AUDIO – SADDEST STORY EVER? – June 8, 2023 – Kevin told the outlet that his mother’s physical and emotional health has been on the decline ever since she was placed in a guardianship, in 2022. He believes that the people around her are more concerned with her money than her well-being. “I know there are all sorts of things happening that I know in her right mind she would never agree to,” he explained. “As hard as it is seeing her being taken advantage of, I know that if I’m making sure she, as a person, is okay,…
Author: Leonard Buschel
VIDEO – BRILLIANT SACKLER TAKE-DOWN – June 8, 2023 – Inside the Sackler dynasty and the company, Purdue Pharma, that allegedly fuelled the US opioid epidemic. Purdue Pharma introduced the opioid painkiller OxyContin in the 1990s and promoted it aggressively as non-addictive. United States government lawyers argued that the company’s owners, the Sacklers, knew how their medication was being abused widely, but doubled down on production – and profits. Recently a lawsuit was settled for $6bn. Barry Meier, the author of Pain Killer (soon to be a Netflix series), started writing about the opioid epidemic 20 years ago when it…
AUDIO – STIGMA CAN KILL – June 6, 2023 – STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Drug overdose deaths in this country are at a record high. A preliminary federal count indicates they hit close to 110,000 last year. People recovering from addiction say they face a problem. Doctors treat them differently because of their history. Katia Riddle reports from Seattle. KATIA RIDDLE, BYLINE: At first, Johnny Bousquet thought he had the flu. But eventually, he got so sick, he went to urgent care. After some tests, the nurses came back. He needed to go to the ICU, they said, immediately. JOHNNY BOUSQUET:…
AA.org – June 6, 2023 – What’s your sobriety goal? Are you struggling with one addiction that’s turning your life upside down, or do you struggle with an addiction to more than one substance? Either way, the Sober Time app’s primary feature is to track your goals toward sobriety, and you can even log multiple substance abuse journeys separately. Sometimes working on yourself and focusing on one goal at a time works; other times, multitasking is best. Regardless of your approach, remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day! Moving forward is winning, no matter how small the steps…
FOGHORN LEGHORN? – June 7, 2023 – “When it comes to choosing the healthiest type of meat for summer cookouts, chicken is a clear winner,” she tells us. “Whether you prefer the taste of white or dark meat, chicken is a lean protein that’s packed with nutrients.” Not to mention delicious! She points out that this tasty meat is also lower in saturated fat and calories than beef or pork, “which can help you maintain a healthy weight and reduce your risk of chronic diseases.” Nice! One of the great things about chicken, in addition to its health benefits,…
NOT TAKEN ALONE – June 5, 2023 – Willard Sexton, a staff member and former Allen House patient, says the most important part of his job is speaking with each resident daily. Most of them, like him, came to treatment straight from jail or prison, and he knows as well as anybody how stressful it is to stop using. “It’s similar to grief and loss,” says Sexton, 35. “The drug was their best friend for a long time.” Interacting with them, he says, helps him in his own ongoing recovery. At a time when drug use is among the…
“I think you really have to tap into your sense of humor in order to survive.” – Taylor Swift
SCIENCE ON OUR SIDE – May 30, 2023 – It wasn’t until his parents divorced and he started running around Northern California with skateboarders that he saw people regularly getting f**ked up. Though he has claimed that alcohol was “never [his] thing” and that drinking only made him tired, he had other vices. He started skipping school to travel to skate and, in ninth grade, ended up getting institutionalized for a month at an adolescent psychiatry facility. Huberman never planned on going to college, but he ended up following an ex-girlfriend to University of California, Santa Barbara, in 1993. There,…
FOR FOOD-LIKE SUBSTANCES – May 26, 2023 – Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, a professor of psychiatry whose team developed Tessa, told NPR that while the chatbot was designed to be “empathetic,” “it is not, again, a human,” “It’s not an open-ended tool for you to talk to and feel like you’re just going to have access to kind of a listening ear — maybe like the helpline was,” Fitzsimmons-Craft said. “It’s really a tool in its current form that’s going to help you learn and use some strategies to address your disordered eating and your body image.” The helpline, which was used…
VIDEO – SOBER TO THE CORE – May 29, 2023 – He made his mark to soap opera fans as David Vickers on One Life to Live (1994-1996, 2001-2013) and as Bob on Desperate Housewives (2007-2012), since then Tuc Watkins has been featured and starred in numerous television, motion pictures and stage roles. Most recently, Watkins starred opposite Neil Patrick Harris in the Netflix streaming series Uncoupled, the film and stage adaptation of Boys in the Band, and recently on stage in the AIDS-based drama, The Inheritance. Tuc, who came out on The Marie Osmond Show back in 2013,…
