institutes of Health). Even small amounts of alcohol consumed during pregnancy or combined with certain medications may result in significant adverse consequences and therefore is considered risky drinking (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2003).

The craving a person with alcoholism feels for alcohol can be as strong as the need for food or water. A person addicted to alcohol will continue to drink despite serious family, health or legal problems. Like many other diseases, alcoholism is chronic, meaning it lasts a person’s lifetime, usually follows a predictable course and has symptoms. The risk for developing alcoholism is influenced both by a person’s genes and by his or her lifestyle (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2012).

Alcoholism can be treated. Alcoholism treatment programs use both counseling and medications to help a person stop drinking. Treatment has helped many people stop drinking and rebuild their lives (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 2012).

Sadly, there are some who perpetuate the belief that alcoholism is not a disease and pure speculation.  (Baldwin Research Institute, 2010).

The disease of alcoholism and the consequences of alcohol abuse can be deadly. Alcohol Awareness Month provides a focused opportunity to increase awareness and understanding of alcoholism, its causes, effective treatment and recovery. It is an opportunity to decrease stigma and misunderstandings in order to dismantle the barriers to treatment and recovery, and thus, make seeking help more readily available to those who suffer from this disease. This is the value of Alcohol Awareness Month.

Source: http://www.drugfree.org/join-together/alcohol/commentary-the-crucial-role-of-alcohol-awareness-month

Related Online Continuing Education Courses:

• Preventing Alcohol Abuse & Dependence
• Helping Patients Who Drink Too Much
• Alcohol Problems in Intimate Relationships
• College Drinking Prevention Curriculum
• Women and Alcohol
• Alcohol and Intimate Partner Violence
• Developmental Effects of Alcohol

 

Abuse in Childhood Common Among Alcohol Addicts

By Shari Roan

In a survey of 196 men and women being treated for alcohol dependence, almost one-quarter of men and one-third of women reported a history of childhood physical abuse.

Abuse in childhood appears to be a particularly strong risk factor for developing alcohol addiction later in life, researchers reported Thursday.

Alcohol dependence is linked to many risk factors — including genetics, drinking in adolescence and having other mental health disorders. A history of physical, sexual or emotional abuse in childhood is known to be another risk factor. The new study, however, shows how strong this link could be.

Researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse surveyed 196 men and women who were inpatients being treated for alcohol dependence. Almost one-quarter of men and 33% of women reported a history of childhood physical abuse while rates of sexual abuse were 12% for men and 49% for women.

In addition, the study found that sexual abuse raised the risk of also developing anxiety disorder and emotional abuse increased the risk of developing depression. People who were physically abused in childhood and became alcohol dependent were more likely to have a history of suicide attempts. Alcoholics who experience more than one type of childhood abuse were more likely to develop another psychiatric disorder or to attempt suicide.

The study suggests how important trauma assessment is in alcohol-treatment services, the authors said.

The study appears in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.

Source: http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-heb-trauma-alcohol-20120315,0,5329235.story

Related Online Continuing Education Course:

Domestic Violence: Child Abuse and Intimate Partner Violence

Related Articles:

• Alcoholism and Chemical Dependency Treatment (alcoholic.org)
• Alcohol Dependence (allaboutcounseling.com)
• Am I an Alcoholic? (alcoholic.org)
• Alcoholism Statistics and Information (alcoholic.org)