Amudim and Ohel Addiction Awareness Event - Akiva Perlman, Ph.D. 7-15-2017

beautiful those are coming from the words or rabbi wallerstein who I know when we talk about addiction is literally in the thick of it and think of the matter the thick of the suffering my wife had the honor and privilege to work beside him for every five years and when you talk about the pleasure of finding purpose and helping us I just personally want to thank you for providing my family with that giving us that opportunity several weeks ago and we reached out to me and said we can have it we're going to have a program that's going to take place upstate and will they village my first initial response was we're just going to be a bunch of buzzkill walking into the vacation everyone comes up to the mountain to escape reality we all know that reality is harsh life is harsh at times often is harsh so we treat a little rest in a place to go to or go and relax and I said why would why would anyone want to hear about addiction when they're sitting there relaxing they're enjoying family and I can't tell you this out of how humbled I was by the response by everyone's desire to say what could we do tell us more what happens and especially the reaction of what can we do to help following stroke and tell us more about the struggles that they're going through an addiction unfortunately is really at the top of that list right now I notice me he sends out your emails and you need to do and I can't tell you how much I appreciate receiving them which talks about the lives that we've lost this this year and and it's hard for me to ask me for that number and I won't because if I answer that number we're going to lose sight of what the real number is which is one several weeks ago we lost two girls to overdose within a two day period one of those girls was a student of my wife's to work closely with student Robert Wallace Dean and when you talk about numbers whether the number be fifty or a hundred or two hundred in a short period of time we would cite of the reality of this is not a number this is a daughter this is a wife this is a mother this is a redneck this is a friend and when you go to a funeral of someone who lost their life like this the resignation of law it's not an accumulation of people it is simply in one individual a whole life that has lost because of this because the driver wallet through a thing these discovering a way of life or even a path for yourself which leads you down a terrible terrible hole which is so hard to get out of but today we need to stand up and say okay what could we do explain let let's learn about the problem and then let's learn about some of the solutions because we're past a time where we could sit back and say you know it's not happening it really is this is happening in every community this is happening in every age demographic in all genders this is happening to us and we need to stand up so let's talk a little bit about where this epidemic came about as we all know drugs have been around forever and ever since they've been around people have been abusing them starts with alcohol moves on to the lucinda genex pod and all the other drugs people have been abusing drugs forever but we know in the past few years the lives that we've lost have been significantly higher than the virtual and in time tissue that I could imagine so we have to gain some perspective persons in the past ten years according to the CDC there's been a 200% increase in overdoses across America within that we have in 600 percent increase in overdose related directly to heroin and how did that happen how do we arrive at a place where people are literally taking drugs to the point where they're killing themselves and we know that it started in the early nineteen in the in 1995 is when the numbers started to increase where doctors started prescribing opioids at love that were never seen before this last month was the first month since 1997 where we're seeing a decrease in prescription of opioid medication since 1997 it's only been going up and up and up and since these changes happened people and doctors are starting to get wiser and say we're creating a problem there's a real addiction epidemic that is being created and the result of all these opioids going out to the population they started pulling back and saying we're not going to give them freely to people anymore at that point people started turning to the street and the streets even though they're cheaper they're stronger they're more dangerous they're late some of things that we don't really understand and as a result of that one bad bet and unfortunately until friends a group of friends and that's where we are today in terms of our epidemic but today we need to learn about change it's really about change we discover the problem we talk about the problem only because we believe and we ultimately believe that there's something we can do about I want to share with you something that happened to to a good friend of mine and high school friend of mine who a very special young man a sensitive soul you'll find that it because the people here were pathetic one of the the landmarks of that is that there's very sensitive people but here's a very special guy I went to high school with so unfortunately several months ago we were there by the parade and there's nothing worse than standing violet by oh that doesn't take place in a proper room and it's decided grief or person obviously something happened last minute and there there was an opportunity to pull things together and there was so much that was shared about this young man they shared about his life and we cried together we spoke about who he was and how he contributed to all of us how he made us feel better about reword lots of questions were asked but no one asked why all his good friends his family his parents his robbee who were