Wellness Coaching as OSU: https://swc.osu.edu/services/wellness-coaching
Let's Talk: https://ccs.osu.edu/services/on-demand-services/lets-talk-consultations
Wellness Coaching as OSU: https://swc.osu.edu/services/wellness-coaching
Let's Talk: https://ccs.osu.edu/services/on-demand-services/lets-talk-consultations
Hey, Psych Bytes with CCS is a weekly podcast hosted by Student Life Counseling and Consultation Service. This show is dedicated to discussing a wide range of topics pertaining to mental health commonly experienced in the college setting. It is important to note that this podcast is not a substitute for therapy. All of the topics on this show, while discussed by professionals are strictly psycho educational, and meant to inform listeners on available resources, skills and support. Topics on this show can be sensitive in nature. And should you find yourself needing additional support or resources, please visit ccs.osu.edu or call us at 614-292-5766. With that in mind, enjoy the show. What is up everybody and welcome to Psych Bytes. My name is Josh and today we are joined by Joni Sivey, a licensed independent social worker who is an embedded therapist in the College of Engineering. Joni, welcome.
Joni Sivey:Thank you so much, Josh. So happy to be here.
Josh Bailey:I am incredibly happy to have you here. Because today we are talking about something that is very near and dear to my profession. And that is drugs and alcohol and maybe more specifically, the motives for using drugs and alcohol. As we were talking a little bit earlier, you were kind of highlighting for me and alluding to the fact that there are generally four categories of motivations for use. So I was hoping that maybe we could talk about those today. Get into each of the individual ones, maybe talk about some specifics, and then kind of go from there.
Joni Sivey:Sounds great. So motives for use, or in layman's terms, why do we use? What are the reasons we're using? Generally, we can think of these as two parts. The first kind of category would be, we are using to increase positive emotions, we're using to have more fun, to celebrate, to do things like that. The second part would be we are using to decrease negative emotions or experiences. So if we think about those two categories, we have a couple categories within those, we have a couple of reasons underneath those two headings.
Josh Bailey:Okay. So let's start with the good stuff, or the positive reasons one might want to use what are those?
Joni Sivey:Sure. So the first one that we want to look at is referred to as "social use". So social use is often to celebrate something, it is our birthday, we go out with our family, we have a drink. We finish finals, we have a drink. Or we use some substance to kind of blow off some steam and go celebrate with friends. Often, it could be out in public, it could be in your home, but it's generally with other people. We are enhancing positive feelings that are already there.
Josh Bailey:This is going to stretch across all ages, right? So this can be seen maybe in our teen years when we're going to garage parties down the streets. College life, I think we often associate drinking or casual substance use with, "It's part of the college experience." Everyone else is doing it. Everyone else is kind of going to parties or going to clubs, or going out to high street to celebrate on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, however many days I want to make my weekend. And it's with friends. I think you're gonna highlight that, or with family. Yeah. Just making that experience better. And you'd mentioned enhancing experiences. Can we talk about that a little bit more?
Joni Sivey:Yeah, so enhancement looks similar, but may differ in a couple ways. Enhancement would look like potentially going to a concert and using a substance to enhance that experience. This could often occur and most often will occur with other people. But it's not necessarily tied to a social celebration, this would just be to enhance an experience you are having to enhance something positive, to make it just a little more fun. Or to just take it into a little bit different realm.
Josh Bailey:I guess it doesn't come as much of a surprise that they are selling the $12 Bud Lights to everyone. You're going to have more fun— if you have this. The concert is going to be better if you have this. My friend brings something along with them like hey, why don't you try this thing? The beats are going to hit different if you use that, right?
Joni Sivey:Sure.
Josh Bailey:All right. I'm enhancing the experience. So when you market it to me that way, I would say why not? Why don't I just do this all the time. Every time I go out, every time I go to the club, every time I go to class, every time I just wake up.
Joni Sivey:We have to consider a social celebration is not because you survived a Monday, a Tuesday, a Wednesday or Thursday. Enhancement isn't not to take a substance to enhance your shift at work your class that's a little more dull than other classes. So we kind of want to think of these as we're enhancing positive emotions. We're celebrating positive experiences, but it's in moderation. It's a reasonable amount. We're looking at things like consequences related to those experiences. Are we incurring like more consequences? Maybe the following day? Or during those times? Or are we generally okay with where we are?
Josh Bailey:So consequences of use can probably be interpreted a lot of different ways. A lot of times and when I talk to individuals about this, I'll ask like, you know, are you waking up with bumps, bruises, scratches, noticing that you're now in the red when you look at your bank account? Because all of a sudden I blacked out or browned out last night? And is buying stuff for everybody? Is it waking up and realizing that maybe I had an unplanned sexual experience? Is it catching a legal charge of some sort? Is it getting into fights with my friends? Is it insert other problem here that maybe people don't often consider is I missed my class the next morning, because I was too hung over from the night before, so I missed my O Chem exam.
Joni Sivey:I think another one to look out for would be, am I unable to have fun anymore without this substance? Have I created an association now, with fun and substance use?
