Addiction Recovery Australia: dealing with trauma

Showing posts with label dealing with trauma. Show all posts

Friday, 24 April 2015

Binge Drinking and the Effects on Your Immune System

At Loyola University Health System study has found another reason to not binge drink alcohol.

Binge drinking, researchers found, could change the body’s immune system response to orthopaedic injury. “This tremendously complicates the trauma care of these patients,” said bone biologist John Callaci, PhD, senior author of the study.

The study, which was based on a rodent model, is being published in the April 20, 2011 issue of the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, now available online.

An earlier study in the American Journal of Orthopedics found that 41 percent of patients with fractures and dislocations had alcohol in their blood and 30 percent were legally drunk.

Other studies have found that alcohol in trauma patients is associated with longer hospital stays, higher infection rates, higher injury severity scores and an increased mortality rate. Researchers have attributed these findings, in part, to changes alcohol causes in the immune response.

Following an injury, such as a broken bone, the immune system revs up, producing an inflammatory response. This is a normal response to injury. But in cases of severe injury or multiple traumatic injuries, the inflammatory response can overwhelm the body and cause life-threatening conditions such as multiple organ failure and acute respiratory distress syndrome, said orthopaedic surgeon Dr. Benjamin William Sears, first author of the Loyola study. (Sears was a Loyola resident when the study was conducted, and today is a fellow at Thomas Jefferson University.

In emergency cases involving severe injuries or multiple traumas, orthopaedic surgery can boost the inflammatory response. One of the factors surgeons consider when determining the best time to perform surgery is the inflammatory response — if the response is too great, the surgery can be delayed. A measure of the inflammatory response is chemical markers in the blood, such as interleukin-6 (Il-6).

Findings from the Loyola study, however, indicate that measuring such blood markers may be misleading when alcohol is involved.

In the study, one group of rats underwent the equivalent of a weekend bender. For three days in a row, they were injected with alcohol that raised their blood alcohol content to the equivalent of 2.5 times the legal limit for driving. In some of the rats, the femur bones of their hind legs were broken. (The rats were put under anesthesia and later given pain medication, and pins were placed in their legs to enable them to walk and feed.)

Binge alcohol exposure had a contradictory effect on the immune system of the rats with broken legs. When researchers looked at chemical markers in the blood, it appeared that alcohol suppressed the inflammatory response. But when researchers looked in the lungs, they found the opposite effect — alcohol boosted the inflammatory response.

It’s thus possible that measuring markers in the blood of intoxicated patients could give doctors a false sense of security, Sears said.

Callaci added: “It may look like it’s safe to do surgery based on markers in the blood, even when you have a raging inflammatory response in the lungs.”

Of course, the timing and magnitude of the inflammatory response following injury may be different in rats than it is in humans. The study’s findings “will provide a platform to design clinical-based studies to further understand this important phenomenon in critically injured patients,” researchers wrote.

Callaci is an assistant professor and director of the Molecular and Cellular Bone Biology Laboratory at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine. Other co-authors are orthopaedic surgeons Dr. Michael Stover and Dr. Dustin Volkmer, pathologist Dr. Sherri Yong, research assistant Ryan Himes and graduate student Kristen Lauing.

The study was supported in part by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. It is among the studies conducted by Loyola’s Alcohol Research Program, which includes about 50 faculty members, technicians, postdoctoral fellows and students. The program, funded by grants from the National Institutes of Health and other sources, centers on research, education and prevention.

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE IS IN THE GRIPS OF AN ADDICTION CALL US TODAY FOR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. PHONE 07 560 66315

Web: www.coachingwithsubstance.org.au

Email: info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au

ABOUT COACHING WITH SUBSTANCE (WINNER Best Not-for-Profit 2014)

We are Australia's leading award winning addiction treatment and rehab consultants for gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, eating and internet addiction, along with eating behavioural disorders and co-dependency for Australasia and New Zealand. Call us on 07 5606 6315 if you want to speak to an Addiction Specialist.

