National Depression Screening Day is October 10, 2024
National Depression Screening Day takes place annually on October 10th. This year, we at Villa Kali Ma are sharing our support for the advocacy campaign, as we recognize the importance of raising the profile of depression in the light of public attention.
Depression is a very painful form of mental illness affecting millions of people. Sadly enough, reports indicate that depression is on the rise, with no small number of sufferers succumbing to suicide as a result.
We know the heartache of depression from the inside, and we know that there is a cure. It is possible to reconnect with the spark of life, even after we and everyone else have started to think our flame has gone fully out. No one is beyond help, and that’s the truth.
But to get that help, we have to know that there is a name for what’s wrong with us and that there is a solution for it. Depression, as horrible as it is, is actually not a death sentence (or need not be). Depression is, compared to some forms of mental illness, rather responsive to treatment. When the right kind of contact is made, human to human, and the right kind of help for a depressed person is able to be administered in the way they need, things can be turned around into their opposite (a life of joy!).
All in all, this October 10th, we here at Villa Kali Ma are very interested to further explore and reflect on how we can all participate in healing depression, nationwide.
What is National Depression Screening Day?
National Depression Screening Day is an action campaign dedicated to the topic of depression, the debilitating and deadly mental health condition affecting more and more Americans each year.
Since not everyone manifests depression symptoms in the same way, it sometimes takes a screening for the condition to be recognizable to a sufferer or their loved ones. Testing can validate and support a person’s ability to have compassion for themselves and to take their own suffering seriously.
Teenagers and adults, men and women, and people in different population categories around the globe may experience and express their depression differently, based on many biological and social factors. Therefore diagnostic tools like a depression screen can be helpful as one measure to potentially indicate the presence of a serious mental health condition.
How to observe National Depression Screening Day?
In our opinion, the best way to observe National Depression Screening Day is to participate in the dialogue about the topic.
Are you familiar with depression yourself (we are!)? If yes, what was it like for you? If you’re no longer depressed now, how did you turn it around? What did you do, who helped you? What did you need to realize about yourself, the world, and your place within it, to be able to come back to the surface of life?
Or maybe you have loved and been close with someone who had depression. What was that like for you? How did you try, succeed, or fail to help them? What feelings does the chronic, unchanging sadness or low spirits of another bring up for you?
If you’re a mental health practitioner or even just a willing ally, you may want to take a depression screening yourself, to learn more about the signs and symptoms.
We always suggest a deep dive into the positive, too: look into the many cures both holistic and mainstream, which are currently used for depression. Ponder the world of solutions, the promising data, for example coming out of the trauma research field, or the use of so-called “nutraceuticals”.
What conclusions you reach are yours, but form a personal opinion about the topic, and engage!
What are the signs to know it’s sadness, not depression?
Depression is different from mourning, grief, and sadness. Although they can feel very similar, and depression can involve many of the same symptoms as grief – sadness, crying a lot, isolating, halting self-care, and needing to sleep more – the key difference is that depression is not a temporary feeling or mood in reaction to circumstances.
Rather, depression is a lingering, or chronic state in which we become trapped in lowered levels of mood, with less energy, loss of hope in the future, and diminished enjoyment in the now. It is frequently accompanied by a desire to die or to commit self-harm.
One way to check whether it’s depression or sadness is to see if there is a life circumstance present, in which it would be expected to feel that way, such as after a loss of a loved one or a serious life change. When we feel blue, sad, low-energy feelings even when we “should” be feeling ok, or when that is essentially our baseline no matter what’s going on externally, that can be a sign that it’s depression rather than sadness.
Why is National Depression Screening Day important?
The painful truth about untreated depression is that it can and often does end in death by suicide. This is a risk we cannot afford to ignore, nor to minimize. When symptoms of depression are not noticed nor taken care of, the deep troubles within, which are currently coming out as depression symptoms, can become more dangerous and turn into violence against the self.
Screening for depression can save lives. As the saying goes, “Name it to tame it”. Screening for depression can help name the darkness, which begins the process of healing it.
Villa Kali Ma Supports National Depression Screening Day
At Villa Kali Ma, we are in favor of screening for depression more frequently, especially in vulnerable populations like teenagers, people with addiction, and the elderly, to help raise awareness and understanding of depression, and to help find a cure.
There are many remedies to depression, ranging from exercise to diet to psychotherapy, which can help touch a person and bring them into the circle of light from out of their dark isolation.
It is heartbreaking to consider how many people feel the way depressed people feel. We are deeply motivated to help shift this, as a part of our mission to support and protect women’s mental health.
This October, we honor World Mental Health Day. October 10th is the day set aside annually to reflect on mental health, and how we can support it to shine and thrive all over the world. This year’s theme is “It is Time To Prioritize Mental Health in the Workplace”. It sure is, isn’t it?
What is World Mental Health Day?
World Mental Health Day is an awareness campaign intended to raise consciousness and educate about mental health topics around the globe. Its goal is partly to help share stories and experiences of people with mental health struggles, and to reduce stigma and isolation through creating conversations and making connections.
The day is also intended to help share ideas and solutions for how to live with more mental health on the whole, as a collective – something we can all continue to work on, as the madness of the world plainly shows!
The day is also purposed to help raise the standard of care applied to those with serious and chronic mental health conditions, the people most affected by the field of mental health.
What is the history of World Mental Health Day?
World Mental Health Day was established in 1992 by the World Federation of Mental Health. Led by then-deputy secretary general Richard Hunter, the purpose of the day of awareness and action was to advocate for mental health, globally.
In recognition of substandard treatment of those with mental health struggles in some portions of the world, as well as a global level of mental health crisis affecting humanity, plus widespread ignorance about mental health issues, the idea was to focus on the topic and bring solutions to the fore.
For the first few years after its founding, World Mental Health Day was honored by way of a multinational broadcast sharing information and messages related to mental health advocacy. Starting in 1994, World Mental Health Day had annual themes. The first theme was “Improving the Quality of Mental Health Services throughout the World”.
Over the years, more and more countries have participated through advocacy related events and action plans. It is in large part a result of efforts related to World Mental Health Day that understanding and acceptance of mental health concerns has grown around the world.
What are some FAQ’s about World Mental Health Day?
Here are some questions that people commonly have about mental health.
What causes mental illness?
Mental illness is currently believed to be partly biological or genetic in origin, and partly caused by life circumstances and experiences. In particular, the role of trauma – not only from singular shocking experiences but also from more chronic conditions like neglect and abuse – in creating mental health disorders later on in life is receiving more and more attention.
Poor nutrition from the modern American diet, the stress of poverty and living in polluted areas, and exposure to environmental toxins through agricultural practices and other use of chemicals to manufacture products we use daily, is also being studied as a possible factor in mental health conditions.
How do I know if I have a mental illness?
Consult a professional. It is fine to do preliminary research on your own, of course, but we do suggest that you be mindful that many symptoms of mental illness are relatable to all. We all experience some problems focusing our attention, some mood struggles, and chronic tension, for example.
However, when your thoughts, feelings, and struggles to stay balanced represent a serious disruption to your life, (including your ability to make a living for yourself and have relationships with others) something may be out of balance, which could be addressed holistically and/or clinically.
It can be very helpful to be given a diagnostic name for your particular kind of struggles, such as Major Depression or Generalized Anxiety Disorder, as long as you don’t overidentify with the diagnosis and take it to define you totally.
How can I help someone who has a mental illness?
Follow the golden rule of “how do I like to be treated?” Most people would like to be treated the same as everyone else, and not to be marginalized or made out to be overly fragile or different.
You cannot lose when you apply empathy, curiosity, and show willingness to learn more about what a person is experiencing, without applying judgment or attempting to fix them.
It’s generally best not to give advice or to tell someone to look on the bright side, or that everything will be ok, as this tends to give the message that we are not comfortable with their suffering. Connect, engage, and show that you have no need to judge someone, and the person will most likely feel safe to tell you more about what it’s like to be them.
How to observe World Mental Health Day?
The best way to observe World Mental Health Day is to do our best to have good mental health ourselves. Once our own mental health is relatively secure, we can speak and share more with others about what it takes to have healthy thoughts, emotions and bodies. Here are three things we can try, this year, as a part of celebrating World Mental Health:
1. Double Your Self Care
This year, see what you can do to strengthen your own self care practices. Can you eat cleaner, exercise more, spend more time outside? Can you turn off your phone, clean your clutter, or take an art class? With whom in your life can you connect, heart to heart? With whom can you play or laugh? What is that makes you feel balanced, centered, whole, alive, and heart-awakened? Do that, more!
2. Practice Boundaries
Mental Health thrives in an environment of healthy interpersonal boundaries. This year, what can you do to strengthen the lines that helpfully differentiate you from another? Where can you say no more? Where can you allow yourself to stop taking responsibility for another, but instead take more responsibility for you? Boundaries are the golden ticket to mental health.
3. Practice Self-Responsible Communication
Mental Health does best in an environment of kind observation of the mind and emotions, rather than acting out our impulses and behaviors without knowing our motivation. This year, practice self-observation through meditation or journaling, then practice communicating your truth to another! How can you talk about what you need, what you want, and what you’re feeling as a result of those wants and needs? To learn more about communicating cleanly, dig into non-violent communication.
Why is World Mental Health Day important?
Although a lot of progress has been made in raising awareness about mental health epidemics we are facing, collectively, we are still a long way off from being healthy and happy in our species at large.
It is important to continue to cultivate compassion and create spaces of dialogue around the variety of human experiences, what is different about us and perhaps even more importantly, what we have in common.
We all want to be free and sufficiently supported to live life in the way that we personally would define as “happiness”. How can we ensure that right for every single member of the human race, whether we personally approve of their choices or not?
How might we improve our ability to include, to embrace, to recognize our own self in the other? What will it take to stop marginalizing, splitting, and dividing into groups that turn on each other?
