Last month, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie became the latest leader to publicly recognize that simply warehousing nonviolent drug offenders in prison is a costly mistake.

Christie, a lifelong Republican and former federal prosecutor, delivered the following truisms in a speech at the Brookings Institution: “The war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure” and New Jersey is “warehousing addicted people every day in state prisons … giving them no treatment.”

So, too, is Florida, with a prison population four times the size of New Jersey’s.

Christie also correctly pointed out that a year of drug treatment costs less than half of what it costs to incarcerate a person for a year. For every dollar spent on substance-abuse treatment in prison, states save $2 to $6 on reduced recidivism and health-care costs.

Substance-abuse treatment not only costs less, but it significantly reduces crime rates by, according to five national studies, an average of 8 percent to 26 percent.

The costs of long-term incarceration, or as Christie aptly put it, “warehousing,” are astronomical. The benefits are few.

“We have an obligation to understand that addiction is a disease and that we need to give people a chance to overcome that disease and to restore dignity and meaning to their lives,” Christie has said. “That’s not a Republican or Democratic issue; it’s a bipartisan issue.”

Sunshine State drug abusers are no more difficult or expensive to treat than those in the Garden State. Drugs are no more addictive here and dignity is worth no less. So you would think that a bipartisan approach to offering substance-abuse treatment and expanding justice reinvestment could save money, reduce crime and restore dignity in Florida, too.

It could, but it won’t because our governor has stood in the way of common-sense reforms. In April, Gov.Rick Scott vetoed legislation that would have made a small number (only about 337) of nonviolent inmates eligible to receive drug treatment and supervised release after serving at least half their sentences and completing six-month treatment programs in prison.

The governor’s opposition to this modest reform defied the common understanding by those on both sides of the aisle — by liberals, conservatives, business leaders and, apparently, a governor in New Jersey — that we simply cannot afford to keep so many people in prison or keep them for so long.

Florida statistics are stark. Sentencing schemes and other changes in the 1990s swelled the state prison population, which has more than doubled since 1990 and nearly quadrupled since 1984. Florida severely overuses incarceration for nonviolent offenders.

Since 1996, the number of drug offenders sent to prison has doubled. At the same time, prison admissions for violent felonies have remained relatively constant. Eighty-five percent of drug offenders sentenced under mandatory minimum schemes have no record of violent felonies.

This means that, like New Jersey, Florida is spending huge amounts of money to warehouse nonviolent drug offenders for long, pointless prison terms. It’s a problem that can’t be ignored.

Christie is not alone in reaching this conclusion. States such as Texas, Mississippi and New York have changed their sentencing and incarceration systems and are earning the rewards of smaller corrections budgets and reduced crime rates. Mississippi reduced its prison growth by 22 percent over three years, saved $16 million in prison costs in 2011 alone and has seen the crime rate fall to its lowest level since 1984.

If saving money and reducing crime isn’t enough of an incentive for Scott to join his colleagues in calling for reform, maybe the concept of redemption is. As Christie said, “Every life is precious and every one of God’s creatures can be redeemed, but they won’t if we ignore them.”

Unfortunately, thanks to Scott, Floridians are stuck with a failed policy model that is blind to the human and financial costs of dead-end prison terms. As a result, we are left looking to New Jersey for enlightenment.

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Remember the old Fram oil filter commercial? “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.” It featured an automobile mechanic in the process of rebuilding an engine, a costly and messy endeavor that could have been avoided—if the car’s owner had only changed his oil regularly and put in a Fram oil filter.

Similar “pay-a-little-now-or-a-lot-later” choices are common. Every homeowner knows that staining the deck every couple of years is a lot cheaper than having to tear it apart and replace it when it’s too mildewed, warped and rotten to salvage. And those who make decisions about health care spending must allocate resources, knowing that vaccines, preventative medicine and early intervention will save lives and cash later. In good times, these decisions are no-brainers: Waterproof the deck every year? Sure, and let’s bring in a professional to do it right. But in times when multiple needs compete for dwindling dollars, it can be agonizing to know that expenditures vital for our future aren’t being made.

The early treatment of addictive disorders is one of the most cost-effective investments in medicine—since the costs of not treating these illnesses are immense.