Our Founder, Maria Pau is a 4x No. 1 best-selling author on the subjects of addiction and co-dependency and spiritual wellness. She is the Program Director of Coaching with Substance, the first of its kind in Australia as registered public benevolent institution, charity and not-for profit association that focuses on wellness using coaching principles of peak performance. She is currently completing her PhD on Recovery Coaching and is the first registered Recovery Coach in Australia.

We run a cutting edge holistic addiction treatment program and outpatient rehabilitation consultancy firm that ensures you are released from the shackles of addiction once and for all. Primary care at CWS is personalised to treat each individual using programs that integrate mind, body and soul. CWS programs are enhanced by highly effective group coaching and therapeutic processes as well as individual coaching, spiritual insights, therapy and extensive aftercare assistance.

All clients are thoroughly assessed by a highly trained and experienced recovery coach, registered provisional psychologist, ordained Taoist Monk, mental health officer and certified naturopaths (including Ayurveda and Acupuncturist). Clients may also be referred for psychometric testing and assessment, if needed. International clients welcome.

We welcome enquiries from all English speaking people from Asia, Europe, Africa, India and South America.

Thursday, 23 April 2015

Are You In An Abusive Relationship?

Are you in an abusive relationship?

An alcoholic or addictive relationship may be marred by abuse. This symptom list may raise ones awareness of the problem.

There are many signs of an abusive relationship. The primary sign is fear of your partner. Other signs include a partner who belittles you or tries to control you, and feelings of self-loathing, numbness, helplessness, and desperation.

To determine whether or not you’re in an abusive relationship, answer the questions in the table below. The more questions to which you answer “yes,” the more likely your relationship is abusive.

Signs of an Abusive Relationship

Your Inner Feelings and Thoughts

Do you :

fear your partner a large percentage of the time?
avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner?
ever think you deserve to be physically hurt or mistreated?
sometimes wonder if you are the one who is crazy?
feel afraid that your partner may try to hurt or kill you?
feel afraid that your partner will try to take your children away?
feel emotionally numb or helpless?
think that domestic violence seems normal to you?

Your Partner’s Violent or Threatening Behaviour

Has your partner ever:

had a bad and unpredictable temper?
hurt you, or threatened to hurt or kill you?
threatened to take your children away, especially if you try to leave?
threatened to commit suicide, especially as a way of keeping you from leaving?
forced you to have sex when you didn’t want to?
destroyed your belongings or household objects?

Your Partner’s Controlling Behaviour

Does your partner:

try to keep you from seeing your friends or family?
make you embarrassed to invite friends or family over to your house?
limit your access to money, the telephone, or the car?
act excessively jealous and possessive?
try to stop you from going where you want to go or doing what you want to do?
check up on you, including where you’ve been or who you’ve been with?

Your Partner’s Belittlement of You

Does your partner:

verbally abuse you?
humiliate or criticise you in front of others?
often ignore you or put down your opinions or contributions?
blame you for their own violent behavior?
objectify and disrespect those of your gender?
see you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?

IF YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE IS IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP, CALL US TODAY FOR IMMEDIATE ASSISTANCE. PHONE 07 560 66315

Web: www.coachingwithsubstance.org.au

Email: info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au

We welcome enquiries from all English speaking people from Asia, Europe, Africa, India and South America.

Monday, 3 November 2014

Dealing with Trauma

The cost of SILENCE dealing with trauma:

We have a human need to confess and to share our feelings.

By Maria Pau of Coaching With Substance.

There are examples throughout cultures of the various types of confession - ranging from dream sharing in African tribes to confession rituals in North and South American tribal cultures, as well as confession in the church and a preponderance of support groups in our culture.

According to James Pennebaker, author of 'Opening Up' and researcher on the physical effects of withholding versus expression of emotion, inhibition has three serious effects on us physically.

