AUDIO – IF YOU ONLY KNEW – Sept. 10, 2024 – You bring the drinks over to our table and I sip my Heineken 00. Honestly, to me, it tastes just like the alcoholic version, not that I did drink Heineken when I was a booze hound. I was too busy throwing wine down my throat…
Author: Leonard Buschel
5 YEARS SOBER – Sept. 10, 2024 – The “Charlie’s Angels” star sat down with Zoë Kravitz during Tuesday’s episode of her eponymous talk show to discuss the latter’s directorial debut in “Blink Twice,” which Barrymore admitted “really affected” her “personally.” “There’s a lot about substances in the film,” Barrymore said of the thriller, which came out in theaters last month. And so watching this film was an extraordinary journey for me to forgive myself for that,” she explained while holding back tears. “Because I’ve put myself in situations I shouldn’t have put myself in.” “And I felt so much…
AUDIO – Dr. Johanna O’Flaherty, Ph.D. – Sept. 2, 2024 – Come and listen while Host Candace Gish interviews a variety of extraordinary people, whom are working to make the world a better place! Dr. Johanna O’Flaherty, Ph.D., is an expert in crisis management from a psychological perspective, and a renowned expert in the field of trauma, addiction, and recovery. She was the Vice President of Treatment Services at the Betty Ford Center from 2006 to 2013, before serving as CEO of the Las Vegas Recovery Center, and Senior Fellow of Clinical Services, from 2013 to 2016, She is an…
SPREADING THE GOOD NEWS – Sept. 6, 2024 – People gather to sign the bus. “I worked with people with addiction for about 15 years. You only hear about the overdoses and the sad part and ruining lives,” McCahill said by phone. “The reality is, there are 22.3 million people in recovery in the United States…
AIN’T NO MAGIC HERE–BEWARE – Sept. 7, 2024 – Nearly 160 people in the United States have become ill after consuming sweets purporting to contain traces of chemicals from magic mushrooms. More than a third of those required hospital treatment and US health officials are investigating two deaths that may be related to confectionery. The case has highlighted a growing trade in legal “microdosing” sweets and the lack of regulation on their sale. Symptoms suffered by those taken ill have included vomiting, loss of consciousness, seizures and hallucinations. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said in July that at…
NO GUINNESS EVER – Sept. 9, 2024 – Sean Kealty, has worked with a variety of groups, including prisoners over the years, guiding them on their own recovery journeys. He is a firm believer that if he can overcome his challenges, anyone can. “Stepping through the doors of the rehab 40 years ago was the single…
INSTANT GRATIFICATION – Sept. 9, 2024 – Dr. Adriana Davis, Family Medicine, notes: “Food addiction often co-occurs with mental health issues like depression or anxiety. Addressing these underlying conditions can be crucial in overcoming food addiction. This is the time to understand that the very chemistry of these foods made them addictive. It’s not a battle…
HE’S NO PUTTS – Sept. 8, 2024 – “These moments yesterday wouldn’t be possible w/out my sobriety, family/friends & effort to change the pattern of behavior that led to addiction. Tomorrow is not promised so have gratitude 4 2day. 1% better,” Kim wrote.”I owe a lot to my wife, my mom, and really, mostly my daughter. When she was born, she came a few months early and the fight that she went through was hard to watch,” Kim said. (via The Guardian) CONTINUE@Sportskeeda
FIRST DOWN! – Sept.10, 2024 – Ryan was destined to be a star, but instead of a lucrative career in football, an addiction to pills took him from the top of his game to rock bottom in a prison cell. Leaf was the second overall pick in the 1998 NFL draft, right behind Peyton Manning. Today, he is living a life of sobriety and publicly talking about his journey to help others. His travels recently brought him to central Arkansas, where KARK’s Laura Monteverdi had a chance to sit down with him and talk one-on-one about the moment that changed…
VIDEO – ONE PILL CAN KILL – Sept. 3, 2024 – Star pitcher Logan Web has been leading the charge after losing his cousin Kade to the fentanyl crisis. “It’s something that’s impacted Logan deeply and something he’s been really passionate about raising awareness for and becoming an advocate for in terms of just making people aware of what’s going on,” said Oliphant. In the battle against the fentanyl crisis, one Bay Area mother is taking her message to the masses, teaming up with the big leagues to help get it done. “One-quarter pill can kill and that’s the truth.…
AUDIO – JOY AND PAIN – Sept. 11, 2024 – Frankie Beverly, the lead singer and songwriter of the band Maze, whose songs, including “Golden Time of Day,” “Joy and Pain” and “Happy Feelin’s,” provided the soundtrack to countless summer cookouts and family reunions for more than five decades, died on Tuesday. His death was announced in a statement by his family on his Instagram account. The statement did not say where he died or cite a cause. “He lived his life with pure soul, as one would say, and for us, no one did it better,” the statement said.…
