2018 Houston Opioid Summit Creates Vital Awareness and Cooperation in the Battle Against Opioid Addiction

 

Opening Session Panel view

For two full days last week, nearly 250 leaders from across Harris County gathered  at The Council on Recovery’s first Opioid Summit.

In keynote addresses, topical breakout sessions, panel discussions, round-table discussions, and interpersonal networking, people on the front-line in battling the opioid crisis exchanged ideas, information, and experience to develop understanding and viable solutions for dealing with the problem.

Judge Denise Bradley speech

Unlike other opioid conferences that focus on individual or narrow aspects of the problem, the 2018 Houston Opioid Summit brought together all of the major sectors dealing with the issue. These included experts from the medical, legal, prevention, treatment, legislative, law enforcement and media communities who shared their perspectives of the opioid epidemic and explored ways to work together to stem opioid overdoses, currently the leading cause of accidental death.

Media Panel Discussion chat

Among the unique perspectives discussed at the Opioid Summit were the role and responsibility of media in the local and national dialogue, and the role of the faith-based community addressing the opioid epidemic.

Dr Joy Alonzo speaks

In-depth discourse on the use of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and the role of specialty medical care in managing substance use disorder shed new light on treatment opportunities and challenges.

Judge Brock Thomas edited

Exploration of innovative criminal justice approaches and therapeutic treatment courts, and a report on narcotics law enforcement efforts, instilled vital understanding of recent legal trends.

Terry ORourke and Dan Downey

An examination of the Harris County Opioid Litigation against manufacturers and distributors of prescription opioids by lawyers from the County Attorney’s office provided a glimpse of how the opioid crisis may be impacted by future court decisions.

Karen Palombo teaching

The individual and family effects of the opioid epidemic were also central to the Opioid Summit as breakout sessions covered addiction treatment modalities and prevention and education programs for children and families.

John Cates speech

Advocacy, another front in the war on opioids was keynoted by John Cates. Frank discussions were held on using technology and other therapeutic tools to promote recovery, as well as community efforts to help addicted pregnant women and deal with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome (NAS), an increasingly alarming problem in delivery rooms across the Houston area.

Four Person Panel

A poignant and powerful closing keynote session focused on the personal perspectives of three individuals whose lives were forever touched by the opioid crisis. Moderated by KPRC’s Khambrel Marshall, the intimate conversation with Maureen Wittels, Randy Grimes, and Jim Hood drove home the devastating impact of substance use disorder. Maureen lost her son, Harris, to an opioid overdose in 2015, cutting short his 30-year old life as a rising star in Hollywood. Randy, a retired NFL player, suffered for 20 years with opioid addiction, that grew out of treating the pain of his football injuries, before getting sober nine years ago. Jim’s son, Austin, died at the age of 21 from an opioid overdose six years ago and prompted Jim to co-found a national organization, Facing Addiction with NCADD, to fight the opioid addiction with the same fervor of campaigns that have battled cancer and other deadly diseases for years.

The Council on Recovery is leading our community in the effort to find solutions to the opioid epidemic. Your support of The Council is greatly appreciated! For more information, click here.

More Photos from the 2018 Houston Opioid Summit:

Vanessa Ayala teaching

Traci-Gauen

Randy Grimes

Peter Mott speaking

Mireille Milfort

Howard Lester

Harry Wiland

Faith Panel

Doug Thornton

Christian Thrasher, Clinton Health Matters Initiative
Christian Thrasher, Clinton Health Matters Initiative
Carol Alvarado
Texas state representative Carol Alvarado

 

CDC Report: Excessive Alcohol Use and Risks to Women’s Health

Woman drinking wine 1Recently reported data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are shedding new light on the links between excessive alcohol use by women and the increasing risks to female health. Here are vital the facts from the CDC.

Although men are more likely to drink alcohol and drink in larger amounts, gender differences in body structure and chemistry cause women to absorb more alcohol, and take longer to break it down and remove it from their bodies (i.e., to metabolize it). In other words, upon drinking equal amounts, women have higher alcohol levels in their blood than men, and the immediate effects of alcohol occur more quickly and last longer in women than men. These differences also make it more likely that drinking will cause long-term health problems in women than men.

Drinking Levels among Women

  • Approximately 46% of adult women report drinking alcohol in the last 30 days.
  • Approximately 12% of adult women report binge drinking 3 times a month, averaging 5 drinks per binge.
  • Most (90%) people who binge drink are not alcoholics or alcohol dependent.
  • About 2.5% of women and 4.5% of men met the diagnostic criteria for alcohol dependence in the past year.

Reproductive Health Outcomes

  • National surveys show that about 1 in 2 women of child-bearing age (i.e., aged 18–44 years) drink alcohol, and 18% of women who drink alcohol in this age group binge drink.
  • Excessive drinkingmay disrupt the menstrual cycle and increase the risk of infertility.
  • Women who binge drinkare more likely to have unprotected sex and multiple sex partners. These activities increase the risks of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.

Pregnancy Outcomes

  • About 10% of pregnant women drink alcohol.
  • Women who drink alcohol while pregnant increase their risk of having a baby with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). The most severe form is Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), which causes mental retardation and birth defects.
  • FASDare completely preventable if a woman does not drink while pregnant or while she may become pregnant. It is not safe to drink at any time during pregnancy.
  • Excessive drinking increases a woman’s risk of miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature delivery.
  • Women who drink alcohol while pregnant are also more likely to have a baby die from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS). This risk substantially increases if a woman binge drinksduring her first trimester of pregnancy.