Inhibition is physical work:

when people actively inhibit their thoughts, feelings and behaviour, they have to exert significant effort to restrain and hold back feeling. In the case of emotional inhibition, the work is constant. Inhibition affects short-term biological changes and long-term health.

Inhibition is a cumulative stressor:

In the short term, inhibiting feelings results in immediate physical changes such as increased

perspiration, which can be measured through methods such as lie detector tests. "Over time, the work of inhibition serves as a cumulative stressed on the body, increasing the probability of illness and other stress related physical and psychological problems. Active inhibition can be viewed as one of many general stressors that affect the mind and body. Obviously, the harder one must work at inhibiting, the greater the stress on the body"

(Pennebaker).

Inhibition Influences Thinking Abilities

When we inhibit parts of our thinking and feeling, we are not able to think through significant events in our lives. Hence, we are prevented from understanding and then integrating that understanding into the larger context of our life pattern. "By not talking about an inhibited event,

for example, we usually do not translate the event into language. This prevents us from understanding and assimilating the event. Consequently, significant experiences that are inhibited are likely to surface in the forms of

ruminations, dreams and associated thought disturbances"

(Pennebaker).

The Role of Confrontation

Pennebaker has also found that, "Confrontation reduces the effects of

inhibition," reversing the detrimental physiological problems that result

from inhibition. When we make a lifestyle of openly confronting painful

feelings and we "resolve the trauma, there will be a lowering of the

overall stress on the body."

Confrontation "forces a rethinking of events. Confronting a trauma helps

people understand and, ultimately, assimilate the

event. By talking or writing about previously inhibited experiences, people

translate the event into language. Once it is language-based, they can better

understand the experience and ultimately put it behind them" (Pennebaker).

This is a crucial part of developing the emotional literacy necessary for

recovery.

The Long-Term Effect of Childhood Trauma

Pennebaker's research was done with a research team which examined the progress of people who lost spouses by suicide or suddenly through accidental death—that is, recent traumas—as well as childhood trauma such as sexual abuse that occurred early in life.

He found that childhood traumas affect overall health more than traumas that occurred within the last three

years, due to the cumulative stress on the body through long-term inhibition of feelings. When traumas are not resolved, they are not converted into

language, thought about and integrated into our overall pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving.

The obvious result of this, as I have observed over years of clinical experience, is that clients arrive at therapy, say in their mid-thirties, feeling as if their lives are puzzles with significant pieces missing. They may have trouble settling on a life's direction. They may be experiencing problems in

intimate relationships, or the thought of a long-term committed relationship overwhelms them.

Intimate relationships trigger unresolved pain from the past. Early childhood traumas such as sexual abuse, physical abuse, divorce - or seemingly lesser traumas such as being ignored or misunderstood by those whom we most wish to understand us and are dependent upon for our sense of healthy

connectedness - lie dormant within us if our coping style has been inhibition rather than confrontation and disclosure. Then the pain gets triggered without the understanding and self-awareness that we would have, had we gradually and over time resolved our feelings related to the trauma.

The result of this is often a projection of early pain into the current relationship. That is, we see the trigger event or our current intimacy as the problem in and of itself. All too often it follows that our idea of the solution or way out of the pain is to dump or exit the relationship.

The deep excavating work of therapy is to make conscious these early wounds and convert them into words so that they can be felt and understood - to use the skills of emotional literacy. Only then can we place them in their proper perspective, giving them a context (where, when and how), so we can integrate them back into ourselves with understanding as to what happened and what meaning we made out of them, that we currently live by.

In Australia childhood trauma such as sexual and physical abuse and especially emotional abandonment in early development is rampant and for most part untreated. Hence our extremely high rates of Addiction, Codependency, Depression, Suicide, ADHD and ADD, as well as high rates of

relationship and family breakdown. Our true stats are a disgrace. Its time for some serious action.

If you or someone you love relates to this information call us at COACHING WITH SUBSTANCE (CWS) INTERVENTIONS PHONE 07 5606 6315 FOR IMMEDIATE HELP (7days).

Email: info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au