YOU’RE INATE – April 24, 2026 – According to her plea agreement, in the fall of 2019, Jordan solicited kickbacks from an individual in exchange for the referral of urine drug testing from Serenity Keepers to various urine drug testing labs. Jordan received these kickbacks in the form of check, cash, and electronic payments for the referral of urine drug testing from Serenity Keepers to three different urine drug testing labs. Serenity Keeper’s, LLC (“Serenity Keepers”), owned by Jordan, was a sober home company based in Fayette County, Ky., that purported to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment services…
Author: Leonard Buschel
CITY OF ANGELS – April 28. 2026 – The City of Boulder has selected Hazelbrook to operate its recovery home for homeless people with substance use disorders. The city first opened the 11-bed residential program on Pearl Street in 2023, but it closed in September 2025 after the previous vendor cited challenges with federal funding and a diverging mission with the city. Hazelbrook, founded in 2016, will begin accepting clients on May 1, according to the city. The program targets homeless adults with substance use disorders, as well as people transitioning out of incarceration. The city is providing the facility…
VIDEO – TWIST AGAIN LIKE WE DID LAST SUMMER – May 1, 2026 – A growing number of Americans are rethinking their relationship with alcohol. A Gallup poll conducted in 2025, the percentage of adults in the United States that consume alcohol has fallen to 54%, which is the lowest in 90 years. Recognizing a need for a sober gathering space, two brothers in Kansas City created a different kind of club. It’s not often you hear the sounds of club music playing at a coffee shop mid-morning. But a crowd has gathered to dance. There are no cocktails, no…
BAD ALL OVER – April 29, 2026 – New data shows major differences across the United States in drug use, overdose deaths and access to treatment, with New Mexico ranking as the state facing the biggest overall drug problem.The report, released ahead of National Prevention Week by WalletHub, comes as the country sees a significant drop in overdose deaths. According to estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. recorded 87,000 drug overdose deaths in 2024, down 24 percent from 114,000 in 2023, which is the largest single-year decline on record. In the 12-month period ending…
VIDEO – MUSICAL INTERLUDE – NOW – Nyro was born Laura Nigro (pronounced as NIGH-gro) in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Louis Nigro, a piano tuner and jazz trumpeter, and Gilda (née Mirsky) Nigro, a bookkeeper. Laura had a younger brother, Jan Nigro, who has become a children’s musician.[7] Laura was of Russian Jewish and Polish Jewish descent, with Italian-American ancestry from her paternal grandfather. WATCH
STICK WITH THE WINNERS! – May 5, 2026 – For the last 12 years, I have been a nationally certified intervention, professional. I have recently taken a step back to pursue other opportunities due to the emotional affect doing so many Interventions has had on me. I’m still working in the industry just at a different capacity. I am also working on other projects addiction related. Q. If you are in recovery, what was your drug(s) of choice and when is your sobriety date?A. I work the Al-Anon program. I say that my recovery date is 11/27/2021. I went…
LIKE A CHARMER – April 27, 2026 – At the height of her addiction, the Liberty X star drank two bottles of wine and a bottle of vodka nearly every day and nearly died after being hospitalized in 2021. ‘Since then, life has became beautiful again, steadier mornings, less anxiety, the lying and manipulation has stopped. ‘Five years on, it’s not just about what I gave up, but everything I have gained: resilience, honesty, and a version of myself that shows up fully. ‘Today feels like a full-circle moment, a reminder that one decision, to admit I needed help, has…
FOREVER IN OUR HEARTS – April 28, 2026 – Nell Hurley — a beloved national recovery advocate and former executive director of alumni relations at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation (among many notable roles) — died on April 25, 2026, at home in St. Paul, Minn., one block from where she was born. She was 56. “As I reflect on the richness of my life, I am feeling so deeply grateful for the abundance of memories I have gathered and the people I have had an opportunity to love so deeply. Thank you for being a part of this beautiful,…
TWISTS IT? – April 28, 2026 – I thought that dopamine adaptations alone were unlikely to be sufficient to lead to addiction and that there had to be an important role for glutamate and synaptic plasticity. The brain is obviously changing during addiction — people sometimes describe that as maladaptive learning — and synaptic plasticity is the way that experience changes the brain. And there are glutamate synapses throughout the circuits that connect different brain regions that are important for addiction. So I started doing experiments to test the role of glutamate in a super-simple rat model of addiction called…
