Melina Gilbert is SMART’s Volunteer Support Manager in the Volunteer & Meeting Resource Management Department. She says that means exactly what it says, “The job title speaks for itself. My job is to make sure our volunteers have the supports they need to start and maintain their SMART Recovery meetings.”  This includes offering support and resources to increase volunteer satisfaction and develop additional skills. 

Following a brief stint as a special project contractor in 2016, Melina quickly decided she wanted more, “After working in the National Office just a few hours a week I saw the good that was being done by SMART—the lives that were not just touched but saved.” Her skills and experience quickly convinced SMART to bring her on staff part-time, and eventually led to a full-time position, starting in 2019.

SMART took note of her impressive 14 years as the Executive Director for the Lake County Community Network. She developed a broad range of leadership, volunteer management, and program development skills. Melina says her work in Lake County, “…taught me to effectively communicate with people from all walks of life to determine what their needs were and to collaborate with others.” These are two important things she continues to do at SMART.

Here are Melina’s responses to Take 5 Spotlight questions:

1. Are there tasks you perform regularly during your workday?
   I respond to volunteers who have questions or concerns by providing guidance myself or connecting them to the appropriate person(s). I also regularly work with committees and task forces to improve what SMART does.
2. What are a couple of the ways you interact and coordinate your job with other national office staff?
   Through meetings and conversations with our volunteers, I learn what they need. I then collaborate with the other staff members to develop and implement plans to address those needs.
3. What is one of the ways that you think you personally make a difference at SMART?
   As the point of contact for our volunteers at the National Office, I make it easier for them to get what they need. If I cannot help them, I know who to connect them to—hopefully saving them time and frustration.
4. What is your message to all those dedicated SMART volunteers across the country?
   As an organization, we know that without the dedication of the thousands of volunteers who donate their time and talents, SMART Recovery as we know it wouldn’t exist. We value you and the work you do.  When I speak with volunteers I often hear “I hate to bother you for such a small thing.” Please don’t ever feel that way, we are here to help you, and love hearing from you!
5. What kinds of things are you interested in outside of work?
   When I am not working, I enjoy spending time with my family (6 kids and 6 grandkids!). Weather permitting, I enjoy fishing, kayaking, hiking, being out on my Harley, checking out antique shops and flea markets, and tending to my flower gardens. My husband and I are very fond of what we call “spontaneous weekend road trips” where we get off work on a Friday, throw some supplies in the Jeep and drive to someplace we have never been and explore. In the winter I enjoy reading, crocheting and binge watching shows that we missed during the good weather.

Between her deep connection with SMART’s volunteers and the myriad ways she helps them succeed, and the range of activities (spontaneous or planned), Melina is the epitome of the adage, “Work Hard—Play Hard.” And that means everyone in both her personal and professional life benefits!

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE YOU COMMENT:

SMART Recovery welcomes comments on our blog posts—we enjoy hearing from you! In the interest of maintaining a respectful and safe community atmosphere, we ask that you adhere to the following guidelines when making or responding to others’ comments, regardless of your point of view. Thank you.

• Be kind in tone and intent.
• Be respectful in how you respond to opinions that are different than your own.
• Be brief and limit your comment to a maximum of 500 words.
• Be careful not to mention specific drug names.
• Be succinct in your descriptions, graphic details are not necessary.
• Be focused on the content of the blog post itself.

If you are interested in addiction recovery support, we encourage you to visit the SMART Recovery website.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you or someone you love is in great distress and considering self-harm, please call 911 for immediate help, or reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Hotline @800-273-8255, https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

We look forward to you joining the conversation!

*SMART Recovery reserves the right to not publish comments we consider outside our guidelines.*

SMART Recovery is excited to announce the launch of a women’s only, weekly, SMART Recovery Online (SROL) meeting on Saturday, March 13th, at 8:00 p.m. ET.

According to facilitators itslizzie and JunosMom:

This meeting is a key addition to the SMART Recovery Community calendar, because the need is there. We know recovery focused towards women is important and we’re honored to be a part of their journey.

If you are a woman (cisgender or transgender) or a non-binary individual who identifies with women’s communities, and if you are in or seeking recovery, you are welcome here.

• Registration through SROL and password required.
• The password will be posted in the Women’s Form.
• Verifications will be provided.

