Drinking guilt and its big brother shame

Sticky22/02/2014My journey, Thinking about stoppingAddiction, addictive, alcohol, booze, Brene Brown, Drink, drinking, soberlucy2610

When I used to drink the drinking threw in a free gift of a helping of guilt and shame on the side – how kind! Guilt is the emotion that we feel when we have behaved in a way that we perceive to be hurtful to others or as a moral lapse. Guilt serves a purpose when we recognise, acknowledge and rectify the behaviour, such as apologising if necessary. The thing is, when I was drinking, sometimes I didn’t remember the behaviour so what I got left with was guilt’s big brother, shame.

Shame is the emotion that we feel when ‘we’ as a person are at fault, not our behaviour. It is the way we feel if we have fallen short of our own internalised ideals or if there is a public disclosure of a perceived weakness or defect. For me shame was the fast track path to self-loathing, failing self-esteem and crushed self-confidence and it was hard not to feel shame as I felt like I couldn’t control my drinking and therefore my behaviour. Erik Erikson argued that “shame is blame turned against the self” and Pete Walker writes that “shame is the death of self-acceptance and self-worth.” If I couldn’t manage this there was something wrong with ‘me’ right?

But if you drink alcohol, which is addictive and designed to make you thirsty (so you drink more) and acts as a disinhibitor (encouraging behaviour that you would not normally engage in) then how is that a weakness or defect in yourself? Now I’m not handing total responsibility for my actions over to the booze monster as the choice to pick up the first drink was always mine. What I didn’t fully choose was the addiction created by the substance to go on drinking to the point of total black out, guilt making antics and no memories to attach the guilt to therefore leaving me with an overwhelming sense of shame. And then I would drink to forget the shame compounding the problem. Shame, drink, shame, lather, rinse, repeat.

The leading expert and queen of shame research is Brene Brown who I love. Her PhD was studying vulnerability.

What her research found was that shame is highly highly correlated with addiction. Shame is the voice in my head telling me that I’m ‘never good enough’ and I can’t do life sober. Shame is that same internal critic saying ‘who do you think you are’ to blog about my sober journey thinking people would be interested in what I have to say.

This is the most toxic of emotions and now I don’t drink I don’t really experience it like I used to anymore. I know that I can do life sober and have done it for over five months. I know that people are interested in what I have to say because they take the time to read my blog and comment. My internal voice of shame has gone quiet and this gift is perhaps bigger than the gift of no hangover. The no hangover is the physical gift of not drinking but the diminished feeling of shame is the psychological gift of sobriety. And the two go hand in hand for me as part of the hangover distress was the angst caused by the shame. In the words of Brene, for shame to survive it needs secrecy, silence and judgement (of self or of others). Choosing not to drink and this blog is the answer to resolving my shame and I would chose this option hands down every day over drinking now 🙂

PS If you’ve not seen the original Brene Brown TED talk on vulnerability, you can find it here

PPS My other most popular blog post is my Goodbye Letter to Alcohol which you can read here

Edited to add: I found this brilliant card that summed up how this drinking shame and guilt felt for me so if this is how you feel too then can I recommend this self-compassion break 🙂

Six ways to crack wine o’clock and go semi-sober

03/02/2017Moderating, My journey, Thinking about stoppinglucy2610

Although my way of being is sober I recognise that not everyone who arrives on this blog has stopped drinking and may be looking for help to go semi-sober – so to moderate or manage your drinking. As February rolls round before those of you having done Dry January reward yourself with a drink maybe this article from The Telegraph, featured in October last year, will help you approach the rest of the year at an even more moderate pace 🙂

When I was growing up, there was no point at which my mum sighed “ah, wine o’ clock,” and uncorked a bottle. The idea of rewarding yourself after a day’s hard graft with a goldfish bowl of Pinot Grigio hadn’t yet occurred to women.

It has now. Women are drinking more than ever before – and we’re not talking Hogarth-style Gin Lane reprobates, but middle-class mums, counting down the hours from the school run till six or exhausted office workers, marking the transition from work to play with what writer Kingsley Amis perfectly described as a “festive pop”.

A study of four million adults, published yesterday, found that women are now drinking as much as, or even more than, men.