DENTISTS LOVE IT – April 25, 2026 – This popular lunchbox staple is closer to candy than to a truly nourishing bite. It’s the kind of bar that crinkles like virtue when you open it—and still delivers a sugar hit that would make a chocolate bar blush. “If it sticks to your fingers like glue, it’s probably sugar holding it together,” says one registered dietitian. The surprise isn’t just the sweetness; it’s how well the marketing camouflages it. The box shouts “made with whole grain,” shows golden oats, and nudges you toward a comforting, lunchbox-friendly fantasy. But flip it over…
DIZZYLAND – April 26, 2026 – Visitors to a 10-city region in Orange County, California, with a large concentration of substance use disorder treatment centers experience disproportionately high levels of overdose. They were 159% more likely to experience an overdose when visiting this region compared to other parts of the state. “You’d expect that in a place where there’s a lot of treatment centers, there would be a buffer against relapses and overdoses. But our study shows that this area of Orange County, where there is an abundance of treatment centers, is a hotspot for overdoses, especially for out-of-state visitors,”…
HAPPY TALK – April 27, 2026 – The latest brain-computer interface could help people recover from severe depression. Motif Neurotech announced Monday that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a human study to trial the company’s blueberry-sized brain implant that sits in the skull and delivers electrical stimulation to treat depression. The company’s device is implanted in the skull just above the dura, the brain’s protective membrane. It targets the central executive network, a part of the brain that is responsible for high-level cognitive functions and is underactive in major depressive disorder. The implant emits specific patterns of…
MOVING ON UP – April 26, 2026 – Habit-stacking, a technique that’s gotten a lot of attention in recent years, can create a structured and effective routine when motivation alone isn’t enough.“When people aren’t achieving their wellness or health goals, it’s not because they don’t care enough or they’re not disciplined, It’s because they’re relying too heavily on motivation alone to create new habits.” Habit-stacking is a habit formation technique that’s gotten a lot of attention in recent years. Created by “Tiny Habits” author BJ Fogg and further popularized by “Atomic Habits” author James Clear, “it’s a technique that a…
A MINDFUL PARTY – May 5, 2026 – YES, I’ve heard all your requests for mocktails for Cinco de Mayo, so here are the ones I make on repeat every year. Cinco de Mayo is all about bold flavors, fresh ingredients and drinks that feel like a celebration. YES, I’ve heard all your requests for mocktails for Cinco de Mayo, so here are the ones I make on repeat every year. Cinco de Mayo is … Read More
MASKS DON’T HIDE YOU – April 12, 2026 – Ventiko, an interdisciplinary artist whose work has been shown at Garage Museum in Moscow and the Museum of the City of New York, made headlines in 2018 for trying to fly with her emotional support peacock named Dexter, two years before she began her own recovery. For this project, she partnered with artist Lukas Felix Schooler and certified art therapist Benjamin Aquila to lead participants through weekly workshops in March at the Damien Center in Indianapolis. The workshops for the “Masks of Resilience” project took place at Cafe Oztara, a coffee…
BRAINS with a SOUL? – April 29, 2026 – Claude Mythos Preview’s large increase in capabilities has led us to decide not to make it generally available. In other words: What we just made is too revolutionary, too clever, too dangerous to give to the wider public after all. We’re pulling the release. Except they’re Not. They’re actually allowing their highest-paying customers to use it. What on earth are we to make of that? Anthropic has successfully marketed itself as the “AI good guy” … When OpenAI started working with the U.S. government’s Department of Defense earlier this year —…
VIDEO – NO MORE SNAKES – April 30, 2026 – We’re told Spears, 44, finished up treatment last night and was “looking forward to a bright future” following her DUI arrest on March 4. Another source told us that she would be “continuing counseling remotely.” The “Toxic” songstress checked herself into rehab for substance abuse on April 12 after she was believed to have been under the influence of a cocktail of alcohol and drugs at the time of her arrest. Additionally, officers allegedly found an unknown substance in her car. An insider told Page Six that Spears chose to…
A SOBER STAR IS BORN – May 1st, 2026 – “Being an actor and living your life on the big stage can be really stressful,” the Spider-Man star who quit drinking in January ’22. ”I think that alcohol, for me personally, really compounded that issue. And, since getting rid of the booze and feeling more like myself and waking up clear-headed every day and fresh to start the day, I just feel so much more confident in myself as who I am as a person.” “Drinking was something that was ultimately really getting in the way of my professional life,”…
“We’ll go down in history as the first society that wouldn’t save itself because it wasn’t cost-effective.” – Kurt Vonnegut, 1922-2007
WE NEED A NEW CA – April 17, 2026 – Carfentanil, a weapons-grade chemical that authorities say is 10,000 times more potent than morphine and 100 times stronger than fentanyl, has seen a drastic resurgence across the U.S., killing hundreds of unsuspecting drug users. The rise coincides with a recent crackdown by the Chinese government on the sale of precursors used to make fentanyl. The rise coincides with a recent crackdown by the Chinese government on the sale of precursors used to make fentanyl. Those regulations are likely prompting traffickers in Mexico to use carfentanil to boost the potency of…
