AT ITS EXTREME, EVERYTHING TURNS TO ITS OPPOSITE – Jan. 2, 2023 – Whilst most people promise to abstain from alcohol at the beginning of the year as part of Dry January in a bid to curb bad habits, others have long seen the benefits of ditching the booze for good. Find out which reformed party animals now proudly lead a life of sobriety proving you don’t need alcohol to have a good time.T The ‘Harry Potter’ star cut out booze in 2010 after he found his drinking became excessive. Daniel admitted his path to sobriety was not an easy…
Author: Leonard Buschel
REAL LIFE DICHOTOMY – By Felicia Naoum Mary Beth O’Connor has a unique story, one that bridges the gap between the worlds of trauma, addiction, and success. It is not every day that you hear of an individual struggling with drug addiction becoming a federal judge, published writer, and drug addiction advocate. Her story is a real-life dichotomy. This retired judge may now be on the right side of the law, but her personal struggles prove that even those who end up on the right side of the law are still human. Here’s to recovery, second chances, a dialogue that…
SO TRUE – Jan. 3, 2023 – TikTok has been likened to the addictive drug fentanyl by a US politician, due to its ‘corrosive impact’ on young Americans. Mike Gallagher, incoming US chairman of a new House select committee on China, described TikTok as ‘digital fentanyl’ in reference to the addictive opioid painkiller. Gallagher, who wants TikTok banned in the US, said the app is ‘highly addictive and destructive’ and that it ‘effectively goes back to the Chinese Communist Party’. There are concerns among US politicians that the Chinese government could use the app to track Americans, censor content and…
EVERYTHING CAN HAPPEN IN SOBRIETY – Jan. 1, 2023 – Rumer Willis has plenty to celebrate on New year’s Eve. On Friday, in the late afternoon, the oldest daughter of Hollywood legends Bruce Willis and Demi Moore took to her Instagram page to reveal she’s now six years clean and sober. In making the announcement, the actress and singer, 34, shared a photo of herself as a little girl and added a message to her younger self. Click@DailyMail
PILL PUSHERS FREED – Jan. 5, 2023 – The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of Xiulu Ruan and John Couch for unlawfully dispensing controlled substances after finding that under a Supreme Court ruling in June in Ruan’s case, jurors were wrongly instructed on how to determine their guilt. But the three-judge panel declined to disturb their other convictions for conspiring to violate the Controlled Substances Act, commit racketeering and accept kickbacks from a bankrupt opioid drug manufacturer, Insys Therapeutics Inc. Prosecutors must now decide whether to retry Ruan and Couch or move straight to…
MEDICINES ARE DRUGS – Jan. 2, 2023 – Early studies have shown promise with treating addiction to tobacco and alcohol. The question has gained urgency as the U.S. faces an overdose surge that is killing more than 100,000 people annually, the majority linked to opioids, and a spike in deaths tied directly to alcohol, which have hit their highest rate in decades. Peter Hendricks, a public health professor at the University of Alabama Birmingham, said cocaine users have asked skeptically, “You’re going to help me stop getting high — by getting me high?” He is studying whether psychedelics paired…
BONG AT YOUR OUR RISK – Jan. 3, 2023 – Cannabis is the most commonly used recreational drug in the U.S. and the most commonly used psychoactive substance after alcohol, noted guideline co-author and ASRA Pain Medicine president Samer Narouze, MD, PhD, of Northeast Ohio Medical University in Akron. About 10% of the population — 27.6 million people — reported monthly use in 2017, according to data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and that number is growing, Narouze added. Recent Gallup poll numbers place the number of Americans who smoke marijuana opens in a new…
IN YOUR DREAMS – Jan. 3, 2023 – An article recently published in the journal Biological Psychiatry discusses the findings of researchers at the Rutgers Brain Health Institute and other institutions on the role of the orexin system in drug addiction. The orexin system, which regulates sleep patterns, reward pathways, and mood, has been found to drive drug-seeking behavior. It has been observed that many drugs of abuse increase orexin production in both human and animal brains, and blocking this system can reverse addiction in animals. In addition, a separate study has shown that one of the three FDA-approved…
PARENTAL ABUSE – Jan. 3, 2023 – Clinical toxicologist Varun Vohra said the Michigan Poison & Drug Information Center at Wayne State University School of Medicine, where he is the director, has experienced its own “pretty healthy increase in pediatric marijuana exposures, especially kids under 5 and mostly with edibles.” The numbers continue to rise: In 2021, the poison center had 211 cases of youngsters under 19 exposed to edibles (156 of them under age 5); through October of 2022, it already had 225 cases (164 under age 5). The Poison Control Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, where toxicologist…
VIDEO – IT WAS NICE WHILE IT LASTED – Jan. 1, 2023 – Today, wild plants and animals are running out of places to live. The scientists you’re about to meet say the Earth is suffering a crisis of mass extinction on a scale unseen since the dinosaurs. We’re going to show you a possible solution, but first, have a look at how humanity is already suffering from the vanishing wild. In Washington state, the Salish Sea helped feed the world. Dana Wilson: With this weather and the way things feel once I get out here, it’s time to be…
