Social Media: A Surprisingly Positive Force in Treating Addiction
For many years the popular concept in the addiction treatment and recovery world was that sharing publicly about one’s recovery was at best self-indulgent and at it’s worst something that breaks the tenets of the 12-step community and only sets people up for public frailty, failure and embarrassment. But in recent years, the utilization of social media to connect the addicted to one another and to resources as well as turning to social media to spread of state-of-the-art addiction and recovery information is being seen more and more as a life-saving development in battling the deadly disease of addiction.
As an experiment I went on Twitter and searched under “sober support” and it became apparent the hashtags that sober people are using to connect to and support one another are #ODAAT (or One Day At A Time) and #RecoveryPosse. Tweets like “Today I am grateful for: 1- this sunset whilst I was swimming 2- youngest son had fun at a birthday party 3- I had a nap” and “14 days clean and doing great!” and “Pray for my friend who relapsed and is in a coma.” abound, all with plenty of likes and responses like “Praying!’ ‘Good for you!” and “Keep coming back!” The last is a popular phrase in the 12-step rooms.
Currently, I have two dear friends on Facebook, Justin and Krista, who are publicly chronicling their fairly new recovery journeys. Both are alcoholics. Justin is very raw about sharing how difficult it is for him to manage his sadness and anger without alcohol, that the little things in life can send him into a terrible place emotionally, an anxiety and anger that he previously soothed with alcohol. He can also be achingly vulnerable. The comments on his posts range from hilarious jokes to heartfelt empathy to the occasional finger-wag from a fellow recovery person to “get to a meeting.” Krista is very mired in bringing the raw, the funny and the sexual to her new sobriety. I enjoyed this winsome post from her; “I went to a party and felt socially awkward because I wasn't drinking.
Then I remembered I've always felt socially awkward at parties. Then I realized everyone drinking also seemed socially awkward. Drinking or not, we're all a bunch of socially awkward people just trying to find other people to be socially awkward with.”
Facebook has hundreds of addiction recovery support groups; a cursory glance shows anywhere from 400 to hundreds of thousands of people belong to each of these groups. Addiction Recovery support Group: 81,000 members. Clean and Sober Addiction Recovery 65,000 members, Affected by Addiction Support Group 69,000 and on and on. When I think back to 1994 when I first got sober, before the internet was actually a thing and cell phone were anything but SMART, and I think of how I would have given anything for this kind of sober connection in my new recovery. As it was I only had the AA central office phone line and a Thomas Guide to help me find AA meetings and from those meetings a network of support.
In a piece on Buzzfeed News entitled “How Facebook Helps Me Stay Sober,” writer Lauren Hoffman shares that sharing with her network that she got sober helped her to stay accountable and also to connect with other sober people. She states, “There's absolutely something self-serving about that openness. I speak as honestly as I do because it's always been a way for me to connect with others with similar struggles or to reach out to my friends and family, both of which are essential to my sanity and recovery (Hoffman, 2014).”
Kristina Netherland, the clinical director at Ocean Breeze Recovery in Pompano Beach Florida shares that backing away from social media might actually signal a downward spiral in addiction. stating, “There’s a pattern among active users who begin to shy away from social media platforms such as Facebook because they’re still in denial about their addiction. They may be facing a quarter-life crisis and compare friends’ accomplishments with the lack of their own. A part of why people don’t share their addiction via social media mainly lies in shame. Not many people would use the word “proud” when admitting to having an addiction, so it’s not likely that you’ll see your childhood friend post about stealing money for pills on Facebook (Netherland, 2019).”
Can social media in and of itself become a new addiction? Absolutely! So when one decides to use the social media world to connect to recovery and community, be vigilant that this does not become the new addiction. Mark D. Griffiths, Ph.D., in an article in Psychology Today lays out the perils that are inherent in turning to social media as a panacea to all of your recovery networking protocols, sharing, “Over the past five years there has been a proliferation of studies assessing how excessive social media use can impact negatively on health. In a recent paper Dr. Kuss and I again reviewed the latest research on the topic and showed that social media use for a minority of individuals is associated with a number of psychological problems, including anxiety, depression, loneliness, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and addiction. Because social media is most frequently accessed via smartphones, their usage is intimately intertwined and their mobile nature contributes to excessive checking habits, which often derives from what is commonly labeled as the ‘fear of missing out’ (FOMO) (Griffiths, 2018)” He goes on to lay out the following questions as red-flags in regard to social media overuse to the point of addictive behaviors:
Do you spend a lot of time thinking about social media or planning to use social media?
Do you feel urges to use social media more and more?
Do you use social media to forget about personal problems?
Do you often try to reduce your use of social media without success?
Do you become restless or troubled if you are unable to use social media?
Do you use social media so much that it has had a negative impact on your job or studies? (Griffiths, 2018)
If you answer yes to several of these questions, you might want to pull back on your social media engagement or even seek help in regard to social media addiction.
