MXE joins a long list of "designer drugs" or drugs which are created clandestinely by tweaking the formulations of already regulated or prohibited substances. These designer drugs sell quickly via pseudo pharmacies on the Internet until they are discovered and come under stringent government control and regulation. By then, the Internet pharmacy has disappeared and the drug makers are busy reinventing a new designer drug for marketing.

Experts suggest that MXE probably best resembles the known drug Ketamine, an anesthetic with dissociative properties used by veterinarians and some physicians around the world. Websites selling MXE have marketed it as a legal version of Ketamine, meaning that no medical or veterinary license is required to purchase the substance.

Sadly, many people confuse the legality of a substance with its safety. MXE is not safe for human use. The drug is so far known to produce eye malfunctions, loss of balance, lack of coordination, impaired speech and even to result in a catatonic state.

Though still legal in some places around the globe, April saw the United States Government issue a temporary ban on supplying or selling MXE. As of last month it became illegal in the U.S. to deal in the substance in any way although personal possession of the drug is not illegal. The U.S. government ban is a temporary order which can remain in effect for as long as one year from the date of issue. During this time, an Advisory Council will determine if the drug ought to be placed under a permanent government ban. An international ban on the substance is yet to be forthcoming.

What happens internationally is of concern to U.S. drug enforcement since many of the pseudo pharmacies which create designer drugs exists outside of the country where regulations are less strict. This makes controlling the sale of such drugs that much more complicated. The rapidity with which these substances can be made and marketed over the Internet make controlling them particularly challenging for drug enforcement officials.

Clearly there needs to be a greater collaborative effort between international governments and drug agencies if there is to be any measurable success in dealing with dangerous substances such as MXE.

Plan Ahead

If you are facing the prospect of an upcoming surgery, start thinking ahead of time about your pain management plan. Talk extensively with your doctor about how much pain you can expect to have and how long it will last. Knowing what to expect can go a long way toward making you feel more comfortable. You should also discuss the medications that you can expect to use after surgery for controlling your pain. Ask your doctor how they work, how long you should be taking them, and what the risks are for developing a painkiller addiction.

Now is the time to be very honest with your doctor. If you have ever struggled with addiction in the past, he or she needs to know. You doctor will have a few options when it comes to your prescriptions. If you have addiction issues, you can be given a medication that is less likely to create a dependence. Your doctor can also help you create a plan for managing your pain without developing an addiction.

The Risky Medications

Many of the most effective painkillers available are opioids. These are all medications that derive from the opium poppy and are related to highly addictive and dangerous recreational drugs like opium and heroin. Opioid drugs are excellent painkillers and can also treat diarrhea and cough. Unfortunately, they also give the user a euphoric feeling and the desire to keep using it. Over time, the user develops a tolerance to the drug and needs to use more and more to achieve the same euphoria. This often leads to addiction. Prescription opioids include morphine, codeine, fentanyl, oxycodone, and others.

When Addiction Develops

If you are using prescription painkillers to manage your post-surgery pain, be aware of the beginning of a developing addiction. It may not be easy for you to see the signs in yourself or to admit to them, so listen to what others have to say about your behaviors and actions. Take the concerns of your loved ones seriously. If you are craving your medication and using more than is recommended, you may be in danger of becoming addicted.

Continue to be in communication with your doctor and report any signs of craving or needing more medication. Talk to your doctor about your pain and if it worsens or does not improve with the medication you have been prescribed. When you are open about what is happening and what you are feeling and experiencing, it is easier for your doctor to intervene to lessen your pain and to minimize your addiction risk.

If you become accustomed to or addicted to your painkillers, you will need to be weaned off of them. This means reducing your intake gradually so that you avoid the sometimes severe withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Your doctor can give you a plan for slowly halting your use of prescription painkillers that will get you off slowly and safely.

Whatever you do, do not attempt to stop using your medications cold turkey. Do not attempt to stop using without your doctor’s input and do not try to do this by yourself. Battling an addiction to a prescription opioid can be every bit as serious as facing an addiction to an illegal substance. Your withdrawal symptoms can be very troubling and your cravings severe. Accept the help and support of your friends and family to get you through this difficult period.