I was an early adopter of wine o’ clock back in the 90s, when I had a demanding freelance career, and young children. At six-thirty, all I could think about was that first chilled glass of white. I say this with no shameful, misery-memoir ‘and that was how I became an alcoholic’ addendum, I was just immensely grateful that a substance existed which could wipe my brain of urgent work problems and allow me to burn 12 fish fingers without crying.

I never felt I was a key player in a growing social problem – I just thought I was having a normal (slightly hectic) suburban life. And I’m pretty sure that 99 per cent of the other thirty and forty something women who stagger towards the bottle like the ancient mariner sighting land every night feel the same way.

Sadly, though, daily drinking for decades means all the lovely Aldi £5.99 specials take a toll. Alcohol is a risk factor for various cancers, heart disease and high blood pressure; over 64 000 women attended hospital for drink-related issues in 2013/14.

We all know it’s doing us no good, and the popularity of ‘Dry January’ and this month’s ‘Go Sober For October’ suggests a growing desire to cut down on drinking – without going completely teetotal.

Laura Willoughby is the founder of Club Soda, an online resource for people who want to cut down a little.

“Most people are not dependent on alcohol but we do need skills to help us keep drinking under control,” she says, “from how to deal with mates in the pub to, knocking daily drinking at home on the head.”

She says a month booze-free can be a good way to change ingrained habits – but if you simply want to start drinking less so your head isn’t full of wasps in the morning, here’s six suggestions. If you’re anything like me, after trying them all, you’ll reward yourself with a really good bottle of something. Nobody’s perfect.

Reset Your Brain

Therapist Marisa Peer says the key to cutting down lies in breaking alcohol’s ‘pleasure’ association. “Your brain is quite simple in that it believes what you tell it. That’s when a change in habit becomes painless and permanent. Tell it that you enjoy not drinking, and you love the feeling of being alert in the morning.” When you have an alcohol free day, plan an activity you know you’ll enjoy for that day or the morning after, so your brain starts to associate not drinking with pleasure instead.

Buy smaller glasses

Almost every stylish bar now serves wine in glasses the size of astronauts’ helmets. The trend has also crept into homeware – red wine glasses now come as a standard 250 ml, twice the recommended 1.5 unit size 125 ml – but simply buying smaller glasses can help you drink less. In a 2013 US study, when researchers asked people to pour out the same amount of wine but gave them different sized glasses, those using wider glasses poured out 11 per cent more.

Try the HALT test

“Alcohol can creep into your daily routine, much like ‘a coffee in the morning’ has become routine for many people,” says London based GP Dr Tatiana Lapa. She advises that women have at least three alcohol-free days in the week to avoid drinking becoming a routine. “And before you open a bottle, borrow a trick from AA and ask yourself, am I Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired? Once you’ve identified the trouble, you can address it directly, rather than attempting a general cure-all with wine. “Light a candle, watch a film or TV show, listen to music, or have a relaxing bath,” says Marisa Peer. “Stop telling yourself you need alcohol to relax or socialise – you don’t see children having a glass of wine before they play!”

Never have two bottles in the fridge

My worst hangovers have been entirely down to someone saying “shall we open another?” Making a conscious effort to buy only one bottle at a time – or none – can make you ration the wine. “Take it in turns with your partner to bring home a treat instead – some nice chocolate, or ingredients for a special dinner,” says a spokesperson for the charity Drinkaware. “It’s about breaking the routine.”

Have decent alternatives

Tap water won’t float anyone’s enjoyment boat, so invest in some decent non-alcoholic alternatives, which have improved substantially in recent years, from alcohol free wines such as Eisberg – which has seen sales grow by 40 per cent this year – to Seedlip, billed as the world’s first distilled non-alcoholic spirit, made with botanicals such as lemon peel and cardamom, and tasty with tonic or as part of a mocktail. Switching to a 5.5 per cent wine, instead of the usual 12-14 per cent, can more than halve the number of units you drink in an evening.

Start Later

Try not opening a bottle till you start cooking, or until the kids are in bed. Or you could agree to only drink with food, like our sensible continental friends. Drinking with food slows down the rate that alcohol is absorbs into the bloodstream, meaning you’ll end up drinking more slowly and so end up consuming less, advises Drinkaware.

Having detoxed after the Christmas excesses during January, go easy on the retox!

Alcohol misuse most often treated in middle age

01/02/2017Alcohol facts and figures, Alcohol research findings and media coverage, My journey, Stopping drinkinglucy2610

This report featured in the Institute of Alcohol Studies report in November 2016. This report struck me because I stopped drinking just before my 45th birthday.

