AUDIO – TASTY CHEMICALS – March 18, 2024 – Americans consume more than half of their daily calories from ultra-processed foods. These increased the risk of anxiety, depression, obesity, metabolic syndrome, certain cancers including colorectal cancer and premature death. Ultra-processed foods are abundant in our food supply. Among the most common are highly refined breads, fast food, sugary drinks, cereals, cookies, and other packaged snacks. They are often high in salt, sugar, fat and calories and low in fiber and micro-nutrients such as vitamins. For instance, a study published last year found people in the habit of consuming high levels…
Author: Leonard Buschel
CRACKED UP – March 22, 2024 – Lawmakers are working to tighten the reins on fraudulent sober living homes after bad actors defrauded Arizona’s Medicaid agency out of billions of dollars. But one such bill was voted down Thursday evening in the House, while a less expansive version advanced. Over the past few years, people have been taken into sober living homes and held there while enrolled in the American Indian Health Program under the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System. Though the facilities didn’t treat the patients, they collected many thousands of dollars a day in federal funds. …
WHAT’S IN A NAME – MARCH 20, 2024 – On her sixth album ‘Tigers Blood’, Waxahatchee’s Katie Crutchfield is distancing herself from her demons and embracing home. Katie Crutchfield is back, the Alabama-born artist was trying to be a little kinder to herself. Having made the leap into sobriety in 2018. Taking a stroll along London’s Brick Lane for today’s conversation, Katie is in high spirits, gleefully petting as many dogs as possible, ecstatic at the fact that a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel looks “just like mine!”. Any jet lag from a quick trip to Europe seems to have…
Treatment Before Gabor Maté – This simple sketch is both funny and informative. Coaching techniques are a little more nuanced now, but I hope you find Bob’s approach to change management enjoyable. Watch@YouTube
“All of us know someone who has been through difficult emotional times, and we know how hard it can be to see a way forward.” – Kate Middleton
TIME HAS COME TODAY – March 7, 2024 – President Joe Biden reiterated that nobody should go to prison for cannabis use, and touted his administration’s moves to evaluate whether federal marijuana restrictions should be loosened. Cannabis is currently categorized as a Schedule I drug, the same classification as heroin. In his speech, Biden said his administration expunged thousands of cannabis records, but his executive order used different language — it said he would issue pardons to people with cannabis offenses. It’s an important difference, because someone with an expunged record can say they do not have a criminal…
VIDEO – IT’S THE ONLY SOLUTION – March 11, 2024 – “If you reduce stigma and fear of criminalization, people are more likely to be vulnerable and honest about the struggles they have,” Schaffner said. “When they’re able to do that, they’re more likely to seek out help.” “If you reduce stigma and fear of criminalization, people are more likely to be vulnerable and honest about the struggles they have,” Schaffner said. “When they’re able to do that, they’re more likely to seek out help.” “In the three years, mostly which was during a pandemic, was a 100% increase…
VIDEO – IT’S THE LITTLE THINGS – March 10, 2024 – Stephen Dees understands the power of hope, something he found through his faith. “Today, I’m a minister, I’m an ordained minister, I have a beautiful career, I have a beautiful wife, I have a life that I never thought I could have,” Dees said. “And that was after 14 years of meth addiction, that’s after probably just about that many years locked up.” Dees and his wife Catt help Blount County residents struggling with addiction at True Purpose Ministries. They help people get sober through the faith-based ministry. …
THE WEIGHT IS RIGHT…NOW – March 8, 2024 – Carey, 65, revealed in a recent interview with PEOPLE that it was a wake-up call from his doctor that prompted him to start taking his health more seriously, after he was told his life would be “shorter” if he didn’t make a change. Carey admitted that he wasn’t living the healthiest lifestyle before his weight loss transformation, as he would frequently go to a diner after taping The Price Is Right during his first year on the show, where he would eat, “a plate of pasta, a cupcake and iced tea…
AUDIO – SCANDAL or FATE? – March 13, 2024 – The department agreed to pay the Amity Foundation roughly $121 million over five years to oversee and review reentry homes in Los Angeles County, Taxpayers paid about $5,200 a month per parolee for Walden House to offer a mix of housing, food, substance use disorder treatment, therapy and various other activities. And when Fredreaka Jack ended up in the emergency room again and again, doctors sometimes attributed her physical complaints to mental illness and “drug-seeking behavior.” Each day someone at Patton State Hospital near Highland handed Fredreaka Jack her…