Nationally, we’re in such a moment now, as we continue a long, tough slog through the economic doldrums and government spending is slashed. Treatment of substance use disorders is falling victim to short-term pressures on a staggering scale—and our failure to pay now will have a tragic impact.

The treatment community needs to work hard to help overcome the lingering stigma of substance use disorders and make sure that policymakers and the public know how cost-effective treatment can be. The early treatment of addictive disorders is one of the most cost-effective investments in medicine—since the costs of not treating these illnesses are immense, and only magnify over time. Untreated substance use disorders have ramifications way beyond those of most other diseases, turning the financial crisis into a societal one: the links between addiction and a host of other critical issues are direct and reciprocal: underfundings of critical services send shockwaves through other aspects of the health care system and the “safety net,” in a vicious circle of suffering. Substance use disorders cause tragedy on a human level, of course. But the financial cost to society is also enormous.

Consider the reciprocal relationship between substance use disorders and poverty; the connection between unemployment and addictive disorders; the links with homelessness, domestic violence and child abuse. Now factor in the impact of dually-diagnosed people—those suffering from mental illness as well as addiction—and the correlations between mental health and substance use disorders and suicidality.

One example relates to the alarming rise in teen substance abuse that we’re seeing in the US, to add to all the other pressures kids face. Sadly, it’s become all too common to hear in the media that another teenager has committed suicide. As we watch these stories the anchor will invariably note that “counselors are being sent in” to the high school to help the students cope. It’s easy to agree on the value of such counseling. But how much better if those same resources had been applied before the event? Sadly, while resources can always be found to deal with the aftermath of teen suicide, it’s getting harder and harder to pay for programs that might help prevent it—like screening, early intervention and treatment. Driven by the poor economy and its impact on spending, this paradigm is playing itself out in many arenas.

In the realm of addiction, the model is unavoidably obvious: people suffering from addictive disorders require far greater expenditures of health care dollars than other members of the population—much of it directed towards emergency rooms and repeated hospitalizations. Then come the costs of treating liver disease, fetal alcohol syndrome, HIV/AIDS and hepatitis. What about car accidents and disability benefits? Substance use disorders drive up the cost of nursing home care. Even the family members of people with addictive disorders demonstrate elevated health care costs.

As for other arenas, addictive disorders have a huge negative impact in the workplace in terms of absenteeism, loss of productivity and unemployment. And let’s connect the dots between substance use disorders and their impact on the criminal justice system, and the amount of money that’s spent annually on police, courts and prisons as a direct result of the misuse of drugs and alcohol.

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During Olympic season, the public watches in awe as talented athletes from around the world compete, secretly waiting to see which ones are going to test positive for steroids. But steroids aren’t the only drug problem plaguing elite athletes. There is growing concern in a number of sports that players are sacrificing their health and their careers to prescription drug addictions.

 

A Budding Epidemic in Sports

Two of the most commonly abused medications in sports are narcotic painkillers, such as Vicodin and OxyContin, and prescription stimulants, such as Ritalin or Adderall. Prescription painkillers are frequently prescribed (at least initially) for legitimate pain complaints following injuries sustained on the field. Their widespread misuse isn’t surprising given the aggressive nature of sports and the intense pressure on athletes to play injured.

 

Retired NFL players misuse opioid pain medications at a rate more than four times that of the general population, according to a study from Washington University. More than half (52 percent) of NFL retired players said they used prescription pain medication, 71 percent of whom admitted abusing the drugs during their sports career.

 

Athletes are drawn to prescription stimulants because they believe the drugs give them a boost of focus and energy. Seeking a competitive edge, some players feign symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) to get “legal” amphetamines. According to records from Major League Baseball, the number of players getting “therapeutic use exemptions” from baseball’s amphetamines ban quadrupled in recent years. While some players undoubtedly have a legitimate medical need for ADHD medications, it appears that others are merely looking for ways to evade the amphetamine ban.

A Set-Up for Addiction?

Being a professional athlete may seem like a dream job, but intensive training and pressures to perform can have unexpected side effects, including an increased risk of addiction and other mental health issues. Why the association between sports and drug addiction?

