HIS WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HAND – Sept. 1, 2022 – Kanye West admitted to having an addiction to porn, saying it “destroyed” his family. “Don’t let Kris make you do playboy like she made [Kylie] and Kim do,” he began in an Instagram post on Thursday, addressing Victoria Villarroel, Kylie Jenner’s former assistant. “Hollywood is a giant brothel Pornography destroyed my family I deal with the addiction instagram promotes it Not gonna let it happen to Northy and Chicago,” he continued. The “Donda” rapper was talking about Kris Jenner — who manages Kylie and his ex-wife, Kim Kardashian —…
Author: Leonard Buschel
OPENING UP, WAY UP – Sept. 1, 2022 – Matt said previously about first becoming a dad to eldest daughter Isabelle: “I remember looking at her and going, ‘Oh no, I’ve been getting everything wrong’. “Suddenly everything became about this little thing who needed us so badly and I was filled with fear and dread and anxiety. “I’ll never forget it, because it completely changed me in every possible way and had more of an impact on me than anything ever has. And it continues to. “It’s only once you get older you realise certain things you grew up…
THE INVISIBLE SNIPPER KILLS AGAIN – Sept. 3, 2022 – Desperate for relief, Lewis bought two. But the pills Lewis had purchased were illicit fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid. They had been pressed into pill form and sold on the street to look identical to the safer pharmaceutical opioids. Hours later, his girlfriend found him unconscious on the bathroom floor. Two days later, he was pronounced dead at Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia. Mrs. Hornsby said she had known very little about fentanyl before her son died. The loss transformed her into a vocal advocate for overdose prevention and…
CAN A FILM SAVE LIVES? – Sept, 3, 2022 – The maker of lauded films including Risk (about Wikileaks) and Citizenfour(about Edward Snowden) was premiering All the Beauty and the Bloodshed in competition at the Venice film festival on Saturday. The film examines the life and career of Goldin and her efforts to hold Purdue Pharma, owned by the Sackler family, accountable for the opioid epidemic. Goldin, a photographer whose work documented LGBTQ+ subcultures and the Aids crisis, founded the advocacy group Pain (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) in 2017 after her own addiction to OxyContin. The group puts pressure on…
OBITUARY OF A HERO – Sept. 2, 2022 – Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of more than 20 books on social justice themes ranging from women’s rights to inequality and the inequities of the American healthcare system, has died at the age of 81. The news that Ehrenreich had died on 1 September was released by her son, Ben Ehrenreich, on Friday. He accompanied the announcement with a comment redolent of his mother’s spirit: “She was never much for thoughts and prayers, but you can honor her memory by loving one another, and by fighting like hell.” Ehrenreich battled over a…
NOT AN ADDICT? – Sept. 2, 2022 – As the first doctor to hold the position, he says he will embrace new strategies, including harm reduction tactics, which aim to reduce drug users’ risk of overdose, death, and disease in lieu of a hardline, abstinence-only attitude. Still, though, addiction treatment is dogged by stigma, underuse of existing medications, and ongoing debate about certain harm-reduction techniques. The debate came to a head last week in California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill to allow supervised injection sites — essentially clinics where people can use illicit drugs under medical supervision so…
IT STARTS THE FIRST DAY – Aug. 31, 2022 – “I feel very loved,” he added, “The beautiful notes and messages, thank you so much for all of that.” Clark continued, “As I sit here and I reflect on the past 11 years of my life I can’t help but recognize that actually it has nothing to do with me. This has to do with the people that paved the path for me, those that came before me and, more importantly, the person that is out there still struggling today, struggling with their addiction, struggling with their mental health, feeling…
NOT REACHING FOR AN OSCAR – Sept. 3, 2022 – In 2021, supermodel Bella Hadid came on as a co-founder and partner of Kin Euphorics. Kin is a non-alcoholic tonic brand that contains adaptogens, a supplement derived from mushrooms that wellness brands claim improve cognition. Little to no research suggests adaptogens can improve memory or brain health, but traditional Chinese medicine practitioners have touted the benefits of mushroom supplements for centuries. Hadid’s Kin beverage is particularly popular among the elite, as the drink is found at the exclusive Soho House and Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten’s ritzy abcV restaurant. more@Insider
VIDEO – NOT The Brothers Karamazov – Sept. 1, 2022 – “As part of our continued efforts to battle the opioid epidemic, New Hampshire is a leader in ensuring that the companies who played a role in perpetuating this crisis are held accountable for their actions,” said Gov. Chris Sununu. “This resolution provides a positive step forward in ensuring these devastating business practices are not repeated, and that resources are allocated to help stem the tide of the opioid crisis. I thank the Department of Justice for their work on this case.” According to the Attorney General’s Office, $31.5 million…
