Also.

[conuly]

Turns out that the hospital is right next to the tram. So tomorrow we are going on a tram trip!

I keep putting it off and putting it off, but no more!

************

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Conventional wisdom holds that people with autism don’t get hooked on alcohol or other drugs, but new evidence suggests otherwise. (I had no idea "conventional wisdom" said any such thing.)

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Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Apparently "conventional wisdom" means the 'wisdom' of conventional (i.e. non-autistic) Authorities who don't actually interact socially with any autistic people, and who apparently feel entitled by their authoritah to just make shit up about us out of their own special neurotypical brains, without recourse to any sort of scientific evidence.

Yes, it's true: a great many people 'on the spectrum' drink too much, eat too much, smoke too much pot and/or tobacco, use too much sugar and/or caffeine, take too many painkillers, spend too much time online, shop too much, and hoard too much stuff. Impulsivity and compulsivity are factors, of course, but in my observation, the main reasons are the same as for anyone else: loneliness, unhappiness, social awkwardness and anxiety.

"Oxytocin is thought to connect the memory of specific people to pleasure, thereby creating social bonds. This process may go awry in some people with autism, and they may find socializing unrewarding or unpleasant."

Autistic people who find socializing unrewarding or unpleasant have invariably been bullied, patronized, marginalized, excluded and ignored all their lives. Since bad experiences are stored much longer and more vividly than good experiences, there's a much simpler explanation than "the oxytocin system goes awry": the social system pervasively attacks those who present as 'weird', aversively conditioning the weirdlings to avoid social interaction.

"But across the spectrum, ADHD is a great multiplier of risk: Among those with autism and intellectual disability, having ADHD increases the risk of addiction fourfold; among those with an IQ in the typical range or above, ADHD increases the risk eightfold."

... and not so much as a hint of a mention of the fact that kids diagnosed with ADHD are routinely drugged-up through their entire childhoods! So let me be the first to ask whether the risk of addiction is the same for adults with ADHD who were never drugged as children??? Gee, nobody knows! Quick, write a research grant!

"Until more research is done, he says, people with both autism and addiction will have to find their own way to the best care."

Yeah. Rational Recovery (https://www.google.com/search?q=rational+recovery), a method that works WITHOUT requiring endless meetings with tedious strangers or 'surrender' to imaginary spiritual beings, "one day at a time" for the rest of yer miserable life. But the plain fact is, nobody quits a bad habit until they want to, so there is absolutely zero point to trying to 'treat' people against their will for behavior they don't wish to stop.

EDIT: a new article:

The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04/the-irrationality-of-alcoholics-anonymous/386255/)