VIDEO – IT IS ALL ABOUT LOVE – Feb. 15, 2023 – “While this journey has mostly been private, I felt compelled tonight to let anyone who is struggling know that you are not alone and you are loved,” she concluded. Hale’s “Pretty Little Liars” co-stars shared their support, with Shay Mitchell and Sasha Pieterse both commenting with emojis. Troian Bellisario, for her part, penned a lengthy message of congratulations. “This is brave. And cool. And inspirational,” she wrote. “And you deserve all the self love and love from others that goes with it… Click@PageSix
Author: Leonard Buschel
OVERDOSE DRUG OVER THE COUNTER – Feb. 15, 2023 – The manufacturer, Emergent Biosolutions, said it would revise the packaging and labeling to address those concerns. The FDA will make a final decision on the drug in coming weeks. Panel members urged the FDA to move swiftly rather than waiting for Emergent to conduct a follow-up study with the easier-to-understand label. There’s perhaps a far greater risk of delaying the availability of the product given the climate of this crisis and its devastating consequences,” said Maria Coyle, a pharmacy professor from Ohio State University, who chaired the panel. The prefilled…
PENALTY / TOUCHDOWN – Feb. 14, 2023 – Maragos, who tore his posterior cruciate ligament during the Eagles’ 2017 Super Bowl-winning season, had alleged medical negligence against Dr. James Bradley and Rothman Orthopaedics. Maragos and his lawyers claimed the doctors missed that that player also had a torn meniscus, and the failure to treat that injury resulted in the end of Maragos’ NFL career. On Sunday, my team played in the (Super Bowl), and I could only watch and wonder whether I could have been out there with them had I received proper medical care,” Maragos said in a press…
PURPLE BROKEN HEARTS – Feb. 16, 2023 – The demographics of those hardest hit paralleled the opioid crisisin the civilian population, where people without college degrees have suffered the most from the scourge of opioid addiction. Analysis of the data available showed that the overdose rate at the Department of Defense is significantly higher than the civilian baseline. Army infantrymen, Green Berets, and other elite soldiers, together with the smaller Naval Special Warfare Command, have borne nearly all of the burden of the war in Afghanistan and a half-dozen other countries. Veterans suffer “moral injury,” a term used to refer…
EAT YOUR HEART OUT – Feb. 14, 2023 – To meet the criteria for addiction, older adults who were polled had to report experiencing at least 2 of 11 symptoms of addiction in their intake of highly processed food, and also report significant eating-related distress or life problems multiple times per week. Based on these criteria, highly processed food addiction was observed in 13% of poll respondents overall, with rates significantly higher among women, especially those in their 50s and early 60s. “Clinicians need a better understanding of how food addiction and problematic eating intertwines with their patients’ physical and…
GOOD NEWS? – Feb. 12, 2023 – As health economists, we separately participated in two recent studies that showed the payoffs from straightforward and inexpensive mailings. In one, researchers followed up on a trial in San Diego County looking at 809 clinicians who had prescribed opioids to 166 people who, unknown to the doctors, had fatally overdosed. Half of the prescribers were randomly selected to receive a personal letter from the county’s chief deputy medical examiner notifying them that one of their patients died from an overdose. The letter also provided information about safer prescribing. The other half did…
FACING THE FACTS – Feb. 11, 2023 – Now, eight digital and four vinyl billboards have been set up across the state with the faces of the 25 people, who died after taking the drug. The signs also come with a caption that says, “Fentanyl steals your friends.” As per reports, it was Brandon and Janel Rodriguez, who began the movement after losing their son Noah in August 2022. Both of them are also the founders of the Forever15Project, which they started “to spread awareness and to provide resources for those who are at risk or who know someone at…
AND STAYED IN SHOW BUSINESS – Feb. 6, 2023 – Meanwhile, there are also many child actors who fell victim to the dark side of Tinseltown, sampling drugs and alcohol at a young age and eventually finding themselves caught up in a web of addiction. “I was a child actor, and if you survive it teaches you a lot,” admitted Ethan Hawke to Entertainment Weekly. “The trouble is that most people don’t survive. I’m not speaking figuratively. I’m talking literally, like there’s dead bodies everywhere.” Sadly, Hawke isn’t wrong; young stars who wind up spiraling into drug addiction has become…
MONEY FOR NOTHING – Feb. 15, 2023 – Contingency management on its own is likely a failing proposition for addiction treatment providers. That’s why Greenville, South Carolina-based Crossroads Treatment Centers includes the practice in its equity-focused care model. “We work really hard to solve those issues so that [our patients] can actually get to a health care appointment and get their lives back,” Crossroads Treatment Centers CEO and founder Rupert McCormac told Behavioral Health Business. The company has partnered with the behavioral health tech company Pear Therapeutics (Nasdaq: PEAR) to dispense its contingency management program via Pear’s FDA-approved digital therapeutics…