VIDEO – POLICIES MATTER! – Jan. 5, 2023 – “What we need to see happen is continued physician prescribing of naloxone, but also removing the barriers physicians, emergency departments and harm-reduction organizations have to putting this lifesaving medicine into people’s hands,” Dr. Mukkamala said. He added, however, that naloxone is only one piece of a multifaceted solution, and that—while it saves lives in acute situations—preventing those acute situations is critical to moving the nation in the right direction. Dr. Mukkamala cited the work of emergency and addiction medicine physician Don Stader, MD, who led the Colorado Naloxone Project, which has…
FILMS CAN IMPROVE YOUR LIFE – Jan. 5, 2023 – Poitras, who won a best documentary Oscar in 2014 for Citizenfour, about ex-CIA contractor Edward Snowden, thanked the Venice Film Festival jury at the time for “recognising that documentary is cinema”. Speaking more generally about her work, Poitras has said: “I do make films about political issues that I care about, but I want them to work as films. I’m passionate about cinema and every time a documentary is successful, it’s successful for all of us who make them.” It tells the story of how New York-based Goldin and…
VIDEO – GONE TOO SOON – Jan. 6, 2023 – “I just want you to know that we all love you, we all miss you, and I bet you’re having a big laugh over all of us being sad and sorrowful,” Parton continued of Jordan, who died on Oct. 24 at age 67. “And I know that would be the last thing you would want us to be. You made us happy while you were here, and we’re happy that you’re at peace. I just want you to know that I will always love you. Goodbye, my sweet Leslie. See…
“In dim light, we make things: small, misshapen, and incomplete.” – Arielle Angel
YES – Dec. 27, 2022 – Research last year from the West Virginia School of Medicine showed that virtual therapy sessions conducted via video link during the pandemic were generally as effective as their in-person peers. As research in the British Medical Journal reveals, however, such an approach still requires a trained mental health professional, and in England alone there is such a shortage that around 1.5 million people are currently waiting for mental health treatment. Click@Forbes
A NEW WAY TO DIE – Dec. 21, 2022 – One of the most dangerous and deadly drugs to ever hit the market could be hiding in plain sight, and if we don’t take swift action, we could be facing another devasting wave of overdose deaths among unsuspecting users. It’s called ISO, short for isotonitazine, a deadly synthetic opioid that is 100X to 1000X stronger than morphine and 20X more potent than fentanyl. As of this writing, it’s been detected in at least 180 deceased individuals who likely died from ISO overdose in 18 states around the country. However, it’s…
IT’S COMPLICATED – Dec. 22, 2022 – “She had fallen in love with some men from afar, had these intense feelings of love with men she was never able to meet or talk to,” Harary told The Toronto Sun. “It was something she did for many, many years.” It reminded Harary, whose book Carrots – True Confessions of a Hollywood Sex Addict is available now, of the feelings he had for a young woman during his first year of college. But was that a love addiction or simply an unrequited crush? He acknowledged his experience may have been infatuation,…
VIDEO – AT IT AGAIN – Nov. 2022 – Dr. Gabor Maté (addiction, stress, and childhood development speaker & bestselling author) joins us to explain which groups of people tend to be most prone to chronic illness, practical ways we can prevent these diagnoses, and the link between childhood trauma and mental & physical health conditions later on in life. He details health conditions you may not know have stress-related causes and explains why healthy attachment and meeting a child’s needs is even more important than we think. Dr. Maté identifies characteristics of those who are prone to chronic…
SHE LOVES AA – Dec. 29, 2022 – In July 2020, Cat told Page Six that she had been off Adderall for two years, but she now claims that she ultimately relapsed despite the fact that being free of the focus-inducing drug “drastically” improved her life. “I also did take Adderall to stay up to go to clubs in Mykonos over this past summer and was really alarmed,” she said. “I had sworn I’d never ever do it again, so that was a big wake-up call for me.”She told Page Six that now she surrounds herself with a close-knit group…
A NEW OPPORTUNITY – Dec. 27, 2022 – Joe says trust is fundamental which is why people are able to attend meetings without being worried they’ll be exposed in their everyday life – they can move through the steps without judgement. He says AA maintains anonymity and privacy at a personal level, but as an organization, they want to get the word out that they can help people ready to confront their addiction. For Joe though, his friends and family know about his dependency and he has every day reminders to keep him on track, like plaques on his living…
ONLY THE FINISH LINE – Dec. 23, 2022 – Mitch Ammons trains at Austin High School Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2022. Ammons, a local runner and recovering drug addict, recently qualified for the U.S. Olympic Marathon Trials. He has been sober for over seven years now. Click@Statesman