 

Theories abound, but a growing body of research shows that exercise can stimulate the dopamine reward system in the brain much like drugs of abuse. While most of us could use more exercise in our lives, elite athletes may develop a compulsive preoccupation with training that resembles addiction. A study published in the Journal of Sports Sciences, which tracked competitive runners in the U.S. and triathletes in Hong Kong, found more than half had compulsive-exercise tendencies. As Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton described it when he was sidelined with a back injury, “alcohol and drugs were the closest thing I could find to getting that feeling when I was playing the game.”

 

The heavy physical training elite athletes endure may prime the brain for addiction. According to a study from Tufts University, an extreme preoccupation with training can mimic the biological effects of drug abuse, leading to withdrawal-like symptoms such as anxiety and depression when the exercise stops. Exercise releases the body’s natural opioids, endorphins, and has long been touted for relief of stress, anxiety and depression. These findings could help explain why athletes often struggle with substance abuse, especially once they leave their sport.

 

In addition to the biological components, athletes face extreme pressure to impress coaches and please adoring fans, which may contribute to drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders and other mental health issues. Exhaustion from training and competing has also led to symptoms of depression and anxiety in some athletes.

Self-Medicating Pain and Loss

When athletes get injured or retire, they may feel torn about losing their place in the spotlight. The let-down many athletes experience can bring on unexpected mental health issues. Several beloved athletes have come forward with their struggles, including:

 

• Seven-time Olympic medalist and former world record holder Amanda Beard, whose swimming career was marked by depression, bulimia and substance abuse.

 

• Eight-time world record holder Geoff Huegill battled drug abuse, dramatic weight gain and depression following his retirement from swimming after the 2004 Olympics.

 

• After spending a season on injured reserve, Tennessee Titans wide receiver O.J. Murdock died of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

 

For athletes, the perks of the job may actually contribute to the problem. Many have the means to fund hefty drug habits, yet exhaust all of their resources by the time they realize they need treatment. Since their family, friends, coaches, the public and even law enforcement want to see them continue playing, many are shielded from the negative consequences of their addiction.

 

Inside reports suggest that the professional sports culture may encourage and even facilitate drug dependency among players, making addictive medications easily accessible and taking whatever measures necessary to keep the players on the field. As awareness has grown about the epidemic of prescription drug addiction, sports organizations are tightening the reigns but problems remain:

 

• Former New York Jets backup quarterback Erik Ainge missed the entire 2010 season because of an addiction to painkillers following a football injury.

 

• Randy Grimes, former lineman for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, came forward in 2009 to talk about his addiction to

prescription painkillers.

 

• Former NBA player Chris Herren gave up his career to a 14-year drug addiction.

 

• Last year, hockey player Derek Boogaard died at age 28 of a drug overdose while recovering from a concussion.

 

• In 2009, former Philadelphia Eagles defensive tackle Sam Rayburn was arrested for attempting to obtain a controlled substance by forgery or fraud to fuel a prescription painkiller addiction that at its peak involved consuming more than 100 Percocets a day.

 

The tragic stories, too numerous to mention, highlight the harsh realities behind the glamorous image of sports stardom. At the same time the medical community at large is trying to distinguish legitimate from illegitimate needs for prescription medication, sports doctors and team managers must strike this same balance or risk having their best players sidelined by addiction.

 

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Every Tuesday and Thursday night, a growing group of New Yorkers gather on the formerly down-and-out Bowery, seeking to develop a spiritual practice with a punk-rock edge. These “Dharma Punx” meetings are based on Buddhism, but geared towards an edgy crowd that includes hippies, punks, hipsters and anyone seeking a spiritual solution to whatever ails them—which often is some form of addiction.

Dharma Punx NYC—where practitioners sit cross-legged on cushions and experience a 20-minute guided meditation, followed by a talk on Buddhist teachings and how to apply them to daily problems—is run by Josh Korda, a bald, soft-spoken Buddhist teacher with head-to-toe tattoos and 17 years of sobriety. If Buddha had been an addict and punk rocker, he might have looked a lot like Korda—whose talks can be found at dharmapunxnyc.podbean.com.