PLEASE NOTE BEFORE YOU COMMENT:

SMART Recovery welcomes comments on our blog posts—we enjoy hearing from you! In the interest of maintaining a respectful and safe community atmosphere, we ask that you adhere to the following guidelines when making or responding to others’ comments, regardless of your point of view. Thank you.

• Be kind in tone and intent.
• Be respectful in how you respond to opinions that are different than your own.
• Be brief and limit your comment to a maximum of 500 words.
• Be careful not to mention specific drug names.
• Be succinct in your descriptions, graphic details are not necessary.
• Be focused on the content of the blog post itself.

If you are interested in addiction recovery support, we encourage you to visit the SMART Recovery website.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

If you or someone you love is in great distress and considering self-harm, please call 911 for immediate help, or reach out to The National Suicide Prevention Hotline @800-273-8255, https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

We look forward to you joining the conversation!

*SMART Recovery reserves the right to not publish comments we consider outside our guidelines.*

A friend recently shared a copy of the May/June 1989 issue of Professional Counselor Magazine. I thought you might find this portion interesting.

The field has been wrong about a lot and learned a lot, but it’s worth knowing that we were engaged in advocacy opposing the war on drugs in (and before) 1989, while incarceration rates were climbing but still a fraction of their peak.

In my travels, I keep meeting genuine heroes…. They come in all sizes, shapes, colors, and genders.

These people are the individuals and groups fighting the real “war on drugs” in America. No, these people don’t wear fatigues, they go into battle without guns, in fact, without any weapons but their expertise. They fight with their professional proficiency or their recovery or, in many cases, both. They fight in the real “trenches” of the “war on drugs”—recovery.

…Could it be that we’re losing one war on drugs after another because we are fighting with the wrong weapons? It seems that we need to reassess “supply-side” chemical dependency and look at the disease rather than the borders.

It all takes money and support, and until we focus on the source of the addiction, instead of the source of the substance, I’m afraid we’ll continue to lose one “war” after another.

As treatment professionals, we have to educate the government, our townspeople, and, maybe most importantly, the mass media. Our voices can be heard as individuals and organizations if we concentrate on the disease and help the public understand that we can never build a wall around America. Reveal the real “heroes” to the media and officials in your area and, most importantly, get involved!

Randy Bryson, RN, President, National Consortium of Chemical Dependency Nurses

This is not my first post on gratitude, I posted this one back in 2019 and more recently this one in 2020 writing about what I call my “Eeyore Brain.” This is a subject I am deeply reflective on because I have struggled with it over my life.  As this 2016 article from Forbes notes, our brains are not wired for happiness, our brains are wired for survival. I hear that.

I made it through a lot of stuff because I can often see dangers coming my way early. It has served me well in life against some very real threats to safety. However, it does leave me at times hypervigilant, struggling to enjoy the moment or see a glass half full in situations where I am privileged to even have a glass. For every real lion in the grass, there are a few shapes that seem like lions at first glance. From talking to thousands of people in early recovery over the decades, this is relatively common. I have to work hard to quiet this stuff down and feel at ease. I know I am in good company.

Gratitude and its relationship to recovery is one of the many facets we really do not know enough about even as it is a really common practice associated with sustaining recovery. Supporting people in early recovery and asking them to regularly consider things that are positive around them is a pragmatic thing I learned very early in my career. It helps people stay in recovery and reframe their circumstances. Many clinicians and peer support practitioners also use such strategies to help people think more positively and to incorporate gratitude into self-care to sustain recovery.

This pilot study described by the Research Recovery Institute of the “the “Three Good Things” exercise (TGT) asked participants to describe and report the cause/context of three ‘good’ things that happened to him/her in the past 24 hours. The outcome on the small sample suggests that describing and reflecting on three good things that happen each day is a simple way to feel calmer and less stressed for persons in recovery. Hazeldon Betty Ford Foundation has done some excellent work examining and compiling information on positive psychology and its relationship to recovery. This study using 12 step-oriented participants found that higher levels of gratitude were positively associated with post-traumatic growth, and social support; and negatively associated with stress and health symptoms. Studies have found that the practices of yoga in recovery and mindfulness in recovery can reduce reactivity (that perceived lion in the grass) and these practices are increasingly being recognized as having benefits across the recovery community.

