VIDEO — A NEW BUZZ – July 9, 2024 – “I was an alcoholic for 24 years, and God delivered me from it here eight years ago, and he replaced it with a passion for bees,” she said. “It just happened just like that.” She said she learned the craft from her mentor, and, with a lot of learning, she started her own bee farm, Richardson Bee Farms. “It was a lot of hard work,” she said. “It’s disheartening, but that’s the biggest thing with beekeeping. You’re going to make mistakes, and you’re going to fail at some things,…
Author: Leonard Buschel
SMALL SIDE EFFECTS – July 5, 2024 – Benzodiazepines, also known as “benzos,” are sedative drugs commonly prescribed to treat numerous conditions, including insomnia, anxiety and seizure disorders. They work by slowing down the activity of the central nervous system, meaning the brain and spinal cord. Despite these concerns, evidence suggests that between 6% and 15% of patients prescribed benzodiazepines use the drugs for more than six months. In the new study, published Monday (July 1) in the journal BMC Medicine, researchers have revealed another reason to be cautious about prolonged benzo use: it use may speed up the…
NERVOUS BELLY – July 10, 2024 – “Everyone knows that these are not healthy foods, but we tend to think about them strictly in terms of a little weight gain,” said Christopher Lowry, at University of Colorado Boulder. “If you understand that they also impact your brain in a way that can promote anxiety, that makes the stakes even higher.” “The high-fat group essentially had the molecular signature of a high anxiety state in their brain.” The researchers hypothesize that the disrupted gut microbiota might compromise the gut lining, allowing bacteria and their metabolites to enter the bloodstream and…
LIFE IS PRECIOUS – July 10, 2024 – “The needle is moving in the right direction, but we must continue to build upon our multi-faceted approach to save lives because we know that addiction is a disease and recovery is possible,” Richard Leclerc, director of the Rhode Island Department Of Behavioral Healthcare, The 32-person task force last year adopted an action plan that included cutting overdose deaths from the 2022 numbers by 30% by 2030, with an incremental milestone of 12% less by 2025. The 404 deaths in 2023 is “significantly below” the projected 417 fatalities for the year,…
GOOD SAMARITAN – July 7, 2024 – “Slash has been pretty open about his experience with some of these things,” Morton, who celebrated five years of sobriety last December, continued. “And so when I was trying to get sober and well before I was able to accomplish any kind of sustained sobriety or recovery, Slash was very helpful. CONTINUE@Blabbermouth
VIDEO – LIKE FATHER, UNLIKE SON – July 2, 2024 – “The drug I had the most problem with was just f–kingcoke, dude,”Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson’s son said on a recent episode of Bradley Martyn’s Raw Talk podcast. “I’m a f–king cokehead, straight-up.” While the 33-year-old clarified he doesn’t do cocaine anymore … “I would go do coke with the cokeheads,” he continued, “and they would be telling me, like, ‘Yo, chill, bro. Wait a second. Give it like 15 minutes.’” He added, “I couldn’t get enough of that.” And when he was 17, his parents—who noticed “such…
SADNESS REMAINS – July 7, 2024 – This month marks 11 years since alum Cory Monteith died of a drug overdose, as well as four years since the passing of costar Naya Rivera in a boating accident. “Just such youth,” Jane Lynch, who played cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester on the show, told E! News exclusively about working with her two costars. “They were so excited, as we all were. We knew that we were breathing rarefied air when the show became such a big hit.” The Weakest Link host continued, “There’s a big hole in our lives because of…
EAST MEETS WEST – July 10, 2024 – Eight weeks of acupuncture was found to reduce the dose of methadone needed to control opioid cravings, which could make patients likelier to stick with their treatment. Methadone is one of the most effective medications for curbing opioid addiction, but uncomfortable side effects can cause people to stop treatment. The latest: The study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found acupuncture can make medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder easier on patients. 118 patients were randomly assigned to receive either acupuncture or a procedure that mimicked acupuncture without piercing skin. Patients…
WITH HEART AND SOUL – July 10, 2024 – Mr. Schmautz is president of the Portland Police Association. He doesn’t want to incarcerate drug users, but he believes public drug use should qualify as a misdemeanor. During his 20 years on the job, the second-generation police officer has seen it all! He recounts seeing a man bathing himself in the contents of a port-a-potty that the city provided for homeless people. “The question becomes, what is compassion for him?” Mr. Schmautz asks. Do you just let him carry on? “Or is it compassionate to take away his freedom and…