Raised by Buddhist parents, Korda has been meditating for over two decades. After getting clean in 1996, he began studying Theravada Buddhism, and he’s maintained his sobriety ever since, relying on a combo of Buddhist practice and AA to stay as clean, sane and serene as possible—all without becoming a “super-virtuous goody-two-shoes.” Funny to boot, Korda has plenty to tell The Fix about sobriety, heavy metal, banjos and “talking shit”—and how Buddhism and AA might just be like peanut butter and jelly when it comes to finding a balance in recovery.

May Wilkerson: What was your drinking like, and how did you finally get sober?

Josh Korda: I started using alcohol when I was 13 and I drank for 19 or 20 years. I started because I felt really uncomfortable around people and in my own mind. I had obsessive, worrying and self-centered thoughts—so using was always a form of self-medication. After my first hospitalization at 19, I had a number of hospital visits throughout the course of my drinking. I also had addictions to virtually everything else. Whatever you can imagine, I either used it addictively or did a lot of it. I think I had my last hospital visit when I was 34 and then I went to a long-term outpatient rehab. I’ve been sober now for about 17 years.

“The vast majority of people who come to Buddhist centers, it’s similar to why people wash up on the shores of AA: It is because they have hit bottom.”

Did you go to AA right from the beginning?

For the first five years I went to meetings every day, and I held as many service commitments as you could possibly hold. Then, when I had five years, I went through a severe clinical depression, and realized that while AA was capable of keeping me sober, it was not providing me with enough tools to stay happy. At that point I decided to really deepen my Buddhist practice. Eventually, in a sense, Buddhism became my higher power or my core program—and AA is now secondary.

What about AA compelled you towards Buddhism?

AA is really, really strong in a lot of different ways. For 60-plus years it was the only organization that treated alcoholics and addicts without the presence of a doctor. You were basically being treated by a community of your peers. That’s a very powerful environment where you can share honestly with others who will not be judgmental, because they are addicts like you. The problem is that AA certainly has a very strong “God” theme throughout the literature. Even more so, there’s a resistance to allowing people to talk about other addictions. And dealing with that stuff is a very, very important part of finding happiness. If you think of sobriety as finding happiness free of addictions in general—not just alcohol, but also shopping, gambling, sex addictions, love addictions, addictions to checking in with our iPhones every three minutes—in that way, Buddhist practice is taking the ball from AA and running with it.

How did Dharma Punx begin?

It was first started by Noah Levine, who grew up, like I did, in a family where there was a Buddhist practice—but he didn’t feel as a young punk very welcome in a Buddhist group made up of largely middle-class, middle-aged people. In his youth, he was a bit of a hooligan and an addict/alcoholic. So he started a community to reach out specifically to the very people that didn’t feel comfortable in those Buddhist centers—young, tattooed, often drug addicts, recovering people.

How do people usually end up in a group like Dharma Punx?

With the exception of a few students who are just interested in it philosophically, the vast majority of people who come to Buddhist centers, it’s similar to why people wash up on the shores of AA: It is because they have really hit bottom. The difference is, people in AA have hit bottom with drinking or drugs, and with Buddhism it’s because they’ve hit bottom with excessive thinking of some sort, or fear, or some form of behavior. The problem may include drinking or drugs, but often they just feel their mind is a really uncomfortable place to be. They suffer from what the Buddha calls papanca—thinking too much, proliferation of thought, worry, fear, anxiety. So the arc of recovery is, “How do I get to a place where I can be in my own mind, my own body—which carries so much stress—comfortably?”

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Imagine that it’s 2:00 am in Las Vegas. Hordes of teenagers and 20-somethings are thrashing their wet hair and throwing themselves against each other, ostensibly dancing to the static-y beat of Lil Jon and LMFAO’s “Get Outta Your Mind.” An abundance of tattoos—multicolored roses, cheetah spots, insects, seemingly arbitrary dates—are visible beneath the film of sweat that seems to cover everything in the room as one couple makes out in a chair. Almost as many people are gathered up outside, engulfed in a cloud of tobacco smoke. Girls in neon mini dresses and fake lashes shiver in the nighttime desert wind as they chatter with clumps of boys in backwards baseball hats.