Once you are clean

When your pain is being managed or has gone away entirely, you will still carry the burden of your addiction. Knowing that you have the potential to become addicted is powerful information and you should use it wisely. If you are at risk of an addiction to painkillers, you are at risk of becoming addicted to other substances as well. Monitor your use of alcohol and other drugs and accept the advice of others. You have the power to prevent future dependences.

Without a single illegal ingredient, teenagers have found a way to practice basic chemistry and transform hand sanitizer into a drinkable solution. By mixing simple table salt with the sanitizer, it melts most of the gel solution, which can then be strained, leaving teens with a liquid that is almost 70 percent alcohol. This holds a similar potency to a shot or two of hard liquor. As with any sort of drink with that amount of liquor content, it does not take much for a teenager who has very little drinking experience to immediately feel the effects of the alcohol. Too often, just a few shots of this mixture can send a teen to the emergency room with alcohol poisoning.

It is nothing new for teens to look around the home in search of their next high. Some believe it is safer than ingesting illegal drugs. Some simply know better than to try and work with a drug dealer. Although documented cases already exist of previous teens trying to consume hand sanitizer, this is the first time cases have been reported that include the salt mixture to separate the alcohol. As more teens learn about the process, there is a legitimate concern that more will end up in the hospital as well.

What to Look For

Because this trend involves simple ingredients that can be found, or purchased anywhere, parents must be extra diligent regarding their children. Keep an eye out for any missing containers or amounts of hand sanitizer. Although difficult, the same must be said for the table salt. In addition, watch for new and frequent use of or the smell of hand sanitizer. After all, on their own without your prodding, how many teenagers are obsessive about cleanliness?

Signs of Alcohol Poisoning

It takes only a small quantity of the separated alcohol from the hand sanitizer for a teen to become drunk. With just a minute amount more, your child can be facing alcohol poisoning. Once alcohol has entered the blood stream, your teen’s blood alcohol content can continue to rise even if they are no longer drinking or if they have passed out. If alcohol poisoning has begun, immediate medical attention will be needed. You must be able to recognize the signs and symptoms of early alcohol poisoning to get them the help they need.

These signs include:

• Mental confusion or disorientation
• Inability to arouse or awaken the individual
• Vomiting
• Seizures
• Irregular heartbeat
• Slow, irregular, or shallow breathing
• Pale skin or skin that has a blue tinge to it
• Lack of reflexes or lack of responses to painful stimuli (such as a pinch)

Dangers of Alcohol Poisoning

The short term effects of alcohol can be devastating and life threatening. Your teen can stop breathing or choke on their vomit. Their heart can stop beating or severe dehydration can occur. Any one of these short term effects can cause your teen to lose their life. However, even if they are fortunate enough to live, they may be faced with the possibility of brain damage from lack of oxygen. Alcohol poisoning reacts significantly differently from a traditional hangover in that the body truly cannot metabolize the large amount of alcohol easily. It is possible to sleep off a hangover; however, that is the worst thing you can suggest if you suspect alcohol poisoning.

Precautions that Work

The best precaution when dealing with this new trend is open and honest communication with you teenager. You do not want your teen to hear about this for the first time when they are at a friend’s house watching this cool experiment. Be honest and let them know what has occurred, how simple it can be to do this, and how a small amount of this liquid can cause severe problems including death. Of course, you know your teenager and their friends better than anyone. If you feel it is necessary, take stock of your hand sanitizer. You may want to treat it the same way you would other alcohol in your house. However you choose to handle the trend, the best defense is to always be proactive. You might just save your child’s life.

"The most important thing I can do as a therapist is to be present with another person," she says. "Psychological theories and training are important, but what clients and their families care about most is knowing their therapist cares about them and gets it, and is worthy of their trust."

Building Trust Through Shared Experience

Julie builds rapport naturally, by letting her humanity show. Like many of her clients, she spent much of her young adulthood battling addiction. By sharing her personal experience in recovery, Julie is able to empathize with what’s happening in her clients’ lives and serve as a model for a healthier way to live.

After attending performing art school in New York, Julie moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. Instead of stardom, she was greeted with one traumatic event after another, which launched her into a personal crisis. In order to cope with crisis and unresolved trauma, Julie’s use escalated and her addiction was progressing.

