Recovery Advocacy News, Issues and Musings (August 2023)
Curation with occasional commentary by Jeremiah Gardner
NOTE: This was published for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation’s monthly Recovery Advocacy Update. If you’d like to receive our advocacy emails, subscribe today.
📕 READ: Howdy! Boy, that feels good. And there’s a reason. According to a new survey, saying hello to neighbors could boost your well-being.
📕 READ: A new study found that more than 77% of adults diagnosed with cancer turned to alcohol to cope. Others, like Nell Hurley, lean on their recovery at such times.
📕 READ: Two-thirds of people reached in a new survey said they or someone in their family has experienced addiction or overdose.
📕 READ: Another poll found that 29% of adults in the U.S. say they or someone in their family have been addicted to opioids (prescription painkillers and/or illegal opioids like heroin) at some point in their lives.
📕 READ: After declining in 2019 and 2020, suicide deaths increased 5% in the U.S. in 2021 and an additional 2.6% in 2022 up to almost 50,000, according to new provisional data from the CDC.
📕 READ: 60% of Americans battling drug or alcohol addictions also have jobs. Learn which jobs have the highest rates of substance use disorder.
📕 READ: A new report examines stigmatizing imagery for substance use disorders.
📺 WATCH or 🔊 LISTEN: Hot of the podcast press is a new episode of Hazelden Betty Ford’s Let’s Talk Addiction & Recovery in which Bob Poznanovich discusses “The Next Workplace Revolution.”
📕 READ: Recovery advocate Ryan Hampton makes an impassioned case in TIME magazine for radical acceptance and implementation of overdose prevention strategies, citing Rhode Island as a success-case-in-progress.
📕 READ: The National Governors Association is now looking at a roadmap of 17 specific, actionable recommendations to reduce overdoses.
📕 READ: More women continue to die from alcohol-related causes.
📕 READ: Self asks: Is Drinking Dunkin’s New Spiked Coffee a Terrible Decision, Health-Wise? Umm, yes. Also, we now have a growing trend of putting alcohol in normal-looking beverage packaging (often that appeals to younger people), combined with an NA trend of making nonalcoholic beverages look and, in some cases, taste like alcoholic beverages. Even if you’re sober, these are blurry times.
📕 READ: According to a Northwestern Medicine study published in the journal Aging, prolonged alcohol misuse can speed up biological aging. And that’s why, for many, recovery seems to slow it down!
📕 READ: Marijuana and hallucinogen use, as well as binge drinking, reached historic highs among adults 35 to 50, and younger adults reported marijuana, vaping, and hallucinogen use at or near historically high levels, according to an NIH-funded study.
📕 READ: Students and faculty at the University of Minnesota are calling for more collegiate recovery support. Meanwhile, Augsburg University’s student recovery program is very vocal in its outreach to attract and support more participants.
📕 READ: People addicted to cannabis are often met with skepticism but perhaps not for the reasons you think.
📕 READ: In related news, a new study finds U.S. adults increasingly perceive daily smoking and secondhand exposure to marijuana smoke as safer than tobacco smoke, views that do not reflect science.
📕 READ: In 2021, an estimated 2.5 million people aged 18 years or older in the U.S. had opioid use disorder in the past year, yet only 1 in 5 of them (22%) received medications to treat it, according to a new study.
📕 READ: As fentanyl overdoses in public spaces spike, the lifesaving drug Narcan is being stocked by more and more bars and restaurants.
📕 READ: Scientists are still searching for the hangover cure.
🔊 LISTEN: Are the 12 Steps still relevant today? How do they fit into modern recovery? Tommy Rosen discusses.
📺 WATCH or 🔊 LISTEN: New podcast episodes from our Recovery Equity series:
📺 WATCH: The Jed Foundation presented new research to help reduce stigma and inform effective mental health messaging for young adults, ages 13–17.
Want more content like this curated and sent directly to your Inbox? SUBSCRIBE to Hazelden Betty Ford’s monthly Advocacy Update.
Jeremiah Gardner is director of communications and public affairs for the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation.
