Addiction Awareness Month Recommendations 2022
So many people have a hard time overcoming addiction. In these video recommendations, insights are shared on overcoming addictions and how you can break negative cycles. Click on the images below to watch the videos.
Six Steps to Life-Altering Change for Addicts and Convicts with Moe Egan & Tim Stay
Understanding each stage of addiction and the behaviors associated with each is a valuable way to identify when someone is at risk for an addiction or has already developed one. These seven stages are: Initiation, Experimentation, Regular Usage, Risky Usage, Dependence, Addiction, and Crisis or Treatment. The usage of substances often go hand in hand with mental health (conditions like depression and anxiety often encourage use). If circumstances align and the individual continues to take the drug, they may soon find themselves moving into the further stages of addiction.
Cell Phone Addiction with Tanner Welton
Cell phone addiction is real, and it’s worse than you think. Are you reading these words on a phone? If the answer is yes, you’re in good company. You know that habit you or your friends have of casually checking your texts while you’re talking? Well, it’s so common that there’s an actual name for it: phubbing, as in phone-snubbing. Has your ability to remember things you’ve read gotten dramatically worse since you started doing the lion’s share of your reading online? It's not your imagination.
It’s not you. Phones are designed to be addicting. by Vox
Have you ever found yourself spending too much time on your phone and suddenly, the day has turned to night because you accidentally watched four hours of pet videos? It is not a new phenomenon that smartphones really are addictive. Are we addicted to our phones? And are they bad for us? These are questions that many people have asked, but the answers aren’t simple or consistent. “Our data is consistent with social media having characteristics of addictive goods. (Social media sites are) habit-forming,” Hunt Alcott said from The National Bureau of Economic Research.
How Addiction Happens
Addiction is different from physical dependence or tolerance. Addiction is a disease that affects your brain and behavior, it puts your health in danger, when you can’t stop using a substance even when it causes financial, emotional, and other problems for you or your loved ones. Over time, you might need to take more of the drug to get the same good feeling. And other things you enjoyed, like food and hanging out with family, may give you less pleasure.
What’s your Story? Family, Addiction and the Brain with Dr. Melissa Vayda
The word “addiction” is derived from a Latin term for “enslaved by” or “bound to.” In the 1930s, researchers believed that to overcome addiction, one must punish miscreants or, alternately, encourage addicts to muster the will to break the habit. Luckily the scientific consensus has changed since then. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so consistently tied with pleasure that neuroscientists refer to the region as the brain’s pleasure center. The likelihood that the use of a drug will lead to addiction is directly linked to the speed with which it promotes dopamine release.
Unlocking the Cure to Substance Use Disorder with Brad Finegood
It has been shown that treatment for substance use can improve the lives of people who are using drugs and alcohol, their families, and their communities. When deciding on a treatment approach, the needs and treatment goals of the person seeking treatment should be a deciding factor. However, the person using the substances may not be aware of the different approaches available to them, but there is also a need to move away from abstinence-based treatments and move towards harm reduction treatments.
Wasted: Exposing the Family Effect of Addiction with Sam Fowler
After her brother was diagnosed with the disease of addiction, Sam Fowler and her family had to change the way they lived their lives. It is usually a family member of an addict or alcoholic who makes the first inquiry call to a rehab facility. In this video, Sam Fowler articulates what the families are going through. She wants families to know that there are other families like them. Everyone should become more informed about the disease of addiction, and how addiction not only impacts the addict, but their family as well.
The Best Explanation of Addiction I’ve Ever Heard with Dr. Gabor Maté
Vancouver physician Dr. Gabor Maté states that the social roots of our addictions, is a result of a bad childhood. Dr. Gabor Maté has also made the controversial statement that “90% of people are addicts; 10% are lying to themselves”. Ultimately addiction can be summed up as a treatable, chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits, genetics, the environment, and an individual’s life experiences. Since 2011, the public understanding and acceptance of addiction as a chronic brain disease have increased.
Misunderstanding dopamine: Why the language of addiction matters with Cyrus McCandless
The person feels flat, lifeless, and depressed, and is unable to enjoy things that once brought pleasure. In a way, your brain is set up for addiction. The brain chemical dopamine plays a big part in how addiction takes hold. This video explains how it works, and what you can do about it. The constant shift between challenge and reward has been designed to be just the right amount to keep you hooked but it doesn’t create a meaningful engagement, so it does not fulfil you. Understanding how dopamine really works to motivate our everyday behaviors is the key to more productive thinking.
Lessons from the Child of an Addict with Emily Smith
At the tender age of 19, Emily Smith has learned that until you understand the truth, you cannot find peace within yourself, or be able to help someone who is struggling with addiction. Children of addicts often feel lonely and miserable because they want someone to empathize with them. Emily encourages that more children of addicts should tell their stories, to learn about ways that they could stimulate their own healing and finding more avenues to help other children of addicts. She captures her audience by explaining the fact that every day as the child of an addict is a fight for their lives.
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