As a high-functioning addict, Julie remained in denial for many years. It wasn’t until graduate school that she finally connected the dots and addressed her drug use. Around the same time, Julie’s search for her birth father ended with the revelation that he had died years earlier from a drug overdose. This combination of experiences inspired her to help others struggling with addictions. She started volunteering as a hotline counselor, and then went back to school to become a therapist.

Healing the Family System

Julie began her professional career by working with children, adolescents and families. Her early training prepared her for a challenging position with an international program doing drug education in schools. It also created a strong foundation for her family work at Promises as well as her private recovery coaching practice. As a family therapist at Promises, her interests lie in family systems work and attachment theory, which help her address the childhood trauma and complex family dynamics that are often at the root of addiction.

"Like so many people in this field, I didn’t choose recovery, it chose me," Julie says. "Looking back, it is clear that all roads led me here."

At Promises, family work begins early on in treatment. There are two intensive family groups every other Saturday – one family support group and one intensive multi-family support group in which both families and clients are present. During the rest of the week, family therapists conduct couples counseling as well as family therapy sessions by phone, Skype and in-person. Throughout the process, both the client and their loved ones receive unbiased feedback and support.

"Addiction is a family disease," Julie explains. "Not every family member is afflicted with it but they are all affected by it. And the sooner loved ones start getting education and support and become part of the solution, the faster the whole family system can heal."

Family therapy is essential for both the addict and their family. Research shows that family participation in treatment increases the addict’s chances of long-term sobriety. While many families believe the problem is solely the addict’s ("if we can fix them, everything will be fine"), in treatment they learn about the dysfunctional roles they may have unwittingly adopted, such as enabling, rescuing or denying. They are also encouraged to get involved in Alanon and/or individual therapy. At the same time the addict is learning how to live without drugs and alcohol, the family system is changing as well.

"Although it can be hard to see it at the time, going to treatment is such an incredible gift," Julie says. "When families are willing to come in and take risks to help a loved one, they make huge strides in their ability to communicate openly, rebuild trust, and share their needs and feelings without starting a war. We get to the messy truth as quickly as possible so that both the client and their family can move forward."

Because the study was done anonymously online, primarily through Facebook, experts believe people were more willing to be honest about their habits than in past studies. Researchers first questioned participants about their tobacco habit and then asked whether they’ve used marijuana in the past 30 days. While age, gender and income appeared to have no effect, both drugs were most commonly used among young adults who were:

• White
• From the Northeast
• Living in rural areas
• Not in school

Serious Health Consequences of Smoking

While the research on the respiratory consequences of smoking pot has produced conflicting results, combining marijuana and cigarette smoking is extremely harmful to the lungs. A study in the Canadian Medical Association Journal showed that people who smoke both cigarettes and marijuana have a particularly high risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of lung diseases that includes chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Those who smoked marijuana by itself did not have a significantly higher COPD risk, leading researchers to speculate that smoking pot sensitized the airways, making participants more vulnerable to the adverse effects of cigarette smoking.

Although users often believe marijuana is safer than tobacco, each poses serious risks. Smoking tobacco increases the risk not only of lung cancer and emphysema but also heart disease and high blood pressure. Marijuana, which contains more than double the number of carcinogens than tobacco, has also been linked with lung infections with chronic use as well as problems with memory, learning and coordination, heart attack, impaired immune function, anxiety, and paranoia. Both drugs are addictive.

Addressing the Problem

Many experts are not surprised by the study findings linking tobacco use with marijuana use. It is common for people with substance abuse problems to struggle with nicotine dependence. Even in drug rehab or at a 12-Step meeting, it is not unusual to find people chain smoking or simultaneously trying to kick a smoking habit.

Researchers hope that having an accurate perspective of the problem will aid in funding additional research and making appropriate treatment available to young people. Given the high level of responsiveness, it may be that therapies made available through social media channels may be effective for young people. Experts also believe anyone seeking smoking cessation services should be screened for other drug abuse problems, with both addictions addressed at the same time.

#1 You’re worried you may be losing control.

Do you keep a small supply of pain medication on you at all times "just in case"? Do you sneak or hide pills? If you’ve tried to cut back or stop using medication for a time but keep returning to prior levels of use, you may have lost control. This is particularly true if you continue using painkillers despite negative consequences in your life.

