Drug and alcohol service support in Sydney northside

     Substance abuse disorder or addiction is a chronic condition often involving several transitions between relapse, treatment re-entry, and recovery. Past experience indicates that a more flexible treatment system needs to be adopted as a matter of AOD policy.  New methods to facilitate longer periods of support, particularly in stages of transition from one service to another are producing positive results and the financing of these extensions of current systems and models are minimal.  In effect, a chronic rather than an acute care model for substance use appears to be appropriate.                          

      Consistent research from a patient specific perspective has found current waiting periods for initial treatment access and between “detox” and “rehab” to be a significant structural barrier with levels of 53.8% of clients identifying waiting time as a significant obstacle to treatment entry.  Up to 50% of this client base will drop off  waiting lists before treatment can be accessed.  Harm reduction philosophy is based on client input to drive the provision of care and  research has positively measured contract between client-identified needs and agency-provided services although services providers have constraints around funding and the immediacy of admittance into rehab after detox in particular is erratic.  This flies in the face of an Australian harm reduction policy.                 

    Although there is a good representation of general alcohol and other drug services (AOD) in the Northern Sydney area there are limited affordable government funded inpatient detox and rehab services. Northern Beaches area have one rehab unit based at Manly Hospital and run by Kedesh and the upper and lower north shore boast only one detox unit at the  Royal North Shore Public Hospital within an extensive AOD outpatient counselling and methadone dispensing unit. Although there are many government funded services around AOD these are the only inpatient treatment options currently available in the North Shore and Northern Beaches areas. Clients may attend out of area services but priority systems and long waiting lists along with further isolating clients from family and social supports make this a poor option.  

     While service providers and patients both desire relief from the long waiting lists it is not on the political agenda to increase services therefore it is proposed that a “holding program” would offer both support,  daily skills training and debriefing to clients waiting for further treatment.  This program would be compatible with 12 step facilitation and therefore able to work with or without the attendance of 12 step meetings during this period.  From a health services perspective, peer-based resources such as this have been shown to improve outcomes of AOD patients and they provide a compatible adjunct to current inpatient treatment systems. The gap between detox and rehab is a significant and at times overwhelming threat to remaining clean.  It is more cost effective, particularly given the propensity to relapse, to offer this bridging support than incur the cost of further inpatient admissions and the associated support leading up to intake.  Establishment of services such as this are on my wish list for Xmas! 

Aly        Aly Birmingham Geats

Counselling Northside   www.counsellingnorthside.com.au

Screen and Technology Addiction

Original research into this disorder began with exploratory surveys, which cannot establish causalrelationships between specific behaviors and their cause. While surveys can help establish descriptions of how people feel about themselves and their behaviours, they cannot draw conclusions about whether a specific technology, such as the Internet, has actually caused those behaviours.   Do some people have problems with spending too much time online? Sure they do. Some people also spend too much time reading, watching television, and working, and ignore family, friendships, and social activities. But do we have TV addiction disorder, book addiction, and work addictionbeing suggested as legitimate mental disorders in the same category as schizophrenia and depression? I think not. It's the tendency of some mental health professionals and researchers to want to label everything they see as potentially harmful with a new diagnostic category. Unfortunately, this causes more harm than it helps people.
What most people online who think they are addicted are probably suffering from is the desire to not want to deal with other problems in their lives. Those problems may be a mental disorder (depression, anxiety, etc.), social isolation, high pressure lifestyles or relationship problems. It is no different than turning on the TV so you won't have to talk to your spouse, or going "out for a big one"  so you don't have to spend time at home. Nothing is different except the modality.

What some very few people who indulge in too much screen time without any other problems  maysuffer from is compulsiveover-use. Not to downplay this over-use, compulsive behaviours  are already covered by existing diagnostic categories..Process addictions of any kind have the ability to cause serious consequences just as substance addiction and are always to be taken seriously. It's not however, the technology (whether it be the Internet, a book, the telephone, or the television) that is important  - it's the behaviour. Unhelpful or challenging behaviours are always treatable.

Posted by Aly Birmingham Geats

extracts from http://psychcentral.com/netaddiction/

Self Help Groups in and around the North Shore

               Self Help Groups in and around the North Shore

For a full list of AA  meetings in and around Northern Beaches go to:
 http://www.aa.org.aufindameeting/index.php

For a full list of NA meetings in and aroung Northern Beaches go to: http://www.naoz.org.au/community/index.php

Smart Recovery meetings are also held on Northern Beaches and North Shore. Please give us a call for further info or support  on 94890250 or visit our website at:
counsellingnorthside.com.au

Long Term Addiction Recovery - what should it look like?

What is the long term goal in recovery?

Be honest with yourself in terms of how much growth you have made in the last 30 days, the last 90 days, the last year. Are meetings pushing you forward, or are they keeping you stagnant?

If you are not getting inspired growth and continuous progress based on your meeting attendance, then it is possibly time to redefine your recovery path. It can be easy to coast along, become stagnant, but because you have not relapsed you forget there is more.... Are you really growing?

The point of recovery is to recover a life of purpose and meaningful growth. There is a tendency in 12 steps to focus on one type of growth - spiritual growth.  Holistic growth however  is the key to a successful life in recovery, and it does include the idea of spiritual growth.

If you have mastered the basics in recovery, sitting in meetings too often can become an excuse for inaction. Your real priority in recovery should shift to one of personal growth. New goals should appear in your life or you should find more meaning and purpose in other ways. .Keep going to meetings in long term recovery but don’t do it because you NEED to in order to stay sober. If that is the case, your recovery needs work.

Meetings are great but dependency on meetings after long term recovery is not good and can create a mental background of fear. Growth is the goal, not just stability.

Aly Birmingham Geats
Coach, counsellor and therapist on Sydneys upper North Shore