ONLY WHILE AWAKE (OR NOT) – Aug. 26, 2024 – “It’s hard not to resist picking it up and swiping it open,” Gloria Mark, chancellor’s professor of informatics at the University of California, Irvine, who studies the impact of digital media on people’s lives, tells Fortune. “There’s often not a clear reason for doing it. It’s a habit.” … In this context, “addiction” is a word that many technology researchers, including Mark, tend to stay away from. “I would be careful with using the word ‘addiction,’” Mark, author of the new Attention Span, says. “Addiction happens when it really interferes…
Author: Leonard Buschel
WHERE IS LOVE? – Aug. 23, 2024 – This spring, Vera-Schubert reached out again, saying Bobby had relapsed. On April 12, a roommate found him slumped over his desk in his dorm, apparently overdosed from fake Xanax pills laced with fentanyl. Bobby Schubert was 29. The Schuberts’ tragedy speaks to the need for greater public health response to overdoses … A big reason for that lack of action is a lack of data, says Christina Freibott, a researcher at Boston University. “There’s nothing that tracks, specifically, college campuses,” she says. “They are not always aware of the cause of…
IT IS ALL GOOD – Aug. 10, 2024 – MacNeil said his own mindset on touring has shifted in recent years, after he entered a rehab program in early 2020 to address his alcohol and substance abuse issues. The guitarist said his life is profoundly different than it was five years ago. “Life has very much expanded since I got clean,” he said. “Touring is much more vibrant … I think maybe at one point I thought I was really, really living but the world felt pretty small just because of what I was doing to myself,” he said.…
THE COLORS OF SOBRIETY – Aug. 14, 2024 – Buckcherry singer Josh Todd spoke openly about his nearly 30 years of sobriety with Australia’s Heavy, revealing how improved his life has been since he became sober. “Hands down, being sober across the board, everything is so much better,” Todd shared. “You get more accomplished. I’ve been sober almost 30 years, 30 years in November. And now that I’ve had so much time away from drinking and using, sometimes I have regret on how much time I gave it, because I wasted so much of my young life where you’re…
DESIGN, COMPOSITION, TENSION, BALANCE, LIGHT AND HARMONY – Aug. 14, 2024 – When Christopher Tait first entered recovery for drugs and alcohol, creating and experiencing music and art made the journey feel like a reward rather than a punishment. For him, creativity became an essential avenue for growth and enrichment. When the local musician and Electric Six band member was first getting sober in 2011, he says finding help in the Midwest was extra difficult. For touring artists especially, the drives are long, the free time is minimal, and finding places for support is few and far between. “There…
AUDIO – GOOD LISTENING – Aug. 15, 2024 – FIRST THING: Amy & Amanda talk about sobriety + wellness over alcohol. Grateful for Amanda sharing such a personal part of her life with us. SECOND THING: There’s a timeline for falling in love?? Yep. They go over when you should know you’ve found the one! THIRD THING: How many friends do you think people have on average?? Hint: They fit on one hand. Amy & Amanda talk about how they now prioritize their relationship and find quality time. FOURTH THING: Some are annoyed they’re turning into their parents, but…
VIDEO – YOUTUBE ROCKS – Aug. 15, 2024 – Author shares story of sobriety and faith in new book, “Every Day Is a New Day: A Story of Faith. CONTINUE@YouTube
BE WOKE – Aug. 14, 2024 – One of the most recognized national awareness and prevention resources is the International Overdose Awareness Day website, which provides extensive resources and ways to get involved. The National Harm Reduction Coalition offers evidence-based strategies that reduce the risk of overdose. Finally, the National Safety Council provides resources for the workplace. It’s important to remember that overdose is preventable. Any one individual or local community can increase awareness through practical approaches and effective campaigns. Begin by keeping in mind that stigma or the fear of stigma stops someone struggling with addiction from sharing…
VIDEO – REVELATORY – Aug. 16, 2024 – In this episode of Candidly with Coffee, the host welcomes back her niece, Michelle Vargas, for an in-depth discussion about her ongoing sobriety journey. Michelle, who has previously shared her struggles with pill addiction and weight loss, is now 67 days sober from alcohol. She talks candidly about the challenges and breakthroughs she has experienced, including dealing with anxiety, finding new hobbies like puzzles, and the importance of support groups. Michelle also shares valuable tips for others considering sobriety and discusses navigating social situations without alcohol. CONTINUE@YouTube
EACH ONE TEACH ONE – Aug. 14, 2024 – “That’s the ‘Roach’s Inn’,” Richie said, as we drove past a dilapidated motel. The Coaches’ Inn – it was the kind you see in the movies. “Dead bodies found in that place,” he said. I was in the car with Richie Armstrong and he was giving me a tour of his town. A boarded-up business was not something unusual in these parts. But in Huntington there was something different. Along Main Street, but on the side streets too, there were recovery centres. They were everywhere. We passed three centres for…
