Earlier quoted context omitted.
Extremely interesting. Don't suppose you have a link?
See my response to nothingnonidin. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15244420
Thanks
What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
291–300 of 302 posts
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#292Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shameless plug: I've been working on a service (www.campfire.care) to build peer support groups for any focus. Groups of 5-10 people with the same issue meet regularly via video and stay connected via chat. The idea is that we are fundamentally social creatures, and struggling with a challenge alone is unhealthy. Campfire is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. But peer support can be powerful + inexpensive. And…
Wonderful! What's the main challenge for you as it relates to the product? i.e. are you limited on needing more customers / stronger product market fit, do you have insane product market fit and limited on hiring, etc? Is this a for profit thing?
Thanks! Generally, I think the challenge for us is going to be the same as for many other consumer-ish mental health startups. The experience is really effective, but most people aren't looking for this specific approach to solve their problem. So building awareness is super valuable.
Our main goal is to help as many people as cost-effectively as we can. After thinking a lot about it, I think there's more evidence we can scale better as a for profit.
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#293Earlier quoted context omitted.
Shameless plug: I've been working on a service (www.campfire.care) to build peer support groups for any focus. Groups of 5-10 people with the same issue meet regularly via video and stay connected via chat. The idea is that we are fundamentally social creatures, and struggling with a challenge alone is unhealthy. Campfire is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. But peer support can be powerful + inexpensive. And…
Did you consider appointing (renting out) a community lead for those groups? Maybe something along the lines of Über driver system? If a group has a natural leader - perfect. If not they can "rent" one to keep the momentum of the group going.
Yes - we've been trying a variety of different backgrounds for our "hosts."
The most exciting approach is to level up our members to lead groups with their challenge. They truly empathize and care about the group, which can make them more effective than a whole bunch of training. Plus, it reinforces that this is not a case where you are being treated for a mental health problem. This is a tight-knit community helping each other.
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#294If there were one article this year I could force my family to process adequately, it's this one. Addiction is still seen in our group as a failure of character -- not raised right, not religious enough, not following the right path. This kind of advice is seen as 'soft', and that's a shame.
I would also recommend listening to an NPR podcast "The Fix" by RadioLab: http://www.radiolab.org/story/addiction/ While the description talks about taking a pill to solve your addiction problems (some very interesting insights into the latest research at that time 2015 and also many absurd regulatory hurdles), it's the interviews with researchers and addicts that are truly eye opening - and address many of the issue…
One of my passengers tried Naltrexone to get her drinking under control, maybe a dozen years ago. While on that drug, she couldn't drink enough to make all her problems go away so she discontinued it. I met her after her third DUI & almost 2 years in prison...
Addiction is multi-faceted.
Thx for the radiolab link.
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#295Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#296(2016)
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#297Earlier quoted context omitted.
> work hard to have an inclusive and supportive community. With the condition that you abide by the rules. It's the assurance that everyone adheres to more-or-less the same values that glues the community together. Also, if I may venture slightly off-topic, the modern western definition of "inclusive" seems to imply "without requiring people to adhere to anything", which is the opposite of what you need to build a co…
Does group B have any sense of community? Offline, not Online.
Yes, there are strong, tight-knit, and supportive LGBT communities in several major cities, sometimes defining semi-public spaces like bars/clubs and even entire neighborhoods like the Castro (historically). Similarly around certain activist and (performing) arts groups on college campuses, where people who are a small minority in the general population (in a way that many consider inferior or immoral) make up an overwhelming majority of the membership of some student groups.
There aren't instituting "reverse" sexual morality either - straight people will be found among their membership rosters and friend groups - but they do create spaces that are particularly welcoming to non-straight people, and have large concentrations of them.
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#298Earlier quoted context omitted.
> non-profits or startups working to increase people's sense of community This is non-profit territory, absolutely not startup territory. You can only build a classic VC-funded startup by promising that eventually you're going to extract value (usually monopoly profits!) from the community. "Sense of community" is one of those things that's traditionally ranked well below profits and been destroyed in the search for…
Cynically: 'sense of community' gets destroyed in the search for profit when you're profiting from something else . If you're getting your profits from the community, you'll build it up just fine. Not necessarily in a healthy way, but at least in a persistent one. Hell, I think you could convincingly argue that opening a new pub counts as founding a startup aimed at increasing people's sense of community. It doesn't…
A pub is a small business. A startup is distinct from a small business in that it seeks outsized returns through economies of scale, efficiency, etc. The funding model and the set of behaviors which are adaptive for founding or working in these kinds of businesses don't have much in common.
Much of the loss of community in America is small businesses getting destroyed in the market by successful startups (i.e. large corporations).
Re: What Science Says to Do If Your Loved One Has an Opioid Addiction
#299Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Withdrawal is hard. Just to emphasize that: Before my SO started working in a hospital, I had no idea that people going through alcohol withdrawal can end up in the ICU. They're ending up in an ICU because of the withdrawal, not the alcohol... That was really surprising to me.
Alcohol is one of the only substances on the planet that can cause you to straight up die from withdrawal alone. Deaths from opiate withdrawal are secondary, usually from falling during a seizure. But with alcohol, your heart can simply stop or your brain have a massive stroke from the withdrawal. We think it harmless because its legal, but alcohol is radically dangerous from an addiction standpoint.
My cousin is a pharmacist... During her training she found out "sometimes if you have an old drunk, you prescribe him alcohol, because the withdrawal will likely kill him"