These are questions to ponder, that will help lead us to the unity of heart and spirit that is necessary to grow past mental illness and into health and happiness as a collective.
Villa Kali Ma Supports World Mental Health Day
As a holistic mental health care provider dedicated to serving women, Villa Kali Ma supports World Mental Health Day fully. We encourage everyone to participate in whatever way speaks to them, to spread awareness and raise consciousness. For us, this year we carry on walking the long, meaningful road towards total health in the minds, bodies and spirits of women everywhere.
Polycystic ovary syndrome, or polycystic ovarian syndrome, (PCOS), is a common endocrine disorder affecting women in their reproductive years. The name of the syndrome comes from accompanying cysts formed on the ovaries, though the cysts are not the cause of the disorder and aren’t always present.
Lifestyle choices that improve diet, sleep, mindfulness and exercise are the best ways to address PCOS naturally. Symptoms can be alleviated through eating differently, sleeping better, regulating the nervous system through meditation, and in general aligning more to nature’s cycles.
Diet includes beverages, such as alcohol. Women with PCOS might be wondering, does drinking alcohol affect my PCOS?
Does drinking alcohol make PCOS symptoms worse?
Regular alcohol intake can be a negative force in the story of any woman’s health, and PCOS is no exception.
One factor to consider is weight. The majority of women suffering with PCOS also struggle with weight, and find that their symptoms are helped by losing 5 to 10% of their body weight. Eliminating alcohol is one way to lose weight without having to eat a lot less.
Alcohol also affects blood sugar levels, which has an impact on insulin resistance. Insulin resistance is correlated to PCOS.
Insulin resistance means that a person’s body resists the effects of insulin. The body’s mechanism for lowering blood sugar levels works poorly, leading to the body producing extra insulin.
Increased insulin levels leads to an increase in androgen production, a hormone which all bodies need but which can exacerbate PCOS symptoms when in found in the body in excess. The increase in painful PCOS symptoms in turn can lead to cravings and affect healthy food choices, leading to excess food intake, therefore weight gain.
Women with PCOS tend to experience more depression, anxiety and stress. Alcohol contributes to depression, anxiety and stress, too, acutely during hangovers and also as a longer term effect.
Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease is correlated with PCOS. Women with PCOS have an increased prevalence of NAFLD. Although this condition isn’t caused by alcohol – it comes from high blood sugar levels, insulin resistance, obesity, and high levels of fats in the blood – alcohol makes NAFLD worse and people with NAFLD are advised not to drink alcohol at all, because of the potential for further liver damage.
Sleep disturbances are also linked to PCOS, as is alcohol. Given the critical importance of sleep to restoring all body systems, poor sleep caused by alcohol use is a risk factor for worsening PCOS symptoms, as well. Healthy patterns of sufficient sleep are a key way to reduce PCOS pain.
In sum, alcohol consumption can be said to affect PCOS negatively, making symptoms worse, through worsening insulin levels, sleep, mood, NAFLD and body weight.
Does alcohol affect insulin levels?
Insulin levels are impacted adversely by alcohol, because of the way that alcohol effects blood sugar.
Moderate alcohol intake causes blood sugar to rise, while excessive alcohol intake can cause blood sugar levels to crash, both of which further trigger imbalances which the body struggles to correct through manufacturing hormones in excess.
The hormone insulin helps regulate blood sugar in the body, keeping levels in the range of what is healthy for the body’s many complex and subtle operations.
In about half of women with PCOS, insulin resistance is a problem that’s contributing to painful symptoms. This means the body doesn’t respond to insulin as well as it could and therefore is producing an overabundance of the hormone in order to process sugar, resulting in exceptionally high levels of insulin in the blood.
When we drink alcohol and change our blood sugar levels, this triggers impacts in insulin production, especially when we already have an insulin response problem, as women with PCOS do.
Does alcohol affect hormone levels?
Alcohol consumption affects hormones negatively. It increases estrogen levels and causes progesterone levels to sink.
Since hormone levels are already a factor with PCOS, leading to menstrual irregularities and other painful symptoms, many women decide that these alcohol risks are not worth it.
Does alcohol affect fertility for women with PCOS?
Anyone hoping to have a baby soon or someday should be aware that alcohol can affect fertility in anyone, including women with PCOS.
Alcohol use in general makes it harder to get pregnant, and even after stopping alcohol use, some women’s fertility may be impacted in the longer term by having used alcohol in excess.
Alcohol is believed to reduce the number of eggs a woman has in her ovarian reserve, and also affects menstrual cycle and ovulation. Alcohol also disturbs estrogen and progesterone levels.
Should you stop drinking alcohol if you have PCOS?
Choosing to stop drinking alcohol is a highly personal decision. Only you can look into your heart and know whether you are willing and ready to give up the socially lubricating or emotionally-numbing effects of alcohol, and to find different ways to live happily, without that particular substance being in your life. The path of sobriety is beautiful, rewarding, and at times difficult, even when we have really good reasons to be sober.
We here at Villa Kali Ma favor sobriety highly. In our opinion, life sober is better for a million reasons. Physical health and taking good care of our precious bodies is only one of them. We also count brighter minds, more loving hearts, connected spirits, and meaningful lives (all things considered!) as privileges we earn through protecting our sobriety first and foremost.
For women with PCOS, there seem to be many advantages to taking alcohol out of your diet if you can. Alcohol’s effects on blood sugar levels, liver, hormones, and mood alone are good enough reasons to boot it out of your body. An extra consideration for your decision process, if you do have PCOS, is that many mainstream Western medications, including the diabetes medication Metformin, are rendered essentially ineffective by alcohol, or may have negative interactions.
All in all, each woman must decide for herself what her relationship to alcohol will be. Life is designed to be challenging no matter what, with or without alcohol. But we have many choices that can strengthen or weaken us, including the option to limit known negative factors that just make everything worse.
Villa Kali Ma Can Assist Women With Alcohol Addiction
At Villa Kali Ma, we specialize in helping women to recover from trauma, addiction and mental and emotional pain, freeing them up to live happy, wakeful lives in sobriety.
We offer addiction and mental health recovery programs to treat substance abuse and co-occurring mental health disorders, as well as trauma, in dedicated holistic facilities that unite the best of Western approaches with ancient practices like Yoga and Ayurveda.
Did you know that most medicines used today were originally inspired by ingredients found growing naturally in the wild? Many commonplace seeds, fruits, leaves, roots, bark, flowers, resins, and other parts of plants, trees, and mushrooms carry powerful healing properties.
Before the rise of Western medicine, humanity relied heavily on nature’s pharmacy for cures, remedies, and ways to lessen our ordinary life pain, discomfort, and imbalances. In those days, it was understood that nature could help not only with physical illnesses but also with disturbances of the soul, like melancholy or agitation.
Today, science has helped us to understand more about how the active ingredients in certain plants work together with our bodily chemistry, neurotransmitters, and hormones, to help us recover a state of mental health. When we’re depressed, anxious, possessed by an addiction, or otherwise disturbed from our naturally happy state, we can look to nature’s many medicines for help.
What are the best herbs for mental health?
Many good types of herbs and plant extracts can help improve mental health. Which herbs to use depends on the imbalance you are hoping to correct. Lavender, for example, treats anxiety, while St. John’s Wort is used for depression.
Adaptogens represent an important class of natural medicines for mental health. Adaptogens include a variety of plants: roots like rhodiola and ashwagandha, mushrooms like Lion’s Mane, and herbs like Holy Basil are considered adaptogens. Adaptogens help the body respond to stress and normalize, generating more resilience in the face of life’s demands.
What are complementary and alternative medicines?
Complementary and alternative medicines are paths to approaching illness that lie outside of the mainstream Western medicine model. They work well in tandem with Western medicines most of the time and are generally not considered to be replacements for Western medicine, especially in emergencies. They are generally applied best in reasonably healthy bodies, to improve functioning and strengthen.
Some commonly used complementary and alternative medicines are herbs, often prepared as a tea, such as calendula flower tea, vitamins like Vitamin D, minerals like selenium or magnesium, nutritional supplements, such as fish oil, as well as certain nutrient-dense whole foods or superfoods, like sauerkraut or blueberries.
For people who are basically healthy, these natural medicines are often sufficient alone to correct imbalances, strengthen immunity, and improve neuronal and hormonal pathways.
It’s important with any medicine, natural or synthetic, to pay close attention to the body’s reaction, to listen to one’s intuition and feeling, and to stop a cure if it is creating pain or having bad effects. Every person is different and not all cures are right for everyone. Healing is always a somewhat exploratory path and should be engaged in with caution and presence.
How have complementary and alternative medicines helped with mental health?
Complementary and alternative medicines are often anecdotally reported to be effective for a range of mental health disturbances. Anecdotal evidence is offered by people speaking to their own experience, as well as by alternative health practitioners. These reports suggest that what was once known by all to be self-evidently true, that plants can help by lifting one’s mood, calming one’s nervous system, and helping the body to release stress, is still true today.
From a data perspective, however, it must be said that most natural medicinal cures have not been studied at scale nor with scientific rigor, for example with double-blind tests and a control group. The funding does not exist for such studies to be conducted, and there is little financial motivation to prove the beneficial effects, given that other medicines are more lucrative.
Of the existing studies and anecdotal evidence, we know the most about how herbs can support people with depression, anxiety, sleep disturbances, and stress.
How to use the medicines safely?
Although complementary and alternative medicines are natural, they are still potent. It is important to be careful to pay attention to dosage and to monitor your body as it responds to the cure you are introducing.
Ideally, work with a knowledgeable, experienced natural medicines practitioner, and consider all context clues and possibilities. Interact with your body as you would with a friend you love and care about.
When the body is manifesting an imbalance, even something like anxiety or depression, understand that the symptoms themselves contain a lot of information pointing to a deeper concern that we would like to resolve, not suppress or brush off.
Most natural medicines are relatively safe, with very few side effects, but nevertheless, you do not want to overload the body with a new chemical agent, even a natural one.