Josh Bailey:Gotcha. So I can't go to the club, I can't hang out my friends, unless I have a beer in hand. Unless I have a one hitter with me. I just I can't go out.
Joni Sivey:Correct.
Josh Bailey:Earlier, you were alluding to in talking about a flip side to motives for use that weren't necessarily in the socially acceptable or positive realm of things. Let's get into those a little bit.
Joni Sivey:Sure. So again, we're talking about this use that is motivated by negative emotions or experiences, and we want to decrease those. So the first category we have would be conformity, this would be the good ol peer pressure, it could be looking around the party and we want to drink as much as others, it could be actual verbal encouragement from others around us. It could also be our norms around what the college experience is, and that I need to drink to have fun, because that's what we do in college. So basically, there's some element of conforming to an expectation or behavior of your peers around you.
Josh Bailey:I like that a lot. And that's something that I absolutely talk with people and hear a lot about is, well, it's almost a cliched, "Well, everybody else is doing it. So I feel like I have to." And it was put to me really well, once by a colleague and a friend over at the Collegiate Recovery Community here on campus. His name is Ahmed. And an example that he uses to kind of help put perspective into the idea of everybody else is doing it, is he will ask, "If you think about going out on high streets on a Thursday or a Friday night, how many people do you think are out there?" And I'm going to ask you, listeners, how many people do you think are hitting up high street on any given weekend? Evening? So you thought about it? What did you guess? You know, 5, 10 15,000 people running around on High Street on any given weekend night? Now, that is a lot of people. And if that's all you're looking at, it's like, wow, that's everybody. But the reality is the population here at OSU is 60,000+, so we're talking at most maybe a quarter of people, meaning three quarters of people are not out there. Yet, we still feel that pressure. Yet we still feel that compulsion to I need to do this because I want to fit in I want to be a part of the group I want to they seem to be having a lot more fun.
Joni Sivey:So we move to, we have conformity, we move to a pretty important category, as this category is often found most associated with like problematic use, it would be coping. So we are generally starting to reach for substances to cope with negative experiences or negative emotions. I think the most common one I see initially is anxiety. So if we look at conformity, and anxiety, I'm anxious about social settings, I'm in a social setting, there's alcohol, I can take both of those boxes, I can conform to peer pressure, as well as treat my anxiety by just drinking. And then everything's great and I'm having a good time. Unfortunately, we kind of make that association of like, the only way I can cope with anxiety is to drink.
Josh Bailey:Can see how that can turn into a problematic situation, right? Because then I no longer I literally no longer know how to deal.
Joni Sivey:Yep.
Josh Bailey:Any bad thing comes along, I have just a random bad day. It's you know, January and it's gray every single day. I feel down I feel blue, I feel whatever. Well, let's take that edge off. Maybe I can have a couple of drinks. Maybe I could use a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and kind of mellow out a little bit. Again, something I hear a lot Something that I work with people on a lot is moving away from that. I call that emotional dependence, right or even slipping into maybe mental dependence, where I tell myself, I have to have this, I have to do this. Not physical yet, you know, not not getting to that level, but the emotional and the mental addiction that kind of develops from this line of using, from this way of using, or this motivation for use, I should say.
Joni Sivey:Sure, I think we also stopped using other coping skills, because a screwdriver and a hammer are not as effective as like a bulldozer. So substances kind of essentially become a really powerful tool. And maybe things that are healthier just kind of don't work as well, as effectively, or as quickly. And so substances become a lot more appealing.
Josh Bailey:And I think that's a big thing, too, is, how fast is it going to make me feel better? Because if you tell me to slow down and take a couple of deep breaths, or to utilize progressive muscle relaxation, or some other grounding techniques, it takes a minute for my anxiety to go away. And I can't not think about the thing that's making me stressed out. But if I roll up and maybe hit the dab pen once or twice, I feel that pretty fast. So I can see why it would be easy for one to kind of fall into that trap, or that emotional trap of use. So I'd like to maybe navigate from here and start talking about well, what does one do? How do we take these motives for us into consideration when we're looking at our own use? How do I gauge what I'm doing? And how do I right the ship? If I feel like I'm getting off course a little bit?
Joni Sivey:Sure. So sometimes I think the best data is past experiences. So go ahead and take a look at a recent time that you used a substance, maybe trace back a couple hours before maybe trace back a day before what was happening? Did you have a planned event? Were you highly emotional? Was there something coming to a close? Did you have a concert, were maybe peers pressuring you prior to that, and just take a look at maybe what was going on. Just curiosity, you're just open, opening your mind to like just some potential reasons of why you consumed what you consumed. I also would take a look at maybe some of the consequences, if there were any. Did you have a great time? Was it fun? Were there no consequences the following day? Great. If there were consequences, go ahead and take a look at those two. And just to kind of pin down the reasons of what led up to that drinking or using experiences experience, just so you can get a better kind of idea of what what's driving our use.