THERE IS STILL ANOTHER ONE – May 2019 – The skin covering the abscess had taken on a yellow hue and felt spongy, kind of like a zit ready to be popped. I was young and stupid, but something got through, like, “Dude, take this seriously.” It wasn’t my first abscess, but I had definitely leveled up with this one. Looking at my arm now, I can see the scar, even though it has been tattooed over and has shrunken with time. It was 2003, and I was living on Capitol Hill in Seattle. Broadway was still pretty much…
MORE OF THE SAME SPEED RAP – Sept. 1, 2022 – If you’ve ever seen someone talk about “new meth” online, they were probably describing how it explained some aspect of society—encampments, mental illness—that they found distasteful. These references don’t come from a rich diversity of sources, but tend to trace back to a single source: a 2021 Atlanticarticle by Sam Quinones. “It was a very sinister drug,” Quinones told EconTalk of “new meth” when promoting his book, from which the Atlantic article was adapted. “You began to speak babbling, what they call ‘word salad’ in psychology. It began to…
WHO KNOWS? – Sept. 4, 2022 – The other day I got a concerned ping. Someone alerted me that Sam Quinones, bestselling author of Dreamland and more recently The Least of Us, two books about America’s overdose crisis, appeared as a guest on Marc Maron’s podcast, “WTF.” [email protected]
PROFITS ON LIFE AND DEATH – Aug. 26. 2022 – While the cost of naloxone has declined for individuals with health insurance, the cost of the opioid overdose reversal medication has sharply risen for uninsured individuals in recent years, according to new data from RAND Corporation. Findings from the study were published in the journal JAMA Health Forum. From 2014 to 2018, the out-of-pocket cost for naloxone increased more than 500% per prescription for those without insurance. Meanwhile, those with insurance saw their out-of-pocket cost decline by 26%. About 20% of US adults with an opioid use disorder (OUD) are…
VIDEO – FROM BAND TO WATER WAGON – Aug. 27, 2022 – Clients battling addiction will receive a treatment team and 24/7 medical and clinical care in the best location for them. French and the Guardian Recovery Network team believe NAQI Healthcare will help deliver favorable results for those who have not been able to receive personal care for their dependence in the past. “I’ve seen many of us artists’ struggle. The music industry is no joke, it lifts a lot of us up, but it can tear you down just as fast,” French Montana said. The partnership with…
HOW ABOUT EVERY MONTH – Sept. 1, 2022 – SAMHSA aims to increase public awareness surrounding mental health and addiction recovery. In the years since Recovery Month launched, SAMHSA has timed announcements of initiatives and grant funding during Recovery Month, while collaborating with private and public entities to celebrate individuals during their long-term recoveries. This year, to address the nation’s growing crisis of substance misuse and overdose deaths, SAMHSA is launching initiatives that promote and support evidence-based treatment and recovery practices, the emergence of a strong and proud recovery community, and the dedication of service providers and community members across…
VIDEO – CHILDHOOD IS DANGEROUS – Aug. 31, 2022 – “The men and women of the DEA are relentlessly working to stop the trafficking of rainbow fentanyl and defeat the Mexican drug cartels that are responsible for the vast majority of the fentanyl that is being trafficked in the United States.” Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 50 times more potent than heroin and 100 times more potent than morphine, officials said. According to the CDC, 107,622 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, with 66 percent of those deaths related to synthetic opioids like fentanyl. Delaware to include…
VIDEO – BACKSTREET BOY UPFRONT – Sept. 4, 2022 – Alexis and AJ dive into his family life, parental relationships, his first stint of sobriety from 2001-2007. more@News
AMAZON PRIME MIGHT BE GOD – Aug. 31, 2022 – German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin first defined “shopping addiction” in the early 1900s, per a 2012 review (PDF). He dubbed this disorder as “oniomania,” from the Greek words onios, (meaning “for sale”) and mania (meaning “madness”). It was defined as a type of impulsive behavior similar to kleptomania. Since then, people have used “shopping addiction” interchangeably with related terms such as “compulsive shopping,” “compulsive buying,” and “uncontrolled buying” to describe this behavioral disorder. Problematic shopping addiction or compulsive buying, for example, is when a person continues to buy new things,…
“All desires are the inappropriate substitute for the desire to be at one with God.” – Russell Brand
AUDIO – YIN/YANG DING/DONG – Aug. 24, 2022 – I was a smoker for a long time, that was the one addiction I knew I had from the jump. I would say, “I’m going to read this chapter and then I’ll smoke a cigarette.” And, in time, I did that with alcohol. For some reason I thought that it counted as an event if there was alcohol involved. So yeah, I was worried about that. But it got to the point where I wasn’t able to remember what I read when I was drinking, and that scared the shit out…