ONLY 3? – May 28, 2023 – While consuming alcohol might make you less anxious and more fun and gregarious than your sober self, it might also take away from who you really are. Alcohol depresses your central nervous system and, as a result, makes you more uninhibited and suggestible than usual. However, these effects, as we all know, are temporary and come with a host of side effects. This is not to say that one is trying to be someone else if they drink during a date. However, if one cannot imagine going on a date without any alcohol…
ONE BOOT AT A TIME – May 26, 2023 – Born in New York in 1944, Korn experienced a severe run-in with polio as a young child and throughout his 79 years has dealt with aggressive forms of cancer, medical ailments, alcoholism and trauma, as well as a learning disability and mental health struggles. Throughout his schooling, he was “very socially awkward” and ostracized for his differences. Making friends was difficult, he said, as was finding love at the time. All of that caused great suffering for Korn, who now with his wife, Nancy, has a daughter, also in the…
SOBRIETY DIPLOMA – May 26, 2023 – Dallas LeBlanc never considered himself an addict. In his mind, it was normal to use drugs to take the edge off. But when his addiction consumed him, it took everything. LeBlanc, 44, lost his friends and family, his house, truck, business and health. In 2019, he lost his girlfriend to a drug overdose. Two years later, he was arrested for theft and kidnapping, court records indicate. “Addiction took everything from me, even my freedom. In my homelessness I turned to a life of crime to survive on the streets. These are my…
GOOD, BAD OR WHO KNOWS? – May 27, 2023 – Kratom is extracted from the leaves of Mitragyna speciosa, a tree native to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The products are marketed as herbal supplements that users claim relieve pain, boost energy, treat anxiety and ease withdrawal symptoms from opioids. The FDA said kratom contains psychoactive ingredients and binds to the same opioid brain receptors as morphine. The agency says the unregulated substance appears to put users at risk of addiction and abuse. A trade group, the American Kratom Association, disputes the claim and says the FDA has…
SHE’S BIG IN THE UK – May 28, 2023 – “I want to write this in hopes it will let the right person know, you’re never in too deep and you’re never too far gone to start making a change. It took me 6 months of trying before I managed to be completely sober.” She continued: “I had replaced real friends with party friends, and dated the absolute worst people because that’s was what I thought I deserved. Sobriety is an act of self love and I never thought I would be here, but I thank the universe that…
WORDS TO LIVE BY? – May 28, 2023 – The scene is more than a little amusing and deserves to be included in today’s First Reading – but not only for its humor. Saint Peter touches on an ancient and essential aspect of devotion to the Holy Spirit: sober inebriation. Perhaps he should have clarified that they were indeed drunk, but not in the manner that the crowds supposed. They had that sober inebriation of the Holy Spirit that Saint Paul would later encourage: “And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the…
VIDEO – GIVING BACK LOVE – May 28, 2023 – “Anything that can connect me to the guy that was sleeping behind the Walmart on Indian Town Road in Jupiter is something that I hang onto,” Smith said he wants to bring awareness to addiction, the opioid crisis, and the suffering he still sees on the streets of Tampa Bay. “It’s difficult to look at my daughter and know that I’m not doing something active about the opioid crisis. It is so bad, and I know firsthand what kind of world she’s going to grow up in. So, I…
JUST SAY YES – May 30, 2023 – Naloxone, better known by the brand name Narcan, reverses overdoses by binding to the opioid receptors in the brain, blocking the effects of drugs such as fentanyl or heroin. Harm reduction workers say it should be as ubiquitous in Americans’ homes as dental floss or hand sanitizer, but not enough people have access to it. The FDA recently approved selling naloxone over the counter. By late summer, it could be on shelves at convenience stores, supermarkets, and other retailers that do not have a pharmacy. The Guardian spoke with four people who…
CODA COMPLAINT – May 30, 2023 – Stage 2: Be obliterated in mind and body and consider maybe I have a problem and it is not just my angsty misogynistic lover child. It is how damn compulsive my need for him is. I’m the problem, it is me and Taylor. Stage 3: Go cold turkey on all of it: the texting, heartbreak, plan making, hours of great nothingness, discussions with anyone who will listen about the great sad mantra of our dating nation: “Is he even that into me?” Find life meaningless, empty, and have suicidal thoughts (that is…
FROM THE HEART – June 2, 2023 – The music legend, whose farewell concert, “Elton John Live: Farewell From Dodger Stadium,” could earn him an Emmy and an EGOT, sounds off on attitude, addiction, and the perils of a stiff upper lip. What is your most marked characteristic? Enthusiasm. What do you most value in your friends? Loyalty at all costs. Who are your favorite writers? Tennessee Williams and Charles Dickens, but I mostly read biographies, memoirs, and diaries. Who are your heroes in real life? People who care for the sick and needy. What is your greatest fear? Dying,…