Addicted individuals may find themselves making urgent calls or unscheduled visits to their doctor or visiting multiple doctors to receive more than one prescription. Some may even find themselves buying pills on the street, forging prescriptions or stealing pills prescribed for others. If insurance no longer covers the cost, some people begin using cheaper, more easily accessible drugs like heroin.

For those who have had problems with drugs or alcohol in the past, this loss of control may be eerily familiar. If you have a history of drug abuse, you’re more likely to become addicted to pain medication as well.

#2 You don’t feel like yourself anymore.

Dependency on painkillers can change your appearance, habits and lifestyle. You may feel a shift in your mood, energy level or ability to concentrate, and may become agitated or hostile, particularly when you don’t have access to your medication. Sleeping and eating patterns may become irregular, causing fatigue and weight gain/loss. Over time, drugs may begin to take precedence over basic grooming and hygiene, resulting in changes to your physical appearance. Social circles may change as well, as your interests become more focused on drug use than connecting with family or friends.

#3 You get defensive if people question you about your medication use.

It may be difficult to recognize changes in yourself, but family, friends and coworkers may start to mention their concerns. When they make comments or ask questions, do you get annoyed or defensive? Rather than deal with other people’s commentary, have you started keeping your feelings and behaviors secret or avoiding people? Keeping secrets is a hallmark of addiction.

#4 You don’t feel good without the medication.

If you’ve become physically dependent on painkillers, you may experience withdrawal symptoms if you skip a dose or the medication wears off. Symptoms may include joint and muscle pain, vomiting, headaches, anxiety, sweating and insomnia.

The pain of withdrawal, which can feel similar to the pain you were originally medicating, often leads to the use of more painkillers. In some cases, people will regularly manage withdrawal symptoms by taking more painkillers, often without realizing that these symptoms are the result of the medication itself.

#5 Your family, career and/or schoolwork are beginning to suffer.

You may notice, or others may tell you, that you’re no longer meeting your responsibilities of daily life. Your attendance or grades at school may suffer, a coworker or boss may complain about your performance, or family members may argue that you’re missing important events or neglecting your spouse or children. You may also struggle with financial or legal problems associated with your painkiller use.

Every year, more than 2 million Americans begin abusing prescription opiates. Take an honest look in the mirror – are you one of them? If you recognize the signs of painkiller addiction in yourself or a loved one, talk to your doctor or a drug treatment center right away. Painkiller addiction is treatable, but only if you reach out for help.

Since then, video gaming has grown into a powerful multi-million dollar home system industry and the problem of excessive game playing has grown with the industry. But can excessive video gaming be properly termed an addiction? That is a question still being considered by those who make such determinations.

According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) video gaming is not a recognized addiction. The DSM-IV is the guide regularly consulted by mental health professionals to determine appropriate diagnoses. A new edition of the DSM is due to be released later in 2012 and that edition may include video gaming under diagnosable addictions – no one is sure quite yet. While the American Psychiatric Association discusses whether or not to make it official, many professionals and lay people argue that plenty of our young people fall under a working definition for addiction which is basically any compulsive behavior which interferes with normal functioning.

By this definition, as many as nine percent of teens could be labeled addicted. Certainly a significant number of youth spend excessive time (up to 24 hours per week) lost in an alternate fantasy reality created by video games. Signs that kids are spending too much time gaming include: trouble focusing at school, a drop in academic performance and more than usual health problems.

Fear of Separation

If a person is planning to enter a residential drug detox facility, they may fear being separated from loved ones during an emotionally trying process. Entering a new environment with new faces can seem frightening. The truth is, if the addict doesn’t get treatment, the drug or alcohol addiction will eventually separate them from loved ones anyway.

Fear of Detox

At some point in their addiction the person felt symptoms of withdrawal. These symptoms were unpleasant and were quickly halted by consuming another dose of the substance. The fear of drug detox where symptoms continue unabated is overpowering. The truth is that withdrawal is different for each person and that most residential facilities have a staff on hand to do everything possible to make detox as comfortable as possible.

Fear of Being Embarrassed

Addicts can manage to hide their problem from friends and loved ones for a while. Entering drug detox means admitting their problem to everyone. The truth is, the longer the addict continues, the harder their actions will be to hide and the more likely it is that addiction-related behaviors will embarrass them and others.