Other Health Concerns

  • Liver Disease: The risk of cirrhosis and other alcohol-related liver diseases is higher for women than for men.
  • Impact on the Brain: Excessive drinking may result in memory loss and shrinkage of the brain. Research suggests that women are more vulnerable than men to the brain damaging effects of excessive alcohol use, and the damage tends to appear with shorter periods of excessive drinking for women than for men.
  • Impact on the Heart: Studies have shown that women who drink excessively are at increased risk for damage to the heart muscle than men even for women drinking at lower levels.
  • Cancer: Alcohol consumption increases the risk of cancer of the mouth, throat, esophagus, liver, colon, and breast among women. The risk of breast cancer increases as alcohol use increases.
  • Sexual Assault: Binge drinking is a risk factor for sexual assault, especially among young women in college settings. Each year, about 1 in 20 college women are sexually assaulted. Research suggests that there is an increase in the risk of rape or sexual assault when both the attacker and victim have used alcohol prior to the attack.

The Council on Recovery offers prevention, education, treatment, and recovery services for women experiencing alcoholism, drug addiction, and co-occurring mental health disorders. Contact The Council today to get help.

Documentary Film “Do No Harm: The Opioid Epidemic” Launches the 2018 Houston Opioid Summit

 

Do No Harm Image 2

The new documentary Do No Harm: The Opioid Epidemic made its Houston debut as it opened the 2018 Houston Opioid Summit at The Council on Recovery. Introduced by its producer and director, Harry Wiland, the film zeroes in on the national public health emergency that is sweeping through North America. In this close examination of the opioid crisis – the most deadly epidemic to devastate the U.S. in recent years – medical professionals come together to deliver their verdict. Narrated by Ed Harris, Do No Harm shows us the devastating effects of these drugs, and casts light up on those who must be held accountable.

Watch a preview of Do No Harm: The Opioid Epidemic here. It isavailable to stream on-line at the Media Policy Center . It is also being shown as a three-part series on PBS stations nationwide.

Opioid Summit Featured on KPRC’s Houston Life

 

Houston Life 1As media partner of The Council on Recovery’s 2018 Houston Opioid Summit, KPRC/Click2Houston featured a segment about the Summit on “Houston Life”, Channel 2’s popular mid-day show. Hosts Courtney Zavala and Derrick Shore interviewed Howard Lester, Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at The Council, and Maureen Wittels, who will share her story at the Summit about losing her son to an opioid overdose in 2015. 

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 34

Stargate 1Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 34 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

In 1994, the movie Stargate premiered.  It is the fictitious story about the discovery, in the Egyptian desert near Giza, of an ancient ring-shaped device that creates a portal, a wormhole, enabling super-fast travel to similar devices elsewhere in the Galaxy encompassing Earth, known as the Milky Way Galaxy. The device was the work of a very advanced, very ancient, pre-history culture facilitating instantaneous transportation to their settlements all over the Galaxy.  There was much conflict in the galactic time periods of this culture so that, sometime in the pre-history eras of Egypt, the device was buried by early Earth inhabitants to prohibit these advanced races from traveling back to Earth. This movie spawned a TV series that, with sequels, totaled over 350 episodes spread over 15 years to 2011, all about the travel through this portal of a special U.S. Air Force unit exploring various life activity all over the Galaxy.

In our current societies, we experience space and time as very limited, infinitesimal elements of the whole of the Universe, which is, in reality, billions of years old (and still expanding) and millions of light years wide (each such light year being a distance of approx 6 trillion miles). Our Galaxy is in excess of 100,000 light years wide and contains over 100 million stars similar to our Sun; it is estimated that there are over one trillion similar galaxies in the Universe. These dimensions are staggering, almost beyond our ability to comprehend their scope.

However, just as the Cosmos might be impossibly large for us to comprehend, almost the same can be said about the makeup of our own bodies, the incredible, almost infinite minuteness of the components of our own being. We are each billions and billions of atoms, molecules and cells, all woven together in incredibly complex patterns of interconnectivity.

The players in the Stargate series travel all over the Galaxy to explore different forms of life.  In reality much of the stories are artistic recreations of the many human stories of which we are all players, but the backdrop of these humongous dimensions of the Cosmos seem to enhance  their wonder, at least to me.

This is why I find the series of Stargate so fascinating. Each of us in Sobriety, committed Sobriety, find ourselves living in immediate societies where we are, or can become, true agents of change. It may all seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but, for each of us in Recovery, our own individual struggles are as gigantic, maybe even galactic, as the mythos in which Stargate is created.  That is no accident, in my mind. Each of our own Higher Powers, focused on each of us in our own individual journeys, while operating in this massive Cosmos, are effectively calling on each of us to bear witness to the wonder and potential of creation.

Stopping Youth Opioid Abuse – Early Prevention Reduces Misuse

An estimated 2 million Americans will suffer from addiction to prescription opioids or illegal opioids in 2018. About two thirds of deadly drug overdoses in 2016 were due to opioids and 75 percent of drug overdoses among 15-24 year olds were related to opioids.

Prevention is the best hope of slowing the trend.

Stop Youth Opioid Abuse is a multi-channel effort from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Ad Council, and the Truth Initiative that focuses on preventing and reducing the misuse of opioids among youth and young adults. The Council on Recovery supports these national efforts with locally-sourced services for helping young people survive the opioid epidemic.

Stop Opioid Abuse pg 1

Stop Opioid Abuse pg 2