Addiction & Mental Health Resources

Introduction

This documentary chronicles the lives of people who have faced and conquered addiction. Through distinct chapters outlining the beginning, the addiction, the recovery and their lives today, we delve into the complexities of addiction, the depth of its effects and the powerful journey of recovery. The film aspires to erase the stigma and to ultimately change the conversation surrounding addiction. [Taken from YT description]

Additional Videos:

• Elysse’s Story: I Got Sober For Love. For Me, For Us and Our Family
• Cara’s Story: A Lifetime of Addiction. A Story of Family, Fame and Recovery
• Trevor’s Story: A Son’s Struggle. A Mother’s Love. A Story of Addiction, Family and Recovery
• Darren’s Story: The Ripple Effect of Addiction, Prison and Recovery
• James’ Story of Sexuality, Addiction and Recovery
• Joe’s Story of Addiction, Suicide and Recovery
• Chris’ Story of Addiction, Peer Pressure, and Recovery
• Pam’s Story: Addiction, Abuse, Homelessness and Hope

Watch Now!

Quotes

“I was not happy as a child. I felt awkward, shy, never comfortable in my own skin. I needed relief from the discomfort I felt being me.”

“To compensate for the fact that I felt so alone and I felt so alienated, I honed and developed some great social skills and it was a big effort … I had to consciously work at it.”

“I moved to California and I got sober in a 12-step program and my life really took off … 10 or so years later, I then relapsed. All the success I had was meaningless.”

“I cleaned up before I joined the service … I never forgot it when I was in the military, I was like, ‘I need to do this‘. I just didn’t do it until I got out, and when I got out I just picked up right where I left off and I just did not stop using … I’m not there anymore, Darren’s completely gone.”

If I want to do something, I can go and do it. I have the freedom to go do it, when back then, and even in early recovery, I didn’t have that freedom … lay down at night and just be grateful that I’m still here, I’m still sober.

“Earlier on then I would like to admit, I sort of always had that notion of ‘this is probably not going to end well‘, but at that point it had definitely become ‘this feels good, this feels better.’ I get to escape my head, I get to escape my past traumas, I get to just sort of numb out.”

“If you use drugs and alcohol long enough and live that life of deception long enough, you start to lose track of what’s real and what’s not.”

“I laid on this cold tile floor sobbing and shaking and it was nice to be close to the toilet because coming off a ridiculous amount of pharmaceuticals, there was a lot of vomiting involved … I think a treatment center probably would have been a better fit but it takes what it takes.”

“I did everything I could to not “be gay”, whatever that means.”

“My first experience with drugs was ecstasy. My whole mind and my heart opened and I felt okay with myself.”

“I decided I was going to take my life, so I thought ‘before I do this I need to write a goodbye letter’. In the process of leaving the room, where I had everything sat ready to go ahead, my suit lined up so my mom would have something to bury me in, I had the needle, I just needed to write the note … The Los Angeles Police Department got a call – thank God the police got me because I never made it back to the room, I never wrote that letter. I ended up in jail for about three nights. I can’t beleive they didn’t put me in a psych ward.”

“It just went down the tubes bad eventually and I ended up homeless. So I walked the street a lot at nights and slept outside of here and there, stood in a food line in LA waiting for the food donations, that’s how low it got for me.”

“My parents, I used to blame the, but it was really all me … it was not me allowing them to be part of my life because I think we could have probably done it 20 years earlier. I do want to have a relationship with my family, I do want them to know the man that I love and that I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.”

“I remember I was gone for about four days and my mom tracked down my dealers number and called him … she said ‘you need to come home now‘ and so I got home and again, I remember that show Intervention was out, and I was waiting for like the cameras and everything to be there because I was desperately wanting somebody to save me because I did not know how to bring it up or describe how I was feeling.”

“I had called a treatment center to get into treatment and their first opening was in January … I told the admissions people that I was done and I was going to die and that I needed to get in sooner.”

“There was a part of me that felt so safe being in there [treatment] – sharing in group [produced] the same effect that drugs and alcohol gave me, ‘oh my god, I can breathe‘.”

Recovery

• Getting Sober and Staying Sober: How to Make Recovery Stick
• Mindful Addiction Recovery
• Russell Brand’s Speech on Drugs, Addiction, & Recovery
• SMART Recovery
• The Five Stages of Addiction Recovery
• The Neuroscience of Addiction Recovery
• The Role of Family in Addiction Recovery
• The Truth About Dopamine After Alcohol Addiction Recovery
• What’s the Difference Between Sobriety & Recovery?

Relapse

• Creating a Relapse Prevention Plan
• Relapse Doesn’t Mean You’ve Failed
• Relapse is Part of Recovery
• Relapse Prevention and the Five Rules of Recovery
• Relapse Prevention, Addiction Triggers (Recovery Strategies)
• The Four Essentials of Relapse Prevention
• The Three Stages of Relapse
• What is Relapse & What is it Not?
• What is the Difference Between a Slip and Relapse?
• What To Do After a Relapse

The Science Behind Addiction

• 2-Minute Neuroscience: The Reward System
• Addiction and Brain Reward and Anti-Reward Pathways
• Addiction Explained, Rises & Falls in Dopamine
• Addiction Neuroscience 101
• Dopamine and Addiction: Separating Myths and Facts
• Dopamine System, Craving & Pursuit Explained
• Drugs, Brains, and Behavior
• How an Addicted Brain Works
• Introduction to the Reward Pathway
• Reward Circuitry in Addiction
• Serotonin vs. Dopamine – 7 Key Differences Between Pleasure and Happiness
• The Neurobiology of Drug Addiction (NIDA, 2007) [PDF]
• The Neuroscience of Drug Reward and Addiction