HOW APP-ROPRIATE – Feb. 12, 2023 – The app prompts you to post a photo and text marking your sobriety, which others can comment on, and it’s uplifting knowing you aren’t alone. I started experimenting with drugs and alcohol at age 15, when I lived at home in Canada. Struggles with trauma and depression have been with me since early childhood as a victim of sexual violence. At first, I coped through self-neglect but later, this became substance abuse Now 31, and living in Berlin, I have come a long way since the incident in late 2019 that inspired…
AND SO MUCH MORE – Feb. 16, 2023 – Attending an Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) meeting is a powerful step towards overcoming addiction that should not be overlooked or taken lightly. Not only will you gain knowledge about addiction itself, but also find support in others going through the same struggle while learning valuable coping strategies along the way. With dedication and commitment, attending regular AA meetings can help put you on the path towards lasting sobriety and long-term recovery success! At an AA meeting, you can find support from other individuals in recovery. Many people who attend meetings have been…
“Bob Gibson is the luckiest pitcher I ever saw. He always pitches when the other team doesn’t score any runs.” – Tim McCarver, Oct. 16, 1941 – Feb. 16, 2023
AUDIO – CAN IT HELP? – Feb. 6, 2023 – As part of our “Remaking America” collaboration, we highlight reporting from partner station KUNC on kids facing mental health and substance abuse issues. One possible solution is recovery high schools. There are at least 45 recovery schools across the U.S. dedicated to students with addiction problems. We discuss the unique challenges young people face when seeking treatment, and how schools can do a better job of supporting them. Click@NPR
DENIAL IS AS DANGEROUS AS HEROIN – Feb. 4, 2023 – It is thought that more than half a million people in the UK are alcohol dependent, meaning they have a strong and often uncontrollable desire to drink. This can wreak havoc on the lives of their loved ones, as well as leading to increased risk of cancers, pancreatitis, strokes, heart disease, and liver and kidney damage in drinkers themselves. But there are concerns that some people dealing with alcoholism are ‘slipping through the net’ due to health workers not recording their drinking habits properly. The National Institute for Health…
THE OLD MAN AND THE PEE – Feb. 4, 2023 – In “The Thirsty Muse: Alcohol and the American Writer,” Tom Dardis noted that a closer look at the long list of famously drunken writers “reveals that four were suicides (Jack London, Hart Crane, Hemingway and John Berryman), while nearly all the rest burned themselves out at surprisingly early stages of their careers. “A few preserved legendary silences that persisted for decades (Djuna Barnes and Dashiell Hammitt), but virtually all the rest continued to write, producing increasingly feeble works.” Dardis said it was “clear that alcoholism has played an immense…
REHAB WORKS – Feb. 4, 2023 – I’d agreed to go to rehab in the hopes that I would learn how to “drink like a lady”, because a life of complete abstinence wasn’t something I was ready to accept. As I sat on the end of the hospital bed watching the nurse search through my belongings for what I assumed must be concealed alcohol, or anything I could use to harm myself, I pondered the question, “How did I get here?” Last week I was working my executive job at one of the world’s largest beauty organisations, and now I’m…
ONE YEAR AT A TIME – Feb. 2, 2023 – Welch has previously talked about her issues with alcohol and substance abuse as well as eating disorders. Speaking to Vogue in 2019, the Dog Days Are Over singer talked about her previous party girl existence – describing it as a “defining feature” of her personality, which would often lead her to be blackout drunk. She mused: “Being a musician and a blackout drinker can lead you to have a rather coddled existence, and make it hard to grow up. Partying was, I felt, a defining feature of my personality –…
VIDEO – WHAT ABOUT A MICKEY FINN? – Feb. 3, 2023 – Researchers found by blocking an enzyme called CA4, cocaine withdrawal symptoms were reduced in mice. Click@WQAD
ONE MAN POISON IS ANOTHER WOMAN’S LONGEVITY – Jan. 30, 2023 – This was pain that knifed and throbbed ― that consumed my life. Pain that would cause me to vomit repeatedly, long after my stomach was empty. Pain that left me curled in the fetal position, holding my head. Pain that kept me from sleeping for days and would not abate. My son was a young child during the worst of these years. OxyContin pills and Fentanyl patches made it possible for me to function at all. Without these medications, there were few days I was able to leave…
VIDEO – WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, SISTERS ROCK – Feb. 6, 2023 – At the hub in Kensington, volunteers provide food, clothing, and especially trauma care to people who enter from the streets. “These wounds that we got right now is, like, real bad,” said Gene Gallo. “The tranquilizer that they’re putting into drugs, it’s from that.” Gallo is referring to Xylazine, which is colloquially called, ‘Tranq.’ The animal tranquilizer has infiltrated much of the drug supply in Philadelphia over the last three years. It can cause life-threatening necrotic wounds on the body. Gallo received wound care and a…