VIDEO – MUSICAL INTERLUDE – 12,517,645 views – Jan 10, 2009 – I used to play this SO LOUD in my kick ass stereo at 3am totally pissed dancing around my living room in London. In the morning, late morning, I would ask my kindly elderly widowed neighbour if she was disturbed by the loud music and she always said “no darling you just have fun”. She was sweet. • JohnnyKickajoo- I am forever a 16 year old boy in love with Beth. Holding that cigarette, delivering some of the best our culture will ever have to offer. This…
HOPE SO – Sept. 11, 2024 – Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia — representing 53% of the nation’s population — have legalized marijuana. The Justice Department in May proposed to reclassify marijuana from a Schedule I drug to a less dangerous Schedule III drug, which includes such things as ketamine and some anabolic steroids. Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee for president, backs marijuana decriminalization and has said it’s “absurd” that marijuana is classified as a Schedule I drug, alongside heroin and LSD. Former President Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, also signaled support for the policy…
POIGNANT DETAILS – Sept. 11, 2024 – The No Country For Old Men actor has been open about his sobriety over the years and previously revealed on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast that he first went sober when he was 19—but it wasn’t long until he started drinking again … Brolin discussed the moment that resulted in him giving up alcohol once and for all. There was, um, I woke up on the sidewalk, I didn’t know where my car was and it wasn’t that that was rare, that was just, you know, the 400th time that it happened, it…
WALKS ON THE MILD SIDE – Sept. 9, 2024 – Ms, Brooks reflected on her years of hard partying as she celebrated her sobriety, four years after ditching the booze. The actress posted a smiling mirror selfie to Instagram as she rocked a pair of wide-legged khaki jeans and a t-shirt whilst her natural wavy hair…
AUDIO – MALPRACTICE TODAY – Sept. 7, 2024 – Hospitals across the country routinely drug test people coming in to give birth, using pee-in-a-cup tests that are notoriously imprecise. People who have eaten poppy seed bagels or taken over-the-counter heartburn or cold medications can test positive for meth or opiates. The Marshall Project’s reporter Shoshana Walter, in collaboration with Reveal, investigated how hospitals nationwide are reporting parents to child welfare services over inaccurate drug test results. She digs into the cases of women who were separated from their babies after a false positive result triggered a cascade of events they…
WHATEVER HAPPENS IN VEGAS… – Sept. 10, 2024 – An evangelical pastor was busted in a Las Vegas hotel room with drugs and guns, including an AR-15 with a scope — leading counter-terrorism cops to fear he planned a mass shooting similar to the deadliest in US history, according to alarming court documents. David McGee, 61, the senior pastor at the now-closed Bridge Fellowship in North Carolina. The troubled pastor — who said he flew to Vegas on a private jet looking for his then-missing daughter in tunnels — had already been warned about the hotel’s strict policy against firearms…
NOSTROVIA! – Sept. 10, 2024 – Russians consume almost 8 billion litres of beer every year. For comparison, the rest of alcoholic beverages account for a total of only 2.4 billion litres. This is explained by a low price, low degree and taste. However, such a picture did not always exist — during the Soviet era, the country was considered a wine and vodka country, and the situation changed about 30 years ago. CONTINUE@Realnoevremya
WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND – Sept. 11, 2024 – The 35-year-old actress decided to give up alcohol for good in January 2022 and more than two-and-a-half years later will be will be honoured with the Humanitarian Award for her work with the non-profit residential substance abuse recovery programme Friendly House but insisted that things would look “very different” if she had attempted to do it alone. She said: “This award means so much more to me than my own sobriety and journey. It represents the strength and vulnerability of everyone who has walked a similar path. “I know that…
VIDEO – 13TH STEP WAS FIRST – Sept. 7, 2024 – In 2022, Craig and Chyna Benzine decided to embark on a year of sobriety, giving up alcohol completely and documenting their progress on Craig’s YouTubeMore and more people everyday consider giving up the booze. In their video: ‘We Quit Alcohol for a Year, Here’s What Happened’, Craig and Chyna revealed their drinking habits and explained what they found most challenging about their journey. “I feel like I’m going uphill all the time and my sleep is terrible,” Craig revealed. Whilst Chyna admitted to feeling ‘tired’, ‘unmotivated’ and ‘foggy’ and…