Apply common sense – don’t try creating natural medicines on your own without being sure you are sufficiently trained, follow instructions, be wary of wonder cures (if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is), learn from the experiences of others, and don’t give remedies to children without consulting someone experienced and knowledgeable.
Also, it is important to be aware that some self-help or alternative health gurus push their products for financial gain, rather than for your best interest. Listen to your gut and don’t fall for pushy sales tactics.
The best natural medicines are widely available and do not need to be very expensively produced. That said, pay attention to things like whether or not the product is organic, wild-harvested, how it has been extracted, and whether any chemicals have been used or added. We can only ever do our best, but it stands to reason that what we put in our bodies should be the highest quality we can procure, ideally.
What are herbal medicines and supplements?
Herbal remedies are natural medicines made from plants. Examples of herbal remedies are echinacea (commonly used to support the immune system to fight off colds in winter) or Valerian root (a preparation used to help calm the nervous system, aiding with anxiety).
Depending on the herb, remedies may be taken as a tea, as a powder (usually dissolved in water or juice), as a tincture, or as a topical balm or cream.
The term supplements refers to a category that includes minerals, vitamins, and animal-derived products like bone broth or cod liver oil.
Natural medicines usually have a recommended daily maximum, and it is important not to exceed that amount unless you are working with a practitioner whom you trust, and who believes it necessary for your case. Anything used in excess could have negative effects on the body.
It’s important to be aware that some natural medicines interfere with or negatively interact with some conventional medicines, so please be careful with supplements and do your research if you are taking a conventional pharmaceutical, and vice versa.
What herbal medicines and supplements assist with brain function?
There is a class of herbal medicines and supplements called cognitive enhancers, which support the brain to stay healthy. These are used for supporting memory functions and normalizing other brain pathways, to help us stay mentally sharp and flexible. Ginko (ginkgo biloba) and ginseng (Panax ginseng) are two herbs that are commonly used for this purpose, and sage is another option.
Ginko
Ginko is an extract made from seeds and leaves of the ginkgo tree, originally Chinese. It is used to help improve concentration, focus, and memory, and has an application in supporting those with dementia or other forms of cognitive decline.
Ginseng
Ginseng is a plant grown in many corners of the world. Korean ginseng, or Panax ginseng, is the kind of ginseng most commonly used as an herbal remedy. It is believed to help with memory and mental performance.
Sage
Sage is a wild shrub also grown domestically, the oils of which are frequently used in aromatherapy. Sage is used as an herbal remedy to help with brain function, but it is also believed to help with both anxiety and depression.
What herbal medicines help with anxiety and insomnia?
Anxiety is commonly treated with herbal remedies, as are sleep problems. The body may respond well to the relaxing effects of many of nature’s medicines.
There are many choices when it comes to soothing anxiety with herbs, roots, and flowers, including passionflower, valerian, Rhodiola, hops, German chamomile, lemon balm, holy basil, gotu kola, ashwagandha, and lavender.
There is a certain subtype of herbal medicine called flower remedies, which some people have found to be very helpful, particularly for anxiety. Rescue Remedy, a popular flower remedy, is used to help with stress.
Many of the natural remedies for anxiety are also helpful during drug withdrawal, such as lavender and passionflower.
What herbal medicines help with depression and bipolar disorder?
People seeking support for depression and bipolar disorder have a variety of options in the natural medicine category.
One herb, St. John’s Wort, is commonly used to help to protect against low mood.
Minerals are usually also recommended for those struggling with depression, as selenium and vitamin D in particular have been reported to help stabilize mood and lessen the severity of lows, perhaps related to their role in the reduction of inflammation.
Folic acid is a vitamin that is almost always recommended for people struggling with depression, and an animal-derived supplement (also available in vegan form, from flax seeds) to help with boosting Omega-3 fatty acids (fish oil supplementation) is often advised and found to be helpful, as well.
Dramatically improving diet and nutrition (alongside exercising more) is one of the clearest paths to improving depression and bipolar disorder naturally. Many herbal remedies come in the form of superfoods, such as blueberries, nuts and seeds, and salmon.
A promising area of research includes supplementation with amino acids, like L-tryptophan and 5 hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP), as these substances are precursors to serotonin, an important neurotransmitter that is believed to affect depression. Some patients and practitioners of functional medicine report positive results using these amino acids to target mood disorders.
Finally, many of the same herbs recommended for anxiety are also advised for people struggling with depression, as the two conditions are related. In particular, adaptogens like ginger, turmeric, holy basil, Rhodiola, and ashwagandha are believed to be powerful in the treatment of both depression and anxiety, through the way that they reprogram the body’s response to stress, thereby building resilience.
Which herbal medicines help with addiction?
Drugs and alcohol must be eliminated from the body before any kind of healing can take place, natural or otherwise. Some herbs help with the withdrawal process, relieving anxiety and distress, and strengthening certain key organs, like the heart and the spleen, to recover after the many stressors of addiction.
Valerian, passionflower, and St. John’s Wort are believed to help emotionally during withdrawals, through the same mechanism that makes them good supports for healing depression and anxiety. Kudzu, or Japanese arrowroot flowers, may help stay calm during withdrawal from alcohol.
Addiction to alcohol, as well as the withdrawal process, is very rough on the body. Several herbal remedies are recommended for helping the body to recover after prolonged use of toxic substances.
A tincture of hawthorn berries can be taken to strengthen the heart, during and after withdrawals. Dandelion is another herb that has many health benefits, in particular, due to its detoxifying effects. It is useful during detoxification from drugs and alcohol for that reason, supporting the spleen to be cleansed.
The liver is another key organ affected by drugs and in particular alcohol – for cleansing the liver milk thistle is a supportive herbal remedy. Burdock root is a powerful detoxifier, helpful in particular for the kidneys.
Villa Kali Ma Supports Herbs for Mental Health and Addiction for Women
At Villa Kali Ma, we are big believers in the many abundant cures offered by nature to help us recover lives of meaning and purpose.
Our unique program offers addiction and mental health recovery paths for women who suffer from substance abuse and co-occurring disorders, and we integrate natural health into every aspect of our program. From diet to nutrition to herbal remedies, we make the best of what nature gave us, to help us find our way back to connection with all of life.
National Yoga Awareness Month is a month-long campaign dedicated to raising awareness about yoga.
Here at Villa Kali Ma, we are happy to sing yoga’s praises, far and wide! In many ways, yoga represents the heart of our program. Our founder, Kay White, credits her recovery from substance addiction in very large part to yoga.
No matter who we are, where we’ve been, or what we’re staring down in our life’s journey, yoga is a viable, supportive path for finding a way through.
What are the benefits of yoga?
Yoga is a healing resource that goes far beyond what it can do for physical body strength, balance, and flexibility. Yoga is a comprehensive system that heals mind, body, and soul, through breath work and lifestyle philosophy as much as through physical postures. This ancient system is scientific and methodical, tested and refined by thousands of practitioners over thousands of years.
Many people start yoga these days because they are looking to improve their physical fitness. Yoga strengthens the core of the body, extends the range of motion, corrects alignment, improves balance, and tones muscles.
Yoga also brings deep peace, by healing internal organs and glands. Yoga accesses the part of our physiology that hosts our mental and emotional experiences. In modern parlance, yoga can be said to rewire pathways of the brain and nervous system, anchoring us into habits of happiness, peace, and freedom.
How can yoga help mental health, addiction, and trauma?
At Villa Kali Ma, we have observed that trauma, addiction, and mental health imbalances are intertwined. Yoga is a phenomenal resource for all three because it gets to the very root to repair our deep damage and disconnection. By restoring the physiological functioning of the body, the emotional processing ability of the heart, and the clarity of the brain and nervous system, yoga gets to the bottom of it all.
Studies conducted on the role of yoga in mental health treatment suggest that yoga reduces symptoms associated with conditions of anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders, through its ability to reduce the impacts of stress on the entire physiology.
Trauma lives on in the body mind and spirit through a damaged nervous system, such that we are trapped in frightening moments of the past. Through yoga’s many regulating, harmonizing, and toning impacts on the nervous system, as well as through its kind and humanistic approach to suffering, yoga can easily be used as an effective trauma treatment, restoring safety and now-moment orientation inside our bodies.
Yoga helps in part because it does not separate the physical body from thought and feeling. Rather, yoga expresses a basic unity, that thought, emotio, and body cannot be fully teased apart. Isn’t it true that it’s easier to think clear, sane thoughts when our mood is positive? Isn’t it easier to feel positive emotions when our bodies are also healthy?
The word yoga, which translates as “joining” or “union”, reflects yoga’s basic mechanism, which is to reunify us with our source of being. Whatever we believe in our hearts about where human beings come from and what we’re doing here, most can agree that to be cut off, lost, and fragmented feels lonely and bad.
Without saying exactly what it is that we are reunifying with, necessarily, yoga erases our existential isolation and reconnects us to the hub of the wheel of life, healing our cosmic attachment trauma.
Then everything else gets better too. When we are in harmony with the higher music of our own lives, we think sane thoughts, feel our emotions inside our heart space, and experience our physical bodies as strong and alive.
This makes us resilient. We feel safe, curious about life and other people, and strong enough to face expected and unexpected challenges. We become unconditionally centered and connected. Even when external events are not what we prefer, we feel our basic goodness, are able to observe our own thoughts without identifying with them, and have trust that whatever transformations will be asked of us, we will come out the other side stronger.
Yoga benefits our mental and emotional bodies as much as our physical ones, bringing us into a state of clarity of mind, while stimulating the heart center to bloom and do its job well, too. When our hearts are working, we are able to feel deep feelings of love, inspiration, and connection. We are also able to move through the darker shades of emotion, experiences like grief and anger, with grace.
What are some ways to practice yoga?