VIDEO – COPING – July 10, 2024 – Every day, dozens of people line up outside the nonprofit Homeless Healthcare Los Angeles to pick up crack pipes and other drug paraphernalia, then, they light up right there on the Skid Row sidewalk. “It looks very much like a government-run crack house on the sidewalk.” Throughout the day, drug dealers can be seen profiting from selling drugs to the very people Homeless Healthcare LA is supposed to be helping. In the video, a person connected to the nonprofit is seen fist-bumping a drug dealer before entering the building. “What you…
IT’S ABOUT TIME! – July 10, 2024 – It is sold under brand names such as ZaZa, Pegasus, Neptune’s Fix and Tianna Red. Gas station heroin has also been the subject of false claims of health benefits, according to the Partnership to End Addiction. Those claims include the substance improving brain function and relieving depression and anxiety. Additionally, some people use tianeptine to treat Opioid Use Disorder. However, claims that it is an effective treatment for Opioid Use Disorder are false. HB250 reads that tianeptine has “a high potential for abuse” and that “the abuse of the substance can…
VIDEO – GREED IS NOT GOOD – July 8, 2024 – Clyde Christopher Tipton, 63, from Tazewell, was sentenced to 50 months in prison for his role in the operation of the East Tennesee pill mills. CONTINUE@WBIR
DRUNK DRIVING? – July 11, 2024 – Cigarettes have long been a cause of cancer, and remained in the top spot — about 19% of cancer cases included were attributable to smoking. Excess body weight was deemed a cause for about 7.6% of cases, including malignancies of the gallbladder, esophagus, liver and kidneys. Alcohol came in third, with 5% of cases in men and women over 30 attributable to drinking. In the study, alcohol was associated with seven cancers: oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, colorectum, and female breast, as well as squamous cell carcinoma in the esophagus, and hepatocellular carcinoma…
VIDEO – ALWAYS A 2ND CHANCE – July 12, 2024 – William Brown, a single father in his 40s, overcame his opioid addiction and went back to college after a series of run-ins with the law. He considers it a blessing. Sitting at a picnic table before his first class of the day at Wayne Community College, he recalled his addiction began around age 14. “I believe it was peer pressure. I wanted to fit in, so I started doing things my friends did,” Brown said. “One of the things I tried stuck with me, and it was opioids.”…
GEN THUMB? – July 11, 2024 – Like many teens his age, KJ became consumed by watching TikTok, YouTube, and sometimes Snapchat videos. He especially enjoys watching videos on barbering. On weekends and school nights, KJ said it became normal to be up past midnight surfing social media sites … According to the World Health Organization, which works to coordinate public health, KJ was one of 1.5 billion children worldwide who started spending more time in front of their screens texting, socializing on social media, playing video games, and watching TV during the COVID-19 pandemic. But the heavier use…
KINDNESS IN THE KINGDOM – July 13, 2024 – “Individuals who manage to maintain these strong relationships, they end up living longer, they have more offspring, and they show less features of related stress,” she said. “It really seems that if you are able to sustain these kinds of relationships, that they have very profound benefits.” For example, killer whales share food and information about where to find food; orcas that have strong connections in their group are less likely to starve when resources are scarce. Hyenas with more friends tend to achieve greater success within their clans, as…
MUSICAL INTERLUDE – 1971 – Neil Young: Guitar, Harmonica, Vocals. Recorded on February 23rd 1971, BBC Radio Theatre, London, England. First broadcast in the UK April 1st 1971” CONTINUE@YOUTUBE
VIDEO – HEALTHY CHOICE – July 7, 2024 – Supermodel Cara Delevingne Opens Up About Sobriety and Her Life-Changing Transformation: ‘I Feel Like I’ve Got My Power Back’. CONTINUE@LeaderCall
GREAT ADVICE – July 6, 2024 – The 37-year-old Mean Girls alum not only looks good these days (we will always be team red hair!) but she reportedly feels good too thanks to her sobriety and some improvements she made for her health. Lindsay Lohan is seemingly living her best life right now. She is a married woman, has an adorable baby boy named Luai, who she welcomed with husband Bader Shammas in July 2023, and her career seems to be going from strength to strength. 2024 is looking like a great year for her – and we’re only…
IT’S ALL IN THE HEAD? – July 7, 2024 – In 2017, Katie Lain was blacking out several times each week from drinking alcohol. On weeknights, she would typically down at least one bottle of wine, often more, and on weekends she binged vodka. But even after suffering a pulmonary embolism in her 30s, which her doctor tied to her excessive drinking, she struggled to quit. In 2017, Katie Lain was blacking out several times each week from drinking alcohol. On weeknights, she would typically down at least one bottle of wine, often more, and on weekends she binged…
