Many miss the beauty of Newport because they aren’t willing to pause and look at it. During just a 3 minute pause you would notice the blue crashing waves, the dolphins jumping through the water and the colorful sunset. You would notice the serene seagulls and other birds that also call Newport home. You’d notice the love people have for the dogs they walk on the boardwalk, sometimes via beach cruiser. Why do so many of us miss this abundant beauty? Maybe we’re just not paying attention.

Beauty does not further us along in our recovery, help us to relate to others, or instruct us in how be kind or successful or strong individuals. In our time-crunched, goal-oriented worlds or addiction recovery beauty reminds us that not everything can, or should, be measured, weighed or entered into a flow chart.

Buddhist Pema Chodron  spoke on the misfortune of missing beauty and said, “I were sitting at the rim of the Grand Canyon with a bag over my head.” It doesn’t matter how much goodness we have in our life is we’re not taking it in. Many of us are so focused on the “getting” part of our recovery lives, getting into Sober Living, getting a job, getting back to school, returning home to the family. We’re so focused on the getting that we miss the being. In the in between time of working toward the getting we need to learn how to still be happy in our lives, which means pausing and watching the sunset or maybe just a bird.

There are many mixed opinions around 12 Step programs. Some doctors and professionals are fans, while others encourage other methods for recovery. A common slogan within the 12 Step community is, “It works if you work it.” Outside of slogans, the following studies are the facts on programs:

Studies of AA’s efficacy have produced inconsistent results. While some studies have suggested an association between AA attendance and increased abstinence or other positive outcomes, other studies have not. A Cochrane Review of eight studies, published between 1967 and 2005, measuring the effectiveness of AA, found “no experimental studies unequivocally demonstrated the effectiveness of AA” in treating alcoholism, based on a meta-analysis of the results of eight trials involving a total of 3,417 individuals. To determine further the effectiveness of AA, the authors suggested that more studies comparing treatment outcomes with control groups were necessary.

Every three years since 1968, AA has issued a pamphlet summarizing its latest survey of meeting attendants. The 1990 commentary evaluated data of surveys from 1977 through 1989 and found that one quarter (26%) of those who first attend an AA meeting are still attending after one year. Furthermore, nearly one third (31.5%) leave the program after one month, and by the end of the third month, over half (52.6%) leave. After the first year, the rate of attrition slows. Only those in the first year were recorded by month. About 40% of the members sober for less than a year will remain another year. About 80% of those sober more than one year, but less than five years will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. About 90% of the members sober five years or more will remain sober and active in the fellowship another year. Those who remained sober outside the fellowship could not be calculated using the survey results.

The Landing has found that people struggling with addictions, struggle in many aspects of life; job, relationships, mental health etc… A 12 Step program is an effective tool in having a cost free, consistent, safe place to hash out the anxiety and traumas of everyday life. The ability to discuss ones stresses makes the individual less likely to participate in their self-harming addictive behavior. The accountability of peers and sponsors helps an individual stay on track of their life goals and daily recovery.

In one study, about half of addiction patients admitted to a drug treatment program for cocaine claimed pre-existing depression, indicating that rather than seeking out therapists, these people sought to self medicate with drugs. In another study, doctors estimated that 10 to 20% of alcoholics begin drinking to feel better because of depression. Self-medicating depression may also be a factor in Internet addiction as well.

Addiction and depression are common co-existing conditions. The Epidemiologic Catchment Area study conducted by the National Institute on Health reported that almost one-third of individuals with depression had a co-existing substance use disorder at some point in their lives (Regier et al, 1990). The National Comorbidity Study found that men with alcohol dependence had rates of depression three times higher than the general population; alcohol dependent women had four times the rates of depression (Kessler et al, 1997). Studies of clinical populations also show higher rates of these combined disorders (Salloum, Daley & Thase, 2000; Daley & Moss, 2002). Many clients have recurrent major depression, dysthymia (a chronic form of depression) or both major depression and dysthymia, also called “double depression.”

Professional treatment and involvement in a 12 step recovery program can make a significant positive impact on clients and their families in managing their mental disorders and improving the quality of life. There are many effective treatments for depression including interpersonal psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral therapy and supportive counseling; anti-depressant medications; and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). There are also many effective treatments for addiction including behavioral therapies and counseling, and sometimes, the use of medications.

Southern California has an abundance of 12 Step Recovery Groups

The Landing introduces all of our clients to 12 Step programs. 12 Step programs are proven to greatly assist clients during their rehab stay and also gives them a local community of sober friends post rehab. The most popular 12 Step Program our clients attend is Alcoholics Anonymous. Recovery from alcohol and drugs tend to go hand in hand and are discussed in rooms of AA. However, at times clients need a 12 Step program that is more specific to their needs and addictions. The beauty of Southern California is we are not at all lacking in 12 Step groups. So many have found recovery here and established strong recovery groups. One of the fundamental elements of  the success of 12 Step groups is their ability to bring addicts with the same struggles together for support. Each one of the 12 Step groups below offer a niche group of people who can say, “Oh, I get that craving. I’ve been there. This is how I recovered/abstained.”  The following list are 12 Step programs our clients attend in addition to AA. Please check out the corresponding websites and see if one may be a fit for you on your journey to recovery.