Average age of alcohol only clients seeking treatment is 45 years (04 November)

Drinkers in their forties make up the most number of alcohol only treatment users for substance misuse in England, according to new figures published by Public Health England (PHE).

The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS) report ‘Adult substance treatment activity in England 2015-16’ shows that in the 12 months to 31st March 2016, clients exhibiting problematic or dependent drinking represented a total of 144,908 individuals, the second largest group in treatment (see pie chart, illustrated right). Of these, 85,035 were treated for alcohol treatment only and 59,873 for alcohol problems alongside other substances.

The overall number of individuals in treatment for alcohol fell by 4% compared to 2014-15, with the numbers for alcohol only decreasing by 5% since then, to reach its lowest total since 2009-10 (illustrated below). However, this figure still represents more than double the annual number of alcohol only clients recorded since records began in 2005-06 (35,221 clients).

The report noted that those in treatment for alcohol only and opiates tend to be much older than individuals who have presented for problems with other substances. The median age of alcohol only clients was 45 years, with 68% aged 40 or over and 11% aged 60 years and over.

Roughly three-fifths of alcohol only clients were male (61%) although this was a lower proportion than those representing the entire treatment population in 2015-16 (70%). The report’s authors suggested that this finding is “likely (to) reflect the differences in the gender prevalence of problematic alcohol and drug use.” PHE will be releasing estimates of alcohol dependency late 2016.

Individuals starting treatment in 2015-16 were most likely to present with problematic alcohol use (62%, or 84,931 new clients) (illustrated, below). But alcohol only clients also had the highest rates of successful exits of all clients presenting for treatment, with just under two-thirds (62%) successfully completing treatment, up on 61% in the previous year.

However, there were also more deaths among those accessing treatment for alcohol only problems; there were 817 deaths in 2015-16, 3% more than the previous year.

The report also noted that since alcohol service providers started reporting to NDTMS in 2005-06, alcohol citations have remained relatively stable, although the gathering of information on alcohol treatment service providers since 2008-09 may have been one of the main drivers of an overall increase in clients seeking treatment for substance use in general over the last decade.

Responding to the latest figures, Rosanna O’Connor, Director, Alcohol, Drugs & Tobacco within the PHE Health and Wellbeing Directorate, said:

“It is clear from the data that there is an increasing need for services to meet the complex needs of older more vulnerable drug and alcohol users in treatment as well as finding ways of helping those accessing services for the first time to get the treatment they need and move on with their lives.

“Within the data there is much to be hopeful about… But we certainly can’t be complacent – PHE, national and local government and providers, all need to enhance our efforts to ensure that treatment is a safe platform from which to achieve recovery.”

Before you pick up a drink again maybe reflect on this data and if you are in this age range perhaps ask yourself the question whether you really want to go back to that cycle of drinking or whether a longer period of abstinence might be helpful to evaluate your relationship to drinking further? Just a thought 🙂

Public Health England publish review of evidence on alcohol

30/01/2017Alcohol facts and figures, Alcohol research findings and media coverage, My story, Sociallucy2610

This summary report was published by Alcohol Research UK in December. It looked at Public Health England’s new published review of evidence on alcohol.

Public Health England has published a review of international evidence on alcohol policy and harm reduction. The new report, based on almost two years of research and analysis, addresses a number of key policy areas.

These include:

The price of alcohol and its effect on consumption
The impact of both the number of alcohol outlets in a given area, and the times at which they operate, on a range of potential harms
The effectiveness of existing controls on marketing, sponsorship and promotion
The role of ‘brief interventions’ in preventing harmful drinking
The effectiveness of schools-based education programmes
The evidence on alcohol treatment in tackling harmful and dependent drinking

We welcome this important contribution to the literature on alcohol harm prevention. It provides both a resource for identifying key evidence and an evaluation of the relative effectiveness of policy interventions based on an extensive process of reflection and review.

Today’s report also provides a new analysis of drinking trends and their economic effects. It confirms that average consumption has been falling in the UK for over ten years, especially among young people. However, it also shows that trends vary between social groups, reminding us that average consumption provides only a rough guide to where harms are concentrated, and that harms can rise even when overall consumption falls.