NO ONE DOES IT BETTER – Dec. 25, 2022 – However, Reisinger had to learn how to help her daughter first. Without experience handling addiction, Reisinger said she initially didn’t recognize the signs of addiction and, consequently, funded her daughter’s drug problem. At the height of her addiction, Rapp left her children with her mom. “I went from being pretty functional and working and taking care of my kids to just one day really not. I mean, it happened slowly … I just walked away from my life and left my kids with [Reisinger],” Rapp said. “In hindsight, I…
CONFUSING – Dec. 27, 2022 – In Hartford, Conn., this year, police found 100 bags of fentanyl in the bedroom of a 13-year-old boy who suffered a fatal fentanyl overdose at school. Police found an additional 60 bags of highly potent fentanyl hidden in areas throughout his school. Had those drugs made it into the student population, there would have been mass casualties. The boy’s overdose death alerted school officials to the threat. Mercifully. But how would calling the drugs WMDs have stopped the boy from getting them? According to the attorneys general, designating the synthetic opioid as a…
IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD – Dec. 27, 2022 – Jenna Rajczyk, lead author of the study says that the findings support prior research that linked smoking with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of neurological disorders. Rajczyk added that the study serves as a forceful reminder to quit smoking. Quitting smoking will benefit the neurological, respiratory and cardiovascular health of an individual. The study concluded that neurological damage due to smoking had the highest prevalence in middle-aged smokers. The relationship between smoking and memory loss was most prominent in the age groups of 45-59 years. Scientists say that quitting…
LAW OF ABUNDANCE? – Dec. 20. 2022 – The Drug Enforcement Administration confiscated more than 379 million doses of fentanyl this year, the agency said, and it seized more than double the number of pills laced with the potent synthetic opioid than it seized last year. The agency announced in a statement on Tuesday that it had confiscated more than 50.6 million fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills in 2022, as well as more than 10,000 pounds of fentanyl powder. The fake pills were made to resemble common prescription medications including Xanax and OxyContin, but were made with filler and fentanyl. That…
HAPPY NEW AND SAFER NEW YEAR’S – Dec. 28, 2022 – Millie Gooch, the founder of Sober Girl Society, told Insider’s Rachel Hosie that “sober curious” is a purposefully ambiguous phrase, as the movement includes all kinds of gray-area drinkers. Gooch said that for some people, being sober curious means being more mindful of when and why they’re drinking. Some sober-curious folks cut down on drinking or abstain for extended periods, while others stop drinking completely. The movement’s prevalence on social media has appealed to young people, especially young women, Insider previously reported. Sober-curious influencers post TikToks and Instagram Reels…
TO EACH HIS OWN – Dec. 29, 2022 – Pointing out that rehabilitation centres are ashrams to free the abusers from addiction, he appealed to the armed revolutionary groups of Manipur to refrain from making monetary demands on rehabilitation centres. Managing director of Yaipokpa, Lakhikumar Soram, stated that the rehab centre was established with the objective of fighting the issue of drug menace in the state. In the last three years, the rehab has been able to bring as many as 60 drug users to the mainstream, he informed, seeking the support of the people of Manipur to successfully…
THERE’S A SALE AT BEVMO – Dec. 29, 2022 – As you help, you should also choose your words carefully because what you say can influence an addict’s will to recover. To help them start on that healing journey here are a few things you should keep to yourself. “Just stop” When you’re dealing with a habit that you’re not necessarily addicted to, you can manage to stop within a short time. But with a real addiction, your whole life revolves around feeding the habit, which isn’t easy to break free from. This person knows that alcohol is ruining their…
EVERY DEATH IS TRAGIC – Dec. 29, 2022 – In the full coroner’s report obtained by the entertainment site, Sanders texted a friend the night before he died where he mentioned he was using fentanyl. The report went on to mention that the actor didn’t answer his phone when that friend attempted to call him after sending the text. The report mentioned Sanders’ history of drug abuse, which included heroin, cocaine, LSD, mushrooms, and Xanax. He had no history of medical problems. Sanders started acting around 10 years old and starred in shows like “The Rookie,” “Just Add Magic,” and…
AUDIO – DEAR MR. FANTASY – Dec. 30, 2022 – You know, A, I think it’s helpful to remember how the COVID pandemic kept changing – right? – as different strains of the virus emerged. Well, the opioid epidemic is kind of similar. The type of opioids keeps changing. First, we had prescription pain pills sold by drug companies and pharmacies. They ignited this public health crisis. Then people shifted to heroin, which is more dangerous. And now what we’re seeing is more and more people using fentanyl, which is this deadly synthetic opioid that’s so powerful, it’s contributing…