REBEL REBEL INTERVENTION – April 20, 2026 – “I remember on Dark Side of the Spoon, I actually had David Bowie sitting next to me, going, ‘I’ve been there, mate. And seriously, there’s no future. You need to stop,’” Jourgensen tells Far Out with a sheepish smirk of disbelief, even nearly 30 years later. “So when David Bowie tells you that, your ears perk up.” It turned out that Bowie was in the same Chicago studio working on a live cut and wanted to introduce himself to the band. There was plenty of common ground. Not only had Bowie not…
BON APPETITE – April 17, 2026 – Researchers examine how common dietary sweeteners, including table sugar (sucrose) and high-fructose corn syrup, impact human health. While both contain glucose and fructose, fructose has unique metabolic effects that may more directly contribute to obesity and related conditions. “Fructose is not just another calorie,” said Richard Johnson, MD, professor at the University of Colorado Anschutz and study lead author. “It acts as a metabolic signal that promotes fat production and storage in ways that differ fundamentally from glucose.” The report outlines how fructose metabolism bypasses key regulatory steps in the body’s energy-processing pathways.…
VIDEO ONLY – WATCH FOR FUN – April 20, 2026 – A new conversation around alcohol challenges common beliefs about quitting and cravings. WATCH
VIDEO – LUCKY TO BE ALIVE! – April 2026 – Mark Chesnutt took his final drink of alcohol on Nov. 1, 2023 after years of heavy drinking that worsened after a spinal surgery in 2021. Chesnutt has opened up in the past about his alcoholism. Now, he’s opening up about the specifics of how much he drank. In a new interview with radio show Big D and Bubba, the singer opened up about the stark details. “I drank all day, every day,” Chesnutt says. “I’d get up in the middle of the night and drink. I’d never stop.” A handle…
WALL STREET PARTYS – April 20, 2026 – To learn more, we spoke to three registered dietitians to learn what nutrition (if any) diet soda provides, and what you can expect to happen in the body if you sip on it regularly. Many diet sodas get their sweetness from artificial sweeteners … “Diet soda is by no means a healthy food. So it’s not something I ever encourage people to add to their diet,” Moral of the story? If you’re already a daily diet soda drinker, it’s probably okay—within a limit of one can per day. If you don’t already…
GO PHILLIES – April 21, 2026 – Homicides, poverty and overdoses fell in Philadelphia last year, while population growth and college attainment stalled. Last year, Philadelphia recorded its fewest homicides (222) since 1966 — a turnaround from the more than 500 homicides at the height of the pandemic. And fewer than 1,000 people were shot for the first time in two decades. The city also shed its title as America’s poorest big city, replaced by Houston, with the poverty rate falling below 20% for the first time since 1979. Several groups saw gains, including Hispanic residents, whose poverty rate dropped…
VIDEO – JESUS HEALS – April 23, 2026 – Mother’s Love Ministry and Recovery Alliance Mansfield are partner programs at Mansfield Alliance Church focused on helping individuals overcome drug and alcohol addiction and rebuild their lives. This story emerged from March of Prayer events held earlier in March. Ken Young, a licensed chemical dependency counselor (CDCA II) also serves as a minister at Mansfield Alliance Church, 291 W. Cook Road. Young said the Monday sessions begin with dinner at 6 p.m., followed by classes at 6:30 p.m., and emphasize the deeper personal changes needed for lasting sobriety. “What I’ve found…
VIDEO – JUST FOR FUN – April 23, 2026 – When I was drinking. Now, with 6 years of sobriety, I’m less of an asshole, but still room for growth. WATCH
SERIOUSLY CONFUSING? – April 23, 2026 – ‘Historic’ shift Moving a limited number of products from Schedule I, which includes drugs such as heroin and cocaine, to Schedule III, which includes highly regulated prescription drugs such as acetaminophen with codeine, does not satisfy advocates who have called for complete legalization. But it does represent a major shift in the federal government’s official position on cannabis, several pro-legalization groups said. “It’s historic because the federal government, historically, has denied the existence of medical cannabis, even as a concept,” Paul Armentano, the deputy director of the advocacy group the National Organization for…
SCIENCE MAY ONE DAY DO SO – April 23, 2026 – Methamphetamine withdrawal is often manifested not only by physical changes, but also by depression, anxiety, drug craving, and sleep disturbance. Depressive symptoms are highly prevalent among methamphetamine addicts and are associated with worse quality of life, stronger craving, aggression, and higher psychological risk. Current approaches, including medication and psychotherapy, can help, but both face limits: drugs may cause adverse effects or produce unsatisfactory responses, while psychotherapy can be lengthy and difficult to scale. Because of these challenges, deeper research is needed into safe, practical, and effectual interventions for emotional…