there no one asked why because everyone who was posed to him knew and we've all seen him suffer we saw him go through a divorce at a young age we saw him struggle in from high school we still have a hard time getting a job making friends getting married getting divorced themselves and you wanted seeing this young men understood his plight as other well as being said what do you enter into the world of addiction to changes or what and be understood as plug understood his pain we felt it along with so no one asked why we didn't have to life is a understood I worked at the living room for many years which is a program for Freud kid or from families who are in recovery and last a few weeks ago they had a Chaba tone with over a hundred people who were there these are young young men and women who are in recovery they're part of this program and we've lost several people through the years that I was there speaking to the individuals afterwards and getting together as a group and just mourning this loss it is there are no words to describe but the main thing that go through is an understanding that we get we understand what we people went through what their suffering is like Italy let's look at who goes in the treatment for these people maybe if we understand who's being treated maybe get a sense of where these people come from and what we can do for them no one's really saved from addiction once you get introduced to something it could turn into a problem for anybody but if we work backwards we might just gain some insight so one of the most important studies was the study done by ACE the adverse childhood material ferment which looks at people and their life experiences and childhood and traces them throughout on what they were able to show is that if a person has four or more adverse childhood experiences like divorce a parent who's struggling with an addiction lost in the family some form of trauma that those people are much more likely than the general population to become addicts themself so that's just one this idea that starts painting a picture of for the addict one thing we know is that these are people that have experienced a lot of pain from childhood there's a building a growing of pain that contributes to addiction the APA published a study on PTSD where that nearly 50% of people who have PTSD also share a comorbidity with addiction as well so it's just another piece to the puzzle childhood experiences post-traumatic threat PTSD sorry it's a post traumatic stress disorder which is basically an experience that has been traumatic in your childhood in your past the Harvard Center on the developing child basically says that stress leads to adaptations and behavior and comfort seeking patterns where other woloson described it is beautiful when people are in pain when people don't feel comfortable they gravitate naturally to something that feels okay and when that becomes the pattern in your life you're hurting your your pain is feeling something and you've discovered the solution well most people say like let me let me understand addiction I say imagine you've discovered the solution to every problem you've ever had you've discovered that there's this thing that you can engage in that will take away all the angst they'll take away all the pain all the suffering and the addicts describe that experience for themselves so the one thing that all these studies have in common are people that are obtained I have never met an addict who's not truly truly suffering in their addiction even though from the outside it looks like it might be a person who's having a good time it looks like they're okay there's a lot of partying associated with it especially with raises as Mandela pointed out but when you're talking about real addiction it is literally day in day out of suffering I remember I was working at Ohio a bunch of years ago and there was a new therapist who came on for the team and we were talking about addiction and she asked the question she said why would someone do such a thing why would someone who has a good life throw it all away to to this world of addiction why would anyone do drugs altogether which is the wonderful question it's a very healthy question and I said let's go for a drive at the time I was working with a average school in Brooklyn we were running groups the week and I decided to have known that during lunch they would walk to a park I believe those on Amazon it would walk to a park and smoke pot under a particular tree and I said let's go and and and observe this group of people and try to understand a little bit more about what addiction really and we sit there if you see any one of these individual kids by themselves it all look miserable because when you're in eating behavior you don't really feel good about yourself you never feel comfortable with me what so there they were walking together and they one of the guys roll the joints or whatever it was they were smoking at the time and they started sharing and I said and she's through observations she watched the experience of connection the experience of comfort the experience of acceptance and she saw these individuals that left of their own devices would be very lonely and very afraid of this world and there they were in a group kind of engaging in experience now those guys I don't know if they ended up addicts in the end but it was certainly the beginning to them it made experiencing something of comfortable provide them with a with the relief from the world that they're living in and the first thing that we need to just accept about the addict is that there are people that are just suffering and this is a and experience of relief that they go through so acting out the drug addiction itself is not the problem to them the drug addiction is the solution one of the first lines earlier from people to go to any 12-step meeting na sa a