Panelist on “Addiction, Recovery, and Coping”

Tomorrow-April 5th-I will be a guest panelist for AB Tech’s “Addiction, Recovery, and Coping” Event.

This panel will focus on the opiate epidemic in our area. It is important to name, that our country is also suffering from this unfortunate phenomenon. A recent article by Chris Hedges entitled “A Nation of the Walking Dead” on truthdig.com addresses the demise of a culture  that is insecurely attached and hence highly susceptible to addiction in a desperate attempt to kill the pain.

“Opioids and experiences that simulate the deadening effects of narcotics are mechanisms to keep us submissive and depoliticized. Desperate citizens in Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel “Brave New World” ingested the pleasure drug soma to check out of reality. Our own versions of soma allow tens of millions of Americans to retreat daily into addictive mousetraps that generate a self-induced autism.

The United States consumes 80 percent of opioids used worldwide, and more than 33,000 died in this country in 2015 from opioid overdoses. There are 300 million prescriptions written and $24 billion spent annually in the U.S. for painkillers. Americans supplement this mostly legal addiction with over $100 billion a year in illicit marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin. And nearly 14 million U.S. adults, one in every 13, regularly abuse alcohol.”