Fear of Helplessness

People start abusing drugs or alcohol for a reason. One reason is that the substance masks a feeling of helplessness and instead makes them feel confident. Addicts may fear losing this false confidence and being left with the old helpless feeling. The truth is, the drug detox and rehab will help them conquer the sense of helplessness and give them a real confidence.

Fear of Getting Fat

Sometimes drug abuse began as a way to lower ones appetite and lose weight. The fear of giving up drugs is that the person will regain weight. The truth is, new and healthier weight management strategies can be learned.

Fear of Transparency

Most people know that drug detox will require them to talk about feelings and behaviors at some point. It may be frightening to open old wounds and addicts may dread talking about shameful things they have done. The truth is, treatment does bring to light things that are festering in the dark. However, many others at rehab have the very same feelings of fear, guilt and shame. They won’t be alone.

Fear of Failure

Perhaps the greatest fear is that they will enter the program and not succeed. Sometimes relapses do occur. Addicts may fear that if they fail, their loved ones will become disappointed and will consider them hopeless. The truth is, many centers offer counseling for families and loved ones right alongside the treatment and counseling being provided for the addict.

No matter what it is that a person fears about entering drug detox and rehab, keep in mind that the consequences of continuing an addiction are far worse.

Participants who had friends or family who actively encourage them not to drink tended to be more successful at treatment, but those had social networks encouraging drinking had harder times.

"Most of us have an image of a ‘pro-drinker’ as someone who drinks heavily. Often, however, pro-drinkers are people who may abstain themselves or be light drinkers, but don’t believe their friend who is struggling with an alcohol problem has a drinking problem that requires treatment," Dr. Stout said.

Dr. Robert Stout and his colleagues used statistical measures to analyze previous research about social networks and their effect on how people are able to cope after finishing treatment for alcohol problems. They then followed 1,756 patients in recovery, and accessed their progress at three, six, nine, 12, and 15 months, and then again at 39 months. The more pro-drinkers in their lives, especially at months 15 and 39, the worse the outcomes for participants. Social networks predicted as much as 5% to 12% of their outcomes. The study concluded that "Network composition following treatment is an important and plausibly causal predictor of alcohol outcome across three years, adjusting for multiple confounders."

One valuable technique suggested by the research team might be intervening with pro-drinkers who are involved with a recovering alcoholic and teaching them the importance of helping their friend or family member remain abstinent.

Dr. Stout acknowledged that it is hard to make such changes.

"It can be intimidating to reach out to new people or to explain to one’s current friends and family that they need their support during recovery," he explained. "Breaking off older relationships can also be hard but equally important."

Previous studies have suggested similar phenomena occur in other kinds of addictions. For example, a 2007 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine implied that obesity worked something like a contagious disease, and that your risk of obesity increases 37% if your spouse is overweight and goes up by 57% if you have overweight friends, and 40% for overweight siblings. Most treatment programs require recovering drug addicts to drop their old drug-using friends. This new study takes it a step further by stating that recovery is more likely to happen if your friends and family actively keep reminding you to stop drinking.

This research was funded through a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and published in the Journal of Alcoholism and Drugs.

Yoga

Many adult drug rehabs have caught on to the value of yoga in treating addiction. In addition to physical benefits such as flexibility and stamina, regular yoga practice has been shown to promote relaxation and a connection between mind, body and spirit.

The same benefits apply for teens, according to a recent study by Harvard Medical School. Fifty-one teenagers in 11th and 12th grades reported that yoga helped them cope better with stress and trauma, manage anger, and build resilience compared to high schoolers in a regular Physical Education class. The researchers concluded that yoga may play a role in preventing substance abuse and other mental health problems in teens.

12-Step Recovery

Twelve-step programs have long been considered an essential component of long-term recovery for adults – so much so that programs are offered for a wide range of addictive and compulsive behaviors including gambling, sex, food and a variety of drugs. The usefulness of 12-Step programs has been a source of debate in the past, particularly because the 12-Step model emphasizes lifelong abstinence and powerlessness over drugs and alcohol – concepts that, to some, seem a bit extreme when applied to teenagers.

But a new study suggests that teens in substance abuse treatment benefit from 12-Step recovery just like adults. Of the 25 to 30 percent of teens that attended Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous meetings in the one-year study period, those who attended more meetings had significantly better outcomes.

