BEATS COCAINE – Oct. 19, 2022 – The promises that caffeine will make one operate in a quicker, more efficient way, may allure students to make it a part of their daily routine. Similarly, if one has a deadline approaching, or a big exam the next morning, caffeine may seem like the easy pick-me-up needed to keep students running through the night. “Caffeine carries a message that’s very much rooted in capitalism,” said Smith. “It’s like, you can do more, you can go further and you can get more … that’s problematic.” Despite the popularity of caffeinated drinks, Smith believes…
Author: Leonard Buschel
VIDEO – ONE EXERCISE AT A TIME – Oct. 21, 2022 – Lily showed off her taut abs in the snap, opting to team her crop top with a pair of form-fitting leggings. She wore her raven locks in a very chic French bob and donned minimal makeup for her exercise session. Posing for another photo, she leaned back into a stretch before getting changed into a chunky knitted jumper and taking a selfie in the mirror. Lily – who is married to Stranger Things’ David Harbour – has been candid about her addiction struggles, previously revealing the last time…
WITH GOD? OR GODDESS? – Oct. 17, 2022 – “If I made the decision, I could be on drugs by myself here at the moment and so I’m choosing not to. But if you have a partner, that choice is taken away a bit because you’d have to be on drugs with them. There is less temptation.” The 33-year-old singer admits he feels “guilty” about his use of social media to promote the band because he’s aware of the harmful impact sites such as Instagram and Facebook can have on young people and their mental health. He told the…
VIDEO – EACH ONE, TEACH ONE – Oct. 14, 2022 – “I had tried every avenue to get clean and then I started learning about my addiction, educating myself about why I was relapsing. Every time there was a trauma or something happened in my life, I would pick substances back up so it was educating myself that really worked for me.” She explained that there is a barrier to seeking help for many women affected by addiction or domestic violence. “Often women have a fear of social work getting involved and that can be a big barrier for…
GOOD LUCK ZIJUN – Oct. 18, 2022 – “Drug addiction is not a moral failing,” said Wang, assistant professor of pharmacology & toxicology. “In terms of addiction, the reward pathway in the brain is hijacked by repeated drug exposure. Drug-induced structural changes result in many abnormal behaviors, including reduced inhibitory control that prevents someone from avoiding behaviors with negative consequences.” The human genome consists of more than 3 billion base pairs of DNA, which contain more than 20,000 genes. This genetic material is used in complex biochemical processes in human cell function, development and replication. Wang said the genome is…
YOU DON’T SNOOZE, YOU LOSE – Oct. 19, 2022 – Are you over 50 and getting five hours or less sleep a night? This could be a problem for your long-term health, warns a study published this week. Researchers in Europe found that getting five or less hours sleep per night could put individuals at a higher risk of developing multiple chronic diseases such as heart disease, depression, cancer or diabetes. The peer-reviewed study looked at almost 8,000 British civil service workers over an average 25-year period, at the ages of 50, 60 and 70, and found “short sleep…
VIDEO – WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM… – Oct. 19, 2022 – Perry did survive. However, this hadn’t been the first time he’d struggled with substance use. The TV star told the outlet his alcohol addiction started to become apparent after he was cast as Chandler Bing in “Friends” at age 24. “I could handle it, kind of,” Perry recalled. “But by the time I was 34, I was really entrenched in a lot of trouble.” During that time, he continued, “there were years” that he was sober. “Season nine was the year that I was sober the whole way…
VIDEO – JUST DON’T LICK IT – Oct. 21, 2022 – Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that’s up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. While pharmaceutical fentanyl is prescribed by doctors to treat severe pain and can come in a patch form, ER Dr. Mehrdod Ehteshami said illicitly manufactured fentanyl — available on the drug market — is actually not absorbed through the skin. “Fentanyl is something that people do use illegally, actually, to overdose for recreational purposes. But this is not one of those things, and it’s not one of those ways that…
FATHERHOOD HELPS – Oct. 22, 2022 – After all the controversies that Baron Geisler has gotten embroiled in, it’s redemption time for him. Baron’s heartwarming movie, “Doll House” (DH) is currently No. 1 in the Philippines and No. 17 worldwide on Netflix. He portrays an absentee father who tries to make up for lost time with his daughter in Holland. Baron outdid himself in DH. Aga Muhlach, Paolo Contis, Gary Valenciano and Ogie Alcasid even posted their praises for Baron and his movie on their Facebook/Instagram accounts. As a friend, I am overjoyed for Baron. It’s high time that…
VIDEO – ALANON THE WATCHTOWER – Oct. 22, 2022 – Philip Norman’s 2020 book Wild Thing: The Short, Spellbinding Life of Jimi Hendrix, detailed Hendrix’s life prior to fame as well as his career after his breakout. Hendrix’s father was born with extra fingers on his hands, which was considered a mark of the devil back then. As a result, his extra fingers were starved of blood until they fell off. “The youngest of their four children, James Allen — always to be known as Al — arrived in 1919, strong and healthy but with an extra finger on each…