you go to a meeting and people share their story they call it qualifying where they say which is Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous they want to share the personal story with people to say this is where I've been and this is where I am today and they go through their journey but one of the things that is so consistent you'll find almost everybody shares the first experiences with drugs well they'll say I always felt different uncomfortable until I had my first drug and that was the first time in my life that I felt normal now most of us feel normal of experience adversity but it's not an it doesn't doesn't take a substance for us to feel like we're okay yet added because of the experiences that they had it is precisely that that drug is self or that alcohol that gives them a sense of I'm okay I worked with a young man this was actually in oil as well with a young man who was literally coming in off the streets a heroin addict off the street it was homeless for a period of time in and out of psychiatric hospitals and he was struggling and struggling to get off the ground and when I asked him about his first experience I was first learning about addiction asked him what was it like tell me what is what what it is feeling the first of you used heroin and he said just to quote him and I asked the deployment that I I need to write this down and he said the first time I used heroin I felt as though the world was holding me I felt comfortable for the first time in my life now most of us when you imagine a person taking heroin that person is usually in a uncomfortable place they're sitting in a foreign environment with a needle with a substance that hurts and you insert it into your body yet he's experienced his experience was one of comfort of love is it the world was holding and he felt comfortable for the first time in his life borma made a researcher and a therapist a doctor out of Canada he steered aligned it to me oh it's impacts me said it's impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the Attic finds or hopes the finding the drug or addictive behavior he said the question is not what instruction does the addition create in that person's life but rather what pain is it relieving what is it giving them why is he giving them so much comfort and if we could possibly understand why this thing which is seemingly so harmful to everyone else that this person seems comfortable we might be able to connect and by the way that connection is so important study after study after study shows that addicts and I've heard them myself just from them but us and them is the research people who are able to connect and say I get you I understand there was a study done by Miller & Rowe Lennon in the 80s trying to look at what works what helps addicts get better we know they're the hardest populations to treat only 90% of them only 10% they clean after the first time to rehab they relapse and relapse and relapse and these researchers wanted to figure out what worked and what they found at the end of the day without going through the whole study what they found is that relationships heal people that ate a person who is going through addiction who has a good positive relationship with a parent with a therapist with someone to understand them with the spouse that is the beginning of human I remember I asked an old what they call an old timer in the world of recovery if anyone here were to go to a meeting one thing you'll notice is that there's a lot of touching there's a lot of holding hands at the end of meeting to say the serenity prayer even though you saw the person yesterday you're still hugging that individual before the meeting and after the meeting or hugging that person and I asked an alzheimer one it was there for 20 plus years as to why is there so much hug and his response to me was he said most of us were making up for the absence of hugs that we have received in other we house because this is a place where we could feel hug it's a place where we can hug back and we can experience some type of connection so what is addiction addiction is progression of use unsuccessful efforts to stop and increase problem I just sent the young man who was treating in my practice I just sent him to rehab last week and when he started looking at his journey his young man he didn't start using drugs and he was around 21 years old he went through the system he became increasingly withdrawn and years went by distrustful of teachers of Herve and a family living very very isolated and he stayed away from drugs because he was problematic but all it took was that one open that one pass for him and once it started it was like done before you even got off the ground he started you had that experience and then several years later he's now in rehab and here's the guy who to Shiva's beauty Shiva's neck control got a college degree he finished up but he reached out to me the other day right before he went to rehab and he was trying to go clean by himself and this guy by the way is not heroin is not heavy drugs only marijuana was the only marijuana but for him that was the experience that had that was the drug that that he connected with and he said I can't do this when he started to go clean and have a day without being high he said I can't do this as a reason being is because the experience of pain that he had to feel after trying to relieve it for so long and he answered that live with himself and liquid the distrust that he felt around was just too overwhelming for an addiction the drugs even though in the moment that gives you a sense of relief at the end of the day it never works it just never works you just go deeper and deeper into the rabbit hole and I remember just no time is against us at this point I remember a young man that I worked with who has been who had spent many years of using himself and abusing