The wonderful thing about yoga is that there are many branches and paths to it. Some ways to explore yoga this month include:
1. Shop around: take a class at each yoga studio near you
Many studios offer a starting deal for you to get the lay of the land. You could take this month as an opportunity to find a “home” yoga studio that’s just right for you.
2. Experiment with different kinds of yoga
Try early morning energizing classes and evening relaxation oriented classes. Try kundalini yoga and yin yoga. Give yourself the month of September to experiment and try everything that sounds intriguing and even intimidating to you. Let your body lead and pay attention to how you feel, what excites you and rises and opens your energy, or what doesn’t.
3. Try yoga online
On YouTube and other channels, many yoga teachers offer free classes, guided meditations, and information about yogic philosophy. Make a goal for yourself for this month, committing deeply to one teacher or trying out different channels. You could do one practice a day for the 30 days of September, or just one practice a week, whatever feels like the right level of challenge for you, that you can genuinely commit to.
4. Create your own practice
If you know a little bit about yoga already and have mastered some poses, design your own routine, making it exactly what you love and need most. It can be short – just 15 minutes long as a start. If you want to, share your pose sequence with others, record a class as a video, and gift it to friends.
5. Mix up the pace
You might like to try holding only a very few poses, but holding them for a longer time, to get the deepening experience. You could dedicate your September to be a restorative, yin yoga month, centered on helping you find greater levels of nurturance and safety. On the flip side, if you’re looking to take your life up a notch, you can try moving through poses more swiftly than you normally do, as a faster, more aerobic experience. Whatever you do, try it for a month and take note of the effects, as a way to find your own, personal path through this ancient healing system.
With any of these, please pay attention to your body, be mindful of its signals, and don’t injure yourself! It’s always better to start slow and build up at a sustainable pace than to rush or push.
What yoga programs do we offer at Villa Kali Ma?
Villa Kali Ma is a holistic treatment program for women struggling with substance abuse, mental health disorders, and trauma. Yoga is a core component of all of our programs.
We use a gentle, trauma-informed therapeutic approach to yoga that accepts all women just as they are coming to us, without judgment or any kind of pressure. At the heart of yoga lies the understanding that each person alive contains a seed of the divine, and is infinitely precious. We feel the same, and we treat each woman who comes through our doors as such.
The way we use yoga is as a key for carefully unlocking the bonds and chains that have shackled a woman to her misery. From our own experiences and our years working with women to recover, we know the special combination of softness and firmness that is required, to be strict in banishing addiction or self-destruction, and yet loving and encouraging to the human heart.
In each of our programs, we hold group yoga classes, meditation, and breath work, with options for individual yoga therapy in one-on-one sessions. In addition, yoga deeply informs our approach to coaching lifestyle changes in mindfulness, sleep, diet, and exercise. We rely on the insights of yoga to help women learn to re-pattern their hearts and minds to more connected, healthy thoughts and emotions.
We invite you to read more about how we use yoga as part of our program for achieving sustainable recovery.
So many of us are looking for peace of mind, to feel better in our bodies, and to have deeper emotional resonance within the structures of our lives – yoga is a way to find these things.
Villa Kali Ma Acknowledges National Yoga Month
Without yoga, Villa Kali Ma wouldn’t be here! As our founder Kay shares in her story, yoga can save a person’s life. If yours needs saving, too, come check us out, sister.
As anyone who has been touched by suicide knows, death by self-harm creates enormous trauma in the lives of surviving loved ones, friends, and even casual acquaintances. The fabric of human life is torn for generations whenever any violent death takes place, and suicide is one of the worst ways of bringing harm to our collective heart.
Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States and around the globe, as many heartbroken humans succumb to the supreme tragedy of severe isolation and despair that gives rise to thoughts of ending one’s life.
To be clear, there is no shame to be applied to such individuals, as anyone who has been there knows that the kind of extreme torment suffered by people longing to die isn’t easily judged away. At the same time, it can’t be glorified or glamorized away, either, as though there is anything noble in it because there isn’t anything wholesome about killing anyone, especially oneself.
This September, we at Villa Kali Ma invite you to honor World Suicide Prevention Month together with us. World Suicide Prevention Month is an awareness campaign observed every September, in hopes of strengthening collective commitment to preventing suicide.
To Villa Kali Ma’s mind, suicide is the result of extreme disconnection from one’s own life source, sense of value, and meaning. Addiction can and often does lead to suicide, as do the soul-fragmenting impacts of serious trauma. Several forms of mental illness are linked to self-harm as well.
Through our holistic programs for women, we are committed and devoted to helping to heal these epidemic ills through our daily work.
Why is World Suicide Prevention Month important?
Like addiction, suicide is no respecter of class, race, or any other lines and categories we draw between people in our minds. Suicide can touch any human through its signature mechanism of intense, intolerable pain of the heart and mind.
Although patterns of suffering and trauma run in families and across generational lines in intricate ways, what all suicidal people have in common is a loss of hope and a severe disconnection from their own love.
When the fire of a person’s spirit has gone out, it is important to understand that through contact and connection, the fire can be lit again. When we understand how critical each human life is to the rest of us – how we are all puzzle pieces of a picture that cannot be completed without each person’s contribution – we might remember it is in our own interest to make sure less of us fall through the cracks.
Statistics on women and suicide
According to an analysis of suicide statistics collected from 2001 to 2021, conducted by public health researcher Preeti Vankar, suicide is most common among women ages 45 to 64.
In 2020, 8 in every 100,000 women between the ages of 45 and 54 committed suicide. Although women are three times less likely than men to commit suicide, the rate of women attempting suicide has gradually increased over the last two decades.
According to a study of suicide rates across races and ethnicities published by the CDC by way of the National Center for Health Statistics, suicide rates increased between 1999 and 2017 for all race and ethnicity groups, with non-Hispanic white women showing the greatest rise in rate of suicide among females. Women’s suicide tends to be less violent (less likely to involve firearms than men), as women are more likely to try death by self-asphyxiation or poisoning.
Although completion of a suicide attempt is more common among men, women are more likely than men to experience suicidal thoughts and perform suicidal gestures. Women who suffer from addiction are more likely to experience suicidal ideation, or serious thoughts of suicide, and to attempt to take their own lives.
It is exceptionally important to acknowledge the significantly elevated suicide risk among women who are suffering from addiction, mental illness, and traumatization. Women with these conditions are vulnerable and need protection and support.
What are some facts about suicide?
Suicide is defined as death due to purposeful self-injury with the conscious intention to die. An accidental death by overdose or as a result of self-destructive behavior is not, strictly speaking, considered a suicide in the same way.
Not all efforts to end one’s own life succeed; some remain as suicide attempts. A suicide attempt means that someone intended genuinely to take their own life, but they were not successful.
It’s important to understand the degree of seriousness behind an attempt, as some expressions of self-harm are meant as ways of crying out for help, whereas others are more serious attempts to die. When a person has a serious intention to die, they will likely try again and must be protected and supported in greater measure.
People who have experienced other kinds of violence, including sexual violence, bullying, and child abuse, are more likely to attempt to commit suicide.
According to statistics presented by the CDC, suicide rates increased by around a third between 2000 and 2022. In 2022 alone, almost 50,000 Americans died by suicide, and the estimate for those experiencing suicidal thoughts was 13 million. Almost 4 million people planned a suicide attempt, and more than 1 million people attempted suicide but did not die.
The importance of taking care of your mental health
With statistics like these, we cannot afford to ignore the positive effects of proactively caring for mental health and all that that entails. While at large as a culture we have dismissed the stirrings of the soul, emotions, and the need for connection as secondary to productivity and external markers of success, our inner lives cannot be ignored without cost to all of us.
Therefore, in honor of World Suicide Prevention Month, we here at Villa Kali Ma invite you to consider how, when you take good care of your own mental health, including your soul, spirit, and physical body, you are helping the whole collective to learn how to have greater care for all of mankind.
When we have good mental health, we enjoy the following protective factors:
What are some reasons you can think of, to practice good mental health habits?
Here are some thoughts of ours:
When we fill ourselves up with love, self-care, healthy boundaries, and positive thoughts, we have a wellspring of soothing, hopeful, honoring energy to share with others
When we honor the life inside ourselves unconditionally, whether we meet externally imposed standards of success or not, we promote the practice of loving and including all people, just as they are, no matter what, as part of the family of life
We can live our lives in a way that shows that we value human life and that it is something to cherish and give thanks for. When we treat ourselves and those closest to us as precious, important, irreplaceable beloveds, we are helping the world’s soul remember its own unconditional value.
Depression can lead to suicide
Certain mental health patterns, such as depression and most especially bipolar disorder, are strongly linked to suicide.
It’s important to understand that persistent suicidal thoughts often accompany these conditions. Suicidal thoughts should never be taken as less than very, very serious symptoms. We can only hope that these thoughts are more metaphorical than literal, but we would never want to take that chance and assume that a person won’t one day act on that thought.
Such thoughts cannot be easily batted away when the spirit of a person is eclipsed by depression patterns, which represent a very serious sickness of mind and heart. With compassion, we must understand how a person can become entranced by the voice of suicide when one dances too closely with the dark, as people with these disorders cannot help but do (until they are able to heal from these conditions).
It stands to reason that those who are in intense suffering without a break may find themselves thinking about suicide if only out of desperation and hope that the suffering would end with death. For such people, the goal is to help them have hope and to imagine and see a future.
It is also helpful, if the suffering person has anyone they care about, to realistically understand and consider whom they would harm if they acted on the thoughts and harmed themselves. People who are depressed have an extremely negative image of themselves, in which they imagine that they are so terrible, that no one could love them or get any joy out of their presence. We must help people in this state understand how far off these thoughts are.
Has suicide worsened since COVID-19?
Some reports showed that the impact of what took place between 2020 and 2022 has been to increase the rate of suicide.
Recently some of these claims are refined as more data emerges. The current view shared by the National Institute of Mental Health says rather that the increase in suicide rates affects teenagers, but that other categories remained stable.
In general, researchers will learn more over time, and current data could be interpreted in different ways.
