Addiction and Loss

The lawsuit against Meta for allegedly harming teens with their addictive platforms. Opioids. Online porn. Addiction, and the resulting loss, touches us all at some time. 

Shane talks about the accusations that Facebook & Instagram harm teens’ mental health. He also gets into how addiction harms generally and how society can better support people in recovery. Last of all, he opens up about loss.

Transcript

What makes life good? Science and your life experience remind you that the greatest happiness this world has to offer comes from loving relationships. Welcome to the Help for Loving Relationships podcast. Here we focus on strengthening our marriages and our families. As well as your connection to friends and community.

Our host Shane Adamson is a therapist who has had a front row seat to what builds loving relationships as well as what hurts relationships. Please welcome your host, Shane Adamson.

Loving Relationship Podcast family, welcome to 2024. Today's a special day. It's my birthday. I turned 56 today, it's January 11th. And this is my first. Episode for the new year and I'm going to just talk about three things one There was a recent lawsuit against meta by 33 district attorneys where they're alleging that Facebook and Instagram is harmful on children and teens mental health I'm going to do a part two on this because there hasn't been a lot released, so I'll just comment briefly on that.

Then I'm going to cross over to addiction in general and just share my thoughts about the harms of addiction and why it's important. It's such a serious problem for our public health, and I'm going to get vulnerable at the end of the episode and share a little bit about my, my sister, Coby Jo Adamson, who passed away October 16th 2022, a year and 85 days ago, and my heart still aches, and it's the first time I'll be speaking publicly about this, but I feel the time is right, and just want to share some thoughts on grief and loss, and yeah a little bit of honoring her and hoping her story might help other people who have loved ones in heavy, hard times.

I'm grateful they have family. I just have a real empty place in my heart. It's a hard thing to process, and I just want Kobe to know I love her and I miss her. In my final minute or two, I just want to recite the lyrics of a popular Beatles song called Help. I think this really resonated with me when I heard it near the time of my sister's funeral.

The lyrics from the Beatles song Help read, I need somebody. Help. Not just anybody. Help. You know I need someone. Help. When I was much younger than today, I never needed anybody's help in any way. But now these days are gone. I'm not so self assured. I find I've changed my mind. Help me if you can, I'm feeling down.

And I do appreciate you being around. Help me get my feet back on the ground. Won't you please, please help me? Won't you please, please help me? Help me. Help me. I share the lyrics of this song mainly to say that All of us fight battles of some sort. It could be addiction, it could be mental health, or some heavy life struggle.

Please reach out to get support, and if you are the person struggling, please accept the help and support. Don't do Lifelong Ranger style. And don't suffer silently. If you're a person that is in a good place right now, I would encourage you to look around to those who may seem down or isolated. Reach out and just listen and be there.

And remember some of the things that I've shared earlier in this episode as it relates to addiction. I believe this will help you to be a support person. to those family and friends that are battling with addiction. You know who you are. I just hope that you can get healing and get help and will receive support from those loved ones around you.

It's not something a 30 day rehab can really resolve. The real problem is not getting sober, but staying sober, and it's a long term process. But thanks for allowing me the opportunity to share about the lawsuit, deeper thoughts on addiction, and having a safe place to talk about the very personal and real loss of my sister Kobe.

Thank you, and I'll see you next month. Take care.