"Importantly, youth who also were in contact with an AA or NA sponsor or who participated verbally during AA/NA meetings had an even better outcome over and above the positive effects from merely attending," said researcher John F. Kelly of the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. "These findings support the common clinical recommendation that individuals should ‘go to meetings, get a sponsor, and get active.’"

As a result of these findings, teens in substance abuse treatment should be encouraged to try yoga, AA/NA meetings and other interventions until they find what works best for them. For those who get an introduction to AA/NA during treatment, it is important that they find a group that is a good match for them so they feel comfortable continuing to attend meetings after formal treatment ends.

The early days and weeks of treatment and recovery are the time when addicts are most vulnerable to relapse, and it is during this period that the support of loved ones can make the biggest positive impact. But for substance abusers who have alienated their family members by their past behavior, this support may no longer be available. Sometimes, all of the lying and the broken promises and the manipulation are just too much to overcome, and this can leave a person in the early stages of recovery without the loving assistance they have relied upon for most of their lives to help them through their darkest hours.

But if this is the situation you are facing now, what you have to realize is that you were not the only victim of your substance addiction. Your family members were also its victims, and they may have felt the only way they could save themselves from the abyss was to separate from you completely. In these cases, healing the breach is going to require a lot more than just a few apologies and familiar promises that this time things will be different. If you are going to have any chance of fixing these broken relationships, you are going to have to give your loved ones more than you have ever given them before.

Making Amends – When the Time is Right

Even if your family has not expressed a willingness to listen to anything you have to say, it is important that you at least make the effort to let them know you understand the depth and the severity of the mistakes you made in the past. When it is time to take your ninth step, you need to do is to write a separate, unique letter to each and every one of your family members, discussing specific incidents that involved them individually and letting them know you realize how they were affected by those occurrences. Then, you need to tell them you are sorry for everything you did – but you need to leave it at that. Just a simple, sincere apology with no promises, no begging for forgiveness, and no guilt trips. Say you are sorry, and leave it entirely up to each individual family member to decide on their own whether or not they will accept your apology and open the door to let you back into their lives.

Writing a letter works much better than a phone call or a visit when your family members have cut off contact; no matter how mad or disillusioned they might be, they will almost certainly open your letter and read your words carefully, and if they sense true sincerity in your efforts, there is a good chance at least some of them will choose to initiate some kind of further contact with you.

If they do, it is critically important that you do everything you can think of to show them how things are going to be different this time. Let us repeat this for emphasis – you must show them, with your deeds, actions, and attitudes, that you are determined this time to break the cycle of dishonesty, selfishness, and self-destructiveness that defined and corrupted your relationships with everyone during the time you were under the spell of your drug of choice. As has so often been said, talk is cheap – so don’t just talk about how things are going to be different this time, make them different and let your loved ones see for themselves that you are becoming a brand new person. Or, that you are returning to the person you used to be, before you took the down elevator to the basement of addiction.

Earning Forgiveness

Even if your family is still refusing to speak to you after you have gotten clean and sober, you must hold the love you feel for them close to your heart and use it to help motivate you in everything you do. The silence of your loved ones should be seen as an implicit challenge – they want you to beat your addiction, yes, but they also want you to become a better person, and that is the biggest reason why they have taken this drastic, seemingly final step of cutting off all contact.

If you are ever going to gain their forgiveness, you will need to do a lot to earn it. But if your love for them is strong enough, you should be more than willing to make that effort.

The twelfth step is an exciting one to reach. Although it is the end of the line for steps, it does not mean that you will never slip up again or be completely free of your addiction. Achieving the final step, however, positions you to be successful for the rest of your life. It means you have been awakened spiritually, have completed all the steps of your program, and are practicing the principles of AA or NA. It is important, too, to remember to carry the message. Return the gift that your sponsor gave you by becoming one for a newly struggling addict.

The Role of a Sponsor

Since you have been through the steps with the help and support of your sponsor, you may think you understand what role you will play as a sponsor. However, it is not necessarily clear from the addict’s perspective all that the sponsor does. Your role as a sponsor is to be an example, a positive influence, a counselor, an advisor, and a crutch in times of great need.