SURE IS – Aug. 16, 2024 – “This is my sobriety anniversary,” the 34-year-old said while viewing his Twelve Steps app tracker. “Two years ago today, I was coming off a three-day coke binge where I didn’t eat, sleep or barely drink any water for three days straight,” he recalled. “When I got to Vegas, I weighed 190 lbs. At the end of it, I weighed 163,” he added. “I lost 27 lbs in three days, so my disease is gnarly. It’s not pretty. I went straight from Vegas, checked myself into rehab…again.” He continued, “Here I am, 31…
VIDEO – BREAKING NEWS! – Aug. 15, 2024 – “They knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew what they were doing was risking great danger to Mr Perry, but they did it anyways. In the end, these defendants were more interested in profiting off Mr Perry than caring for his wellbeing,” US attorney Martin Estrada said. “This network included a live-in assistant, various go-betweens, two medical doctors and a major source of drug supply known as, quote: ‘the Ketamine Queen’.” Estrada said five people had been charged. “They knew what they were doing was wrong. They knew…
SPECIAL K INDEED – Aug. 16, 2024 – Ketamine is an anaesthetic that can be used to treat depression, anxiety and pain in a medical setting. However, it also has dissociative effects – meaning it can distort perceptions of sight, sound and time, as well as producing calming and relaxing effects. It’s used to treat depression in cases where traditional anti-depressants have not been effective. “At a biological level, it probably turns off the area of the brain that is involved in disappointment,” says Prof Rupert McShane, a University of Oxford psychiatrist who runs an NHS ketamine treatment clinic.…
VIDEO – MUSICAL INTERLUDE – 2013 – Graham Nash told Howard Stern the story behind writing “Chicago” before playing the song on the Stern Show in 2013. CONTINUE@YouTube
MORE WILL BE REVEALED – Aug. 15, 2024 – The popular 53 year old television presenter confessed that his issues with overeating began when he was just nine, a coping mechanism developed in response to his father’s departure from the family home due to an affair. Richard described this undercurrent as the “drum beat” that has echoed throughout his life, a constant presence into his adult years. During an appearance on Elizabeth Day’s podcast How To Fail in April, the quiz show heavyweight spoke candidly: “It’s so ridiculous, this food stuff. Alcoholics will tell you the same.” Continuing, he…
A STAR IS REBORN – Aug. 14, 2024 – “I was filled with gratitude, and there was this sense of wonder and excitement,” she recalls. “It was very much the honeymoon phase of my career, right before the train got moving in a way where I couldn’t pump the brakes.” Now, 16 years later, Lovato is seated before me in the Los Angeles home she shares with her fiancé, singer-songwriter Jordan “Jutes” Lutes, trying to make sense of everything that came next. By anyone’s measure, Lovato’s life has swung wildly between professional highs, including eight studio albums, all of…
VIDEO – IT AIN’T THE FIRST TIME – Aug. 16, 2024 – The addiction treatment center first came under fire in June after the death of two top executives, which led to the company abruptly closing its doors in Pennsylvania, Florida and Connecticut and firing hundreds of employees. This came after prolonged financial struggles and delayed paychecks to employees. James Young, the receiver for RBH, pointed to potential misuse of funds by the company and overvalued assets, a combination which he says the company may not recover from. “There is no reasonable scenario under which current ownership of [the…
VIDEO – GET SOME TODAY – Aug. 24, 2024 – Researchers have developed a new device that will help to eliminate those delays and potentially save the lives of people who overdose. About the size of a stick of gum, it can be implanted under the skin, where it monitors heart rate, breathing rate, and other vital signs. When it determines that an overdose has occurred, it rapidly pumps out a dose of naloxone. In a study appearing today in the journal Device, the researchers showed that the device can successfully reverse overdoses in animals. With further development, the…
CLASS-ACTION LAWSUIT – Aug. 14, 2024 – Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog, said that bad actors could do “all kinds of things” with the leaked information, the most worrisome probably being to try to take over someone’s accounts — including those associated with their bank, investments, insurance policies and email. With your name, Social Security number, date of birth and mailing address … “If this in fact is pretty much the whole dossier on all of us, it certainly is much more concerning” than prior breaches, Murray said in an interview. “And if people weren’t taking precautions in the…
AUDIO – IT FEELS SO GOOD – Aug. 15, 2024 – Aside from the excruciating physical and psychological pain of withdrawal – your bones feeling as though they’re being crushed from within, your whole body gripped by an anxiety that leaves you breathless and trembling, unbreakable insomnia and nausea – we fail to acknowledge that at the center of every addictive behavior is a hurt. For some, an abuse or trauma and for others, a painful experience that may remain unseen to the conscious mind. We live in a culture so out of touch with our human needs. It’s…