Now imagine, six hours before, the same horde of kids clasping hands to recite the Serenity Prayer in unison after sitting through a two-hour speaker meeting and sobriety countdown. The mix of people is so diverse that it could only be an AA meeting: there are 13-year old Candy Kids with pink and purple hair; two 80-year old men who got sober before the last two editions of the Big Book were published (like the rest of AA, conferences are not limited to any age group; those who define themselves as “young at heart” often attend and are welcomed as easily as the 15-year olds); tanned bros who patrol the hallways shirtless in aviator sunglasses, channeling the Situation; hipsters in ragged denim, smoking American Spirits and looking bored.

Instead of bonding over a pile of white powder and cases of beer, we were bound by our shared affliction and the choice we had all made to rejoice in spite of it.

This all takes place at a cleverly acronymed annual young people’s AA conference (WACYPAA, or Western Area Conference of Young People in AA) where teenagers and 20-somethings from all over the country gather for a weekend of nonstop energy drinking, dancing, gambling, 12-stepping, games of Love Thy Neighbor (our generation’s version of the game where you reveal scandalous details of your past to random strangers while discovering who has done similar things), hot-tubbing, and sobriety. While dancing, nobody seems to notice the irony of the lyrics as the speakers make the whole room vibrate: “Flip cup, tip cup, beer pong, shots/N*ggas on the Goose, bitches on my jock/Bartender, gimme whatcha got/They’re dancing on the table, I got n*ggas smoking rocks.”

The first time my friend told me about young people’s conferences in AA, he described it as “a ton of fucking crazy sober young people. Lots of energy drinks, sex, and no sleep.” I was 18 years old and two months sober, which means that I was practically foaming at the mouth to be a part of the epic three-day sobriety party that he described. My addiction had yanked me out of the world that I thought I was supposed to be a part of and I knew I would probably never stay up past dawn in the Ace Hotel railing coke with my friends. Yet I was determined for sobriety not to let my youth pass me by.

On the eve of my second conference (my first was in Eugene, only a few hours from home), about 20 of us boarded the same $90 Spirit Air flight from Portland International Airport. When we got off the plane in Vegas, a limousine was waiting in the parking lot, courtesy of a member of our young, sober crew. It was absolutely surreal; I, of the addict parents and student-loan income, was gobbling an In ‘N’ Out burger (animal style) surrounded by my best friends while I watched the neon lights and palm trees pass by in a limousine as it cruised down the Vegas strip. And I remember every glittery, knockoff-Barbie-plastic moment of it.

By the end of day three, I’d been to Caesar’s Palace, Aria, and all the other overpopulated attractions in between. I’d pretended to shop at Louis Vuitton and Tiffany, mindlessly fed the aesthetic seizures that are slot machines, and watched my peers throw their bodies around the dance floor. I was tired, but not tired enough for bed.

That morning, a group of us had risen at 7—the absolute crack of dawn, really pushing the impossible—to perform a bid skit, which is, essentially, a 15-minute long play consisting of community-theater caliber humor, big egos and off-key but heartfelt song and dance performed for a committee of former conference-throwers and anyone else willing to get up at 7 am. All of the roughly 10 skits that were performing were competing to host the conference in their cities in the upcoming year. The committee awards the conference to whichever city has the strongest need—it has little to do with the skit, but it’s still an intrinsic part of the conference experience. Ours was a condensed caricature of one of our committee’s business meetings, complete with an exaggerated 13th-step scenario—one of our male members aggressively explaining to a young woman after the “meeting” ended not to hesitate to call him if she needed anything—and the control-freak rage that often rears its ugly head at AA business meetings. We had stayed up until 5:00 am the night before, rehearsing until it felt like we could all recite the script in our sleep. Maybe it was the lack of rest, but when we got on stage, nearly every alcoholic among us blanked on their lines and failed to improvise with much success. It didn’t matter though; what mattered were the hours we’d spent the night before, eating bologna and mayonnaise sandwiches for lack of better options, cackling hysterically when the same person forgot his second line for 30 minutes straight. It was the camaraderie of pushing towards a shared destination until dawn with those closest to us. Instead of bonding over a pile of white powder and cases of beer, we were bound by our shared affliction and the choice we had all made to rejoice in spite of it.

