Jed Shlackman, LMHC, provides services to clients in the Miami and South Florida area who are seeking to address addiction challenges and also drug withdrawal challenges.
Commentary on 12-Step Programs And Principles & Addiction Recovery
Withdrawal From Psychiatric Drugs & Psychoactive Substances: For Those Seeking Support With Deprescribing And Detox From Mood Altering And Mind Altering Medicines Or Drugs This article is provided for educational purposes as it is not intended to provide individual guidance, treatment, or medical advice regarding weaning or withdrawing from psychoactive substances. Each person is unique and is encouraged to seek individualized support and care to address any concerns related to psychoactive drug dependency, addiction, or withdrawal. This article is based upon a few decades of work as a clinician in the mental health field, working with thousands of people providing mental health and holistic health services while having extensive clinical training and engaging in multi-disciplinary research gathering related to these topics.
Throughout history people have been using a variety of psychoactive substances in order to experience the short term mood or mind altering effects of those substances. Using those substances often disrupts or impairs the body's innate self-regulation of biochemical activity, which may lead to patterns of dependency or addiction as well as various other adverse effects on the mind and body, leading people to desire to wean off of the drugs or try to abruptly stop using them. Since the body has adapted to the presence of the foreign, disruptive substance, there can be challenging unpleasant symptoms when a person tries to stop using the drug. This happens with both recreational drugs and prescribed pharmaceutical drugs.
If you are working with an experienced physician you can collaborate with your provider to gradually reduce dosages of a medication to reduce the likelihood of severe withdrawal effects. If you are on multiple medications you may choose to wean or withdraw from just one medication at a time. It is important to have multiple forms of support in place to help your body with detoxification and help nourish your body and mind to better handle any emotions or physical sensations that arise during the withdrawal process. Cleansing diets, nutrition, exercise, fresh air and sunshine, safe and supportive social environments, and other variables can have a big impact on how smoothly and successfully you can withdraw from the drugs.
Yoga, meditation, breathwork, energy healing, a calming spiritual practice, nourishing whole foods, adequate sleep and physical movement, saunas, light therapy, sound therapy, PEMF, and other resources can aid with helping the body excrete the residues of drugs while replenishing energy and nutrients and resetting the nervous system and subtle energy system to restore normal self-regulation of chemicals after the long term alteration created by prescribed or recreational psychoactive drug use.
One's mindset and beliefs can also be vital in this process. Fearing or over-reacting to unpleasant withdrawal symptoms can aggravate those symptoms, while having trust and patience can help ameliorate those symptoms. Give yourself permission and trust in being present with discomfort or distress, with pain or suffering. Resistance to our own emotions and sensations is often what leads to a path of chemical dependency to begin with. If we understand and accept the distress as part of a necessary process we can expedite the process and move through it rather than resisting and perpetuating the distress.
"Behind a neurosis there is so often concealed all the natural and necessary suffering the patient has been unwilling to bear. We can see this most clearly from hysterical pains, which are relieved in the course of treatment by the corresponding psychic suffering which the patient sought to avoid." - Carl Jung
https://carljungdepthpsychologysite.blog/2020/02/12/suffering-7/
Modern society has trained people to try to escape from the slightest pain, whether mental or physical, rather than helping people understand the purpose of pain and its role in protecting us and teaching us as we navigate life. Nourish your body and mind and trust that they have the inner wisdom to restore their balance and will do so if given time and not overstressed or subjected to other interferences.
There are protocols that help expedite the clearing of toxins from the body, such as raw juicing and fresh fruits and vegetables, the niacin flush and sauna/sweating protocol, and red/infrared light therapy and whole body vibration devices to help stimulate lymphatic flow and circulation. Ozone and other oxidative therapies can also help the body cleanse and refresh.
Personality and psychology play a key role. Some people abruptly quit using drugs (either recreational, prescribed, or both) and have no major withdrawal difficulties while some other people have major distress as their mind-body system doesn't process the sudden shift in input well. This is mostly on a subconscious level, so doing healing therapies to help resolve any subconscious traumas or imbalances can help a person more smoothly break free from psychoactive substance attachments. We are truly not merely our physical bodies, our bodies are just a vehicle for experience in the physical dimensions and temporary extension of our field of energy and consiousness. Thus, our consciousness and energy can shift and transmute what is manifesting on the physical plane in our bodies. Meditative practices, energy cultivation practices, breathing practices, and other resources can help with restoring equilibrium to our bodies and enabling healthy self-regulation. There are many well documented cases of people rapidly recovering from a wide variety of physical and mental maladies. This includes physical conditions like cancer and autoimmune and neurological illnesses as well as psychiatric diagnoses such as bipolar depression, phobia, and schizophrenia. In many cultures there are stories of spiritual healers working through energy and the spiritual dimension to facilitate these types of healings, with stories of Jesus in the Christian Bible being one of many examples. In modern times there are academic researchers gathering documentation and publishing it in books and peer reviewed medical journals.
