by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Some of the most powerful groups I’ve been a part of have been on the topic of the ‘Gaslight.’  Derived from the title of a 1944 Ingrid Bergman film in which Bergman’s character leads his wife to believe she is going mad, the term gaslight grew into a potent psychological concept.  In the film, Bergman’s character makes the sound of footsteps and adjusts the brightness of gaslights, pretends he knows nothing of the changes, and his wife is left only to conclude that she must be losing her mind.  In psychology, the gaslight concept is primarily applied to contradictory messages children receive from parents from which children draw the natural conclusion, ‘there must be something wrong with me.’  Today, some unnerving gaslight elements can be found in the tr...

“Go to your room and calm down…  Wake up, breakfast is ready…  Are you gonna’ sleep all day?...  You can’t have candy in your room…  It’s 10 o’clock, lights out, it’s bedtime…” The Practice of Infantilizing Addiction The statements above are just a few of the endless parade of childish remarks that are hurled at grown adults constantly at rehabs everywhere.  I’ve seen airline pilots, engineers, physicians, and CEOs talked down to like they’re a junior high trouble maker almost as many times as I’ve heard cliché’s masquerade as treatment.  Women and men with children, careers, and a long and established history of responsible, productive contribution to society are treated no differently than a 19-year-old who smokes heroin in treatment to defy his parents and get back at them for rest...

[caption id="attachment_11004" align="alignright" width="358"] Image Credit: Jesi Cason Photography[/caption] Next up in our top-blogger interview series is Kelly Fitzgerald, of Sober Senorita. We've been following Kelly's blog for a while now, maybe 2-3 years. Her personal and professional growth, as well as that of her blog, have been nothing short of inspiring. What started out in 2014 as a blog about Kelly's personal recovery journey, has since become a cornerstone resource for the online recovery community. With her new e-book, podcast, upcoming memoir by Passageway Press (2019), and her signature Bloom Club, Kelly's work has provided a foundation for healing, community, and growth. We were thrilled when Kelly agreed to take time out of her busy schedule to interview wi...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Avoidance and Fear Nothing feeds fear like avoidance.  Substance use itself often becomes problematic because it is such an effective method of short-term avoidance.  Eventually, the repetition compulsion of avoidance builds up so much unaddressed residual byproduct that the costs of continued avoidance outweigh the potential costs of facing what we fear.  The fulcrum of change and fear is the birthplace of courage.  Ultimately, whether it relates to addiction, career, love, health, anything that matters, fear keeps us stuck and change comes from honest confrontation with ourselves. You may also be interested in: We Can't Feel Safe All the Time Growth and change result from identifying and breaking patterns.  In order to identify and break our own patterns...

The online recovery community has exploded in the last decade with several resources, from apps to forums to blogs. These resources have become integral to the recovery process for millions of people affected by addiction. Over the next few months, we will be interviewing some of the top-rated recovery bloggers of 2018. These bloggers play a special role in the online recovery community. Not only do they give voice to those affected by addiction, they also provide a way for individuals to connect during their own recovery process. Our hats are off to the brave men and women who, by writing publicly, break the stigma of addiction, encourage unity amongst those affected by addiction, and provide a place for people to connect, inspire, and heal. Our first featured top recovery blogger i...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Here at Practical Recovery we’ve done a number of pieces on the language of addiction.  I personally consider the article It’s Time to Clean Up The Language of Addiction, by Anne Fletcher, MS, RD, to be a foundational cornerstone to quality addiction treatment.  In recent weeks a particularly common term in addiction treatment, one highlighted in Fletcher’s landmark piece, has been gnawing away at me – dirty.  The complex histories that shape addictive behavior, combined with moral associations to the term dirty make for a potent, insidious label that deserves swift eradication. The term ‘dirty’ in addiction and recovery circles is about as much of a staple to the industry’s vernacular as the term ‘bottom line’ is in the finance industry.  The world of a...

Drug Rehab: Predicting the Future by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. I’m told people want to know what drug rehab will be like in 100 years.  So, this week let’s put on our Doc Brown suit, make sure Einstein has a doggy sitter, secure dangerous amounts of plutonium, and fire up our flux capacitor so we can send our favorite McFly back to the future of rehab. As we travel into the hypothetical it would be folly to ignore the major mistakes that other artists seem to inevitably make when they conduct their best Nostradamus impersonations.  In the 1980’s a handful of popular films depicted what our present day would be like (e.g. Back to the Future, Terminator, Blade Runner).  The films from the 1980’s that predicted the future that is today all grossly overshot the technological advances o...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Adderall vs. Meth When it comes to amphetamines, our culture seems to want to eat our drugs and have them too.  On one hand, Adderall is marketed with promises of saving marriages or images of smiling children with taglines like, “Finally, schoolwork that matches his intelligence.”  On the other hand, we’re inundated with images of  “meth mouth” and propaganda campaigns with wholesome slogans like, “15 bucks for sex isn’t normal, but on meth it is,” and, “Before meth I had a daughter, now I have a prostitute.”  Well, if tooth decay, cost-effective intimate companionship, and disowning children are normal for meth, we must ask ourselves why meth is still a prescribed medication for ADHD and weight loss. Yes, you read correctly, today, right now, in 2018, y...

by Tom Horvath, Ph.D., ABPP Benefits of Software in Addiction Treatment For about a year Practical Recovery has included the Checkup & Choices website (www.checkupandchoices.com) in our work. By referring clients to the site we reduce the amount of time they spend with clinicians, thereby lowering their fees.  We also increase the accuracy of both assessment and psycho-education. Psycho-education is that part of psychotherapy in which the clinician delivers basic information about a common topic (e.g., how to cope with craving). Software does not have memory lapses. Unlike the more variable clinician, software asks the same questions and delivers the same information each time (barring the occasional hardware or software problems). Of course, to eliminate memory problems du...

by Thaddeus Camlin Psy.D. A recent study analyzed thousands of social media posts and found reliable predictors of depression in the language people use, or what we can call the language of depression.  The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Psychological Science, reveals three ways to predict depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation.  Extrapolating from the results offers some intriguing considerations that relate to how we think, the way in which our thinking influences our mood and behavior, and how our language might influence addictive cycles. You might also be interested in: The Antidote to Depression Post Content as a Predictor of Depression and Anxiety The first two predictors of depression and anxiety in social media that researchers found were in the content o...