LIFE IS HARD – Sept. 7, 2024 – “I didn’t wanna f–king leave. I really, really didn’t,” he told his friend and life coach Scott Kaufman during his comeback “When Reality Hits with Jax and Brittany” podcast episode that debuted Friday. “I was so sad leaving. I was crying. I’m like, ‘I don’t wanna go.’” “I was scared to leave those front doors because [I had] structure every day,” he explained. “I knew what I was doing. I was reading. I was in that world.” “I was like, ‘God, I know the real world’s gonna hit me like a ton…
AUDIO – HACKED 1.7 MILLION SESSIONS – Sept. 6, 2024 – THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE’S highly sensitive health details, including audio and video of therapy sessions, were openly accessible on the internet, new research has revealed. The cache of information, associated with a US health care firm, included more than 120,000 files and more than 1.7 million activity logs. At the end of August, security researcher Jeremiah Fowler discovered the exposed trove of information in an unsecured database linked to virtual medical provider Confidant Health. The company, which operates across five states including Connecticut, Florida, and Texas, helps provide alcohol- and…
AND LIVED TO TELL THE TALE – Sept. 12, 2024 – Lovato has consistently bared their soul for the world to see, often inviting us in to learn from their stumbles and mistakes through candid talk about sobriety and relapse, and through numerous documentaries, including a 2021 docuseries about their substance use and eventual overdose. Now they are about to do it again. Lovato slides a carrot across a mandolin to slice it into crisp pieces. It’s early August, and we’re just over a month out from the release of her upcoming documentary, Child Star, which premieres on September 17…
VIDEO – LOVE MATTERS! – Sept. 10, 2024 – Hope Is Alive aims to change the lives of addicts and alcoholics by offering support groups and placing clients in homes with other people on the road to recovery. Julie Quinlan, Hope Is Alive senior program manager, says they strive to help people from the inside out. “It’s not just getting sober. We focus on mental and physical health,” Quinlan said. The organization is a highly structured and intentional sober living mentoring program that’s helped thousands, including Quinlan. “I am a recovering drug addict,” she said. “I had an addiction to…
THEY ARE SAFE – Sept. 10, 2024 – In the last 13 months, over 1,500 mocktail items have been added to restaurant menus across the US, led by California, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Texas. The Ivy Restaurant in Wheaton, Illinois, even combined mocktails with the Taylor Swift fandom, offering Lavender Haze, Shake It Off, and Red mocktail options for fans. Restaurants have also added 172 zero-proof items to menus, including Zero Proof Sauvignon Blanc, a Zero Proof Ginger Island Hot Toddy, and a Zero Proof Harvest Spritz. And lastly, the study found that over 7,800 virgin items have been…
“It truly is the power that you have deep within yourself that gives you the strength to pursue your dreams.” – Lily Collins
VIDEO – WELLS FORGO – Aug. 29, 2024 – A 60-year-old Arizona Wells Fargo employee scanned into her office on a Friday on what appeared to be an ordinary workday. Then, four days later, she was found dead in her cubicle. It’s not clear how Denise Prudhomme had gone unnoticed for so long. NBC reported that she worked in a cubicle on the third floor, away from the main aisle. She had last scanned in the building at 7 a.m. on Aug. 16, a Friday, and there was no further scan in or out of the office, authorities said. Tempe…
AUDIO – LADIES OF THE DAY – Sept. 2024 – Braunwyn Windham-Burke, who starred in two seasons of the hit Bravo TV show “The Real Housewives of Orange County,” joins Elizabeth Vargas for the season 6 premiere episode of “Heart of the Matter.” CONTINUE@DrugFree
BOTTOMS UP – Aug. 30, 2024 – I stopped drinking alcohol nearly a year ago. Since saying goodbye to booze, I’ve lowered my anxiety, increased my ability to focus, and found it way easier to wake up early in the morning. These days, it’s rare that I reach for a zero-proof or non-alcoholic drink alternative, but in the early days of sobriety … From zero-proof tequila to canned beverages with adaptogens, I tried all sorts of alcohol-free sips and relied on those concoctions for months to stay away from actual booze in the evenings, when I was most tempted to…
EVEN IN THE NORTH – Sept. 3, 2024 – As she went down the list, one of the factors tripped her up every time: Was the child Black? If not, add a point. The more points, the higher the risk of a UTI, which meant the child would get follow up testing. How could it be that the color of a child’s skin dictated their care? “It always rubbed me the wrong way,” said Epee-Bounya, whose mother was from France and father is from Cameroon. She considers herself mixed race, but “in this country — I came when I was…