By navigating my teens (and now, my 20s) sober, I know that all I’m missing out on is more blacked-out nights of shameful undressing and slurred confessions of hatred and/or desire. When I drink, a switch flicks inside of me and the invisible chamber that holds my heart and morals goes dark. I don’t need to re-prove it to myself; I’ve proven it enough times and I’ve seen enough of my family members struggle to maintain the veneer of a career and family while failing to manage their addictions. I don’t want that life, that infuriating cycle of endlessly treading violent waters.

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Married couples often joke that their spouses drive them to drink, but a new study suggests that—for women—the claim is true. Sociologists from the University of Cincinnati, Pennsylvania State University, Rutgers University and the University of Texas found that marriage does often drive women to increase their alcohol intake—not because they’re necessarily unhappy, but because they’re influenced by their husbands’ drinking, and men typically booze more than women. For a similar reason, men who are married drink less, because they spend more time with their less-boozy wives, rather than their drinking buddies. The opposite is true of divorced men, who are at a particularly high risk for alcohol abuse, the study found: three-quarters of divorced men said they drank more to cope with the pain of their marriage ending. But alcohol consumption among women decreased sharply post-divorce. The researchers examined large Wisconsin surveys from 1993 and 2004 about monthly alcohol intake, while also conducting 120 qualitative in-depth interviews over the past decade. “Some research suggests that men are more likely to cope with stressors in ‘externalizing’ ways (i.e., alcohol use),” writes lead researcher Corinne Reczek, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Cincinnati, “while women are more likely to cope in ‘internalizing’ ways (e.g., depression).”

 

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When I was drinking I was always late. Time was my enemy. I would look at the clock at seven pm and order another glass of wine. I had to be home by eight: no problem. I would look at the clock again ten minutes later to find it was two in the morning. How the hell did that happen? Time seemed to fly. In sobriety, I am obnoxiously punctual—in fact I am often early. These days, time sometimes stops cold. Is that clock broken?

Henry James pointed out that time goes slowest in Italy, and he vowed to spend all the time he could there, in order to lead a longer life.  Sobriety is my Italy. We talk about time as if was linear, but in fact it is complex and multi-dimensional. “Time judgments can distort, recalibrate, reverse and have a range of resolutions depending on the stimulus and the state of the viewer,” according to an article on time and the brain by David Eagleman, Peter U. Tse, et al, in The Journal of Neuroscience.

According to the same article, during an accident time slows to a vivid, second by second, crawl. “Brief dangerous events…pass in slow motion as if time slowed down,” Eagleman writes. At a good party, time stops. It can also seem to stop when you are reading a great book, or lost in the darkness of a movie theater. Yet the time it takes to eat an ice cream cone can truncate into a millisecond. Time when you are with someone you love can also be agonizingly fast. In a famous passage in my father’s journals, he wrote about the way time crawls excruciatingly along for a man who has just written a bad check to pay for a much needed bottle of gin at a liquor store.

How long can the liquor store clerk take to put the bottle of gin in a bag? How long can a dealer take to return a phone call? When you are using, time is defined by what you have to go through to get high.

“Will they call the bank before he gets out the door? Will bells and whistles sound, will somebody shout “Stop That Man!”? He enjoys some relief when he gets out the door but his troubles are not over. He enjoys a further degree of relief when he gets in the car, but his troubles are not over. The car floods, the car won’t start. (“I’m calling to check on the bank balance of Mr. Lemuel Estes.”) The battery, as he grinds the starter, begins to show signs of weakness. Then the motor catches, he backs out into the street, makes a right turn, and, when he feels safe at last, stops the car, screws the top off the bottle, and takes two or three long pulls. Oh, sweet elixir, killer of pain. Gently, gently the worlds reforms itself into interesting, intense, and natural arrangements. Thomas Paine drank too much. General Grant. Winston Churchill. He is in the company of the truly great.”