How can you get involved in Suicide Prevention Month?
This September, think creatively about how you might support all people to know that their lives are valuable, meaningful, and necessary in this world. Here are some ideas for ways to honor the spirit of the month.
1. Tell your people you love them
Make sure everyone around you knows how much you value them, unconditionally. Not only for what they do for you but for who they are.
2. Offer to hold space for someone
Everyone can use a little compassionate witnessing. If you sense someone in your life may be going through a hard time, offer to sit and listen to them, without offering advice or trying to fix it. Help them feel safe to share the truth of what they’re going through by modeling an attitude of peace and non-judgment.
3. Share your own experiences
If you have any experience with depression and suicidal thoughts, talk to people openly about how you got out of that particular spell. What was the cure that your spirit gave you, for this particular poison? How did it show up in your life? What actions did you need to take? Who helped you?
4. Give Thanks to the People Who Help You Feel Valued
If there are people in your life who help take care of you, and help you feel connected and important just as you are, make sure these people know that you feel and appreciate their love. Shine a light on the ways that they are helping to hold you in this world, connected and secure in the strands of the web of life.
Our individual therapy program can assist women thinking of suicide and self-harm
At Villa Kali Ma, we offer several paths of healing that all lead to the same place – a full and total reconnection to life.
One way we help women get there is through our individual therapy program, which is integrated into each of our programs for substance abuse, mental illness, and trauma.
Read more about how we protect and promote women’s well-being through individual therapy sessions.
Villa Kali Ma Cares About Women’s Mental Health
Women are at the heart and core of Villa Kali Ma. We offer addiction and mental health recovery programs to heal women from substance abuse, trauma, and mental health problems, including depression.
In our integrative sustainable recovery programs, we guide women to discover their inherent, eternal value, and teach them how to live in joy and self-love. From abiding awareness of one’s own lovability, self-harm becomes impossible.
Every September, people living in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction are celebrated through National Recovery Month.
The month-long national observance helps educate Americans about addiction while honoring the hard work, dedication, and emotional courage represented by the choice to recover. Every day, brave, amazing people rebuild their lives after the many ravages of addiction.
National Recovery Month also shares a message of hope, that through programs like 12 Step, as well as through substance abuse treatment programs, miracles and change happen all the time. Every day, millions of people around the globe regain authorship over their own lives and find the path to experience freedom and joy in life again, through sobriety.
What does National Recovery Month celebrate?
National Recovery Month aims to notice and acknowledge the progress, milestones, and important gains achieved by those on the path of recovery.
For too long, addiction has been shrouded in shame, judgment, moralizing, and codependent confusion on the part of loved ones. At the same time, the deep and beautifully transformational path of recovering from addiction has mostly been misunderstood completely.
Millions of Americans are in recovery. Their stories are important, as examples and as inspiration for us all.
We can all learn from the wisdom, strength, and encouragement of those who have gone before us. For each human being still in the clutches of the heartaches of addiction, as well as for their loved ones, it’s important to hold the door of hope open and to remember that nothing is impossible in this life when we genuinely do desire to change.
All of this, and more, is honored with National Recovery Month.
What is the permanent tagline of this month?
National Recovery Month uses the tagline “Every Person. Every Family. Every Community” to encapsulate the heart of its message for Americans. This tagline shines a light on the importance of family members and communities as part of the cure for addiction. Recovery is a personal, familial, and community matter, and everyone can help.
What is the goal of National Recovery Month?
National Recovery Month’s primary goal is to spread awareness to Americans that there is a solution for substance addiction.
Secondarily, Recovery Month shares information about the most up-to-date evidence-based practices that have the highest effectiveness rates for treating addiction clinically.
Likewise, the campaign educates about the potential dangers of substance use, as well as about how substance abuse and mental health disorders negatively interact as co-occurring disorders.
National Recovery Month also aims to disperse information about the effectiveness of treatment services and to encourage people to seek treatment. National Recovery Month also honors addiction professionals.
What positive message does National Recovery Month spread?
National Recovery Month shares the positive message that recovery is possible and worth the effort.
Recovery is a precious gift, tough and meaningful beyond imagining. Recovery turns us into what we have always wanted to be in our deeper selves, making us more heartfelt, wise, and real. Living in the world as it is, activating our potential, while feeling what it is to be a human being.
Every day, through 12-step programs and addiction treatment programs, people are able to transform the whole basis of their lives and begin again.
Recovery is hard work, and the realities that each person must face on their path can feel overwhelming at times. However, there is also a heartwarming abundance of people available to help, starting with other recoverers, and extending to treatment staff and informed family and friends. Resources exist to help us as we do what sometimes feels like the impossible, but which is asked of us nevertheless, to give our whole life over to a benevolent change process.
National Recovery Month helps spread the truth-telling voice of the recovery community to the ears that need to hear its hopeful and fortifying message.
What are some objectives of National Recovery Month?
National Recovery Month aims to change the perception in the public mind about people recovering from addiction, raise awareness about addiction and treatment, and help those affected.
People who were once in the clutches of addiction can be reclaimed and redeemed to live lives of connection and health in every sense of the word – mentally, emotionally, and socially. People who have been written off by society can become potent, positive contributors, the lifeblood of aware, loving communities.
National Recovery Month has the objective of improving understanding of substances and substance use disorders. Additionally, it works to lower barriers to entering treatment and getting needed help.
National Recovery Month campaigns to promote the benefits of early intervention in substance use disorders, receiving substance abuse treatment, and getting help for mental health alongside addiction.
National Recovery Month also hopes to provide visibility for the recovery community and share recovery stories to counteract impressions of hopelessness and despair. Stories help reduce stigma about addiction and can help people’s self-recognition process when they find their own experiences reflected in another’s share.
National Recovery Month also takes on board the necessity to help loved ones, friends, work colleagues, and healing professionals cope with the feelings and pain that accompany loving or working with people who have addiction.
With a greater understanding of addiction and how it works, much pain can be depersonalized, leading to greater effectiveness at emotional support and less burnout for affected parties.
What are 5 ways to get involved this month?
There are many ways to support National Recovery Month. Here are some ideas from us over at Villa Kali Ma.
1. Educate Yourself
There are many resources on the internet about recovery and addiction, including blogs (like ours!) as well as websites dedicated to sharing information, facts, and stories related to addiction. One way to support recovery around the nation is to familiarize ourselves with the landscape that recovering people inhabit.
2. Go to an Open AA Meeting
Although most AA meetings are closed to non-addicts, there are always some meetings, tagged as Open Meetings, which welcome supportive members from the community who would like to learn more about the realities of recovery. Inside the walls of such meetings, you will have the chance to hear first-hand stories of the miseries of addiction as well as the deep joys of recovery. Through this act, you can become an informed, sensitive person when it comes to the addiction topic. You will know much more about what helps and what doesn’t when someone needs to recover.
3. Host a Sober Party
For many, it is out of the ordinary to host events without alcohol or drugs. That simple creative restriction can spur invention and lead you to organize different, fun, heart-connecting activities you wouldn’t have thought of before.
If you have a friend in sobriety, throwing them a sober party can be a personally meaningful act of love. Even if you just want to try it out as an energetic support for the healing of addiction nationally, you will learn much from the experience of interacting and playing with other humans in a festive setting, without relying on substances.
4. Go Without Something for a Month
If we really want to delve into what is asked of people in recovery, we can look into the quaky discomfort that arises in us when we don’t have our go-to comforts.
Most of us have some greater or lesser addictions, not only to substances but also to movies, TV, the internet, food, sex, drama, or cell phones. This National Recovery Month, pick one habit you have and try to go without it for the whole month of September.
If it isn’t easy, be nice to yourself about it and understand, with empathy, through that challenging feeling, what it is that sober people face when they first begin to change their lives so deeply.
5. Interview Someone in Recovery and Do a Creative Project about Them
If you have someone in your life you can interview about their recovery, conduct a considerate, respectful interview made up of questions you would feel all right answering in their shoes. Using the answers as inspiration, make an anonymous artwork, poem, song, or collage expressing the emotional content of that interview.
What treatment programs do we offer at Villa Kali Ma to support women with addiction and mental health issues?
At Villa Kali Ma, we offer several tracks for women who are looking to recover from addiction, mental illness, trauma, or all three.
We have inpatient services at our residential facilities, as well as outpatient treatment, here in the San Diego area.
You can read more about how we work to heal mind, body, and spirit through an integrative, holistic approach united with our cutting-edge, evidence-based clinical program.
Villa Kali Ma Supports National Recovery Month
At Villa Kali Ma, we know how important it is to get the message out that recovery from addiction is possible. We know from our own experiences how hopeless and despairing one can feel when in the throes of a substance disorder, and we know perfectly well the shame, self-hatred, and self-destruction that addiction makes any person feel.
We also know the joy, the beauty, and the life-changing restoration of dignity and freedom that comes through the path of recovery. We celebrate National Recovery Month wholeheartedly this September, for ourselves, for those of our sisters we helped recover, and for all those to come.
Opioids are highly addictive narcotics that induce numbness and cause feelings of euphoria. They are effective at suppressing pain in the short term but are also very addictive.
The widespread practice of prescribing opioids for pain has contributed to a meteoric rise in opioid use disorder, or opioid addiction. One tragic impact of the increase in the number of opioid-addicted people is overdose death.
An opioid-related overdose can occur when a toxic amount of an opioid, or a combination of opioids with other substances, including alcohol, is ingested into the body.
Overdoses are a leading cause of death in the United States. Fentanyl, a lab-made super-opioid considered about 50 times stronger than heroin, is the leader in overdose deaths. However, other opioids and, frequently, opioids in combination with other substances, such as benzodiazepines like Klonopin, are contributing to out-of-control numbers of drug deaths as well.
The opioid epidemic has led to a greater need for opioid overdose prevention. Opioid overdose prevention refers both to emergency interventions in the moment of an overdose transpiring, as well as strategies for preventing opioid abuse in the first place.