Importantly, the report confirms previous studies showing that around one third of all the alcohol consumed is drunk by the heaviest drinking 5% of the population. This demonstrates not only how heavy drinking is concentrated, but the very high proportion of alcohol that is sold to people with serious drinking problems.

The report draws particular attention to the impact of alcohol on economic productivity: suggesting that drinking causes more years of life lost to the workforce than are caused by the top ten most common cancers combined. While the precise social costs of alcohol remain hard to quantify, this report shows clearly that heavy drinking creates an enormous burden for the wider economy.

The PHE report echoes previous evidence reviews in demonstrating that price is a key policy lever in shaping consumption. Its findings suggest that a combination of minimum pricing and more targeted taxation could reduce both harmful drinking and health inequalities (especially the so-called ‘alcohol harm paradox’). Clearly, this is a significant finding as the Scottish Government continues to deal with a prolonged legal challenge to MUP from the Scotch Whisky Association.

The report also argues that while evidence on factors such as outlet density is less compelling than is the case for price, nonetheless limiting hours of sales can reduce antisocial behaviour and drink-driving. While, in the UK, evidence on the relaxation of licensing hours since 2005 has not shown a clear effect in terms of crime, disorder or hospital admissions the authors point to international studies and reviews that show a stronger correlation.

The report also follows previous reviews in pointing to evidence that exposure to marketing can lead to earlier and higher levels of consumption among young people. It finds no robust evidence that existing marketing controls are effective in preventing youth exposure to marketing, and so will strengthen calls for a reassessment of the current regulatory framework.

It also finds no clear evidence that voluntary industry-led partnerships (including the recent ‘Responsibility Deal’) reduce alcohol harms. This is partly because there are insufficient independent and robust evaluations of such schemes to provide clear evidence of an effect, and also because it has been argued that many of the changes introduced under the Responsibility Deal would have happened anyway.

While the report confirms that, from a public health perspective, price, availability and marketing are key issues, it also addresses questions around treatment and interventions. This is especially important as the impact of austerity continues to be felt in widespread cuts to budgets for treatment services across the country.

The review finds considerable evidence that screening and brief interventions in primary care can help prevent harmful drinking. On a policy level, a key question now is how to support GPs in actually carrying out screening and delivering interventions effectively where there is a need. Currently, delivery of interventions in primary care remains low so work to better incentivise and train GPs is needed. The review, however, also notes that the evidence for the effectiveness of brief interventions in other settings (such as the workplace or local pharmacies) is much less robust..

In line with most previous reviews, the report finds that while education can play an important role in raising awareness and knowledge, the evidence for its effectiveness in changing behaviour is weak. This is not necessarily because schools-based prevention and education is wholly ineffective, but because its impact is inevitably limited (behaviours are driven by far more than simple knowledge of harms) and because the delivery of programmes is often highly inconsistent.

Finally, on drink-driving, the review finds strong evidence that reducing the blood alcohol limit is effective in reducing accidents. England and Wales currently have a BAC limit of 0.8 g/l – the highest in Europe, alongside Malta.

Overall, this report represents a key summary of the available evidence on alcohol. It confirms that there are policy levers available to Government that can have a measurable impact on alcohol harm reduction. Clearly, alcohol policy needs to balance a range of interests, but if the Government is serious about seeking to reduce the health impacts of alcohol then this evidence review is of critical importance.

The PHE report is based on a very wide-ranging analysis of available research and an extensive process of peer review. We hope that it forms a key element in the development of alcohol policies in future.

So 5% of the population equates to approximately 2.6 million people here in the UK …… (source). And Alcohol Policy UK pose the prompted question which I’d like to know the answer to as well:

PHE evidence review 2016: will Government policy respond?

Alcohol-related cancers projected to rise – can mass media campaigns help?

27/01/2017Alcohol facts and figures, Alcohol research findings and media coverage, My journey, Physical, Thank youlucy2610

This was published by Alcohol Policy UK in December regarding alcohol-related cancers.

Increasing recognition of the risks of alcohol-related cancer has been a priority for a number of health organisations, with recent research identifying limited levels of awareness and projected rises in incidences.

A report released last month commissioned by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) attracted significant media coverage of its findings that alcohol-related cancers could cause around 135,000 deaths over the next 20 years in England. The modelling was carried out by Sheffield University and analysed figures under a number of consumption forecasts, and also provided updated estimates of the potential benefits of Minimum Unit Pricing (MUP). A 50 pence MUP could reduce all alcohol-attributable deaths by 7,200, including 670 cancer deaths over the next two decades, reducing alcohol-related healthcare costs by £1.3 billion.