drugs and he came to me after like literally like a days and he said I I looked myself in the mirror for the first time in five years and he said what I saw looking back at me resembled nothing of who I was five years ago because I couldn't even remember why I started in the first place I loved touch altogether the journey changes you start because you're trying to resolve something but once you're involved it's just it becomes a beast unto itself it just perpetuates its own pattern and you can't get out until even four until you have treatment but this guy by the way I wanted to know he's married if you kid and we need to know that by the way I should have said it earlier that there's so many good people out there who are healthy there's so many communities so many programs here tonight three organizations getting together a community of I came today above economy I found large house colony trying to figure out what the right word but this wonderful place the people thing let's host an event and let's try and understand this problem in fewer but people get that when he I was like we shouldn't only be talking about the suffering we should also be talking about the healing the treatment is very long so we might talk about it a little bit but let's just talk about the areas that they're concerned about and you'll notice that most of these are not just about getting off of drugs the first step is getting off of drugs you can't get better until you start facing life but as the after that it just becomes about living well how could I contribute how could I become a contributing member to society after I've learned how could I re develop a connection with a schember and the family with the people around got to change your behavior learn to help others the 11th of the 12 step of the 12 steps it's just about giving back and their belief is firmly fit I cannot get better until I have a purpose that I could give over to others it's not possible to get better until I have a mission and it's a beautiful mission and at the end of the treatment what it all looks like when all said and done the amount of times and at this point I'm not no longer surprised hearing this but it's still shocking to me that people say the amount of times that people say I wouldn't trade my addiction for anything because it was my addiction ultimately that brought me to where I answered it and where I am today co wholesome feels good feels connected feels honest feels real and yes I suffered for many years but at the end of that suffering they brought me through a journey that I needed to take and that journey was life and I feel good with my life today people get better as we see I want to end with a research study which personifies to me what we need to do is a when they first started looking at the relationship between drugs and the brain they discovered that it's a very harmful relationship if you take drugs they would put rats in a little cage and then dim a lever and every time the rat pressed the lever they'd put heroin into the brain or cocaine into the brain and they discovered that very quickly these rats became addicted to the point where they were willing to press the lever enough times to kill themselves consistently time and time again and what they learned from those studies were that there's an addictive quality in the heroin itself and the cocaine developer to kill people there was a researcher in the 70s and 80s Alexander who wanted to understand if this relationship between people and drugs in more complex fashion and he created the research study that's known todays rat part and he said let's look at drugs and the relationship with people not only in an isolated cage but how how does it work in an environment and what they found that if you give no same rat the same access to drug but you put them in an environment with relationships with friendships with support so together we're talking about rat but whatever rat support looks like they found that the the percentages of addiction were significantly lower that when rats needed to interact with others needed to build relationship with other rats they chose to forego the drug in order to engage in a healthy way and to me when we talk about what we need to do as a community when a person is alone and the stigma of addiction creates the Simonis they're they're afraid to come out when a person is alone and isolated in their addiction they are literally like a rat in a box there's no one to talk to you there's no relationship between gages and the chances and the potential for that harming them to the point of death is very hard but if they exist in the community and we've become a community that understands that opens our doors I heard a story from from a man today we're talking about a friend of it where the child is going through addiction and the the feeling literally the feeling that I had of just knowing that this man who had the son was going through addiction but he has a friend in the trenches with he has a friend that he call when he's not sure where his son and he has a person who's communicate to reach out to and say I don't know what to do I'm lost that father is not alone and by that father not being alone the child is not alone and the chances of that kid getting better is significantly higher so we as a community number one accept that there's no way to avoid the reality of the acceptance of a real significant problem we know the numbers we see it all the time but try and work towards creating communities that is comfortable enough to create events like that to talk about it to share and say okay we're coming out of the woodwork we're talking about it and hopefully by doing so a chef could could guide us and bring him to a place where we're healthy and comfortable and connected and as far away as possible from the suffering of addiction thank you so much for us