All of these articles reference above have one common theme. We know next to nothing about these topics. That we know so little about gratitude and positive psychology and how it relates to building and sustaining recovery is referenced in every article I found. The pessimist in me believes while these are likely vital building blocks of recovery, they are not easily monetized. Nobody is going to get rich if we expand these practices across our field, much of it can be simply taught and included into self-care practices. Hence, they do not get priority for research dollars.

We must improve our understanding of how these tools may can be used to most effectively improve our outcomes to support long term recovery to improve our care and support system. Post Traumatic Growth may well be supported by the ability to reframe life circumstances in a positive way. We have done little to expand our understanding of these dynamics and how persons in recovery shift into post traumatic growth and its relationship to the process of recovery. If we can measure these facets, we may be able maximize the benefits experienced.

There is an urgent need to expand recovery research as a primary focus of our governmental institutions. I have written about how such areas of common need get set aside in a post about the tragedy of the commons. Increasing our understanding of how these tools work and how they augment and support recovery is vital to improving our ability to get more people into and to sustain recovery. If we work on this now, a decade from now we will be grateful we did. 

There is an interesting parallel to draw here because as a society, we focus research on addiction (the threat) and spend almost nothing understanding solutions (recovery). We must focus on recovery research to improve recovery outcomes. As with the treatment of other major diseases, five-year recovery outcomes should be the standard of measurement. Other quality of life improvements in areas such as physical health, employment, involvement with the criminal justice system, housing, and healthy family engagement. Such research should consider “real world” conditions such as polysubstance use and measures focused on the bio-psycho-social-spiritual aspects of addiction and recovery.

There is a rich mosaic of strategies to support hope, connection, and purpose to support recovery that largely fall under the rubric of recovery capital. Recovery capital is built across individual, family and community levels. The law of attraction applies here in multiple ways. Whatever we think about, we get more of that to think about. The very same thing can be said by what we research in respect to addiction. We should focus research dollars more on how to sustain long term recovery, we probably increase the number of Americans in recovery that way.

New Issue of All Rise Magazine Available

NADCP is pleased to announce that All Rise Winter/Spring 2021 is now available for your reading pleasure! This edition celebrates and supports your success from cover to cover.

Highlights include:

• Preview of RISE21, August 15-18 in National Harbor, Maryland
• Why equity and inclusion matter in treatment court programs
• Findings around best practices for law enforcement and community supervision in the new Journal for Advancing Justice
• Treatment courts and the COVID-19 pandemic
• Launch of our new NADCP E-learning Center

…and much more!

Click here to read

The post New Issue of All Rise Magazine Available appeared first on NADCP.org.

Virtual Training for Treatment Providers – Registration Now Open

Trainings are free and include up to 13 CEUs

NADCP’s National Drug Court Institute is bringing world-class training to substance use treatment professionals working with clients involved in the justice system. These training programs, presented in partnership with the American Society of Addiction Medicine, are offered virtually in each time zone and are open to both newcomers to the treatment field and seasoned professionals.

Whether you are an addiction therapist, mental health therapist, drug and alcohol counselor, social worker, clinical case manager, clinical supervisor, student, or just interested in foundational and advanced addiction treatment training, this program is for you! Spots are limited; enroll today!

Who should attend: Treatment provider trainings are for anyone currently delivering or supervising the delivery of addiction treatment, co-occurring disorder services, or clinical case management to participants in treatment courts, on community supervision, or otherwise involved in the justice system.

NAADAC-accredited: NDCI offers up to 6.5 continuing education credit hours for one-day trainings and up to 13 credits for two-day trainings (including ethics hours).

When and where: Trainings are conducted virtually and are time-zone specific to meet treatment professionals’ needs. The training day is scheduled from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time.

Cost: Registration and all materials are provided without charge.

Faculty

The faculty for NDCI’s treatment provider training include a wide range of experts and may vary by training.

Ken Robinson, Ed.D.

Dr. Ken Robinson is the president of Correctional Counseling, Inc. and is the co-developer of Moral Reconation Therapy (MRT), which is listed on SAMHSA’s National Registry of Evidence-based Programs. Prior, he was director of clinical services and crisis stabilization for the Midtown Mental Health Center in Memphis, Tennessee. He conducts frequent training and workshops on MRT in the U.S. and abroad. He has published and presented numerous professional articles in the areas of psychopharmacology and mental health.

The post Virtual Training for Treatment Providers – Registration Now Open! appeared first on NADCP.org.