The report follows findings released earlier in the year by CRUK stating the understanding of the link between alcohol consumption and cancer was “worryingly low”; only 13% identified cancers as a possible risk when asked to identify alcohol-related health conditions associated with drinking too much. Recognition improved when prompted with possible cancer types, but those such as breast cancer had far lower recognition than less prevalent alcohol-related cancers. See here for a CRUK alcohol and cancer page.

Data used from the report though has just been published in BMC Public Health journal revealing significantly higher awareness of the links in the North East region, where Balance North East has been conducting media campaigns including TV adverts, www.reducemyrisk.tv and #7cancers Twitter activity.

Media campaigns: a question of behaviour change?

Health groups though tend not to want to see health campaigns in isolation owing to the limited impact on behaviour. Indeed similar debates have taken place with regard to the awareness of the revised drinking guidelines and the limitations of their impact on consumption.

Ealier this year Chief Medical Officer Dame Sally Davies attracted controversy for suggesting drinkers should think ‘Do I want the glass of wine or do I want to raise my own risk of breast cancer?’ each time they drink. Whether any significant number of people have taken on the CMO’s advice – or indeed deliberately rejected it – will remain unknown, but based on the evidence of the complexity of behaviour change it would seem unlikely.

As such health groups, including CRUK, not only wish to see media campaigns and improved information through mandatory labelling, but also action on price, availability and marketing. Such levers have considerably stronger evidence to support an impact on drinking behaviours, but are of course opposed by those who may support informed individual decision making but not the Government in influencing it via regulation.

As for the near future, momentum may continue with a general trend in increasing awareness of alcohol health harms. Whether this will be supported in England by legislation to ensure mandatory labelling on containers, or indeed change environmental influences, is uncertain. In the meantime, alcohol-related cancers are likely to rise before they fall, even should consumption fall further.

A picture paints a thousand words ……

And edited to add this small celebratory footnote: Voted Top 100 Addiction Blogs Winner from thousands of top Addiction blogs in Feedspot’s index using search and social metrics. Ranked 53rd based on Google reputation and search ranking, influence and popularity on Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites, quality and consistency of posts and Feedspot’s editorial team and expert review 🙂

Revisiting my moderation warzone

23/01/2017Moderating, My journey, My storylucy2610

So Prim & were discussing my recent interview on The Bubble Hour and how she had learned new things about me. These were primarily to do with my time before I started blogging so that murky past that was my repeatedly attempted and spectacularly failed attempts at moderation. I think you have a flavour of them from my shared last drunks and final drinking horror but not an appreciation of the total warzone that it was. I was battling myself and my desire to drink on a daily basis and those internal emotional battles spilled over into external marital discord and parental shame.

We wondered maybe if there existed this perhaps self-limiting belief that those of us who blog out here just decided one day to stop and that was it – bingo, job done – which fails to recognise that there were many quit attempts that preceded that final desperation driven decision and the need to ‘up the ante’ by adding visible social accountability to the mix. So in an attempt to debunk that potential myth about myself I’m going to provide a brief history of those years of moderation between the end of 2008 and my quit day in September 2013.

To set the scene before we moved to France in early 2008 and up until that point my drinking was problematic but still manageable. That’s not to say I didn’t do incredibly stupid things when drunk and have many shameful memories of drink-driven drama and mis-behaving. France changed that and we spent all our time after France trying to regain control and never succeeded.

Because it’s almost 10 years ago and I can’t recall all the details – hangover securely in place – I’m going to do a timeline to paint a broad brush outline:

End 2008 returned from France to home county in UK with baby and small toddler in tow.
Early 2009 returned to work nursing full-time, MrHOF stayed at home and cared for children. This was a difficult time for all of us, readjusting to returning to where we grew up, me working, he house-husbanding and not working and two small people in our charge. Our daily drinking continued unabated and our marriage was showing the strain. Days of not drinking would follow particularly shaming altercations by way of reparation.
2010 decided to enter London Marathon ballot – started running. Tried to decrease drinking and smoking as I tried to get ‘healthy’. End 2010 – lost my maternal grandmother and my step-father became ill. Was struggling psychologically so started anti-depressants and returned to therapy.
2011 Marathon training in earnest so this is when the stopping and starting drinking started proper. Gave up for New Years resolution to aid training. Remember attending 40th b-day party in Feb and had managed 6 weeks. Mid 2011 – lost my step-father, who was my father from birth in all but genetics. Two close family deaths meant my drinking spiralled once more (which is the reason for the image at the top of the post, because these types of huge family loss events can be deeply traumatising and can tip us over from coping to not coping). Remember noticing first Dry January posters for 2012.
2012 did Dry January and carried on to do three months – partly I think to prove to myself that I didn’t have a problem! Drinking less regularly & frequently but when I did they were spectacular binges. Trying not to drink in the week so the week-ends were horrendous. Started my Health Visitor training and gave up smoking for good. During training was working professionally with families where drink was a problem and the cognitive dissonance created began to become unbearable. I knew that if I didn’t get this under control I was in danger of visiting my own childhood on my children.

“The best predictor of a child’s security of attachment is not what happened to his parents as children, but rather how his parents made sense of those childhood experiences” Dr Dan Siegel

2013 more stints of not drinking interspersed with spectacular blow outs. Early physical signs of damage from alcohol abuse and ongoing symptoms noted with alarm. Becoming weary of the whole process and drinking was no longer fun in any way, shape or form. Still in therapy on and off although had never discussed my drinking! London Marathon running buddy came to stay for week-end and had just mentioned my drinking to my therapist as a ‘door handle moment’ in my final therapy session with her. Decided to stop for good. Had night of heavy drinking with her, bought Allan Carr’s book on Kindle, read it all week, final drinking week-end.

So as you can see there was a huge amount of back-story to my stopping which I haven’t fully disclosed here before. I’m not sure why. There is a sense that in talking about it I am somehow condoning moderating – which I’m not. Equally I think we have to acknowledge that this period of one step forward two steps back is part of my story and part of many people’s journey. So if you’ve read my blog before and thought ‘well she’s different from me because she just stopped’. I’m not and I didn’t.

As we head into the end of January and you may be considering going back to drinking because you’ve done a month to prove you don’t have a problem I just ask you to pause and think again. The reason I did all those stop and start attempts is because I started to see the benefits and knew that there was potentially something better on the other side of the difficult first few months if I just stuck with it. I urge you to consider doing the same because you can always go back to drinking later can’t you? What have you got to lose? 🙂

A conversation with Jean: Interview on The Bubble Hour

18/01/2017Interviews, My journey, My story, Thank youlucy2610

So I have been a long time fan and follower of both Jean at Unpickled and The Bubble Hour.

For those who haven’t yet discovered the wonderful resource that this is here is how they describe it:

The Bubble Hour is co-hosted by Ellie S., Amanda F., Catherine M. and Jean M. – sober women who are dedicated to breaking down the walls of stigma and denial surrounding the disease of alcoholism. Alcoholism effects more than 50% of American adults, either directly or indirectly, and yet it still remains a “taboo” topic and is still mostly misunderstood by the majority of people (even those effected by alcoholism and their loved ones). The Bubble Hour seeks to inform, educate and help people identify with the stories they hear, the conversations and interviews with people who are just like they are, and let people know they aren’t alone. Nobody can take the first tentative steps towards sobriety without first getting past denial, but even once they are past denial the stigma surrounding alcoholism is so strong that people are reluctant to seek help. The Bubble Hour would like to change that stigma. Our Co-Hosts, and the vibrant community of sober people they know, will be recording and downloading this show for anyone to listen to for information, community, empathy and understanding. We are so grateful for the sober people who came before them to help them find this path; this is one way they feel they can give back. Please help us spread the word about this website and the pod casts; you may be helping someone you know well but don’t even know they have a problem. Alcoholism thrives in the dark. Together, we bring light. And hope.

They have interviewed and recorded over 200 episodes that you can find on iTunes or BlogTalkRadio.

So how excited was I to be interviewed for their 202 episode! We had a wonderful conversation and it felt like two old friends catching up. As I say in the discussion Jean was one of the first sober blogs I discovered in my very early days and I am so grateful to her for leading the way for me 🙂

If you want to hear me talk about my drinking (we lived in France for 6 months not 1 year – nervous brain fart moment!), my recovery and all the things I’ve been up to since I stopped 1214 days ago you can do so here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/bubblehour/2017/01/17/a-hangover-free-life-author-louise-rowlinson

Supplementary links to the discussion should you be interested to read further:

The Conscious Parent is written by Dr Shefali Tsabary, Clinical Psychologist.

