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Feb. 8, 2021 - Epoch Times
17:27
California’s Rising Addiction Crisis and Substance Abuse, Explained | Scott Silverman
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Now we have this pandemic and the addictions and substance abuse is on the rise.
Can you tell us more what's going on in California right now?
With isolation right now, because of COVID, people that have issues around substance use disorders, people who suffer from self-medication, People who may have had a drinking problem, if they're now home by themselves, not talking to others, their issues have gotten worse.
They've become amplifying.
Has the services increased for helping people that are facing these issues?
In some ways, services have diminished, if you will, And the accessibility to service is also diminished, especially if you're out of work and you don't have access to insurance.
When you're living with someone night and day, there's some stress that goes into it.
And if you don't have the tools and how to sit down and talk about it, you know, ask for help.
The three hardest words.
We started with this, I need help.
Is there a point that it could become too late for people to get help?
But if you're living with somebody right now who you know is actively acting out or behaviorally is depressed, there's always hope and help, and I really believe that.
The difficulty with this addiction is the stigma behind it.
I mean, we're sitting here talking about it, but for years this conversation never came up.
Ever.
As a result of the pandemic and lockdowns, substance abuse is on the rise in California.
My guest today is Scott Silverman.
He's a crisis coach and family navigator.
Today, he discusses how to help someone struggling with addiction and what resources are available for recovery.
Welcome to California Insider.
Thank you.
So nice to be here.
Appreciate it.
We want to talk to you about addiction and with the CCP virus pandemic, which we call it the CCP virus because we think they delayed telling the world about it.
Now we have this pandemic and the addictions and substance abuse is on the rise.
Can you tell us more what's going on in California right now?
Well, I think, and I think California, it's a great question.
It's also just a sample of what's taking place across the country and probably around the world.
With isolation right now, because of COVID, people that have issues around substance use disorders, people who suffer from self-medication, people who may have had a drinking problem, if they're now home by themselves not talking to others, their issues have gotten worse.
They've become amplified.
We know for a fact, for example, the alcohol industry says sales are up over 60%.
This was as of last July.
In 2020.
So here we are in 2021, so we know it's gotten even worse as far as consumption goes because with the lack of employment, being isolated, not having contact with others, not having the accountability because you're in your own home, people aren't seeing you as often,
whether it be a faith-based journey or kids in school, we've seen a lot of increase with domestic violence and also substance abuse increase and also with, you know, issues going on with child abuse because You know, the school system is where kids kind of checked in and information would flow to the appropriate agency.
So we're seeing issues at every single level right now in California.
And with this, has the services that do support Is it expanded?
Because I know that churches are shut down, and some churches do help with these services.
And schools, as well as you mentioned, sometimes they are good at recognizing problems at home.
Has the services increased for helping people that are facing these issues?
Well, you know, the faith-based organizations are sometimes the first point of contact.
I call them the first responders when it comes to hearing the stories or a family sharing or someone going to their faith-based leader going, you know, I have a family member.
They're on the decline.
Something's going on.
I don't know what to do.
And they would kind of be that first point of contact.
And I think the fact that people aren't attending services, if you will, I think more things are starting to happen online now than ever before, but that's a big issue because that's a major barrier.
So I think that, and then when it comes to services, if you're a treatment provider and I'm a treatment provider and you don't have clients come in and that you can serve and you can't collect insurance for services you normally provide, it's become an economic problem for a lot of organizations as well.
So in some ways, services have diminished, if you will, And the accessibility to service is also diminished, especially if you're out of work and you don't have access to insurance.
So when you think about it, it's kind of a stumbling effect.
It ripples down and it causes more barriers to access to treatment.
And then there's the great one I've heard, because as a crisis coach and family navigator, I talk to families who Have a child in crisis.
They say, you know, my kid does not want to go to an inpatient program because they don't want to catch COVID. I said, wait a minute, we just spent a half an hour on the phone and you're telling me how your son, this is an example, is at home, you know, smoking heroin and Is willing to do that and you're putting up with it because you don't think he should be in treatment because he might catch COVID? My sense is heroin is going to kill him much quicker potentially than COVID might.
So let's try to find a balance around that.
So at the end of the day, we're not...
We're not making the most informed decisions as family members on how to support somebody right now if they're suffering from substance use disorders and other forms of addiction like food, gambling, internet, other things that people can be addicted to that could be harmful in many different ways.