VIDEO – BEGIN A NEW LIFE – Aug. 23, 2022 – I began by casually sipping beer at school parties. It wasn’t until the age of 12 that I started drinking liquor heavily, and even then, I absolutely did not enjoy the taste. But I didn’t care. Cheap vodka was preferable and I resorted to stealing sickly sweet bottles of alcohol from convenience stores, as it was easily hidden under my baggy teenage clothes. The only reason I can think of for drinking alcohol while so young was that it made me feel capable of being social, it made me…
AUDIO – FOLLOW THE GREED – Aug. 25, 2022 – Pharmaceutical fentanyl is a synthetic opioid, approved for treating severe pain. However, many recent cases of fentanyl-related harm, overdose and death in the U.S. are linked to illegally made fentanyl — often mixed with heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine — and trafficked into the U.S.from countries such as China, India and Mexico. “Trillions of pills got into every single community in the United States … Things lose control when you have that scale of pills in the environment,” Herring said. “They just end up everywhere. So that meant that millions became…
VIDEO – NO END IN SIGHT – Aug. 24, 2022 – Chicago-area resident Karen Zander lost her 22-year-old son John Allen to fentanyl poisoning. Zander said in 2016, Allen made the choice to snort cocaine that his best frined spiked with fentanyl, which ultimately killed him. “These choices that they’re making, they’re not able to learn from their mistakes because they’re dying,” said Zander. “It’s time for us to wake up and to get this stuff off the street,” said Zander. Another Chicago-area resident, Caitlin Strebing, says her 35-year-old brother Ryan accidentally overdosed on fentanyl last year. She now advocates…
THINK, THINK, THINK – AUG. 24, 2022 – DEAR ANA, Here’s what I’m struggling with: As someone who grew up in alcoholism and has dated people whose drinking bothered me, I have many self-destructive ways of coping with discomfort, chaos, fear, and grief. Workaholism/obsessive to-do listing. Bingeing and compulsive overeating. Rage. Negative self-talk. And yes, drinking. I guess you could say that I have a general tendency to be as hard on myself as possible. This has all gotten much better in the last four years, courtesy of regular therapy and then Al-Anon and then actually working with a sponsor.…
THE DAILY DOUBLE? – Aug. 26, 2022 – If you come from a family where alcohol abuse is high, you may have a genetic predisposition to using alcohol. This means, once you begin using alcohol, the changes to your nervous system are more pronounced. Often people with genetic issues have more pleasure from using alcohol than others, which can automatically cause alcoholism. To summarize, daily drinking may not be a problem for some people (if they don’t have mental, physical health, or genetic issues). But once everyday drinking becomes an established routine that a person can’t get away from,…
DNA DNA DNA – Aug. 24, 2022 – His work has garnered numerous accolades, so he’s only partly joking when he points out that his group’s recent research got the ultimate recognition: A study suggesting that alcohol use ages and shrinks the brain was the subject of a Saturday Night Live weekend update punchline. You were one of the researchers on a recent study that found even modest alcohol consumption — a few beers or glasses of wine a week — may carry risks to the brain. What are those risks? We found that drinking more than about one…
GENERATION RAM DASS – Aug. 24, 2022 – Alcohol was the most popular substance in the study, though rates of daily drinking have decreased in the past 10 years. But binge drinking — which the organization defines as having five or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks — is back on the rise after hitting a historic low in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. High-intensity drinking — having 10 or more drinks in a row in the past two weeks — has been consistently rising in the last decade, and in 2021,…
VIDEO – ITS A TRIP, NOT A SLIP – Aug. 24, 2022 – Two doses of psilocybin pills, along with psychotherapy, helped people with alcohol use disorder reduce drinking for at least eight months after their first treatments, results from the largest clinical trial of its kind show. The theory is that psilocybin makes the brain more malleable. NBC News’ Harry Smith spoke with a few people who participated in the study about their experience. moreNBCNews
AUDIO – MORE HARMONIES – Aug. 26, 2022 – Amazingly, it took decades for Hull and McGovern to find each other despite being lifelong Lincolnites — children of the 1960s — and members of a musical community that, relatively speaking, really isn’t that big. McGovern, a Pius X High School graduate, was a couple of years older than Hull, who graduated from Lincoln Southeast in 1978. McGovern worked on the railroad for 45 years, while Hull’s story is much more filled with peril despite its innocently mundane start. He began taking piano lessons at an early age, but gave it…
PHYSICIAN HEAL THYSELF – Aug. 25, 2022 – It incentivizes physicians hiding their addiction and avoiding unwanted attention that comes from seeking help. Most individuals will not ask for help if they receive punishment and judgment as a result. After 2 years of a pandemic during which physicians and nurses absorbed the brunt of the stress, with rates of all types of addiction in other populations skyrocketing across the country, it is difficult to imagine that this problem of physicians and addiction has not become even more prevalent. Personally, I am 14 years into recovery from a severe and,…