As a sponsor, you can expect to be there whenever your recovering addict needs you. They should understand that when you have urgent business elsewhere that you may not be available, but you have a duty and responsibility to be there most of the time. Your addict will depend upon you more than anyone else for a period of time and it is your role to fill that need. You will also be responsible for introducing the newly recovering addict to your AA or NA group. You are expected to encourage him or her to attend meetings and to read the appropriate literature.

The Rules of Sponsorship

There are no set rules, but there are some unspoken rules about sponsorship. One important rule is that sponsors and addicts should be of the same gender. It is not impossible to sponsor someone of the opposite sex, but most groups believe that it is not as effective. Another unstated rule is that if you cannot be there for your addict in a time of crisis, you have a responsibility to find someone else who can help them. Being a sponsor is a one-way street. You are not allowed to unburden yourself on the person you are helping. When you are having a tough time, you turn to your sponsor.

Are you Ready?

To be an effective sponsor, you must be ready to fulfill the role. There are no set in stone guidelines on when a person is ready to become a sponsor. You have to decide for yourself, with advising from your own sponsor. The longer you have been sober, the better you will be able to help someone who is new to recovery. You must also be ready to be patient and understanding, and to spend a great deal of time with your addict.

When you are ready, becoming a sponsor is an important step in your own recovery. Being a sponsor for someone else is not just volunteer work. Sponsoring bolsters and strengthens your own sobriety. When you are acting as a role model for someone else, you will be less likely to slip into old habits.

As seniors now make up a large portion of the population where we see alcoholism increasing, research is highlighting how dangerous it can be to their health. As we grow older, our bodies don’t work as quickly to metabolize alcohol and so it stays in the body longer. This slow metabolism of alcohol causes such medical problems as diabetes, hypertension, memory loss and neurological problems.

Nearly, all alcoholics fall somewhere into a sort of "gray zone" that separates them from normal social avenues of drinking to a qualification for alcohol abuse or a dependence on it like alcoholism. Most all alcoholic drinking, especially that among seniors, can be defined by the following set of circumstances and whether or not they engage in daily or near daily behaviors such as these:

• Do they look forward to drinking?
• Are they drinking alone?
• Do they drink to relieve stress from a chronic illness, financial problem, etc….?
• Are they drinking because they are bored or lonely?
• Do they drink to relieve physical symptoms such as pain or insomnia?

Seniors should decide if they believe their drinking problem has moved into a near alcoholic zone and if so how far has it gone. With that mindset, they are in the position to make decisions and decide the best avenue to take in curbing their alcohol consumption.

Hopefully, when addicts reach this penultimate stage they will be ready to admit that things are totally out of control and that seeking help is the only available option. Once things get this bad, escape from the prison of drug addiction one way or another is probably inevitable, because if an addict doesn’t quit voluntarily when things reach this stage it will likely be only a matter of time before the Grim Reaper decides to pay a visit.

But there is a practical problem here. Jumping off of the Titanic when it is sinking sounds like good strategy, but if you wait so long to abandon ship that all of the lifeboats have rowed away, what hope do you really have? Long-term drug and alcohol abuse have significant real world consequences, and if you wait until hitting rock bottom to attempt your escape you may find that there is little or nothing left to escape to. By this point, you may be completely estranged from your family and friends, you almost certainly will have lost your job, you may be facing eviction from your apartment if you have not been locked out already, and if things are really bad you may even find yourself in handcuffs awaiting trial or sentencing. So if this is how things are for you, the question has to be asked; realistically, how can you be expected to successfully marshal all of your internal resources together to fight the hardest battle of your life when you have so many other problems to deal with all at the same time? It would be great if there was an easy answer to this question, but there are not – the consequences of substance abuse are going to be with you for awhile even after you get clean and sober, and the chances are pretty good that you will have to confront at least some of these other demons at the same time you are trying to beat your addiction.

But then again, maybe there is some truth to the idea that you need to hit rock bottom before you can be expected to make a change. No, that is not to suggest that this is the way it has to be for everyone – but maybe that was the way it had to be for you. If you accept the fact that your path back to health was destined to follow this most rocky and foreboding route, then and only then will you be ready to stop feeling sorry for yourself and start facing your problems head on, even if it still seems a little beyond your capacity to handle so much all at once.