GRIN NOT GRIM – Oct. 22, 2022 – Faith realised she had to learn to smile again after being so used to keeping her mouth shut to hide her rotting teeth. Now she is rocking a new set of dentures and says her journey has made her a stronger person. Faith, a social media influencer, said: “I had no salvageable teeth, so I decided to have them all pulled out and went toothless. Seeing myself with dentures for the first time was so shocking. I had to practise how to smile, as it had been so long. “I didn’t…
WAKING UP IN SOBRIETY – Oct. 22, 2022 – “One of my great regrets is not keeping in touch with her after I split up with David. But she gave a dinner for Sten [Bertelsen, Constantine’s husband] and I when we got engaged. That was so generous spirited.” She has been married to Bertelsen, the Danish entrepreneur and businessman, for nearly 28 years. They have three children and live in a sprawling West Sussex home within 127 acres of land. Looking back to her beginnings as the daughter of upper crust, wealthy businessman Joseph who, she says, always wanted…
BLOOD DROP OUT – Oct. 16, 2022 – 4. They know how to get your blood boiling. Sociopaths know how to push the right psychological buttons to gain control in a relationship. Once they’ve achieved a degree of compliance, they’ll seek to undermine their target’s emotional stability. This is why they love to be unpredictable (most personality disorders have this in common). Sometimes their behavior — such as running hot and cold — is due to the particular disorder. Other times, it is purely tactical. 5. Their worst tendencies quickly surface when they feel they are losing control over…
VIDEO – TAKEN TOO SOON – Oct. 24, 2022 – Leslie Jordan became a social media sensation during the pandemic, with his silly video posts helping him skyrocket from about 80,000 Instagram followers to a whopping 5.8 million. He told us on “TMZ Live” his secret was just being himself — a silly, funny, goofy, happy-go-lucky senior citizen. Following his viral pandemic fame, Leslie appeared on CNN’s New Year’s Eve 2021 countdown, ringing in 2022 with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen. Leslie also acted in movies, including … “The Help” and “Ski Patrol” and he made guest appearances in tons of TV shows like “Murphy Brown,”…
APPALACHIAN APOCALYPSE – Oct. 15, 2022 – Barbara Kingsolver speaks politely but is unmistakably angry. “We have a generation of kids growing up here without parents, because so many of my people are incarcerated or addicted or dead,” she tells me. She’s referring to the US opioid epidemic — addiction to prescription painkiller drugs — which is the subject of her new novel Demon Copperhead, the story of a boy growing up from the 1990s into the new millennium, with every card stacked against him. But who, I ask, does she mean by “my people”? Kingsolver lives in Appalachia, a…
VIDEO – THE DOCTOR THINKS SO – Oct. 21, 2022 – Zuloff-Shani, PhD: I think that the list is almost endless because I think that there’s no question about it. We are in a current crisis, a mental health crisis. I think that in the United States, it was also already announced—but also worldwide. COVID obviously did not help that. I would start with depression and PTSD, OCD, and many addictions. I really want to focus on alcoholism because this is something that we develop at Clearmind. We develop a treatment for alcoholism. So not only that, but there’s also…
FAITH SOME MORE – Oct. 20, 2022 – Patton said he ultimately became depressed and was diagnosed with agoraphobia. According to the Mayo Clinic, agoraphobia is defined as “a type of anxiety disorder in which you fear and avoid places or situations that might cause you to panic and make you feel trapped, helpless or embarrassed. You fear an actual or anticipated situation, such as using public transportation, being in open or enclosed spaces, standing in line, or being in a crowd.” Ultimately, Patton said that fear of going outside and being around people drove him into a pattern of…
EATING AS A RELIGION, OR NOT? – Oct. 18, 2022 – Food had long been a fraught subject in the Maxwell household. Her parents were also bigger-bodied and dieted frequently. They belonged to a fundamentalist Baptist megachurch where gluttony was seen as a sin. To eat at home was to navigate a labyrinth of rules and restrictions. Maxwell watched one time as her mother lost 74 pounds in six months by consuming little more than carrot juice (her skin temporarily turned orange). Sometimes her father, seized with a new diet idea, abruptly ransacked shelves in the kitchen, sweeping newly forbidden…
EXERCISE THIS! – Oct. 14, 2022 – The film repeatedly portrays Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside as beset by “skyrocketing crime and violent attacks” and repeatedly characterizes the city’s homeless population as “violent.” It ultimately blames “harm reduction” programs as well as Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart for not increasing the city’s police budget. Joining Gunn at the screening was Ralph Kaisers, head of the Vancouver Police Union – one day earlier, the VPU controversially broke with tradition and endorsed right-wing mayoral candidate Ken Sim for mayor. Kaisers, who is also a donor to Ken Sim and appears in the documentary, spoke…