Can you explain some of the symptoms of where the point is where somebody has a problem with drinking, where you can recognize somebody has a problem with drugs?
You know, it's pretty straightforward.
You know, most people know their families pretty well.
And you can see things from, you know, sleep deprivation.
You can see things, people sleeping in, isolating in their room, hiding out more, smell of alcohol in their breath.
Their pupils are dilated.
Their behavior shifts.
Strange people are coming into your house.
Items are missing in your home, like your jewelry, money, things of that nature.
There are things that generally can be very glaring And if you're paying attention as a family member or a friend, you could see them.
What most people don't know how to do is, A, ask for help, three of the hardest words in the English language.
B, where to go for it.
And C, be willing to take that action because when you take the action, there's an admission something's going on.
And once you do that, you have to have some form of ownership of that behavior that you're acting on because you're scared, concerned, or worried about someone else.
And is there a point that makes most sense to do the intervention?
Where is the best place to start thinking about intervention in a family member or friends that's Well, intervention is something, it's interesting.
It's a pretty broad-based term.
And there's a traditional way that, you know, people were doing interventions over time.
I do them differently as a crisis coach and interventionist.
But I think timing's important.
But I think what's more important than timing, which contributes to the timing of the decision, is getting information.
Getting informed, talking to someone who does this, talking to an industry that knows how to do it, talking to a clinician who understands the substance abuse issues and when and how to introduce the conversation.
Simply, for example, the average family member, when they're talking to their loved one, is usually speaking what I call shame-based terms, kind of like when a kid, you're growing up and you're One of your parents is flagging their finger in your face about one thing or another.
I call that shame-based conversations, which are not very motivational.
And if an individual is under the influence, and most families tend to have that altercation while they're under the influence, they may not remember the next day.
So timing, being informed, having the information, knowing what questions to ask, and how to listen.
Which is very important because that's important.
Listening will tell you what questions you need to ask next.
And in some cases, I wouldn't even have the conversation until you've had a debrief with a professional.
The approach that California is taking is a little bit relaxed on drugs.
They're making it easier.
There are some bills and proposals that are coming that are actually allowing people to inject drugs in certain facilities in San Francisco.
What is the impact of this type of approach to drugs for people that are facing addiction?
How is that going to impact addictions in the future?
Well, you know, let me point to another state right now, which is Oregon, which has passed the decriminalization of a lot of different drugs.
And I think what we're going to see is, initially, you know, because we're kind of a pill-oriented society, America, if you will, and we tend to take a pill to feel better or to go to sleep or to wake up, if you will.
So I think what's going to happen is people are going to make choices That aren't really well aligned because they're not going to be informed choices.
And the theory in Oregon was an interesting joke about four months ago that, you know, coming up in January this month is when they legalized it or decriminalized it.
What they are finding is it was funny because they said, you know, you can in California because of social distancing.
If you go to your mom's house for Thanksgiving.
You could be arrested if you weren't social distancing.
But in Oregon, you can sit with your mom and shoot heroin, and it's okay.
It's like, what?
It sounds unusual, but that was kind of the joke that was going around.
So decriminalization...
It's so new.
You look at places like Colorado, one of the first states to legalize marijuana.
They had some major issues.
Suicides, people that were getting so high without any limits whatsoever.
And then, of course, having access to this high level of THC in marijuana today for young people, it stops their brain from developing.
So there are no real long-term studies yet, but I can't imagine that we're going to see substance use disorders increase, that we're not going to see people who are trying harder to get access to it and just taking edibles.
You know, there's no smoking, there's no, you know, the carcinogens that come in the body.
So what happens is people will tend to act out because it's now legal, and I think that's going to cause some long-term problems.
And I think that You know, cities like San Francisco, there's the needle exchange program, which I think in some ways is very healthy, but others will say it kind of enables the IV drug user to get access to clean needles.
But by having access to clean needles, they're not going to catch the other things that they get, you know, in different parts of the streets.
Now, looking around the international plane...
Portugal has legalized everything or decriminalized everything.
I don't know how you actually explain it.
And they saw a significant drop in substance use disorders.
So, you know, it's interesting to see long term how that works and if that kind of philosophy is transferable over here to San Diego.
Going back to the rise of substance abuse, what can people do when they see somebody in their family, some of their friends are abusing these kinds of substances?
Well, again, getting information, understanding what it means, calling me, someone like me, and there aren't a lot of people like me, but you have clinicians out there, you have primary doctors, you have addiction specialists, you have treatment centers, you have crisis hotlines, you have opportunities to ask questions.
