WITH OR WITHOUT? – June 8, 2024 – Two coffee drinkers in five want to reduce their caffeine intake. ‘Decaf sales are growing fast. So, should you switch?” Let’s sort fact from fiction. That depends. ‘People often say, “I’m trying to be good and cut back on coffee”, but drinking coffee is not problematic for those who tolerate the caffeine,’ says Dr Federica Amati, head nutritionist at health-science company Zoe and author of Every Body Should Know This (Michael Joseph, £22). ‘We’re all different in how we metabolise it, and some people are genetically more susceptible to negative effects.…
Author: Leonard Buschel
SILENCE MATTERS – June 7, 2024 – By embarking on an inward search, I settled into the calm awaiting beneath the choppy surface of anxiety and depression, a well-being so profound that I practiced TM daily. I unveiled the person I was meant to be once I drank less and practiced more introspection, a gradual transition toward befriending myself. My first experiences with a practice rooted in mindfulness began while studying for Tibet House’s 100-Hour Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Training with David Nichtern during lockdown. By that point, in addition to TM, I’d experimented with sound, metta, (loving-kindness), and breath-based…
VIDEO – READING MATTERS – June 6, 2024 – We sat down with Cheyenne Jenvey to talk about her book “Dragonflies and Demons” and the upcoming signing event in Clovis. CONTINUE@ABC30
SKIING WITH LAGER – June 8, 2024 – Sarah Allen Benton, a licensed mental health counsellor, said they might think: “I have a great job, pay my bills, and have lots of friends; therefore, I am not an alcoholic’.” “Or they might make excuses like, ‘I only drink expensive wine’ or ‘I haven’t lost everything or suffered setbacks because of drinking’,” However, Robert Huebner, PhD, of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, said that these people actually aren’t doing as fine as they seem. Speaking to WebMD, he warned that no one ‘can drink heavily and maintain…
VIDEO – SAD DEMISE – June 7, 2024 – Jeff Jensen, a government investigations attorney in St. Louis, also said “Jontay is a good young man with strong faith that will get him through this. He was in over his head due to a gambling addiction. He is undergoing treatment and has been fully cooperative with law enforcement,” Jensen said. Jontay is a good young man with strong faith that will get him through this. He was in over his head due to a gambling addiction. He is undergoing treatment and has been fully cooperative with law enforcement,” Jensen…
VIDEO – SAY WHAT? – June 5, 2024 – Ann Drummond says it took months for her son to recover from addiction. Now, she’s using Uber as a platform to educate riders about addiction and overdose prevention. “I encourage families, mothers, and fathers, to just have Narcan at the house. Addiction and alcoholism are nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a disease. You can’t brush it under the rug and hope it gets better. You have to face it head-on and deal with it,” she said. After more than 9,000 Uber trips, Drummond has shared her story with all…
AIN’T NO MONEY IN SOBRIETY – June 5, 2024 – There is now a whole new generation that chooses not to drink as much. Multiple studies in the UK, the US and Australia show that people from Gen Z are more sober than their parents and grandparents. In Japan, faced with declining alcohol tax revenues, the authorities even arranged a national competition, named Sake Viva!, in an effort to reverse the trend in 2022. The sober generation does not only affect Japan’s tax revenues, it also offers a whole new challenge for businesses that make and sell alcohol. “We…
VIDEO – WHAT A VIDEO! – June 7, 2024 – Braunwyn Windham-Burke On Sobriety Journey and Andy Cohen Legal Drama. CONTINUE@News
BOOK PROMO – June 11, 2024 – Author John Delong spent twenty-one years working for the Winston-Salem Journal, covering the NBA’s Charlotte Hornets, the NFL’s Carolina Panthers and at other times, covering college basketball, college football, and professional golf and tennis. “And My Name Is John: The Blessings of Sobriety”: a compilation of almost four decades of experience, strength and hope in the 12-step recovery community. “And My Name Is John: The Blessings of Sobriety” is a captivating read that tells various stories from the author’s alcoholic sky-diving cat to the great and powerful meetings he has attended all…
GO TO MORE MEETINGS – June 8, 2024 – “These results might have clinical implications as an expanding body of research suggests that mindfulness exercises and meditation may reduce cortisol levels and improve cognition. Different stress management strategies could be a good complement to existing lifestyle interventions in Alzheimer’s prevention.” Now, let’s acknowedge some limitatoins. First, this wasn’t an enormous study. Second, we also have to consider our old friend, “correlation vs. causation.” It’s possible for example that people with higher levels of stress might also happen to have another commonality we haven’t identified, and that this other commonality…