VIDEO – MAKES SENSE – July 12, 2024 – Amid a rising number of cancer cases among adults in the United States, a new study has found that around 40% of all cases — and nearly half of deaths — could be prevented by making lifestyle changes. Overall, cigarette smoking was the leading risk factor for cancer… The study, released Thursday by the American Cancer Society, looked at 30 types of cancer and 18 risk factors that could be changed by lifestyle choices, including things like smoking and body weight. Overall, cigarette smoking was the leading risk factor for…
VIDEO – STAR POWER – July 12, 2024 – The Hollywood legend was filming a restaurant scene for the 1974 movie “Chinatown,” opposite Jack Nicholson, but production kept being halted by a stubborn follicle. “It was a very tense moment,” Dunaway, 83, says in the new documentary “Faye.” So, hotshot director Roman Polanski brusquely intervened. “Roman literally walks around and pulls the hair out of Faye’s head.” “I’ve been around a long time — even then I’d been around a long time — and I’ve never heard some of those words.” But there were far bigger problems roiling deep…
REHAB NOT HANDCUFFS – July 7, 2024 – Since 2018, just over two dozen people have died from drug-related deaths in Philadelphia jails, where drugs are widely accessible, according to an Inquirer review of records and data. Our main story explores … The city’s plan to clean up Kensington, the heart of Philadelphia’s open-air drug markets, includes arresting people who use drugs. But with drug intoxication-related deaths on the rise within the jails, it’s unclear if they are in a position to safely house more people in addiction. Public health reporter Aubrey Whelan teamed up with investigative reporter Samantha…
AUDIO – MAKING CHILDREN CRAZY – July 8, 2024 – It’s unlikely these bans will stop kids from doomscrolling outside of school hours. And even if governments can get the likes of Meta and TikTok to age-gate their platforms, it won’t be long before another alternative arises to enthral youngsters. The average age a child here gets their first internet-connected device is eight years old. Unfortunately, many adults believe it is alright to let their kids do the same. I always feel sad when I see toddlers in strollers staring at a propped-up smartphone. Indeed, have we been good…
HAPPINESS IS A THING CALLED FUN – July 10, 2024 – When we visited Sandals’ adults-only, all-inclusive resort in St.Vincent and the Grenadines, I found that the beautiful resort and the island were way more enjoyable without the chaos alcohol brings to a vacation. Here’s how I navigated being a sober woman where the booze was always flowing. Even though I’m sober, my husband still drinks alcohol. I didn’t request a completely “dry” room at Sandals St. Vincent and the Grenadines — though it’s not a bad idea for others looking to stay sober — because I didn’t want…
THE AMERICAN DREAM? – July 8, 2024 – People who consumed significant amounts of ultra-processed foods were 10% more likely to die than those who did not. The research tracked the diet and health of over half a million participants over more than 20 years. Unprocessed, or natural, foods come directly from plants or animals without any alteration or processing, apart from transport to the location where they are sold. Minimally processed foods are similar, except that they have been cleaned and inedible or undesirable parts removed. They may be cut into portions, ground, dried, fermented, pasteurized, cooled, or…
HE MADE IT OUT ALIVE! – July 11, 2024 – The 38-year-old actor appeared in the recent documentary ‘Quiet On Set: The Dark Side Of Kids TV’ where he opened up on the “extensive and brutal” abuse he suffered at the hands of Nickelodeon dialect coach when he was a teen star … He told Us Weekly: “Recovery is a very difficult thing, especially when you’ve been stricken with [substance abuse] for so many years. But when I started talking about my story sober and clear-headed, it’s a completely different perspective on everything. “The hurt and pain start to…
FEMININE MYSTIQUE – July 10, 2024 – The Beacon, provides various programs such as counseling, career development and educational classes for women in crisis. The Beacon Village in Highland Park is a 32-unit building the nonprofit recognizes that consistent access to resources is crucial for people transitioning out of incarceration. “If you don’t treat people with dignity, they cannot heal,” Executive Director Melissa Vine said of her organization’s overall mission as she showed the Des Moines Register around the new facility. “Dignity is what communicates to you that you have value. (It’s) not based on your background. It’s not…
MORE THAN SALAD – July 8, 2024 – 1. Sardines are packed with nutrients essential for brain health. 2. Sauerkraut puts good bacteria into your gut,” explains Dr. Love. 3. “Herring is one of the healthy fat fish that’s small and low in mercury.” Similar to sardines, herring is rich in healthy fats, providing the raw materials needed to make new brain cells. As we age, maintaining cognitive health becomes a major priority. The good news is that the food we eat can have a significant impact on our brain’s ability to function well and even grow new brain…
“I have woven a parachute out of everything broken.” – William Stafford, 1914–1993