How is opioid overdose preventable?
Education as to the presence and lethality of fentanyl in illegal drugs being sold is a key factor in opioid overdose prevention.
Although many overdoses happen due to misuse of prescribed opioids, the majority of people who develop addiction to opioids will eventually purchase illegal knock-off pills for cost reasons, as well as to bypass restrictions like being unable to get a doctor to give them another prescription. These knock-off pills, as well as other street drugs, are more and more likely to contain some portion of fentanyl, as fentanyl is rising in popularity on the street.
Testing Substances for Fentanyl
One bandaid measure to help with the ubiquity of fentanyl is the distribution of fentanyl test strips which can be used to detect the presence of fentanyl in other drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine.
Street drugs and illegal pills that contain fentanyl as an ingredient are not always labeled as such, and users may ingest these unintentionally. Due to fentanyl’s extreme potency, accidental overdose is a risk when a person takes a substance without knowing fentanyl is an ingredient.
Naloxone
A critical, life-saving measure is to make sure that naloxone is widely available in places where an overdose is reasonably likely to occur. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist (it reverses the effects of opioids, which can halt an overdose death from happening while it is underway if administered in time). Naloxone injections are used during emergencies to quickly interrupt an overdose in progress.
Overdose Emergency Protocol
It can be helpful to spread awareness of emergency protocols for responding to an overdose in progress. If you think an overdose may be happening, it’s best to treat it as an overdose even if you’re not sure (better safe than sorry).
If you suspect an overdose, call 911. Keep the person breathing and awake, and lay them on their side to prevent choking. Stay with them until responders arrive. If the person is having a seizure, move anything that can harm them away. Do not restrain them and do not put anything in their mouth. If they lose consciousness and are not breathing, start CPR if you are trained.
Avoid Using Opioids (Even When Prescribed by A Doctor)
Emergency measures are important, but they are a late-stage tactic. Better would be better if people weren’t abusing opioids in the first place.
Education about the risks of using any opioids, even as prescribed, is a key part of ending the epidemic. If opioids don’t get into human bodies at all, people will not end up addicted to them, which would lead to zero risk of opioid-related overdose death and injury. While many people realize that street drugs are very dangerous, still too many are unaware of the potential risks of prescribed opioids.
Everyone needs to decide for themselves, but here at Villa Kali Ma, as addiction professionals, we are against the use of opioids if at all possible. We understand that in exceptional cases opiates like morphine can be used in hospital settings. In the case of palliative care, it might be argued that super-opioids are appropriate, in a context in which there is no life expected to resume after the opioid use. If life is expected to resume after all, then the patient needs to be prepared for the reality of the effects of powerful opioid exposure.
We hope to share with these extreme examples that in general, opioids are not a good choice for most people, even though we know that physical pain is one of the hardest things to endure! But opioid addiction is worse.
The dictum generally believed among opioid proponents and doctors who still prescribe opioid drugs, is that they are safe if used as prescribed. The counterweight to that thought is that millions of people who were exposed to opioids for the first time through these prescriptions ended up struggling with overwhelming cravings and chemical dependence that made it nearly impossible to use only as prescribed.
Finally, it’s important to grasp that even if opioids are used strictly as prescribed, underlying pain remains uncured, and will need to be faced once opioid use ends again.
All in all, our recommendation to any person would be to stay away from opioids even when prescribed, if at all possible.
What is opioid use disorder?
Opioid Use Disorder is the diagnostic name for addiction to opioids.
The word opioid is a broad term referring to any substance, whether synthesized in a laboratory or natural, that affects the brain through binding to opioid receptors. The related term opiate refers only to naturally-occurring opioids, derived from opium poppies, such as morphine and codeine.
Semi-synthetic opioids are produced in laboratories using a chemical process but still rely on the active ingredients of the opium poppy. Semi-synthetic opioids include heroin and oxycodone. Finally, some opioids are fully lab-made, such as fentanyl.
Whenever there is chemical dependence on any of these substances, it is classed as opioid addiction, and the person will be given a diagnosis of opioid use disorder.
What is the stigma of opioid use disorder?
Like all addictions, opioid use disorder is widely misunderstood and broadly stigmatized. Those without any experience with addiction may have little understanding or ability to empathize, particularly with the ways that the addiction drives a person into extreme selfishness, self-destruction, and illegal behavior. It is truly difficult to understand without having been through it.
The problem with stigma is that it interferes with treatment and amplifies shame. The presence of shame is tied to all addiction and makes getting help harder. If the stigma of opioid addiction could be lessened, it would help heal the epidemic.
In our opinion, there is no reason to apply shame to opioid addiction, only compassion. Opioid addiction is truly widespread at this point, pointing to a problem not particularly in people’s characters and wounded psyches (at least, not only that), but actually to something extremely malevolent present in the drugs themselves. Ideally, the blame for the opioid epidemic should be lifted from the shoulders of sufferers.
What are opioids?
Opioids are a class of drugs that bind to opioid receptors in the brain, having a narcotic, or numbing effect. Opioids are highly effective at lessening pain in the immediate moment, making them helpful for medical situations like emergency surgeries and palliative care, when extreme physical pain is a factor. Opioids also have a euphoric effect, bringing powerful feelings of well-being and relaxation, in the short term. Opioids are extremely addictive.
There are three different kinds of opioids, synthetic, semisynthetic, and opiates.
Synthetic opioids are fully lab-made substances that mimic the effects of the natural active chemicals found in the opium poppy. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.
Fentanyl is not legally available for personal use even by prescription, but it is nevertheless widely distributed on the black market. It is exceedingly addictive and represents a very high risk of overdose. It is estimated to be at least 50 times more powerful than heroin.
Semisynthetic opioids are a class of pain relievers that are legal when prescribed by a doctor. Semisynthetic opioids are also made in a lab but include the natural ingredient found in opium poppies. Examples of brand-name semisynthetic opioids are Vicodin and OxyContin. Heroin is also a semisynthetic because it is synthesized from morphine and other ingredients.
Finally, opiates are the least-processed versions of the substance found naturally in opium poppies. This category includes morphine and opium, which are taken from poppy resin.
The role of fentanyl and benzodiazepines
Fentanyl is the number one killer, but the opioid crisis is driven not only by people who are using opioids alone but very commonly, opioids in combination with other substances.
Overdose deaths caused by the use of street drugs or knockoff pills come about because these substances are not pure opioids, but also include other ingredients, some of which are lethal when taken in the wrong combination.
One common source of lethal overdose is the pairing of an opioid with another central nervous system depressant, such as benzodiazepines. Benzodiazepines are another very dangerous class of drugs regularly prescribed despite strong addictive properties. Examples of name-brand benzodiazepines are Xanax, Valium, and Klonopin. Benzodiazepines are prescribed for anxiety disorders and sleep problems, but they are also widely abused and sold on the black market.
Fentanyl has the most overdose deaths
The biggest contribution to overdose deaths is owed to fentanyl.
Estimates of overdose deaths in the United States are currently around 100,000 people a year, according to the CDC.
Fentanyl is believed to be responsible for about two-thirds of those deaths. Deaths by fentanyl overdose have risen by almost 30% since 2020, according to an analysis of data conducted by the New England Journal of Medicine.
Fentanyl death is affecting all sections of the population, including older adults and people of all socioeconomic backgrounds. Rural and urban areas are both affected.
Opioid overdose deaths in San Diego County, California
According to the San Diego County Overdose Surveillance and Response Program Quarterly Report, opioid overdose deaths are on the rise regionally in San Diego.
The number of overdose-related emergency room visits increased by a greater percentage (13%) in the category of opioid overdose as compared with other drug overdose, which rose also but by a lesser percentage (7%) over 3 years.
In preliminary data collected in the first half of 2023, 75% percent of overdose deaths were related to opioids. The numbers of opioid overdose emergency room visits are around 3 times higher for male users, and the ages most affected are between 25-44.
Overdose facts
According to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, per the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, overdoses are the leading cause of death by injury in the United States.
According to a data brief entitled Drug Overdose Deaths in the United States, 2002-2022, 107,941 people died from drug overdoses in 2022 (almost 300 people a day). Of those overdose deaths, about two-thirds were opioid-related.
According to a 2018 article, Risks of Fatal Opioid Overdose during the First Year Following Nonfatal Overdose, people who have had at least one overdose are more likely to have another.
Finally, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s findings from 2022 report that around 50 million Americans are estimated to qualify for substance use disorder treatment. Of those 50 million, less than 15 million were able to receive treatment in that year.
Signs of an opioid overdose
When it comes to recognizing an overdose, it can be tricky to identify and it’s best to follow the rule, “better safe than sorry”. If you think an overdose might be underway, call 911 and stay with the person until medical personnel arrive. Turn the person on their side so that they do not choke and if CPR trained, be ready to administer CPR if the person stops breathing.
Signs that an overdose might be underway are:
Unconsciousness (you can’t wake the person up)
Choking and gurgling, slow shallow breathing, or snoring sounds from someone who won’t wake up
Skin discoloration, especially in nails and lips
Pinpoint pupils that don’t react to light
What is International Overdose Awareness Day?
International Overdose Awareness Day is a day set aside to remember those who have passed by overdose, and to rededicate ourselves to raising awareness of the dangers of drug overdose.
When is International Overdose Awareness Day?
International Overdose Awareness Day is acknowledged every August 31st.
Promising prevention strategies
Stop prescribing opioids
Improve communication and prescription tracking among doctors and clinics to prevent opioid abuse through prescriptions
De-incentivize opioid prescription (make kick-backs for doctors illegal)
De-stigmatize opioid addiction, and provide treatment for all affected by opioid use disorder
Increase awareness among active drug users of the severe dangers of fentanyl and other opioids
Distribute fentanyl strips
Share the message that full recovery from opioid addiction is possible
Expand and fund research into natural, non-addictive healing solutions and alternative methodologies for physical pain disorders, injuries, and mental health struggles (treat the underlying pain in a better way)
How to recognize someone experiencing an overdose?
