If you're autistic (self-diagnosed or diagnosed) please consider filling out this survey

A request for autistic voices and opinions to direct future academic and clinical research!

Screenshot from SABAA’s video

Hi readers,

I’ve talked a little about being part of a priority-setting partnership with Substance use, Alcohol and Behavioural Addictions in Autism (SABAA). The aim is to bring together two fields of research that seem to need to talk to each other more: autism and addiction

SABAA has created a survey, asking what questions you think need to be at the forefront of this research. My experience is that alcohol worked really well to help me socialize, in spite of severe social anxiety, and I know I wasn’t alone as many of you have shared similar experience.

T h a n k y o u !

Research also suggests that autistic people are more susceptible to addiction. Perhaps because booze works so well! It isn’t clear yet.

What is clear, is that more research is needed.

So please consider filling out the survey, and sharing your thoughts on this important and thus far neglected area of research. We really need more autistic voices in the survey results. So far there is only one autistic person and two self-diagnosed autistic people who have responded.

Meanwhile, there are tens of clinicians working in the field and parents and carers of autistic people who have responded, so it’s really important that we contribute here.

Here is a video to share more information:

Please share with your autistic friends and family or across your networks.

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In other news, I’m giving my first paper at a conference this Sunday, and I still haven’t entirely finished writing it, so feeling a little stressed.

Here’s the title. I’ve finished writing that, at least.

“Drinking hid my autism, even from me”: what the writing of autistic women reveals about autistic masking and alcohol-use

What do you think?

Actually, tell me after, as I don’t have time to process feedback.

I have around 1,000 words too many, down from 6,000 too many. This is the way I write. It’s ridiculous. But I hope that the pressure of giving the paper in front of an audience will force me to focus my ideas. I care so much about this topic!

And I am really happy that my odd obsessions with drinking/sobriety and autism and masking have come together.

Hurray!

Please excuse the extra chatty, unpolished nature of this newsletter, I am swamped. I'll post again after the conference <3

Until then, please fill out the survey! We desperately need autistic representation here. The questions that we raise could shape future research. And my great hope is that it will lead to future generations of autistic people not having to lean so heavily on booze because there will be better alternatives.

Can you even imagine that?

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If you like my writing and doodling (and can afford it), then please join my elite crew of PAID subscribers. You will get chapters of my upcoming novel, When the Earth Could Breathe, and I will be able to write and doodle more for your (and my) enjoyment.

Paid subscribers get access to private chats, and can comment on all pieces, too. And if that’s not for you, then please join my quest to help autistic people live better, by sharing this newsletter. 😻

You can connect with the Autistic community on Twitter. If you have a question, use #ActuallyAutistic or #AskingAutistics (or both). You can also visit The Autism Self Advocacy Network and the Autistic Not Weird Facebook page and website.

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Chelsey Flood is the author of Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE University. She writes about freedom, addiction, nature and love at Beautiful Hangover, autism and self-compassion at Polite Robot, and is also working on a non-fiction book about getting sober, and a new YA novel.