Josh Bailey:And something else that we can think about too. Just kind of tacking on to that, when we're again, going back to the idea of like consequences of use, things that we often don't maybe consider would be like, the reports that I'm getting from the people I was out with the night before. Like, dude, you were a mess. Like, you were like losing your mind over something that was relatively innocuous. Not a big deal. Or you were just in hysterics last night, like what was going on, let's say or every time you drink, every time you use, you're always crying you're always carrying on, you're always getting into fights, you're always doing this. So what kind of reports Am I getting back from the people that I'm hanging out with? That I thought I was enhancing my experience with? I'm actually becoming a bit of a downer? Because everyone has to then take care of me? Am I having to be babysat? Whenever I go out on Thursday night, that might be a good thing to look at, too, when you're reflecting on where you're at. And you'd mentioned something earlier, I think we're talking about the idea of like the concept of harm reduction. And I'd like to go into that a little bit. And maybe we can land the plane with this harm reduction, what is it specifically? And like? How might I look at it in a realistic sense? Not just the idea of well, if I just use and not have this thing happen, then everything's hunky dory.
Joni Sivey:So I think harm reduction generally refers to the process we undergo when maybe we potentially are not ready to totally give up substances, or maybe we don't need to, but we're having some kind of consequences related to them. Harm reduction is generally like how can I minimize the consequences I'm incurring? Or how can I prevent increased consequences? Does that sound about right? What do you understand about harm reduction?
Josh Bailey:Yeah, somewhere in the same thing, I'm looking at it in the context of "Okay, so the use that I am, or the way that I'm currently using is causing X y&z problems," maybe a litany of the things that we've talked about already. And I am, again, not in a position where like, I don't want to never drink again, I don't ever want to be in a position where I can't smoke again, or do something like that. So what can I do to make it less problematic, right? Harm reduction. So maybe I'm going to reduce my smoking down from where I'm hitting a couple times a day and I definitely am doing it every night before bed, too. I just want to reduce it to on the weekends or only in social situations where, again, I'm reducing the amounts or the frequency, the intensity of the duration, dropping all those things down to where my situation feels a little more manageable. And I'm not catching all these different consequences on the regular. And maybe I do fall into line with the more socially acceptable realms of use of like enhancing social experiences or enhancing activities or events in a way that these things are often marketed for.
Joni Sivey:Yeah, so if we come full circle, and we want to apply, we want to apply that harm reduction concept to these use categories, we can look at things like what emotions are I attempting? Am I attempting to cope with using substances? Are there other ways I can cope with that? Can I try those first? As far as conformity, just as we look at our own behavior from reports, let's look at our friend group. So is our friend group consistently kind of trading off being sloppy messes or crying at bars or potentially getting kicked out? Well, let's look at conformity with that. So harm reduction might look like I might need to alter my friend group a little bit, it might look like bringing a buddy that is more supportive or like a safer person to kind of help you manage behavior or provide an escape plan. Even with social and enhancement, we can look at things like harm reduction from the sense of what am I actually celebrating? Can I try to celebrate this maybe without using substances for at least the portion of dinner, and then maybe go after? Like, can we implement things where maybe we're practicing curiosity? And just experimenting with using less by substituting maybe other positive, positive things.
Josh Bailey:I love that. And it's got me thinking, my mind is obviously going really fast now of all the different strategies that we can tap into. And one more that I want to throw out, before we wrap it up today, is the idea, and we're just going to use this with the with the realm of drinking, but using drink tickets, having some type of token with you that you can exchange every time you get a drink. So you can kind of keep track of how many drinks I'm having throughout the night. So if my goal is I don't want to have more than four drinks this evening, that I have four tickets or four pieces of paper that I drop off at the bar every time I get a new drink, and they want amount of tickets in my pocket, then I run myself, I'm out of drinks for the night. I'm done. So maybe that forces me to pace myself. If I want to have it throughout the evening. It forces me to slow down and think about it and be more intentional versus just going hard from the minute I walk in the door to the minute they drag me home. Okay, all of that out of the way. Joni, what would be some resources that you might recommend for individuals who do want to know more who may have had some things come to mind while they were listening to this episode? Or maybe they have just thought about in the past? What might you recommend or suggest?
Joni Sivey:Sure. So I think I would recommend, highly I also think that through Counseling and Consultation, we recommend some on campus resources. I think for individuals who have a good balance on their life, but kind offer what's called a Let's Talk appointment. And I do offer of want to enhance overall wellness, maybe in a couple areas I think on on campus wellness coaching is an amazing those, you can go online and see different clinicians. I offer resource that you can find online on the OSU website. Let's Talk it's a 20 minute phone call for maybe some brief advice, maybe some feedback, education as well as maybe connection to individualized resources. If you just want like to check some things or kind of get some feedback on things you've noticed. I think that's a great resource as well.
Josh Bailey:All right, we will add links to those resources in the description. So check that out below if you are interested. Joni, thank you so much for joining us today. To our
listeners:Thank you as always for dropping in and listening. Keep your eyes peeled for our next episode. Take care of yourselves and until next time. My name is Josh and this has been Psych Bytes with CCS.