You can go online at Google.
How do I help a loved one who has an alcohol problem?
It's amazing the kind of information that will pop up.
And no matter where you are in the world, no matter how small or how big your community is, there's information there.
And if you can't get it locally, there's ways to get it nationally.
I mean, SAMHSA, some of the big organizations, NIDA, some of the big organizations that...
Put together the databases, do the studies.
They'll show you different ways to get connected.
And my information will be on later in this segment.
And you can contact me directly, and I'll do everything I can to help you find the best path to get on to get the questions asked and answered.
But if you're living with somebody right now who you know is actively acting out or...
Behaviorally is depressed.
I mean, look, in today's world, I don't care who you are.
I mean, I saw a piece on the news yesterday that couples at home, you know, my wife and I, we've kind of had to hunker down at home because of my age and how she can work from home just to increase our level of safety around getting exposed to COVID. But when you're living with someone night and day, there's some stress that goes into it.
And if you don't have the tools and how to sit down and talk about it, ask for help.
The three hardest words.
We started with this, I need help.
And seek it out.
Because you know what?
It's there.
And even though professionals may not be sitting in their office, that you can go see them.
A lot of them are doing this now.
They're on Zoom.
They're doing telehealth.
They're talking to people on the phone.
They're going to Facebook.
If need be, or even FaceTime or, you know, other mechanisms where you can talk to each other.
For example, me personally, I'm in long-term recovery.
I go to meetings all the time, have always gone to meetings.
And now, because I physically can't go to meetings, I Zoom meetings.
I'm actually going to twice more meetings I used to go to because it's so convenient, there's no excuse not to.
And there are support groups all over the country and the world right now where you can get online and you can listen to others.
You don't have to show people your face.
You can change your name to anonymous.
So you can do it completely anonymously in your pajamas at home and listen into others.
If you don't want to participate, that's fine.
But at least listen.
That way you can potentially hear what other people might be doing or suggesting.
So that's probably the easiest answer to your question is families can go online and they can Google family support Zoom meetings for people suffering from substance use disorders.
Is there a point that it could become too late for people to get help?
I believe no.
I believe that there's always hope and help.
There's always hope and help.
I mean, clearly, you know, sometimes the most motivated people, I get phone calls from when they have a loved one handcuffed in a gurney in a hospital room because they just got arrested.
But I also believe that this disease, when you think about the disease of addiction, we haven't really spoken much about that.
It's just like diabetes.
If you and I were talking about diabetes, It would be simple.
Junior, get in the car, we're going to the doctor, you know, we're going to have a blood test done, the doctor's going to do an assessment, and we're going to find out what's going on.
And if they find out it's diabetes, you know what?
You're going to be checking your blood sugar level throughout the day.
You're going to be given insulin that you can take as needed, and you can live a normal life.
You have to adjust your diet a little bit, maybe, you know, your exercise regime.
But there's always hope and help, and I really believe that.
The difficulty with this addiction is the stigma behind it.
I mean, we're sitting here talking about it, but for years, this conversation never came up, ever.
And because, and when businesses, you know, I want to drink from a fire hose.
That's what I talk about.
My phone should be ringing off the hook.
It should.
But when it comes to disease of addiction, If somebody raises their hand, a business, for example, an industry, first responders, for example, lawyers, lawyers talk about having a 30% alcohol abuse problem within their rank and file.
30% self-admitted.
So if there's 100,000 attorneys in California, 30,000 of them have an active alcohol abuse problem that needs to be looked into.
An example.
Self-disclosed.
That's the American Bar Association's self-disclosed percentage.
So when you think about that, why aren't we talking about it more?
I mean, right now, 200 people die every single day from opioid overdoses, just opioid overdoses.
So last year alone, it was a little over 72,000.
And that's been going on for over a decade or more.
So, the fact that we're talking about it is so important and I thank you for that and your team.
But that's what it's really going to take to create this systemic change.
And a lot of people think that substance use disorders is a moral failing.
It's not.
I had this disease.
I had to get help.
And I work each day a little bit to try to maintain my own recovery and sobriety.
Because it's important to me.
And I want to watch my kids have kids.
And I want to dance at their weddings.
And I want to continue to argue with my wife while we're sitting at home during COVID. I don't want to miss any opportunity.
Good, bad, or indifferent.
Because today I can feel those things and not have to drink.
Thank you.
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