DON’T MESS WITH SOBER PEOPLE – Feb. 6, 2023 – The village of Hinsdale has agreed to pay $800K to settle a lawsuit alleging the community in Chicago’s western suburbs violated the Fair Housing Act when it denied a sober living facility the right to operate in a residential neighborhood. Click@BisNow
HELPING HANDS ARE STRONGEST – Feb. 2023 – Steve Farella was at rock bottom again. Heroin addict. Alcoholic. In jail and on the verge of losing rights to his youngest son. He knew he was just about out of chances. “I was in such a bad place emotionally and physically. I was just so beat up and tired of the emotional anguish. I was ready for a change.” He came to a rehabilitation facility in the Altoona area, hoping it would be the start of his transformation. Click@PSU
VIDEO – THE ULTIMATE HARM REDUCTION – Feb. 8, 2023 – He has lost many of his friends and family members – including his mother – to alcohol or illnesses connected to addiction. Peter is one of about 10 men at the Managed Alcohol Project (MAP) in Glasgow, which aims to stabilise chronic alcoholics by giving them alcohol as part of their treatment. Click@BBC
SOBRIETY IS MAGICAL – Feb. 10, 2023 – “It has been deeply ingrained in us by the media, culture and our peers that alcohol is the best way to have fun, and therefore sobriety must be boring,” says Veronica Valli, a psychotherapist, recovery coach and author of Soberful. She says: “The truth is, with 23 years of sobriety behind me, I can’t think of anything that isn’t more fun without alcohol. But there’s more to stopping drinking than just stopping drinking. We have to learn a lot of new emotional skills.” It is not just the tendency to use booze…
IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL LIVE – Feb. 10, 2023 – It remains so hard for many people to get their heads around the importance of harm reduction programs and spaces dedicated to young people. Older adults remain inclined to “protect” and “save” youth in ways that often do more harm than good—particularly for those experiencing structural oppression. For older populations, society is slowly moving away from abstinence-only models toward harm reduction approaches that are empowering and far better evidenced. It is illogical and harmful to exclude young people from this shift in practice, policy and thinking. Vancouver and…
VIDEO – IT’S ALL ABOUT MUSIC – Feb. 9, 2023 – ‘Party’, per a press release, “recounts the place that Elena Tonra got to before deciding to give up alcohol”. Over a restrained, slowcore-inspired arrangement of strummed bass and four-on-the-floor drums, Tonra sings of her struggles of coming to terms with sobriety: “I refuse to believe that there’s a problem, you see/I could stop if I want, I just don’t want to yet”. An accompanying music video has been shared for the song, directed by Tiff Pritchett – who also made the video for their previous single ‘Be On Your…
TECH PLUS THE POINTS – Feb. 10, 2023 – The Supreme Court ruling struck down a federal law that had banned most commercial sport wagering outside Las Vegas. The subsequent spread of legal gambling was stunningly swift. Lobbyists pampered state lawmakers with parties and promises, predicting millions in new tax dollars. Much of the promised revenue hasn’t reached the states, according to a New York Times investigation. But gambling dollars have reached the betting operators. The industry reaped $4.3 billion in revenue on $57 billion in wagers in 2021. In the first 11 months of 2022, Americans bet $83…
VIDEO – ANOTHER HUMAN TRAGEDY – Feb. 8, 2023 – That was on July 23, but just a few days later, Ryder received news that her daughter was found dead at the facility. “My life shattered,” Ryder said. “I thought 100% that was the absolute safest place for her to be, and it ended up not being safe at all.” Investigators with the Riverside Police Department said the county coroner determined Bauman’s cause of death was due to an accidental overdose on fentanyl. With the help of their lawyer, the 24-year-old’s family has filed a civil lawsuit…
OBITUARY – Jan. 31, 2023 – Her husband, the architect James Biber, said the cause was a glioblastoma brain tumor. Ms. Goldberg, who trained as a painter, was a scholar of designs and typefaces, particularly those of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which she reimagined in elegant and witty combinations on the covers of hundreds of albums and thousands of books. She designed covers for best sellers — her cover for Oliver Sacks’s “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” resembles a 17th-century title page — and for more esoteric fare, like Rilke’s “The Sonnets to…
VIDEO – EXTRAORDINARY 10 YEAR OLD – Feb. 6, 2023 – She continued, “After a D.A.R.E. program came to my school and did a 10-week curriculum on drugs and drug addiction, I saw a clip of Master P on Tiktok.” The clip shows the Hip-Hop veteran and his son Romeo Miller encouraging his daughter Tytyana to seek help for addiction. She died in May 2022 from fentanyl. “I wanted to talk to other kids whose parents had died from an overdose or are still currently using. I came up with the idea to do a four-part docuseries on fentanyl and…