Attachment theory where I talked about secure and insecure attachment and omitted a very important word in the insecure categories! I should have said insecure anxious-avoidant and insecure anxious-ambivalent.

Alexithymia which I described as emotional constipation!

The groundbreaking work of Dr Dickon Bevington and team: Adolescent Mentalization Based Integrative Therapy (AMBIT)

Thank you so much Jean for hosting me and I hope you enjoy listening in 🙂

Edited to add: 20th January 2017. I didn’t mention running in my conversation with Jean which I should have done as part of my sober toolbox. It set me on the road to sobriety when I trained for the London Marathon in 2011 and has been a vital decompression tool ever since. Which ties in nicely with this clip from T2 Trainspotting which is released next Friday and boy I can’t wait to see this film.

Renton is so right – be addicted to something else ……

Guest Post: Finding the Link Between Substance Abuse and Schizophrenia

13/01/2017Alcohol research findings and media coverage, My journey, Psychologicallucy2610

I was contacted on email by Justin in November who said; “I am a recovering addict and content writer interested in providing a guest post article. In my path to recovery I’ve taken to writing content about addiction, recovery and substance abuse through my treatment program.” Here’s what he wrote about substance abuse and schizophrenia:

New studies have found a link between substance abuse and schizophrenia. While the relationship between mental health and substance abuse is an incredibly complex one, a group of Denmark researchers have determined that abuse of virtually every type of drug can contribute to mental deterioration and eventual, schizophrenia.

A common misconception about schizophrenia is that those afflicted have split personality disorder or multiple personalities. However, this has been determined false, as most people suffering from schizophrenia are non violent and lead fairly normal lives, posing no immediate threat to others. Per the National Institute of Mental Health:

“Schizophrenia is a chronic and severe mental disorder that affects how a person thinks, feels, and behaves. People with schizophrenia may seem like they have lost touch with reality. Although schizophrenia is not as common as other mental disorders, the symptoms can be very disabling.”

Rather than split personality disorder, which is a separate diagnosis, those suffering from early onset schizophrenia can experience a decrease in mental processing, rational thinking and general mental well being. Furthermore, in can take years for schizophrenia to fully develop and during this time, can manifest itself as more common mental health disorders like depression and anxiety.

So what environmental and societal factors can worsen these symptoms into full blown schizophrenia?

The new Denmark study has determined that substance abuse can not only trigger schizophrenia in people genetically at risk, but also increase the chances of developing schizophrenia by up to six times.

While the direct cause and effect relationship between substance abuse and schizophrenia is tremendously complex, the study found the following increases in risk:

Cannabis: 5.2 times
Alcohol: 3.4 times
Hallucinogenic drugs: 1.9 times
Sedatives: 1.7 times
Amphetamines: 1.24 times
Other substances: 2.8 times.

The study notes, while the effects are not often immediately noticed, symptoms of schizophrenia as it relates to drug abuse, often surface later in life: sometimes ten to fifteen years after the substance abuse diagnosis.

Mental health and substance abuse treatment centers often offer dual diagnosis programs for this exact reason, noting that symptoms of schizophrenia can be coupled with drug use.

A particularly worrisome finding of the study is the risk found with two of the most prevalent substances, marijuana and alcohol. While marijuana is federally illegal, it is used medicinally and recreationally in many stages, including California. A large factor in the correlation found between cannabis and schizophrenia is due to the fact that people can be exposed to it second hand. That is to say, unlike most other substances (not smoked), marijuana can be introduced to people’s systems indirectly, simply by being in close proximity of someone that is using the drug.

Alcohol on the other hand, tops the list, as it’s the most socially acceptable and easily obtainable substance given it’s legal place in American media and culture.

While the newly discovered findings presented by the Denmark study do not provide us with a black and white relationship between schizophrenia and substance abuse, the evidence is undeniable: The prolonged abuse of illicit drugs and alcohol increases the risk of developing schizophrenic tendencies and symptoms later in life.

Article courtesy of the team at A New Start

Thank you Justin!

A hangover free life

Waking up to the sobering reality that booze is the problem not the solution