Opioid-related overdose is recognizable when a person is unconscious or nonresponsive and appears to have difficulty breathing or is not breathing at all.
Other signs and symptoms include:
Limpness of the body
Clammy, cold skin
Discolored, bluish skin
Small, constricted pupils that don’t respond to light
Unable to stay awake
Slow, shallow breathing
Gurgling or choking sounds
Other bad signs, indicating another kind of drug overdose, can include tremors, nausea, vomiting, drooling or frothing at the mouth, uncontrollable jerking and twitching, sudden falling, and other more dramatic signs. It is best to call 911 if there is any suspicion of a drug overdose, opioid or otherwise.
We Offer Opioid Addiction Treatment in San Diego County
Villa Kali Ma is a San Diego County facility that helps women heal from addiction through compassionate and integrative approaches to recovery.
Our programs for women who suffer from substance abuse and co-occurring disorders facilitate healing and transformation of women’s lives at the deepest core so that they are fully free to discover the truth of who they are. Opioid addiction is a nightmare, but it’s possible to wake up from that nightmare and live a tender, precious human life again, in recovery. We’d love to help you do just that.
Passing states of worry, unease, edginess, and even fear are so commonly experienced that we might call them an ordinary part of life.
When life situations are uncertain, as they so often are, and we’re not completely sure what we may ourselves may be called upon to do in order to resolve them, it’s natural to tense up. The unknown is felt in the body as a kind of question, waiting to be answered.
There are also many factors of contemporary life that trigger the body at the nervous system level to signal possible dangers – sudden loud noises, pollution, chaotic energies, and information overload can all be processed by the body through tension in our stomachs, restricted breathing, and racing hearts.
For some of us, chronic fear becomes a burden of its own. Anxiety is a problem when it seriously disrupts our lives when we are unable to relax fully after the resolution of a situation, and when it starts to create physical and mental health problems for us.
Women are more likely than men to be given a diagnosis of anxiety and are more likely to be prescribed anti-anxiety drugs. This sets us up easily for dependence and eventually addiction, due to the habit-forming properties of these drugs, which can become problematic very quickly.
For those of us struggling with anxiety, there are many good reasons to try working with natural remedies before turning to a prescription. The main concern is that anti-anxiety drugs are not only very quickly addictive but also wane in effectiveness, meaning that they are not a real solution, only a postponement of the inevitable.
On the positive side, anxiety is responsive to many natural interventions, including lifestyle changes like better exercise, sleep, and eating patterns.
What are natural remedies for anxiety?
Anxiety treatments are considered natural if they do not involve prescription medications. Herbs, nutritional supplements, aromatherapy, exercise, and mindfulness practices are examples of natural remedies for anxiety.
From Villa Kali Ma’s point of view, the most important natural remedies for anxiety to know about are exercise, movement, yoga poses, breath work, and parasympathetic nervous system stimulation.
Regular Exercise
Exercise is the most potent natural mental health intervention. This is because when the body is exercised to appropriate levels of physical exhaustion, many beneficial physiological changes take place within the body.
Natural hormones and neurotransmitters that calm and soothe the body are triggered to flow through the entire body system through exercise. Exercise always works in a pinch, and can be used on the spot to avert a panic attack, because it interrupts the body from effectively creating the anxious state.
Release through Movement
The body creates anxious feelings by restricting breath, tensing muscles, and increasing the heart rate. The body is preparing for action because it believes us to be in danger. Once prepared for action, it’s hard to release those energies without actually taking some kind of intense physical action.
We can help ourselves release anxiety by moving the body vigorously. The best way to do it is to let the body do what it’s trying to do, rather than to work against the body. Anxiety is the body’s attempt to create safety through running away or fighting. Therefore quick, very energetic exercises that allow the body to use up the urge to run and fight will release the anxious state most directly.
The trick is to move the body until you feel like you are at your fitness limit, out of breath, warmed up, and heart pounding. You may want to mimic punching or fighting motions, such as those used in martial arts.
Exhaustion can be achieved quickly, depending on your fitness level, by running, doing squats or push-ups, HIIT, jumping jacks, or anything else that quickly spends your excess energy and gets you into a state of full body activation.
Calming Yoga Poses
Other forms of exercise that are helpful for anxiety include calming, regulating poses such as those taught in yoga, which stimulate adrenal glands directly, and other parts of the body, to induce the relax and release stage. Therefore, if vigorous physical activity isn’t available, you may also be able to interrupt an anxiety attack through poses like forward bends and child’s pose, or gentle twists.
Breath Work
The trick to using breathwork for anxiety is to shorten the in-breath and to lengthen the out-breath. During anxiety, we over-oxygenate through hyperventilation, because the body is preparing for a fight or flight situation. As described above, we can help the body by allowing the body to experience vigorous physical exercise, which will give it the opportunity to mimic fight or flight sufficiently, so it can calm down.
If this isn’t an option, we can also support the body to trigger calm down by consciously inducing the relaxation mode, through the breath.
This can be quickly achieved, much more quickly than we might imagine, through following simple breathing patterns, such as box breath.
Box breath goes like this:
Breathe in for a count of 4 full seconds (one Mississippi, two…)
Hold your breath for a count of 4 seconds
Breathe out for a count of 4 seconds
Hold for a count of 4 seconds
Start again with the 4-second inbreath. Do this whole cycle 4 times. At the end of the 4 cycles, pause to check how you’re feeling, and repeat as many times as may be necessary.
Allow the body to shake, tremble, or gasp if it does, this is part of the discharging of energy.
Parasympathetic Nervous System Stimulation
Finally, another powerful tool to know about is parasympathetic nervous system stimulation. There are many tools and techniques that can be relatively quickly and easily applied, such as this hand space which uses the hands, and this one, which is a gentle vagus nerve stimulator.
Experiment with gentle, easy ways to trigger the vagus nerve. You may want to check out our post on using the Voo Sound, popularized by trauma work pioneer Peter Levine. Further, a quick search on YouTube for “vagus nerve reset” will guide you to many other easy tutorials that demonstrate the principle.
All in all, to quickly encourage the body to release the anxious state, the most important is to go through the body. When the body is appropriately allowed and supported to release the anxious state, the thoughts will gradually calm down.
What does not help is thinking, or mental looping, as this reinforces the tunnel vision and restricted thinking that goes along with anxiety. It is hard to stop thinking during an anxiety attack, therefore going through the body is much easier. Calm the body first, and the mind will follow.
What is anxiety?
Anxiety is a very uncomfortable state of being, which has physiological aspects as well as mental and emotional components.
At the physical level, it is experienced as inability to be still, difficulty breathing, rapid heartbeat, sweating, muscle and stomach tension.
At the emotional level, anxiety is felt as a degree of fear, ranging from dread, panic, and terror, to vague unease.
Mentally, anxiety is characterized by worries and obsessions, looping thoughts, and preoccupations with “what ifs…”
What are the signs and symptoms of anxiety?
Chronic anxiety shows up in many ways. Anxiety is strongly correlated with stress and is sometimes indistinguishable. Anxiety generates many health problems, such as stomach and digestion problems, muscle pain, and lowered immunity. Some physical signs that you may have anxiety include high blood pressure, stomach problems, and muscle tension.
Anxiety is most commonly diagnosed because of mental or emotional distress, such as being burdened with worry, tension, and the inability to relax. When you are unable to dismiss worries, especially when you realize that they are out of balance, but you are unable to let them go, that is anxiety. If you are familiar with states of intense dread and panic, you are likely dealing with anxiety.
What are the different types of anxiety?
Anxiety comes in many shapes and forms, with different diagnoses. The most common types of anxiety are generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and post-traumatic stress disorder. These conditions are related because they all have to do with fear and maladaptive attempts to cope with intense unease.
Generalized Anxiety Disorder is diagnosed when people experience the symptoms of anxiety to a life-disrupting degree, and when the anxiety appears throughout their lives (is “generalized”).
Panic disorder is diagnosed when a person experiences panic attacks.
Phobias refer to anxiety that is centered around specific topics, such as social phobia when we fear social connection and contact with groups or other people.
Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is a form of anxiety that involves compulsive behavior and obsessive thoughts.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder is diagnosed when the anxiety is clearly connected to specific traumas.
When is it best to get help for anxiety?
Some anxiety is completely normal – we all go in and out of states of tension, and having anxiety isn’t anything to feel ashamed of or to take on board as a fault or failing. We have all been socially trained to think negative thoughts and to keep ourselves in states of edginess. Furthermore, almost all of us sustain some form of lighter or heavier trauma.
If anxiety is making your life miserable, we here at Villa Kali Ma extend you our compassion, and we encourage you to get some kind of help. That help doesn’t have to be clinical, though it could be. Anxiety can be helpfully treated through many different paths, including yoga, diet, meditation, even massage and essential oils. You should be able to find a kind of help that fits you and who you are, what you value, and what you really need.
The loneliness of any mental health condition is usually a big component of the suffering and can be greatly lessened by reaching out to someone who will connect with you kindly to help you find a solution.
What treatment programs does Villa Kali Ma have that can assist women with anxiety?
Villa Kali Ma addresses anxiety through our women’s mental health treatment program, and through our dedicated trauma facility. Healing anxiety is also a part of recovery from substance abuse, as most substances disrupt our ability to self-regulate our emotions, so we address it in our addiction treatment programs.
It can be helpful to know that the strong majority of women who turn to substances to cope with their lives have experienced some measure of traumatization, and frequently qualify for an anxiety disorder.
Overall, the interactions between alcohol, drugs, anxiety, trauma, and mental health are complex and require thoughtful, attentive care to unravel and treat. It can be done, though! We know, because we’ve helped many women free themselves already.
Why is holistic treatment most ideal for anxiety?