Alcoholics Anonymous  -

12 Step recovery and support for those seeking recovery from alcohol and drugs. AA.org

Cocaine Anonymous -

12 Step recovery and support for those seeking recovery from the addiction to cocaine. CA.org

Narcotics Anonymous -

12 Step recovery and support for those seeking recovery from  narcotic drugs and prescription pills.  NA.org

Marijuana Anonymous-

12 Step recovery and support for those seeking recovery from the use of marijuana. Marijuana-Anonymous.org

Sex Addicts Anonymous -

12 Step recovery and support for those seeking  to abstain from sex addiction. SA.org

Overeaters Anonymous -

12 Step recovery and support for those seeking to abstain from compulsive overeating and other eating disorders.  OA.org

Amino acids are found in foods high in protein. Below is a list of specific amino acids that have been shown to alleviate symptoms of addiction, and the most commonly available food sources in which they come in.

• L-tryptophan – Egg whites, spirulina, atlantic cod, raw soybeans, parmesan cheese. *Make yourself an omelet for breakfast!

• L-5 hydroxytryptophan chromium salts –Turkey and cheese. *Load up on those turkey sandwiches!

• L-Glutamine – Meat and dairy products, beans, beets, spinach, parsley, and cabbage. *Roasted chicken with roasted veggies for dinner!

• L-phenylalanine – Cow milk, goat milk, aspartame sugar substitutes. *Plenty of aspartame at AA meetings!

• L-tyrosine – Cheeses, spirulina, soy protein, egg whites, salmon. *Best get a protein shake with spirulina and soy protein made at your local health food store!

• Phenylalanine – Meat, poultry, fish, soybeans, dairy products, nuts and seeds. *Take nuts and seeds with as snacks during the day! Pick up some fresh fish and grill it on the BBQ with some AA buddies!

The body is a sucker for sweets and simple carbs when it’s lacking other vital nutrients. Replacing sugar and refined starches with just some of the foods listed here can help restore balance and emotional integrity to an otherwise stressful situation. The Landing knows that along with psychological and spiritual therapies for overcoming addiction, nutritional plans and dietary supplements are quite literally the food our brain needs for enhanced recovery.

The preceding eleven steps must be “accompanied by self-sacrifice and unselfish, constructive action” (AA, p.93). Members of AA understand that as they help other alcoholics, they also help themselves. This principle is clear in the purpose statement of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA): “Our primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics to achieve sobriety” (AA, p.100). There is a relevant aphorism: “If you help someone up the hill, you get closer yourself.” There is a deep sense of purpose in such a role, and a powerful new self-identity as a “wounded healer,” one who assists others from one’s reservoir of first-hand knowledge.

Does helping other alcoholics work? YES! In the one-year period after day one of going “dry” (which probably includes entering detox for several weeks or months)  40 % of those who report high levels of helping other alcoholics are still sober. Only 22% of those who report lower levels of helping other alcoholics are still sober after one year. So, it appears that robust helping doubles the likelihood of recovering from alcoholism in the first year window.

I remember being in a 12 Step meeting and hearing the speaker say, “How do you get self-esteem? You do estimable things.”  When the addict acts a Sponsor, invites someone to a meeting or takes on a service commitment at their local meeting this builds self-esteem within them. They feel a significance and importance within themselves. The act of service to others exchanges a service to the giver, helping the giver not only to stay sober, but to live an abundance life.

Examining data from over 12,000 adults, researchers found that if a person smokes, others up to three degrees of separation away from them are more likely to smoke. Meaning, if your friend has a friend that smokes, you’re more likely to smoke. To break it down further, if you smoke, it is 61% more likely that your friends smoke, 29% more likely that your friends-of-friends smoke, and 11% more likely that your friends-of-friends-of-friends smoke.

The question of what exactly causes us to be so similar to our friends cannot be answered by simple patterns of association. To help disentangle the causes of these similarities, we turn to a twin study. A study of over 800 pairs of British teenage twins revealed that the proportion of best friends a twin had who drank was about 28% heritable. The extent to which the twins’ best friends drank was also a fairly good predictor of the twins’ own drinking patterns.

By estimating the heritability of friends’ drinking patterns along with the heritability of the twins’ own drinking patterns, researchers established that this relationship was due to both overlapping genetic and environmental influences. Genetic influences on the twins’ and their friends’ drinking overlapped about 40%, while shared environmental influences (those that tend to make twins similar to one another, regardless of whether they are identical or fraternal) overlapped more than 80%.

At the end of the day this information means a lot. It tells us that the people we choose to interact with have a large affect on triggering our addictions. Equally our genetics play a large role in who we choose to surround ourselves with. Hopefully this research and nature vs. nurture gives us the awareness needed to make healthy decisions on who we keep in our company.

The personality of addicts can help and harm them.