USEFUL INFORMATION – June 8, 2024 – I have been prescribing antidepressants since 1991. Like most medications, they are imperfect tools: they have side-effects and don’t work for everybody. Some patients report negative effects, or that their depression does not improve, and they may require changing to a different antidepressant. Very rarely, in my clinical practice, do patients complain that they cannot stop their medication because of the symptoms when they try. Unpleasant physical or emotional experiences for a few days or a couple of weeks after stopping antidepressants, yes: dizziness, headache, nausea, insomnia, irritability, vivid dreams, electricity-like sensations…
REALLY? – June 8, 2024 – Research has shown that brain damage caused by alcohol can be reversed in 7.3 months after abstinence, but there are probably many people who think, ‘If I can quit drinking, it won’t be a struggle.’ Acohol use disorder, in which you can’t control your drinking of your own volition, is a difficult problem, but experts say there are several drug therapies that can help improve the condition. Alcohol use disorder can be treated with an array of medications – but few people have heard of them Alcohol has long-term effects such as liver…
NO BRAINER – June 6, 2004 – Alcohol has a direct effect on various pathways in the brain. “Alcohol triggers the release of dopamine, a chemical in the brain that makes you feel good,” Heather Hausenblas tells Yahoo Life. tells Yahoo Life. “This makes you want to keep drinking to maintain that pleasure.” Aaron White, a neuroscientist and senior scientific adviser to the director at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), agrees. “It only takes a drink or two for alcohol to produce euphoria by activating the pleasure center in the brain, as well as to…
BUMMER – June 7, 2024 – The decision reportedly came as a “shock” to observers, as psychedelics advocacy groups have gained widespread traction by steadily engaging in a decades-long effort to push the supposed benefits of the drugs as a way to help those struggling with trauma to open up to therapists about their experiences. The shocked reaction of those within the field of psychology did not come as a surprise to Dr. Jennifer Bauwens. In comments to TWS, the clinical psychologist, licensed therapist, and clinical researcher explained how the march toward the institutional acceptance of psychedelics has been…
NO KIDDING – June 5, 2024 – A new study reveals that a poor quality diet may lead to brain changes associated with depression and anxiety. Researchers found that unhealthy eating habits reduce grey matter and alter neurotransmitter levels in the brain. They also found these changes are associated with rumination, a part of the diagnostic criteria for conditions affecting mental health. This research was carried out by the University of Reading, Roehampton University, FrieslandCampina (Netherlands), and Kings College London, and is published in Nutritional Neuroscience. When someone eats a poor quality diet, there is reduced gamma aminobutyric acid…
EXECUTIVE SUPPORT – June 11, 2024 – “Jill and I love our son, and we are so proud of the man he is today,” Biden wrote. “So many families who have had loved ones battle addiction understand the feeling of pride seeing someone you love come out the other side and be so strong and resilient in recovery.” Biden aides and allies have privately worried about the toll a guilty verdict would take on the 81-year-old president, for whom personal loss has been closely intertwined with his public life. They say the president is less worried about any personal…
PLAY REVIEW – June 9, 2024 – Please silence any shoe phones,” warns playwright Gregg Ostrin as he welcomes a full house to the opening night of The Spy Went Into Rehab, getting a laugh before the show even starts. The laughs never stopped. The Spy Who Went Into Rehab is a very, very funny play. The concept is perfect, when you think about it. You drink, you smoke, you gamble, you consistently bed random women, and you kill people. You’re either James Bond or you’re an alcoholic nicotine addict, sex addict and compulsive gambler with anger issues. So…
AND HE LOVES IT – June 11, 2024 – His decision to go sober was part of a general mental shift later in life. At 66, this year, he claimed that getting older was making him more “experimental”. “The older I get, the more open-minded I get,” and being open to sobriety was part of this after his wife gave him an ultimatum over his habits in 2010. Now sober, he said to The Big Issue in a new interview, “Everything changed when I stopped drinking. It’s like night and day, it really is.” It was the very idea…
VIDEO – NOW SHE IS HER OWN – June 14, 2024 – In conversation with her fellow Brat Pack alum, Moore recalls director Joel Schumacher going to bat for her during that period in her life. Emilio Estevez was the “unofficial president,” the Brat Pack — a nod to the Rat Pack of the ‘50s — included Molly Ringwald, Ally Sheedy, Judd Nelson, Rob Lowe, Moore, and Andrew McCarthy. “They could have easily just found someone else,” Moore notes. “Going to treatment, they were like, ‘We want you to check in.’ I’m like ‘No, no, I’m starting a movie.’…
A MUST READ – June 9, 2024 – Half a dozen pediatric specialists largely dismissed her daughter’s ailments … After a year and a half, an answer came finally in the form of a Facebook ad for Tiny Health, a Silicon Valley start-up that could test her baby’s gut microbiome. Using a bead of stool swabbed from a diaper, the company diagnosed the problem: Annika’s gut was overcrowded with P. vulgatus, a common bacteria. A company nutritionist recommended a probiotic, sauerkraut and exposure to animal microbes through daily visits to the petting zoo. Within months, Annika’s food reactions were…