VIDEO – DO YOU AGREE? – July, 2024 – We often equate normality with health. But what constitutes normal in Western societies? Esteemed physician and addiction specialist Gabor Maté explores the root causes of our physical and emotional ailments, linking personal suffering to the stresses of contemporary life. Illness and trauma are shaping our existence. Nearly half of Europeans deal with high blood pressure, and close to seventy percent of Americans use at least one prescription medication. Drawing from over forty years of clinical practice, Dr. Gabor Maté challenges the standard definition of ‘normal.’ He argues that most diseases…
EVERYONE CAN QUIT – Aug. 14, 2024 – “Two years ago today, I was coming off a three-day coke binge where I didn’t eat, sleep or barely drink any water for three days straight,” the son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson shared. “I lost 27 pounds in three days, so my disease is gnarly. It’s not pretty.” Chet, 34, said he traveled straight from Sin City to a rehab center to help him recover from the grip the drug addiction had on his life. “Here I am, 31 years old, broke, strung out, sucked up, just skinny, just…
VIDEO – IS THIS OUR AMERICA? – Aug. 14, 2024 – During conversations, they learn that drugs are a major problem, teachers are in short supply, and incest is another issue. One woman in the store tells the camera crew: ‘We’re the poorest county in the United States or we were. ‘About 30 per cent of our community are dopers, druggies … more than 30 per cent!’ Meanwhile, a man in the store reveals that the population is steadily declining as younger people are leaving in the search of ‘entertainment’ and jobs. Outside the store, while talking to two…
THE KILLING FIELDS of the USA – Aug. 14, 2024 – A young boy places a stone on the grave of his father as friends and family gather to commemorate the first anniversary of his death from heroin overdose. Between 2011 and 2021, more than 321,000 children across the U.S. lost a parent to a drug overdose. Every day, 8-year-old Emma sits in a small garden outside her grandmother’s home writing letters to her mom and sometimes singing songs her mother used to sing to her. Emma’s mom, Danielle Stanley, died of an overdose last year. She was 34,…
VIDEO – WHY KILL THE GOLDEN GOOSE? Aug. 15, 2024 – Five people have been charged in connection with Perry’s death, including his personal assistant, Kenneth Iwamasa, and one of those accused of providing the drug, Dr. Salvador Plasencia. Prosecutors accuse Plasencia of telling a patient that Perry was “too far gone and spiraling in his addiction” the week before he died but still sold Perry ketamine through Iwamasa anyway. Perry had been undergoing ketamine infusion therapy to treat depression and anxiety, but it was not the supervised therapy doses that killed him. His last session was more than a…
IT’S NOT THE DOPAMINE – Aug. 16, 2024 – In the journal Science, his team found that an understudied brain region responsible for aversion, the dorsal peduncular nucleus, is highly responsive to opioids. Surprisingly, the opioid receptors in this brain region respond uniquely to opioids, contradicting the prevailing belief that opioids act primarily through dopamine in the brain. This discovery offers an exciting new area of research. “This is potentially a nondopaminergic mechanism for opioid reward, which is something people have been looking for a long time,” said Smith. The cells that release dopamine are normally set to an on…
“Start with Bismillah. End with Alhamdulillah. Appreciate with SubhanAllah. Hope with insha’Allah.” – Sifan Hassan
WHAT A WASTE OF LIFE – Aug. 7, 2024 – The University of Missouri student who died in March by drowning in the Cumberland River after a night out in downtown Nashville consumed between 12 to 15 alcoholic drinks before his death. Investigators with conducted interviews with Strain’s Delta Chi fraternity members, who had traveled by bus from the University of Missouri to Nashville for a fraternity formal. He was found to have a blood alcohol level of .228. Two of Strain’s fraternity brothers said while Strain’s bus driver was strictly enforcing no alcohol on the bus, that “the…
WHAT-A-WORLD – Aug. 9, 2024 – The baby began to cry after an EMT administered the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan. Medical staff at St. Joseph’s Hospital told police later that the infant had Cannabis and Fentanyl in her system. Neither parent could tell police how the child came in contact with an opioid and both denied using the drug. Warren Police are working to find out what led to a seven-month-old child overdosing on the powerful opiate fentanyl. Officers performed life-saving measures on the baby girl late Monday after her mother told them that the child had gone…
VIDEO – NO BLAME GAME FOR ERIC – Aug. 2024 – He opened up about how he overcomes difficult times without leaning on drugs and alcohol after embracing sobriety. During an interview with Fox News Digital, the 58-year-old actor who is starring in the new movie, “One Fast Move,” reflected on his approach to getting through hardships after battling addiction. “Sometimes you just hang on and understand that this too shall pass,” Dane said. “I never expected life — no matter what your circumstances are — to be easy all the time.” He continued, “So I think understanding that…