A MURDERER IN OUR MIDST – March 2024 – This haunting and propulsive debut follows a journalist’s years-long investigation into his father’s old classmate: former high school valedictorian Paul Volkman, who once seemed destined for greatness after earning his MD and his PhD from the prestigious University of Chicago, but is now serving four consecutive life sentences at a federal prison in Arizona. Volkman was the central figure in a massive “pill mill” His pain clinics accepted only cash, employed armed guards, and dispensed a torrent of opioid painkillers and other controlled substances. For nearly three years, Volkman remained…
IT’S EVERYTHING – March 11, 2024 – Recovery capital is comprised of social, physical, cultural and human forms of capital. It consists of, but is not limited to, personal and social characteristics, networks, housing, access to transportation, community aspects, cultural values, and the friends, family members and others who might support the recovery process. Recovery capital is a term for the collective elements in someone’s life, the internal and external resources they draw upon to help their potential for success to start — and sustain — the process leading to recovery from addiction. Leading researchers, clinicians and policymakers from…
TEMPLE GRADUATE TELLS ALL – March 11, 2024 – Before publishing her memoir, Tracy Viola gave an advanced manuscript to six of her friends. She printed and bound the copies at Staples and saw “Pretty Wrecked: Confessions of a Teen Addict and Her Road to Recovery” physically laid out in front of her for the first time. The book details Viola’s struggle with active drug and alcohol addiction in her teenage years and her journey to overcome it as a young adult. Viola had written scraps of the memoir through diary entries while she went through drug and alcohol addiction…
WALK ON THE MILD SIDE do do do – March 6, 2024 – For people with low and high amounts of sedentary time, getting any number of steps higher than 2,200 per day was linked with lower odds of developing cardiovascular disease or dying early, with 9,000 to 10,000 steps carrying the most benefit. If you want to become more active, 10,000 steps can be equivalent to a several-mile walk that’s doable within a couple hours or so, Freeman said. But reaching that goal doesn’t always have to mean taking a huge chunk of time out of your day.…
INDIA BLOCKS TikTok – March 15, 2024 – What happened when the world’s most populous nation turned off TikTok. In June 2020, after a violent clash on the India-China border that left at least 20 Indian soldiers dead, the government in New Delhi suddenly banned TikTok and several other well-known Chinese apps. “It’s important to remember that when India banned TikTok and multiple Chinese apps, the US was the first to praise the decision,” said Nikhil Pahwa, the Delhi-based founder of tech website MediaNama. “[Former] US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had welcomed the ban, saying it ‘will boost India’s…
THIS TOO SHALL PASS – March 2024 – I will never say that my trauma in childhood was a positive thing. In an ideal world there would be no such thing. However, for many of us it is a fact of life. Most of us have had some degree of trauma experience, some more significant than others and we all deal with it differently. It is scientifically accepted that our childhood experiences mould who we are in adulthood. That moulding looks very different for individuals also, even in people with similar traumatic experience. It’s no different for me. After many…
VIDEO – REHABS OR GOLD RUSH – March 13, 2024 – I’m an only child, he only had me and I only had him,” Carletta Leslie said. Carletta’s father, Carson, died back in September 2022 after he went missing from Flagstaff. Police later called, informing her Carson’s body was found outside an unlicensed group home near 91st Avenue and Indian School Road. While in the vehicle, he fell asleep. The medical examiner determined he choked to death on his own vomit. His blood alcohol at the time was nearly seven times the legal limit. “I was robbed of a great…
THIRSTY … FOR CASH – March 16, 2024 – In other words, the branding is one of the main selling points. The name “Liquid Death” refers to the idea of “murdering your thirst,” as well as “death to plastic,” according to founder and CEO Mike Cessario. Liquid Death beverages are packaged in aluminum, which is more recyclable than plastic. One TikTok video got nearly 23 million. “We want to create truly healthy, better-for-you beverages, but just do so in the same funny way that typically unhealthy brands get marketed,” Cessario said in an interview with NBC News. He said…
VIDEO – THE GOOD NEWS BOSS – March 8, 2024 – Victor Oliveira will be the first to tell you that, 12 years ago, he couldn’t have imagined what he would be doing now. In 2012, he was released from a Massachusetts state prison after serving a 20-month sentence for dealing drugs. “That’s where I had to smarten up,” he says matter-of-factly. “I said to myself, ‘I’m never going to go back. I’m going to do the right thing. I always liked helping people-my whole life. I think I get it from my mother.” Doing the right thing started…
VIDEO – EXPERIENCE COUNTS – March 8, 2024 – Staunton High School gave Alice Woods the platform to speak about her personal experiences with drug addiction and recovery. Though the stories were dark, Woods and staff members at Staunton Public Schools said it was empowering and it left a lasting impact on students in the school. “It’s okay to be different because today I am different. I stand here today as being different and that’s a good thing,” Woods said. Woods grew up in New York. She said the city gave her the worst moments in her life. There…