From racist violence to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black Americans, events of the past year have thrown a harsh light on the racial inequities that persist in our society. Unfortunately, science is not immune to these inequities. Black people and other groups that have been marginalized face an array of challenges beginning early in their educations, and fewer ultimately pursue scientific careers. Abundant research has demonstrated that Black people and other minorities who do become scientists are then hindered via unconscious biases that influence their success in their academic work.

Today, NIH Director Francis Collins announced UNITE, an NIH-wide initiative already underway to end structural racism in biomedical science. UNITE is led by five committees with experts from all 27 NIH institutes and centers, tasked with finding new ways to support diversity, equity, and inclusion. The aim is to dismantle any NIH policies and discontinue any practices in our science that perpetuate racism. NIH is also seeking input from the public and interested stakeholders outside NIH through various mechanisms, including a Request for Information (RFI) issued today. For more information, see the UNITE website.

NIDA fully shares the goal of dismantling structural racism in our science as well as addressing the long history and current ways in which racism has shaped approaches to addressing drug use and addiction. In July, I established NIDA’s Racial Equity Initiative to organize our efforts to eliminate racism in NIDA’s workplace, scientific workforce, and research portfolio. Workgroups of committed volunteers from across NIDA’s various divisions including our Intramural Research Program (IRP) in Baltimore were established to take action in each of these three areas. As an important initial investment, NIDA has committed $100M over the next 10 years to this initiative.

An extensive series of listening sessions has helped us identify areas of need in the NIDA workplace, impacts of racism on the NIDA research workforce, and research gaps in the NIDA portfolio. This led to expanding NIDA’s workforce development initiatives across a wider span of education and career stages, from raising awareness of science careers for K-12 students from underrepresented minority groups to promoting racial/ethnic diversity in professional societies. For example, we have established a pilot internship program that gives students involved with the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s STEM BUILD initiative and Meyerhoff Scholars Program the opportunity to conduct research at labs in our IRP; STEM BUILD and Meyerhoff are both focused on enhancing diversity in the biomedical and behavioral sciences workforce. We also held a scientific meeting last month to help shape research initiatives around health disparities and the impact of racism on drug use and addiction outcomes.

The effects of punitive approaches to substance use must be a particular focus of our attention as we address structural racism and its impacts on health. As I wrote last summer, white and Black Americans use drugs at similar rates, but overwhelmingly it is Black people who are singled out for punishment. The disproportionate arrest and incarceration of Black people has multiple radiating adverse effects on Black families and communities, including contributing to health disparities. A new study in Lancet Public Health, for example, shows that incarceration is associated with early death from a range of causes. At the 2016 meeting of the United Nations General Assembly Special Session on drugs, the 193 member nations unanimously voted to recognize that substance use disorders should be approached as public health issues, not punished as criminal offenses.

We must take advantage of the momentum of this moment in history to dismantle the unacceptable structural racism that has slowed biomedical progress and that has perpetuated health disparities in our society. I stand with Francis Collins and NIH in dedicating NIDA to this important goal.

This post will consist of an overview of one particular research report, and some of my thoughts about it.  Here is the citation of the paper I’ll be discussing:

Yovell, Y., Bar, G., Mashiah, M., Baruch, Y., Briskman, I., Asherov, J., Lotan, A., Rigbi, A. & Panksepp, J.  (2016).  Ultra-Low-Dose Buprenorphine as a Time-Limited Treatment for Severe Suicidal Ideation: A Randomized Controlled Trial.  American Journal of Psychiatry. 173:5.

Numerous things in this article concern me.  I’ve been meditating on it since around 2017.  At this point I’ve decided to share the citation for the paper, quotations from the article that draw my particular attention, and some of my thoughts about those quotations. 

Here’s the study objective from the top of the first page.

Objective: Suicidal ideation and behavior currently have no quick-acting pharmacological treatments that are suitable for independent outpatient use. Suicidality is linked to mental pain, which is modulated by the separation distress system through endogenous opioids. The authors tested the efficacy and safety of very low dosages of sublingual buprenorphine as a time-limited treatment for severe suicidal ideation.

Here’s the study population

The study was performed on “Severely suicidal patients without substance abuse…”

Here’s the study intervention

The study examined “…ultra-low-dose buprenorphine (initial dosage, 0.1 mg once or twice daily)…”

The results

Participants in the experimental group receiving buprenorphine “…had a greater reduction in Beck Suicide Ideation Scale scores than patients who received placebo (N=22), both after 2 weeks (mean difference 24.3, 95% CI=28.5, 20.2) and after 4 weeks (mean difference=27.1, 95% CI=212.0, 22.3).”