Escaping the Cave of Addiction

The great philosopher Plato compared our normal existence to living in a cave. We may be able to see the shadows on the wall that reflect the reality of the outside world, but we will never be able to understand what the world is really like unless we find a way to escape from the darkness of the cave into the bright light of the sun. What Plato was really referring to here was the idea that human beings, whether they realize it or not, are all possessed with extraordinary gifts and powers that can be developed through intelligent and consistent effort. If only we could learn to believe in our own abilities, the dream of escaping from the shadowy existence of the everyday world into a land filled with sunlight and beauty could become reality.

Few caves are darker and more ominous than the cave of drug addiction or alcoholism, but that doesn’t change the fact that we all do have astonishing abilities and inner resources that can help us turn our lives around no matter how far we have fallen. The first step we must take to make such a turnaround possible is to openly and honestly deal with reality as it is in the immediate moment. If you have wounded your relationships with your family or friends, for example, you must reach out to them directly, but in a way that makes it clear you are accepting total responsibility for everything that has happened while letting them know you are ready to do whatever it takes to heal the breach. If you take this approach, you can be certain that at least some of your loved ones will know you are being sincere and will respond positively. But it is important that you be truly sincere – your relationships were damaged in the past because you lied and used people, and those who know you the best will likely be able to tell the difference between something real and something fake.

This policy of honesty, openness, and sincerity will help you heal broken relationships, and it can also help you take full advantage of the opportunities for change and greater human connection that are offered in AA or NA. The people in these groups are your peers, and they all hope to forge relationships of mutual support and sharing with others who have gone through the same trip to hell and back that they have experienced. You can become a contributing part of these networks of wellness, if you are willing to give of yourself and to let other recovering addicts know that you are someone who can be counted on in good times and in bad. The kinds of relationships you form here can even have tangible benefits, as many addicts who have been down on their luck have gotten good tips from other recovering addicts that have helped them find new jobs or new, affordable places to live.

Slow and Steady Wins the Race

No matter how bad things got, if you are in recovery it means you have taken those very important first steps toward the entrance of the cave where you have been trapped for so long. The key to final escape is to just continue doing what you have been doing, putting one foot in front of the other, again and again and again. Slow and small movements forward are the way to great achievement, and if you approach your recovery from abuse with a positive attitude, and a determination to fix things one step at a time through an honest and open approach to all of your endeavors, you can emerge from the darkness into the bright healing warmth of the sun.

Hold these words in your heart and mind, and know without any doubt they are true – even if you are starting out from the darkest recesses of the most profoundly deep cave imaginable, there is always a way out, a way back into the light.

Most people check out of their emotional life while they are in the midst of abusing substances like drugs or alcohol. In fact, the desire to escape or block unpleasant emotions can be the reason a person turns to substances in the first place. It also sheds light on why the first weeks of drug rehab can be so frightening. Without the numbness brought on by drugs or alcohol, people are brought face to face with the troubling emotions and thoughts once again and the confrontation can seem daunting to say the least.

While it can seem tough at first, it may help to know that this is common for many people leaving behind their addictions. The good news is that an essential part of drug rehab is learning how to face and work through those negative emotions and thought patterns. Once a person leaves rehab, there will be more of these challenges as the person resumes the responsibilities of daily life. This is why commitment to a strong 12 Step program is so valuable. Meeting with others who are likeminded and who have practical strategies for avoiding temptations provides needed emotional support during a trying period of re-adjustment.

The physical challenge of becoming sober is also significant. At first it can seem as though these challenges will never be conquered when, in fact, the opposite is true. With time and dedication a sober life free from these physical withdrawal symptoms will become the new normal. Don’t be surprised however if you initially: find it difficult to sleep (insomnia), feel restless, experience chills, body aches, or mood swings, lose your appetite, have trouble focusing (brain changes have taken place and the brain needs time to recover) or just feel drained and unmotivated. None of these unpleasant symptoms are abnormal and they will eventually pass.

On the positive side, you can mitigate some of the physical and emotional strains during drug rehab by making sure to eat properly and exercise regularly. It sounds so simple but exercise works as a natural mood enhancer. Even gentle exercise will stimulate the body’s production of endorphins which lead to feeling better and even being better. So while the first weeks of rehab and post-rehab definitely pose some real challenges, it’s important to remember that these are normal and that a healthy, sober life is within reach. Recovery is a process. It doesn’t happen all at once, but each day brings that new life closer.