FACE OF EVIL – June 7, 2024 – Over time, Paul Volkman, a doctor trained at the University of Chicago’s medical school, developed a bedside manner that ended many lives. He allegedly prescribed and dispensed millions of dosages of various drugs …He allegedly prescribed and dispensed millions of dosages of various drugs, including hydrocodone, oxycodone, alprazolam, diazepam, and carisoprodol throughout his career, according to FBI evidence presented at his 2011 trial. Volkman is currently serving four consecutive life terms in an Arizona federal prison—the longest sentence handed down on any medical doctor during the country’s opiate epidemic. The crimes…
VIDEO – YOU BOUGHT IT, YOU BROKE THEM – June 7, 2024 – The Stop Addictive Feeds Exploitation (SAFE) for Kids act will prohibit social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram from serving content to users under the age of 18 based on recommendation algorithms, meaning that, instead, social media companies will have to provide reverse-chronological feeds for child users. The legislation describes algorithmic feeds as “addictive” and says they negatively affect children’s mental health. The New York legislation defines an “addictive feed” as one that recommends, selects or prioritizes media based on information associated with a user or…
TRAGIC – June 8, 2024 – Kyle Sherwood flew to Los Angeles in early May for an intensive drug treatment program, his family hopeful that this one might stick. The facility, Dream Center, had come highly recommended from friends in their home state of Washington, and they were optimistic that a fresh start might be just what the 28-year-old needed. We were hoping that him being in a different city, a different state, he wouldn’t be able to leave and find his old friends,” his older sister Heather Knaack said. But nothing went according to plan. Within a few…
READ HIM NOW – June 10, 2024 – Martin Amis knew how good he was, and meted out his treasures to lucky editors with a certain lofty care. One of my first calls when I got to Vanity Fair was to ask him to write a piece about a new play by David Hare. His first question was: “Do I have to see it?” Martin’s insecurity was reserved for the reception of The Rachel Papers. His letters to me, written in a cramped hand on Times Literary Supplement notepaper, are full of anxiety and dread. “I enclose the enclosed…
VIDEO – LIKE TAKING DRUGS – June 5, 2024 – Child and adolescent psychiatrist Kim Le, has seen firsthand what this looks like. “I’ve had people collapse from playing video games,” he said. “I’ve seen people who have suffered medical episodes and suffered [what looked like] a mini-stroke.” “I’m seeing kids who are ignoring the urge to sleep … and then in the morning when their parents are waking them up they just can’t even shake them to get awake to go to school.” Rates of school refusal have increased in recent years and Dr Le believes excessive gaming…
NOT EVERY TIME! – June 8, 2024 – This new analysis finds similarly, with young adults and women, people with pre-existing mental health conditions such as bipolar disorder found to be more at risk of psychosis than others. Individuals who had been exposed to the drug earlier and more frequently than others were also not at any higher risk of psychosis in this particular analysis of acute psychotic episodes. Daily use may still carry a higher risk of developing psychosis in the long run, though. And of all the demographic factors analyzed, only age (younger) and gender (female) showed…
THEY DON’T CARE – June 12, 2024 – FDA data shows America’s largest pharmacy chain recalled 133 over-the-counter medicines over the last decade, or about one a month. The reasons for the CVS recalls included drugs being infested with bacteria, mold growing in factory ventilators, peeling paint and barefoot workers in factories and pills containing incorrect doses. Recalled products were manufactured by companies based in China and India, as well as some in the US — including Tennessee and Florida. CVS has seen its recalls rise in recent years, recording less than ten a year from 2014 to 2018…
FAMILIES MATTER – June 12, 2024 – Kim Jones has been sober for a dozen years. “In recovery we talk about needing to forgive yourself and being able to move on,” she said. “I’m not sure there’s really such a thing.” Kim Jones’s addiction started in the summer of 2009, after her divorce, when she was feeling ashamed and bereft at the loss of her marriage. She met a man at the beach and they snorted cocaine. He was an experienced user, “Mr. Charming,” she said, “and I was off to the races.” She had previously experimented with alcohol…
TO EACH HIS OWN – June 9, 2024 – Is your mocktail a sobriety slip? Dr. John Morris has been doing intriguing research into the language we use around sobriety and alcoholism, and the potential positive benefits for some to embrace a more fluid perspective. ninety years ago, when Bill Wilson and Bob Smith joined forces to create the program what would become known as Alcoholics Anonymous, there was no O’Doul’s section is the beverage aisle. There was no word for trading in one’s alcohol consumption for weed, no designation of “California sober.” The first month of the year…
“When you become comfortable with uncertainly, infinite possibilities open up in your life.” – Eckart Tolle