Statements about history, rationale, and safety

Opioids were widely used to treat depression from about 1850 to 1956. Because of their addictive potential and lethality in overdose, opioids were replaced by standard antidepressants once these became available. However, several studies since then have found them to be effective for treating depression.

Read those sentences again. I find that passage particularly odd.

Opioids are involved in more deaths than any other drug class in fatal pharmaceutical overdoses in the United States. Thus, the lower lethality of buprenorphine and the very low dosages employed in this study were crucial for enabling its independent, home-based use. However, buprenorphine is potentially addictive and possibly lethal. We therefore designed this study as a time-limited trial for severely suicidal patients without substance abuse.

Exclusion criteria were a lifetime history of opioid abuse…substance or alcohol abuse within the past 2 years, and benzodiazepine dependence within the past 2 years.

Adherence to the protocol

“Outpatients received the study medication for the following week during their weekly visits, and took it independently at home. Average adherence, measured by pill counts, was 92%.”

• I wonder if the medication was not taken.
• And I wonder what happened with the unused opioids.

Comorbidities

“More than half (56.8%) met criteria for borderline personality disorder…”

• What characterological or environmental context must be present for this buprenorphine protocol to be declared unsafe in a community setting?

Clinical history vs. follow-up

“All participants denied withdrawal symptoms during their follow-up appointment 1 week later. It is possible that in this opioid-naive population, the short duration and low dosages protected against dependence.” 

The bottom line

“In this study, the time-limited use of very low dosages of buprenorphine was associated with a decrease in severe suicidal ideation.”

• Beyond a measurable decrease, I am curious what kind and level of suicidal ideation is clinically relevant regardless of a measurable decrease.

Required disclosure

“Dr. Yovell reports being listed as an inventor on a patent application for the use of low-dose buprenorphine for suicidality; he has assigned his rights in the patent to the University of Haifa but will share a percentage of any royalties that may be received by the university.”

• Why not simply remove this person from the research project due to conflict of interest or the potential appearance of a conflict of interest?

The following points have also occurred to me over my years of considering this study:

1. The authors discuss neural processing leading to psychic pain as the medication target.  The thinking and behavior they are attempting to change are merely downstream from the medication target.  Thus, acetaminophen could also have been tried at 3 doses beyond the inclusion of a placebo group – it dampens the neural processing that produces psychic pain, just as it does with physical pain. 
2. We know opioids blunt awareness of pain, and do not diminish the neural activity that produces pain (as acetaminophen does, while leaving the mind clear).  I wonder what an imaging study would show?
3. Linking of opioids, mental pain, and suicidality seems to indicate that pain management is the goal. Should we reify psychic pain as another vital sign?  What were the unintended consequences of establishing physical pain as the fifth vital sign? 
4. Thousands of years of human history were enough to already show us that opioids decrease the experience and report of pain.  Were we in doubt of this?    
5. We already know that some people find that taking some drugs makes them feel less bad, temporarily.  Were we in doubt of this?    
6. You cannot prove the null hypothesis (prove a negative).  Concerning their selection criteria, rather than say “without substance abuse” they could have said, “Presenting no evidence of a current and active SUD”.
7. Was this a first exposure to prescription opioids for some in the study?  If so, might it flip the genetic switch for atypical responders (not just atypical metabolizers)?  Was that possibility screened for?  How long should atypical responders in such a study be followed after the study is concluded? 
8. Is “ultra-low-dose” a standard and recognized term, or used here as a descriptive label for other purposes?  They could simply name the compound and dose.
9. Is the reduction in the Beck score clinically significant or an arbitrary metric – one that is reliable, valid, and irrelevant (Hart & Jaccard, 2006)?
10. Generally speaking, any score that is initially extreme will, over time, tend to regress to the mean.  That is, extreme scores don’t last long and tend to become less extreme over time.  So, did they obtain a treatment result, or was this treatment superimposed over an already improving picture?
11. How would we know if the change they report is clinically significant?
12. Did the suicide rate in the treatment group and the placebo group differ after the study?
13. What is the base rate of suicide among individuals matched to those in this study (with no treatment and on the same array of psychotropic medicines)?  If we don’t know the base rate, to what do we compare the results of this study – just their scores at the beginning of the study? 
14. How was it decided to place opioids among a suicidally depressed patient group located in the community (outside an institutional setting) during an opioid epidemic?
15. The researchers screened against “lifetime history of opioid abuse” and excluded participants accordingly.  But non-problematic use of opioids (aka successful use) was not mentioned as an exclusion criterion. 
16. “Exclusion criteria were a lifetime history of opioid abuse…substance or alcohol abuse within the past 2 years, and benzodiazepine dependence within the past 2 years.”  But addiction illness is one illness, even if multiple substance classes are involved. 
17. I wonder how many of the study participants had 2 or more of the Big 5 SUD criteria (desire or efforts to control, craving, diminished role function, loss of activities, and withdrawal) as part of their “abuse” diagnosis at the time that diagnosis was active?  That is to say, I wonder if some of the participants with no “substance abuse” within the past 2 years were actually in the course of illness for developing SUD moderate-to-severe at the time their problematic substance use was active.  And if so, could the presence of Big 5 SUD criteria be considered as possible exclusion criteria for participation in such a study? 
18. The authors declare their participants were opioid naïve.  But lack of a clinical diagnosis of a use disorder is not the same as naïve to use of the drug.