DUH? – Oct. 21, 2022 – Oct. 21, 2022 – Oz hasn’t put forth a program and has clearly stated that he is against expanding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that has paid for and/or subsidized 35 million people who needed health insurance. In fact, he now states that he would not have voted in favor of the ACA at all. This doesn’t mean he doesn’t care about people with substance use disorder, but he hasn’t told us what he would do to address this key connection between health insurance and substance abuse treatment. He sticks to general statements on the need for rehab…
MEETINGS OF MINDS – Oct. 22, 2022 – Paul has been sober for more than three years, he says proudly, showing off his golden chip he earned as a mark of his achievement. It has three large stripes and shows the faces of AA founders Bill W. and Bob S. and is a lucky charm for Paul, who carries it everywhere, on his key chain. Founded in the United States in 1935, AA, which is wholly funded by donations, now has branches worldwide, where members of groups support each other and provide a space to talk about their experiences and…
WHY ARE WE STILL HERE? – Oct. 18, 2022 – As a person that has gone through a serious addiction to opioid medication, I can say that at first, it is not as bad as some people make it out to be at first. In fact, I controlled it successfully for many years but then something changed. Yes, there are risks associated with taking them, but there are also risks with not taking them. For example, if a person has chronic pain and is not put on opioid medication, they may end up in more pain than they were…
“Don’t choose the one who is beautiful to the world. But rather choose the one who makes your world beautiful.” – Harry Styles
AUDIO – THE MOST DEPRESSING MINI-SERIES EVER – Oct. 19, 2022 – Listen on the Imagine Paradise Podcast which seeks to help people become chain-breakers, turning addiction to freedom, self sabotage to self love and victimhood to victory. A joyous life awaits you and paradise is yours to the degree you can imagine it. Born in Oliver Springs, TN, the foothills of the Smokey Mountains, Levi’s life has been chronicled through nine album releases to date. Each one reveals a new side to this singer/songwriter, taking you through a myriad of genres – piano pop, gospel, country, r&b and jazz. Levi’s…
ALWAYS BEWARE – Oct. 11, 2022 – “I don’t see any evidence that the DEA has produced that supports that conjecture,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, a researcher studying illegal drugs at the University of North Carolina. Dasgupta’s lab tests illegally manufactured opioid pills collected from across the United States. He says colored pills like the ones highlighted in the DEA warning are on the streets but that it’s nothing new. “We get them almost on a daily basis,” he said. “We see pinks and purples, yellow, green, red, aqua, fuchsia. It’s a pretty wide palette. Blue is the predominant color, but…
SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE – October 13, 2022 – With the high expectations of the major film studios and long work hours that required high amounts of energy, doctors started prescribing drugs and deceptively named vitamin shots or pep pills to help these stars with energy or sleep. This system caused the death of Hollywood star Judy Garland, who died of a barbiturate overdose in 1969, following years of addiction that started when she was just a child on set. The public and the media tend to idolize drug-abusing celebrities and perceive their lifestyles as glamorous, yet there is…
HARRY POTTER and the PHILOSOPHER’S STONE – Oct. 14, 2022 – On Friday, Fry honored his former co-star in a statement posted to Twitter. “I first met Robbie Coltrane almost exactly 40 years ago. I was awe/terror/love struck all at the same time. Such depth, power & talent: funny enough to cause helpless hiccups & honking as we made our first TV show, ‘Alfresco,’” he wrote. “Farewell, old fellow. “If you’re an actor, you have to do the voices. The children expect it. No monotones allowed,” he joked. But it was his performance, which brought heart and humanity to…
GETTING A DUI? – Oct. 6, 2022 – One of the many things I have noticed about life after 40 is that even a single glass of wine can make me feel icky the next day. I wake up tired, foggy-headed and anxious — even more so than I usually do. Chardonnay, why do you fail me? After conferring with friends, I discovered there’s a popular term for this mild alcohol-induced ennui — “hang-xiety.” It’s not an official diagnosis, but people sometimes use the word to describe the emotional plunge they feel after drinking that doesn’t quite constitute a…
ONE CLOCK AT A TIME – Oct. 12, 2022 – 2 years sober next week. Ya boy Flav is not alone in dis journey. Thx to god and family and friends dat support me!!! more@BET
VIDEO – A STAR IS BORN – Oct. 7, 2022 – You had a working relationship with Michael Morris prior to this film from collaborating on Bloodline. What else about To Leslie stood out, and made it clear this was your next project? Certainly, firstly, Michael, because he was the beacon of stability in an episodic world of confusion for me on Bloodline, in the sense that, I’m very used to having one director in film, the whole way through the process. There are so many directors in episodic work. Michael was holding the heart of the piece at…