Managing time was one of the reasons I drank—drinking seemed to give me some control over the passage of time, and it also gave me rituals which calmed and centered me. I inherited the religiously observed drinking rituals and tools—ice bucket, tongs, special glasses—which ordered our lives in the house where I grew up. There was coffee at breakfast (black), and sometimes an eye opener (coffee spiked with a shot of Calvados). At noon a bottle of wine would be opened to accompany the preparation of lunch. This was called the preprandial libation. Then there was wine with lunch, another libation before dinner—Scotch or Martinis—and then a postprandial libation—brandy, which sometimes stretched into a nightcap, usually Scotch and water. Other rituals punctuated the seasons; I knew I was a grown-up when I met my commuting husband at the railroad station with a thermos of martinis and two chilled glasses.

“Using gives you structure, and that structure creates a sense of time, it sequences it,” says Dr. Marc Lewis, the distinguished neuroscientist and the author of Memoirs of an Addicted Brain. Lewis points out that the addictive cycle begins with an attachment and then proceeds to craving, striving, with the substance as a goal, and finally getting. During the striving part of the cycle time can be heartbreakingly slow. How long can the liquor store salesperson take to put that check in the cash register drawer and get the bottle of gin in a bag? How long can a dealer take to return a phone call? When you are using, time is defined by what you have to go through to get high. Finally, when the substance is acquired and used, time just disappears.  “You are no longer in a state of craving, so all those steps of striving just disintegrate” Lewis explains, “Now it doesn’t matter.”

How does our connection to time change when we stop drinking and using and enter recovery? In Alcoholics Anonymous there is a lot  of talk about time. Newcomers are told to “give time time,” to “take it a day at a time” and to “live in the moment”. Time in recovery is carefully added up, and temporal milestones—90 days, a year, ten years, are all greeted with celebratory applause. People in recovery learn to use regular meetings, routine readings and calls to other alcoholics to structure time the same way they may have used screwdrivers to indicate breakfast and brandy to indicate that dinner was over.

One of the keys to recovery is learning to be friends with time—the entity that we drank to eliminate. Most recovering addicts develop ways of manipulating time in sobriety—for me reading, playing word games, and playing squash are a few of the ways I can make time disappear in the same way that a bottle of Famous Grouse once made time disappear.  “Time when you are sober is more transformative,” Lewis speculates. “It’s more variable, the course ahead is flexible and it keeps changing and your whole life opens up and anything becomes possible.”

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You’ve waited all year for a much-anticipated break from the grind of daily life. You’ve researched all your options and planned every detail of your summer vacation down to where you’ll eat and what you’ll wear.

But if you’re in recovery from addiction, you may have overlooked some of the details that matter most.

How will you handle triggers to drink or use when you’re in an unfamiliar environment, faced with new challenges and stressors? What happens when you’re feeling stressed or anxious and the person next to you on the plane is drinking? Or your travel companions decide to hit up every party they can find in a one-week period?

You can’t predict every temptation that may arise, but you can take steps to safeguard your sobriety even when you’re away from home:

 

#1 Consider a Sober Holiday. New York City, San Francisco, Chicago, Las Vegas, New Orleans and Hawaii are continually among the most popular vacation destinations, but why limit yourself to what’s conventional? Many resorts, cruise lines and travel companies offer alcohol-free vacations in these and other hotspots.

There are even sober music festivals, spas, camping trips, surf and ski getaways, sailing expeditions, safaris, and golf and yoga retreats. In addition to putting away the alcohol and scheduling sober activities and meetings, vacation-goers are surrounded by a supportive community of people in recovery.

 

#2 Choose Travel Partners Carefully. Vacation is a great excuse to escape from life for a while. For people in recovery, it may also be tempting to take a break from sobriety. To keep yourself accountable, travel with people who are supportive of your sobriety and who will look out for your best interests, even if it means refraining from drinking or using drugs themselves.

 

#3 Minimize Stress. Vacations are meant to be relaxing, but they can just as easily get stressful. Lost luggage, flight delays, bad directions and squabbles among travel partners can put hefty demands on your coping skills. To minimize stress, plan ahead as much as possible and then adopt a “go with the flow” attitude that helps you take any unexpected frustrations in stride. If you need a few minutes to wind down, use portable stress management techniques like meditation, yoga or reading.

 

#4 Continue Basic Self-Care. It’s easy to push yourself beyond your limits when you’re exploring a new place. Continue eating regular, healthy meals, exercising and getting enough sleep each day so that you don’t feel depleted.