In conclusion I’ll say that this paper was one of the research reports that developed my focus some years ago on what I simply call “Harms of Use”.  That focus led to me gather such papers (and related papers) over a series of a few years, read and study them, and prepare materials for education, training, etc. based on their content. 

References

Hart, B. & Jaccard, J.  (2006).  Arbitrary Metrics in Psychology.  American Psychologist.  61(1): 27-41.

Ioannidis, J. P. A.  (2006).  Why Most Published Research Findings Are False.  PLoS Medicine. 2(8) e: 124.  DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

Suggested Reading

DeWall, C. N., Chester, D. S. & White, D. S. (2015). Can Acetaminophen Reduce the Pain of Decision-Making? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 56:117–120.

DeWall, C. N., MacDonald, G. M., Webster, G. D., Masten, C. L., Baumeister, R. F., Powell, C., Combs, D., Schurtz, D. R., Stillman, T. F., Tice, D. M. & Eisenberger, N. I. (2010). Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain: Behavioral and neural evidence. Psychological Science. 21(7):931-937. DOI: 10.1177/0956797610374741

Durso, G. R. O., Luttrell, A. & Way, B. M. (2015). Over-the-Counter Relief From Pains and Pleasures Alike: Acetaminophen blunts evaluation sensitivity to both negative and positive stimuli. Psychological Science. 26(6):750–758. doi:10.1177/0956797615570366.

Maughan, B. C., Hersh, E. V., Shofer, F. S., Wanner, K. J., Archer, E., Carrasco, L. R. & Rhodes, K. V.  (2016).  Unused Opioid Analgesics and Drug Disposal Following Outpatient Dental Surgery: A randomized controlled trial.  Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 168(1): 328-334.     

Randles, D., Heine, S. J. & Santos, N. (2013). The Common Pain of Surrealism and Death: Acetaminophen reduces compensatory affirmation following meaning threats. Psychological Science. 24(6) 966 –973.

Can the presence of recovery, or the level of recovery function, be somehow detectable when it is unspoken and not overtly displayed?

Can recovery be intuitively recognized or somehow felt in another person?

Can recovery be intuitively recognized within an interpersonal space?

Can recovery be present and sensed in the atmosphere?

Sixth-sense, Spidey-sense, Radar

When you walk into a room, do you ever pick up on any unspoken content, themes, trends, or the basic agenda of those in the room?

What is felt? What is perceived? What is apprehended?

In life it seems that sometimes, somehow, we can latch upon and perceive the unspoken content of others. Somehow, in the room we enter, we sometimes register the collective assumptions, world view, goals, or direction of those assembled in the room.

Our human heritage and social epigenetics have seemingly equipped us by developing within us such radar and radar capacity.

With 32 years of service in residential addiction treatment programs now behind me, I think I can say that I have at times experienced the sensing of the dormant agenda in a group of people – when I come into the room.

Likewise, some with long-time recovery can sense the:

1. presence and level of health/vitality of recovery, or

2. presence and depths of the collective mental relapse process,

that is latently present, yet unspoken, in the collective gathered for a meeting.