The other peril inherent to social media and addiction is the trafficking of drugs that is happening at all times and the triggering effect this can have on a recovered person. Matt, a recovered heroin addict started out blocking his “using” friends on his Facebook page and Twitter accounts but then realized that these people could be just as easily unblocked and take him back down the rabbit hole of addiction. “I had to find a whole new class of friends—so I closed all my accounts for two years form all social media. I’m back on Facebook now but under a fake name and with a closed page and tons of privacy walls. I don’t need to put my hand on the stove again to see it will burn. I got burned too many times.” This put me to mind of my own treacherous path back into intimate friendships when I was new in recovery. So many of my “best buds” were actually just drinking buds and I, too, had to find a whole new bunch of friends. It makes me think of this Bette Midler song that I have always loved and the lyric she sings, with breathless desperation, “Standing at the end of a really long road and I’m waiting on my new friends to come!” Enjoy:
Social media is having a profound impact for the better in managing the opioid crisis. I will say that it can be challenging at times as someone who work in the recovery field and who has worked in nonprofits as this crisis is seen as “new” when in fact in communities living in extreme poverty, the opioid crisis has been happening in earnest since the 1960’s and has never really abated. The proliferation of Fentanyl, an opioid used for pain medication in extreme medical situations like cancer treatment and surgery recovery, has upped the stakes as it is coming into North America from all over the world and is being mixed with streets drugs. This mixed with the overprescribing of other prescription opioid like Oxycontin, Norco and Vicodin and the fact they have been prescribed to middle class, affluent populations who in turn became addicted to these substances, has resulted in the crisis at hand as well the garnering of more media attention.
Operation UNITE is an example of social media in action to fight to opioid crisis. Started with a grant from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and Oak Ridge Associated Universities (ORAU), Operation UNITE is a fledgling social media instructive program implemented to aide community organizations in Appalachia more effectively utilize social media to fight the misuse and addiction issues associated with prescription painkillers and illegal opiates, such as heroin. Appalachia is a region of the US that has been more profoundly impacted by the opioid crisis. The Operation Unite website lays out the devastation in statistical terms: The drug overdose rate in Kentucky is more than 1.5 times higher than the national average, and the rates in several counties in UNITE’s service area triple the national average. “Our commonwealth has been ground zero for the explosion of opioid abuse,” said Nancy Hale, president/CEO of Operation UNITE. “But as a result, we also have been on the forefront of fighting this epidemic with a multi-pronged approach that has become a national model. This training will help Operation UNITE continue to leverage every available tool to help our families and communities.” Since its inception, the social media reach of Operation UNITE (Facebook, Twitter, website and Instagram) has connected thousands of people struggling with opioid addiction through Vouchers, camps, afterschool programs, yearly summits, educational programs at high schools and college campuses, and online support groups.
Finally, social media in the realm of celebrity culture is often seen as toxic and reductive but when a celebrity has the courage to come out publicly as struggling with addictive behaviors the result can be fans that feel inspired to seek recovery themselves. Whether it is the desire to emulate an admired celebrity or simply the stigma being lifted, the idea of seeking recovery is more and more being normalized by celebrities stepping into the social media light with their stories. Demi, Lovato, Brad Pitt. Eric Clapton, Elton John, Rob Delaney, Lil Xan, Billie Joe Armstrong, and Marshall Mathers (aka Eminem) have all shared their recovery journeys on social media, lighting the way for those struggling with addiction.
Social media is affording more people living in crisis and/or living in recovery the opportunity to reach out and connect with other addicts and alcoholics. Not only is this shift in garnering treatment and resources saving lives, it is lifting the stigma around the disease of addiction. The following is a list of some of the best websites for seeking recovery tools—information, community, and connections to treatment and connections to contoured care.
Rise Above Colorado (written by and for kids!)
https://riseaboveco.org/
The Amy Winehouse Foundation (started by the late singer’s family)
https://amywinehousefoundation.org/
Partnership for Drug-Free Kids
https://drugfree.org/
The Herron Project (recovered pro basketball player Chris Herren’s organization)
https://herrenproject.org/about/
Angels at Risk (begun by actor Ted Danson)
https://angelsatrisk.com/
Natural High (another geared towards drug free youth approaches)
https://naturalhigh.org/
Phoenix House (an institution, offering pro bona treatment to the underserved for over 50 years)
https://www.phoenixhouse.org/
Shatterproof (connecting people to treatment and a huge advocacy engine to legislate change in approaches to treating the addicted)
https://www.shatterproof.org/
Foundation For Alcoholism Research (research, advocacy, prevention)
http://alcoholismresearch.org/
REFERENCES
Griffiths, M. D. (2018, May 7). Addicted to Social Media? Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/in-excess/201805/addicted-social-media
Hoffman, L. (2014, November 7). How Facebook Helps Me Stay Sober. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/laurenhoffman/how-social-media-is-helping-me-stay-sober
Operation UNITE website, 2016
Using Social Media In Recovery Helps People Stay Sober. (2019). [Blog] Ocean Breeze Recovery Blog. Available at: https://oceanbreezerecovery.org/blog/social-media-addiction-recovery/ [Accessed 12 Jul. 2019].