VIDEO – NETWORK COLD FEET? – June 2, 2023 – “It was based on the time in my life when I got sober at 23 and had two roommates and was just trying to figure out: What does a good person do? That was an actual part of my life, or a pointless gauntlet I threw down in front of myself.” Despite coming from Saturday Night Live, Mulaney shares that he didn’t have much experience navigating notes from executives. The sketch show is “the most protected environment in entertainment,” according to the former writer. “We don’t get notes. I…
SOBER PRIDE – June 2, 2023 – The Houston native spent her early adult years enjoying the riches of life while indulging in the party lifestyle. In 2021, however, a run-in with the law ultimately led to a life-changing, court-mandated year of sobriety. “I felt super-isolated and just kind of miserable after my arrest. Everything that I had identified with and my social life was gone. I was very unhappy, and it all felt very out of my control. “My probation officer suggested I go to an intensive outpatient program (IOP),” the outgoing professional explains. “I had never really been…
VIDEO – WISE GUY – May 21, 2023 – He is an author, teacher, orator and the founder and Spiritual Director of the Agape International Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, California. Theme: Your Wholly Holy Agreement with Life. Topic: Paranoia to Pronoia: Lean Into All of You [email protected]
THE GOOD DOCTOR – June 1, 2023, Dr. Etzioni, a German-born Jew who fled the Holocaust, fought for Israeli independence and launched his academic career in the United States, was a wide-ranging intellectual with a soft voice that belied his bustling energy… READ@WashingtonPost
NEITHER ARE WE – June 1, 2023 – The first “Party On” show was in May, with about 40 people in attendance. Vintage records hang on the Crow’s walls as old-timey light bulbs provide a soft glow. Blaine opened the show, setting the tone. It wasn’t the typical high-energy opening act, instead aiming for connection as she described how comedy provided a lifeboat. She centered her story on growing up in Santa Monica in a family struggling with crack addiction. Blaine and those close to her would watch Friends on Thursday nights, a half-hour of escape each week. She…
HE IS THE SUPER HERO – May 28, 2023 – In a new interview with EL PAÍS, James Gunn revealed how the process of making films has helped him deal with his past traumas. Gunn told the outlet that his “demons change over the years”moving from substance addiction to the more current challenges he faces as a high-profile director such as “money, power, attention, negativity”: “My demons change over the years. I was an alcoholic as a young person, and a drug addict. I went through a number of crazy years. I think that for me, it’s really about focusing…
RENDITION? – May 25, 2023 – But after years of housing unaffordability, an increasingly poisonous drug supply and inaccessible voluntary mental health supports, mainstream political parties in Canada — including Alberta’s United Conservative Party (UCP) as the May 29 provincial election approaches — are seemingly toying with the idea of making the people most affected by inequality and poverty simply disappear via involuntary institutionalization. The British Columbia NDP under David Eby, as well as Kevin Falcon’s B.C. United Party, have floated the idea of expanding forced institutionalization to include aspects of substance use. READ@TheConversation
THERE IS A SOLUTION? – May 30, 2023 – Joining MORI took Molinski out of the office, where she most often worked with patients, and into their lives. “My experience with patients in the past had been in an office,” Molinski tells Wisconsin Examiner. “And while they may describe to you what their life is like outside, you only create a picture … I think our minds only create a picture that is easy to tolerate.” The Milwaukee Overdose Response Initiative operates as a grant-funded partnership between the Milwaukee Health Department, Milwaukee Fire Department, community organizations, and treatment centers…
ULTIMATE JACKASS? – May 25, 2023 – Known as “Sanqiange” on Douyin, the man from Jiangsu province in eastern China died after a live-streaming contest that began at 1am on May 16. He was found dead later that afternoon, seated at a desk at a friend’s home, Shangyou News reported. The video of the man taking part in the streaming event has since gone viral on Chinese social media. The clip shows a few bottles of baijiu placed in front of Sanqiange on a desk. He is seen consuming each bottle without pausing. Do you have questions about the…
AUDIO – SEEING IS BELIEVING – May 30, 2023 – Inside the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech Carilion, a small room with bar stools, liquor bottles, and glasses filled with ice is meant to look and feel like a real bar. Here, researchers like Warren Bickel are trying to better understand how to help people who struggle with addiction. “Relationships, employment, health are the things people give up when they sort of become super short-term focused,” said Bickel, who directs the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s Addiction Recovery Research Center. His team has found that, for most of…