Addicts can be very charming, driven and intelligent people. As staff and family members it is often painful watching our loved ones throw their talents away through their addiction. New research shows that an addict’s talents and personality may contribute to their addiction and life in positive and or negative ways depending on how you spin it.

Recently, the connection between addiction and Novelty Seeking (people who engage in high –risks, as in extreme sports or drug use) has been researched. One may first assume that Novelty Seeking maybe what leads addicts to engage in risky life threatening drugs, true. However there might be some benefit to a risk seeking personality. The large population studies from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism have found three quarters of ever-alcoholic person becomes stably sober, and a majority of those continue to drink, which called for some kind of personality explanation.

The explanation comes from alcoholism researcher, Robert Cloninger, a psychiatrist who has studied the impact of the personality trait Novelty Seeking (Neophilia) on people over their lifetimes. Initially, it appeared that the trait was implicated in all sorts of anti-social and aggressive behavior, such as alcoholism and criminality. But the perspective on the role of Novelty Seeking shifts from a longer vantage point.

“Novelty-seeking is one of the traits that keeps you healthy and happy and fosters personality growth as you age,” says Cloninger. The problems with Novelty Seeking showed up in his early research in the 1990s; the advantages have become apparent after he and his colleagues tested and tracked thousands of people in the United States, Israel and Finland.

“It can lead to antisocial behavior,” he says, “but if you combine this adventurousness and curiosity with persistence and a sense that it’s not all about you, then you get the kind of creativity that benefits society as a whole.” Which means the same personality trait that promotes someone to be an addict, can also promote someone to live a successful and fulfilling life. Researchers have found that people’s tendency for Novelty Seeking also depends on their upbringing, on the local culture and on their stage of life. By some estimates, the urge for Novelty drops by half between the ages of 20 and 60.

But the irony is people who maintain their novelty-seeking in maturity move to the front of the class because they become more capable with age, in many instances, of developing purpose and concern for others. Which is quite a 180 from the selfish nature of an addict. The three traits Cloninger discovered in successful people “scored high in novelty-seeking as well in persistence and ‘self-transcendence. Becoming more social, as in creativity, seeking new ways to do things and solve problems (including personal and family ones), as well as generating new opportunities and frontiers in life.”

In other words, addicts are incredible multi-faceted people who if given the opportunity to get recovery can live quite incredible and fulfilling lives.

First of all, accurate reports about the success rates of 12-step programs like AA are notoriously difficult to obtain. The few studies that have attempted to measure the effectiveness of the program have often been contradictory. Fiercely protective of their anonymity, AA forbids researchers from conducting clinical studies of its millions of members. But the organization does conduct its own random surveys every three years. The result of AA’s most recent study in 2007 were very promising. According to AA, 33 percent of the 8,000 North American members it surveyed had remained sober for over 10 years. Twelve percent were sober for 5 to 10 years; 24 percent were sober 1 to 5 years; and 31 percent were sober for less than a year.

The study didn’t disclose how long each person interviewed had been working the rooms, working with a sponsor and attending meetings to achieve sobriety. It also revealed little about the percentage of people who attended AA, relapsed, and left the program. A 1990 summary of five different membership surveys (from 1977 through 1989) reported that 81 percent of alcoholics who engaged in the program stopped attending within a year. And only 5% of the AA attendees surveyed had been attending meetings for more than a a year.

One report found AA and cognitive behavioral therapy to be equally effective, statistically speaking. “It was the initial decision to get better that determined a person’s chances of succeeding,” an expert says. “What followed made little difference. Although AA doubtless helps some people, it is not magic.”

“When you look at people just taking themselves to a meeting, long-term abstinence is pretty low,” admits Dr. David Sack, an addiction psychiatrist and the chief executive of Promises Treatment Centers. “But the fact is it works well for the people who work it.”

The Landing believes strongly in the 12 Steps as a method for helping reshape an addicts behaviors, values and habits. We encourage all of our client to work the steps because “working it” is what leads to long term recovery. There is no magic drug, rehab or therapist, ultimately recovery is in the hands of the individual addict. Which makes our job equally as challenging as rewarding.

Dr. Jim McGorman, an emergency department physician who works once a week out of the Ontario Addiction Treatment Centre in Canada says, “The clinic typically has one or two people every week call about getting help for their addiction. Over the past two weeks, 15 people have called regarding addiction issues.”

On March 1^st 2012, drug manufacturer Purdue Pharma introduced OxyNEO, a tamper-resistant formulation of oxycodone to replace OxyContin. The new pill, which has a marshmallow-like texture, is nearly impossible to crush or inject – methods addicted users use to get around the drug’s slow-release formula. This move is hoped to change the face of opiate addiction in Ontario, Canada which has seen a 900 per cent increase in opiate use from 2001 to 2009. The province also has the highest rate of opioid use in the country. Between 2004 and 2006, Peterborough City and County ranked second highest for opioid prescriptions in the province

The Landing applauds the work of the Canadian government to help stop the abuse of opiates in the country. We encourage the USA to take the same steps to help our own citizens into recovery  here in the states.