 

#5 Research Local Resources. One of the greatest challenges of sober travel is doing without your usual support network. Just as you would investigate hotels, flights and sightseeing tours, research local support groups in case you’re in need of re-balancing while you’re away. A number of free smartphone apps are available to help you locate meetings and get support while you’re on the go. Also bring along the phone number of your sponsor and a few trustworthy friends.

 

#6 Be Your Own Advocate. As an addict in recovery, sometimes you have to be your own strongest advocate. Have a few responses prepared in the event you feel pressured to drink or use and don’t hesitate to remove yourself from any situation that makes you feel vulnerable or uneasy. You can also take precautions such as asking the hotel to remove alcohol from the mini-bar if you know that will be a temptation for you.

 

#7 Get Back on Track. Relapse isn’t inevitable on vacation or any other time, but if it happens, take advantage of this teachable moment. Evaluate what you could’ve done differently and call your therapist or treatment center immediately so that you can turn a slip-up into a learning experience rather than spiraling back into old patterns.

July and August are the most popular vacation months. This summer, don’t miss out on a well-earned break just because you’re in recovery. After all, recovery means having the freedom to do the things you always wanted to do but couldn’t because you were bogged down with drugs and alcohol. By taking a few precautions and staying alert to your relapse triggers, your vacation can be memorable for all the right reasons.

 

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Women are often asked to be more careful and aware of the alcohol intake. And there is more to it.

 

Scientists from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) and Veterans Affairs (VA) Boston Healthcare System have demonstrated how the volume of white matter in the brain gets affected differently in men and women after long-term alcohol abuse.

 

According to the study, when both the genders were asked to abstain from drinking, it was found that women’s brain recovered faster than men. The volume of the white matter recovery was quick in women when compared to men.

 

The study was led by Susan Mosher Ruiz, PhD, postdoctoral research scientist in the Laboratory for Neuropsychology at BUSM and research scientist at the VA Boston Healthcare System, and Marlene Oscar Berman, PhD, professor of psychiatry, neurology and anatomy and neurobiology at BUSM and research career scientist at the VA Boston Healthcare System.

 

Previous studies have shown that alcohol affects the white matter in the brain, which is what forms the connections between neurons. White matter is the key to communication between different areas of the brain.

 

The aim of the present study was to understand how alcohol affected the white matter of the brain in different genders.

 

For the study, the researchers conducted MRI scans on participants in order to determine the effects of drinking history and gender on white matter volume.

 

Forty two abstinent alcoholic men and women participated in the study, all of whom drank heavily for more than five years. Also, 42 nonalcoholic control men and women were also involved in the study.

 

The researchers found that, more the number of years of drinking, lesser the volume of white matter in the abstinent alcoholic men and women.

 

Also, while in men, the decrease was observed in the corpus callosum, in women, this effect was observed in cortical white matter regions.

 

“We believe that many of the cognitive and emotional deficits observed in people with chronic alcoholism, including memory problems and flat affect, are related to disconnections that result from a loss of white matter,” said Mosher Ruiz, in the news release.

 

The researchers also found that in alcoholic women, the number of glasses of alcohol consumed per day was directly proportional to the white matter reduction in the brain. It was one and a half to two percent volume loss for each additional daily drink.

 

Additionally, there was an eight to 10 percent increase in the size of the brain ventricles, which are areas filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) that play a protective role in the brain. When white matter dies, CSF produced in the ventricles fills the ventricular space, the news release stated.

 

While checking the pace at which the brain recovered the white matter during abstinence, the researchers found that, in men, the corpus callosum recovered at a rate of one percent per year for each additional year of abstinence.

 

In case of less than a year abstinence, it was found that the there was an evidence of increased white matter volume and decreased ventricular volume in women, but not at all in men. However, for people in recovery for more than a year, those signs of recovery disappeared in women and became apparent in men.

 

“These findings preliminarily suggest that restoration and recovery of the brain’s white matter among alcoholics occurs later in abstinence for men than for women,” said Mosher Ruiz. “We hope that additional research in this area can help lead to improved treatment methods that include educating both alcoholic men and women about the harmful effects of excessive drinking and the potential for recovery with sustained abstinence.”

 

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