We at Villa Kali Ma strongly favor holistic treatment for anxiety for one simple reason: the existing mainstream medical solutions, prescription anxiolytic drugs, do not work except as an instant fix. They do not cure the underlying condition, and instead lead to addiction. To us, this is not a solution, but rather a trap.
Holistic treatments sometimes take longer and require that we do hard work to change at deep levels (though that work is not as hard as we may fear). However, changes made through holistic treatment are longer lasting, have no side effects, and have the upside of leading us into greater, kinder contact with ourselves.
That said, we integrate our holistic approaches with the Western medical model for a reason. For us, it is not an either-or, but rather a case of both models working together.
Villa Kali Ma supports natural remedies for anxiety
Villa Kali Ma offers many natural treatment paths for healing anxiety. We treat women’s anxiety with nutrition, yoga, mindfulness, creative arts therapies, outdoor therapies, massage therapy, aromatherapy, and body psychotherapy (somatic therapy), in addition to the most effective psychotherapy approaches available.
Positive recovery words are affirmations about ourselves and our recovery. Affirmations are formulated as present-tense statements, worded as if they are true already and taking place in the now moment. Affirmations use phrasing like “I am” and “I have”, (rather than “I will” or “I want to….”).
An example of a very famous affirmation is “Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.” An example of an affirmation geared toward women in recovery is “I am a good person and I deserve my happy, sober life of joy and connection”.
Do positive affirmations work?
Positive affirmations can be very effective at changing a person’s life because of the chain of connections between thought, feeling, and behavior. The same therapeutic principle is used in cognitive behavioral therapy, one of the evidence-based practices that works well with addiction and many other kinds of mental illness.
Positive affirmations work because of the ways that specific thoughts, interpretations of the given facts, and underlying conceptual frameworks shape our experience. Positive affirmations help us take charge of our mindsets so that we have more conscious choices regarding which thoughts we allow to linger in our minds. Working with positive affirmations gives us a greater measure of control over how we feel, which gives us hope, possibility, and power.
Having choices when it comes to thoughts and feelings leads to more self-control. Most negative, destructive behavior arises from a desperate attempt to escape our painful thoughts and feelings. If we don’t feel so bad inside, or know we can shift thoughts and feelings without acting out, we have no reason to behave badly.
What is the power of positivity?
Authentic positivity has a regulating effect on the body, causing it to settle into a pleasantly alert, but relaxed state which is most beneficial for physical and mental ease. When under the influence of a generally positive mindset, we do not suffer psychologically, except as a passing response to a specific, short-term event.
Furthermore, when we are able to access our natural positivity, we are in the state of mind that is most effective, creative, connected, and intelligent. We are able to act effectively in the world and connect and relate to others through the heart, from the top of our intelligence.
Negativity, on the other hand, has dis-regulating effects on the body, creating physically uncomfortable states, which are felt by us as painful emotions. Negative thoughts have deteriorating effects on physiology, and cause us to operate from a more shut-down, less relational, less creative, and less intelligent state of being.
What are positive recovery words for those in addiction?
People with addiction who have made a commitment to recover benefit from using affirmations that specifically address the pain and suffering associated with addiction.
Positive recovery words for addiction speak to the challenges related to restoring the ability to behave in sane, constructive ways, and how to heal from the shame associated with addiction.
Alcoholics Anonymous, the original 12-step program that has helped millions (and counting!) of women to recover, offers many sayings that can be used as affirmations in recovery.
“Progress, not perfection” and “Just for today” are examples of helpful wordings that can give focus to the path of recovery.
Here are some examples of positive recovery words:
I value myself and I love myself unconditionally.
Every day, love finds a way to help me.
I let go in perfect trust.
As I reach towards goodness, goodness reaches towards me.
What are three affirmations that you could use? Write three sentences that speak directly to your heart, and that say what you need to hear today.
Why are recovery affirmations important in recovery?
No one becomes an addict on purpose. Instead, we wake up one day to realize we have been sucked into a black hole, a condition that mercilessly erodes our self-esteem and faith in ourselves.
When we get into recovery, we face the challenge of changing the habit of daily use of substances. But stopping the use of the substance is only part of the journey.
The real, deeper work is an inside job, in which we must renovate the entire structure of our personality so that we can exist in a state of basic positivity again.
To do this, we need to do a lot of repair on our thoughts, not only to weed out thoughts that serve addiction but also to address the underlying pain that brought us to addiction in the first place.
Recovery affirmations are essential for consciously reprogramming ourselves to think better thoughts. We can no longer afford to harbor thoughts that sabotage and cut us down. We need thoughts that create happy bodies and good feeling states, which allow us to live a human life of creativity, connection, intelligence, and purpose.
What are self-care activities to pair with positive affirmations?
Positive affirmations work best when paired with self-care actions, such as regular exercise, good diet, creative practices, involvement in a supportive community, and emotional release tools like journaling.
Positive affirmations set things right in the mind, while physical exercise, yoga, diet, outdoor time, massage, and sleep set things right in the body. Connection with positive people and therapeutic support set things right emotionally.
How do you choose the right recovery affirmation?
Positive affirmations can be used towards any goal, to boost certain kinds of feelings and to reduce others. In order for this to be true, we have to work with statements that feel uplifting and which resonate with us as reasonably true, or within reach. It won’t work to repeat a statement that we do not believe could ever become true, such as “I can fly!”, but we can stretch ourselves with words that feel like they’re in the realm of possibility, such as “I love myself and I celebrate my courage to choose to recover”.
Some people prefer to write their own affirmations, to find wording that feels really true personally. Others may find peace and comfort in tried and true statements used by many women before us.
We know we are using the right positive recovery words for us personally when we can feel that the words have a positive effect on us when we say them. We’ll feel gently soothed, energized, enlivened, calmed, or centered when we say the statements out loud. The right words will feel right.
Why do words matter in addiction recovery?
Words have harmed us in the past, and words can heal us now. The power of words can not be overstated.
In addiction recovery, the words we say out loud about ourselves and our recovery, as well as the words we say only to ourselves in our minds, make all the difference to our success or failure.
In recovery, a big piece of getting better is simply sharing the truth of what’s really going on inside our heads, because as they say in AA, “secrets keep us sick”. We can avoid a relapse by saying out loud that a voice in our head is telling us to skip our evening meeting, for example.
When it comes to the words we consciously choose, those words have the most power and impact. No matter where we’re at on any given day, we can course-correct with a few good recovery words.
How can we use addiction recovery words instead of words that create stigma?
A big part of addiction recovery is realizing that we are not identical with the addict self, that no matter how much control the Addict Self takes over our lives, still it’s not us and we are not it.
The addiction is its own thing, and it’s not a good thing, and the more we see it and call it out, the more we restore our own innocence. We must take responsibility for ourselves, but it’s impossible to do that before seeing that we have fallen prey to something that isn’t our true self.
Although society at large still tends to apply stigma rather than compassion to suffering, that is a reflection of the amount of fear and ignorance that is still at play. The truth is that there is no shame, no value difference, nor any judgment on anyone who falls into the trap of addiction, except in the minds of the ignorant, arrogant, or fearful.
And shame is a killer, so we have to find ways to de-stigmatize ourselves and our sisters with addiction and other kinds of suffering, too. Part of using recovery words is changing perception as we go along. The small shift from “I want to” to “the addict within is telling me to” for example, makes all the difference in the world.
What is stigma?
The word stigma refers to a socially constructed idea of disgrace associated with someone or something. Stigma is a social phenomenon that creates a lot of pain and usually clouds the issue with fear-based misunderstandings, including a fear of contamination by association.
Stigma implies that a person or thing is bad, wrong, or shameful in some way, and often suggests the person is to blame, deserves punishment and exclusion, and needs to be shunned and shut out.
We can see by looking at our society that stigma is applied to painfully marginalize many social subgroups.
Where does stigma come from?
Stigma is socially created, and heavily influenced by religion, culture, social and political concepts, media, and other pillars of society.
Stigma originates from the problematic, anti-human belief that some human beings do not deserve love, inclusion, belonging, and kindness, due to their circumstances, who they are, or their choices.
Stigma is almost always unfairly assigned, in the “punching down” style of picking on people with less power, and tends to flow towards those who have been most hurt already. Stigma is connected to cultural narcissism, ideas of superiority, and devaluation of others who are not deemed socially useful or valuable.
Over the centuries, what specifically is stigmatized has shifted and changed, but it is always about creating a vulnerable and marginalized group that is punished socially.
In our current age, stigma is largely attached to poverty and lower socioeconomic status, including homelessness. It is still applied in great measure to women, people of color, and people with mental illness, addiction, and trauma.
How does stigma affect women with SUD?
Addiction is widely misunderstood and heavily stigmatized. The most basic stigma is the idea that the addicted woman is to blame for “choosing” to be an addict, or that she is amoral, or weak. In truth, all addiction masks terrible pain. Under any pattern of addictive behavior lies a giant well of shame. Self-hatred for not being capable of behaving better, and for not succeeding at life in all the ways we’re told are necessary to deserve love and respect. The problem begins largely in these artificial conditions of belonging.
Addiction does create heartache in loved ones and families and causes a lot of destruction. On the tricky path of addiction recovery, we women have to find a way to fully acknowledge the truth of what we have done while in the throes of the illness, and at the same time not give up on ourselves or let ourselves believe that that means we are beyond the reach of love and worthiness.
All in all, there is no benefit to propagating stigma related to substance addiction, as it only obscures the real issue at hand, including the role of trauma in leading to the addiction epidemic. For women in recovery, the element of social stigma is an added challenge to learn to overcome.
Villa Kali Ma supports positive recovery words for women
At Villa Kali Ma we pay close attention to the ways that words can help women recover. We support the use of positive recovery words, all day every day. Positive affirmations work by gradually, consciously re-wiring deep beliefs and practicing thoughts that create mental health. To find words that help you feel better and get better for good, consider coming to heal with us in one of our many programs for women!
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