Mental distress does not arise as a deficiency of a drug - a drug can temporarily compensate for or distract from the state of distress but it cannot provide a true lasting solution. Many people feel improvement in their mental state or ability to function for some period of time when using psychiatric or recreational drugs - which makes them appealing and contributes to their dependency promoting potential. If they didn't produce a desirable effect people would not be craving or desiring them. Unfortunately the manner in which they produce that effect is short lived and problematic and if the actual causes of the underlying issues are not addressed the short term improvements are likely to dissipate over time and then the original issue still exists while tolerance and dependency have developed with the medication, so the person can end up feeling and functioning worse than they did before they ever began using medications.
An imbalanced chemical state is a product of an imbalance on one or more levels of our being. It could begin on a spiritual, mental, emotional, or physical level. There could be toxins disrupting the body, traumas disrupting the mind and emotions, excessive stress from the social environment, an inner conflict in the mind, or other factors that are affecting the physical state. None of those causes include a lack of drug use, although drug use itself can be a toxic disruptor that leads to imbalance either while the drug is active in the body or as the drug withdrawal phase occurs. Rather than believing a medical myth that a chemical imbalance is the basic cause of mental health symptoms and that a drug is needed to "treat" that proclaimed imbalance it helps to explore the whole spectrum of potential stresses on the mind-body-spirit system that doctors are trying to control in a narrow, misguided way by chemically manipulating one limited aspect of the system without understanding the impact on the system as a whole and the negative ripple effects that approach often generates.
No matter how difficult or challenging things may feel in the present moment know that change is continuous and inevitable and your body is designed to support its own homeostasis. You are not doomed or destined for perpetual suffering, your destiny is reunification with your soul and spiritual source that chose to embrace the challenge of human life experience and evolve through that experience. Your faith and trust and love and gratitude help support that inner balance, while fear, regret, resentment, and shame are some of the psychological energies that disrupt the balance and disturb the body. Release or express (rather than repress) your emotions, let your mind be more clear rather than constricted, and open to the flow of creation and existence, the undistorted energy of life itself. That current of energy will support your healing and wholeness.
Holistic approaches to helping people overcome addiction or dependency include providing a positive support system, counseling, spiritual guidance, hypnosis and guided imagery, meditation, energy balancing therapies, nutritional support, and healthy coping skills. The popular phrase "I am an addict" repeated in many support groups is not really true. It is intended to get people to confront their addiction and take responsibility for seeking help, so while it can help people in taking that step it can also become an obstacle to people evolving beyond the addiction (or any mental disorder label they may identify with) if they take the statement literally. "I have been engaged in addictive behaviors" would be a more accurate assessment. Seeing oneself as an addict (or any other narrow self-definition) is a limiting perspective which needs to be transcended. We can access a higher vision of ourselves and our potential and believe that we can align with that healthy version of ourselves. We can learn to be honest with ourselves and face our challenges, understanding that our spiritual essence is much greater than our present limitations. We have all transformed greatly through the course of our lives. We take on and leave behind a variety of patterns and interests as we evolve. Addictions can be left behind as we re-create ourselves and establish a new identity that doesn't include the addiction. The Christian concept of being "born-again" is somewhat analogous to this, but being born again in a psychological context doesn't require joining a religion or taking an oath - it only requires a genuine shift in one's consciousness, which will naturally manifest shifts in one's behavior and lifestyle.
Jed has worked with many people of all ages to help them shift their mental and emotional patterns and transform their lives. If you are struggling with an addiction or dependency or withdrawing from any psychoactive substances there is definitely help for you to reach your goal and many people who are already examples of success in that endeavor.
Addiction Education And Healing References And Resources
Article: The Chemistry of Addiction and the Gateway To Freedom
Recovery 2.0: Life Beyond Addiction
Holistic treatment - why is it important? Holistic approaches to addiction recovery
YouTube: Recovery 2.0 - Tommy Rosen & Ashley Turner: Addiction and Where It Originates: A Path To Healing
Video: Addictions Explained Part 1
Video: Addictions Explained Part 2
Books
Recovery 2.0: Move Beyond Addiction And Upgrade Your Life, by Tommy Rosen
Rewired - A Bold New Approach to Addiction and Recovery, by Erica Spiegelman
Integral Recovery, by John Dupuy
Awakening The Brain, by Charlotte A. Tomaino
Clean, by David Sheff
In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, by Gabor Mate
The Dark Side of The Light Chasers, by Debbie Ford
The Diet Cure, by Julia Ross
The Natural Medicine Guide to Addiction, by Stephanie Marohn
Addiction Free Naturally, by Brigitte Mars