VIDEO – MUSICAL INTERLUDE – Aug. 26, 2018 – Sir George Ivan “Van” Morrison Concert and the great band: Summertime in England, Moondance, Help Me, It’s All in the Game/Make It Real One More Time, Common One, Did Ye Get Healed?, Vanlose Stairway, Foreign window with Bob Dylan. WATCH@YouTube
WEEKLY OK? – March 11, 2024 – Given that their findings link cannabis usage to cardiovascular disease, however, the researchers suggested that doctors screen patients for cannabis use and advise them to not smoke it, similar to the now-traditional screening done for tobacco smoking. Cannabis use by adults in the United States “is increasing in both prevalence and frequency” and has nearly doubled in the past two decades, with a growing number of states legalizing its usage, but “perceptions of the harmfulness of cannabis are decreasing,” researchers wrote. READ@WashingtonPost
AND RELEVANT – March 9, 2024 – The Emmy-winning host and executive producer of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ and author of a new memoir, ‘The House of Hidden Meanings,’ says, “the truth was always there, no matter how high I got”He adds that his spirituality has helped him stay grounded. “Through meditation and prayer, I have found that middle ground.” It’s also where he finds truth: The truth about his childhood, his relationships, his identity. “Don’t take life too seriously.” His drama teacher in his San Diego high school gave him that lesson. “You’re born naked and the rest is…
VIDEO – PAINFUL – March 16, 2024 – A drunken airline passenger who was barred from a flight for abusing staff mocked the penis size and salaries of cops and screamed as she was hauled away – then peed herself on the terminal floor. She claimed to have only had two ‘very full’ vodka tonics to drink at the airport bar, but was slurring and incoherent for much of her chaotic arrest. WATCH@DailyMail
WHAT DAMAGE? – March 10, 2024 – Each of your brain cells has your genetic code stored in long strands of DNA. For all that DNA to fit into a cell, it needs to be packed tightly. This is achieved by winding the DNA around “spools” of protein called histones. Areas where DNA is unwound contain active genes coding for proteins that serve important functions within the cell. Many people are wired to seek and respond to rewards. Your brain interprets food as rewarding when you are hungry and water as rewarding when you are thirsty. But addictive substances like…
IN STYLE! – March 8, 2024 – The bar’s lush interior details are exquisitely rendered and yet the old bones remain, a tribute to the women behind Stay: Summer Phoenix and Stacey Mann, two single moms. Among the bar menu’s notable offerings are 12 drinks named after signs of the Chinese zodiac. Some are zero-proof mocktails … They struck lightning in the former Hong Kong Café, built in 1939 by Chinatown co-founder Y.C. Hong as Joy Yuen Low and more recently as Realm. The venue, in the heart of Chinatown, has a storied history. During the ’90s, Hong Kong Café…
OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES – March 14, 2024 – “I’d like to thank my terrible childhood and the Academy, in that order.” As they say, comedy is simply tragedy plus time. And I want to focus on this line, especially the first seven words, because honestly — when people think of Robert Downey Jr., I think they think of two things:Among the lowlights, he was arrested in 1996 for having wandered into a neighbor’s house on some kind of bender and passing out in an 11-year-old child’s bedroom. He also faced gun charges and escaped from drug…
VIDEO – STEP RIGHT UP – March 11, 2024 – “People are dying,” said Dr. Elena Yanchar, chief of psychiatry at The Centers. “People are dying at numbers they shouldn’t be. People are suffering, and we have treatment.” Dr. Yanchar says they’ve been offering these services for years, but not on a walk-in basis. She says this will ensure help is available when needed most without barriers of wait times or pre-treatment requirements. “I would tell anyone who is struggling with opiate addiction that I would assume you’ve already been through this system many times, and I would assume at…
VIDEO – A STAR KEEPS SHINING – March 13, 2024 – McDermott, 57, explains that he “went into treatment and put [his] life back together,” adding he owes his life and newfound way of living to Harmony Place Treatment Center in Woodland Hills, CA., and Freedom House Sober Living. Once inside , the “Due South” star claims he made a deal with himself to be in “100 percent” or not at all. “I was like, OK, I don’t know what that is,” the father of six says. “It sounds a little artsy fartsy. But I made a deal, I’m all in,…
HOW NUTS IS THIS? – March 5, 2024 – A yearlong investigation by STAT shows that virtually every sector of American society is obstructing the use of medications that could prevent tens of thousands of deaths each year. Increasingly, public health experts and government officials cast the country’s singular failure to prevent overdose deaths not as an unavoidable tragedy but as a conscious choice. Narcotics Anonymous, a nationwide organization that promotes the 12-step model of addiction recovery, actively opposes the use of medication, leading would-be participants like Mark Palinski, 38, to be banned from chapter meetings in North Carolina after…