I’ll go ever further and say that sometimes the basic content in the room (of recovery, or of relapse process) can be sensed – even when those in the room that are holding the agenda are seemingly unaware of their own content.

Objects, Background, and Open Space.

In life, objects influence us.

The physical objects around us, the content we consider in our minds (objects of thinking), and our deep assumptions about life that we do not consciously consider (buried mental objects) exude their influence.

Do these objects and the processes related to them effect the atmosphere around us? (And therefor others around us as well?)

I described the importance of the background within a work of visual art in an essay titled Negative space. What is shown other than the main object represented in the art?

A simple solid color, a blue sky, or a complex crosshatch weave of various colors might serve as a background that the object in the art sits on, or sits in front of. These are examples of visually representing “negative space”.

In that essay I also highlighted both the concrete content and the aesthetic quality of the background – even of a seemingly plain background.

Paradoxically, the content of the negative space in art – while represented concretely – is itself without an overt object.

The Feel of the Negative Space

Does the group room, meeting room, or counseling office have a negative space? Yes. The negative space is the open atmosphere, in the background. What forms its quality?

Suppose someone experiencing active addiction illness has family members living with them. Do those family members experience the second problem of a toxic negative space within the home?

If the object of the drug itself and the object of the process of active using are removed – a toxic negative space might form. Unless, perhaps, recovery fills the void in the person, the family members, the atmosphere, and the negative space within the home.

Where is the invisible man?

Can we sense addiction illness, or relapse process, or recovery, when we enter a room?

Are there objects deposited by addiction? Are there objects deposited by recovery?

Does a mental relapse process unearth objects prior to use resuming?

What objects does recovery raise?

Toward making these discoveries we can explore locations such as:

• What is non-observable (not visible)
• What is non-discursive (not in shared words)
• What is not symbolized or represented by symbols
• The social system
• The unconscious
• Multi-generational structures

What do the family members and the one with addiction illness experience in the atmosphere during:

• active addiction illness
• periods of unwanted abstinence
• recovery?

For the sake of others, I wish our recovery science was sufficient such that we could “throw flour on the invisible man”, locate recovery function, and assess recovery quality.

Suggested Reading

Aristizabal, M. J., Anreiter, I., Halldorsdottir, T., Odgers, C. L., McDade, T. W., Goldenberg, W., Mostafavi, S., Kobor, M. S., Binder, E. B., Sokolowski, M. B. & O’Donnell, K. J.  (2020).  Biological Embedding of Experience: A Primer on Epigenetics.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117(38) 23261-23269.  DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1820838116

Buber, M. (1923/1937/2010). I and Thou. Martino Publishing.

Cole, S. W.  (2009).  Social Regulation of Human Gene Expression.  Current Directions in Psychological Science.  18(3): 132-137.

Hollis, J.  (2015).  Hauntings:  Dispelling the Ghosts Who Run Our Lives.  Chiron:  Asheville, NC.

Lewis, J. & D’Orso, M. (1999).  Walking with the Wind:  A Memoir of the Movement.  Harvest Books. 

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Your Library of Justice Innovations and Research

The ARK makes proven and promising programs accessible to your community 

NADCP, in partnership with the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Executive Office of the President, is proud to share the redesigned Annals of Research and Knowledge (ARK)!

The ARK is a searchable online database of evidence-based and promising programs that allows professionals to search for programs designed for justice-involved people at all stages. Each program is accompanied by relevant research and tools for application in your jurisdiction. Looking for a program to fit a specific population in your community? The ARK is your first stop!

Explore the ARK

More about the ARK

Because no justice intervention can work for everyone, programs in the ARK are cataloged according to both participant risk/need profiles and their stage of processing in the justice system. For example, if your jurisdiction is seeking programs suited for high-risk/high-need individuals at the pre-trial stage, you can search and find data on programs shown as proven or promising in other areas. 

Each program in the ARK details how the programs operate, research findings supporting their effectiveness and cost, their indicated target population, and best practices shown to enhance their outcomes. Users can download PDFs of program manuals and other supporting materials, as well as connect to relevant websites and libraries of governmental, scientific, and consumer organizations.

Not sure how the ARK fits your needs? Request training!

Users are also invited to nominate new programs for consideration of inclusion in the ARK. If you are aware of (or have created) a program that you would like to be considered, please visit the nomination form.

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