NOT ALL EQUAL – Feb. 17, 2022 – These gaps in care put patients struggling with OUD at risk, and many need effective treatment now more than ever. Understanding these disparities can help state policymakers improve their states’ OTP treatment systems and expand access to medications for OUD. Pew’s analysis found that: Many opioid treatment programs offer a limited selection of FDA-approved medications for OUD. While nearly all OTPs provide methadone—the most highly regulated form of medication for OUD—based on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) data, 60.5% did not offer injectable naltrexone and nearly 20% of…
Author: Leonard Buschel
HABIT FORMING – Feb. 17, 2022 – Addiction and dependency are two terms that are often used interchangeably. There are differences between the two. Addiction happens when a person uses a substance such as alcohol, marijuana, or another drug in excess. It is usually marked by a change in behavior, where the person becomes consistently focused on using that substance regardless of potential negative outcomes. Addiction can be physical, psychological, or both at the same time. Substance dependence, also called chemical dependence, is when a person experiences physical dependence on a substance but is not addicted to it. One…
28 DAYS – Feb. 17, 2022 – It’s good to show that anyone – even someone like Tony Stark – can falter, and ask for help. And from what we know about Iron Man #20, he’ll complete a stint at rehab and emerge with some better coping skills to deal with what he’s going through. Iron Man will feature all that, plus see Stark facing off against an “angry hyper-intelligent gorilla” because… well, superhero comics. Iron Man #20 will be written by Christopher Cantwell, creator of AMC’s Halt & Catch Fire, which dealt with addiction issues. He also co-created…
IS ICE CREAM COLD? – Feb. 17, 2022 – This month, drug-policy experts also flagged the Department of Justice’s decision to revisit the federal government’s opposition to a safe drug-injection site in Philadelphia that would offer clean needles and supervise drug consumption to prevent overdoses. The Trump administration successfully filed suit to block the site’s opening, but Biden’s DOJ just announced that it was in “discussions with state and local regulators about appropriate guardrails for such sites, as part of an overall approach to harm reduction and public safety.” At the same time, Catholic ethicists have raised moral and…
VIDEO – FIRST HAND ACCOUNT – Feb. 19, 2022 – As I write this in my marble notebook, I am a stereotype, drinking coffee, smoking a cigarette, dry just a few days. It’s a chilly morning for Southern California. I put the Beatles on. My 11-year-old recently discovered them. In his greenest youth he thinks Paul, not George, is the best of them. It’s wonderful to see your kid’s taste grow. This is my second stint at Miramar, the treatment facility. Eight months ago I first stepped through these doors. The impetus, well the immediate impetus anyway, was my merrymaking…
AUDIO – MORE WISDOM – Feb. 21, 2022 – When author Julia Cameron first got sober, she was told to pray. In her new book, Seeking Wisdom, Cameron writes about the connection of spirituality and creativity, and her own creative recovery. more@NPR
TOUCHDOWN – Feb. 15, 2022 – The first drink was Russian Roulette. After I took the first drink, it wasn’t clear what would be the eventual outcome. It could be anything from a blackout where I did not remember what had happened to just falling asleep to something unexpected. It was unclear how an evening would end, and it wasn’t going to be positive (laughing). After taking the first drink, I was no longer in control of my own life. It wasn’t positive. Depending on how my body was metabolizing alcohol and how much I was drinking, it could lead…
VIDEO – ON THE PATH – Feb. 16, 2022 – “The first time you [have a drink], it’s like: ‘Ah, I found it. I feel happy in my body, this feeling of bliss. No one can say anything to me that would make me upset or feel badly about myself right now,’” she recounted to the outlet. “And then maybe the next time you drink, you get it again. Before you know it, it’s not doing it for you. So, for the most part, when I was in the throes of addiction, it wasn’t working.” Lynch shared she continued…
THE DOCTOR’S OPINION – Feb. 8, 2022 – The next day, I meet with the whole treatment team – half a dozen psychiatrists, therapists and counsellors facing me across a massive table in one of those windowless hospital conference rooms. For the first time, I truly let my guard down and recount my whole drinking history. How I grew up with two alcoholic parents and swore to myself I’d never be like them. How, even as I finished medical school at Columbia, I had the creeping sense that my drinking was out of control. How the blackouts got more and…
ALL THE RIGHT NOTES – Feb. 15, 2022 – Lauded by contemporaries, including David Nicholls and Jo Jo Moyes, there’s light and dark in all Keyes’ novels, equal measures of hilarity and heartbreak. She has explored hard-hitting issues, from addiction to cancer, via bereavement and domestic violence – but thanks to her huge gift for humour, they are not depressing books. Far from it. Meanwhile, her combined 386k followers on Instagram and Twitter tap in to her witty asides about love, life, handbags, make-up and shoes, along with references to Mammy Keyes (her mum) and Himself (her husband). Yet…
A MOST CREATIVE ACT – Feb. 15, 2022 – Later in the interview, King, 32, publicly disclosed for the first time that she had contracted COVID-19 during the Christmas holidays and that it had spread to at least one member of her family: her newborn son. She gave birth to her first child — Lucky Levi Tooker — on Sept. 1. Her fiancé, Dan Tooker, who is Lucky’s father, is a Boston area tattoo artist. The couple announced their engagement in late 2019. King’s entry into motherhood comes after her struggles with infertility and two miscarriages caused by polycystic ovary…
KILLERS – Feb. 18, 2022 – Members of the billionaire Sackler family have sweetened their cash offer to settle thousands of opioid-related lawsuits against them and their company, Purdue Pharma, offering up to $6 billion, an increase of more than $1 billion from an earlier offer, according to a mediator’s report filed Friday afternoon in bankruptcy court. But the deal is not done. The Sacklers have not budged from the line they drew in the sand at the outset of the case. In exchange for their billions, they are continuing to demand an end to all civil claims against…
VIDEO – AMERICAN NIGHTMARE – Feb. 18, 2022 – But about a year and a half ago, the middle schooler confessed to his parents about a very adult problem: He was experimenting with oxycodone, a prescription painkiller. He had no idea that the pills he was taking were actually prescription knockoffs laced with fentanyl, a synthetic opioid. Just a few milligrams of fentanyl can be a fatal dose. One morning in June 2020, his mother, Amy, found him dead in his bedroom. “I went to his room, and he was blue, just laying on his beanbag chair. Just like…
THE PEN IS MIGHTIER THAN THE LEXAPRO – Feb. 18, 2022 – After reading the short story, Poolbeg Press contacted Keyes to ask her to write a full-length book which resulted in Keyes writing her first novel, Watermelon. In 1995, Keyes met her future husband Tony Baines on his 30th birthday. They are still happily married and living in Dun Laoghaire. Keyes has spoken previously about her sadness at never having had children. She wrote on Twitter: “Myself and Himself have 3 teenagers in the backseat – Luka, Ema, Ema’s boyfriend (MORE OF WHICH anon!!!) And I’m feeling unexpectedly sad…
VIDEO – IT’S ALL IN YOUR HEAD – Feb. 15, 2022 – By his 20s, Buckhalter was using heroin, and drugs were all he could think about. By the time Mahoney proposed surgery, Buckhalter was at the end of his rope. “Immediately, I said, ‘Yes, let’s do it.’ Immediately. Because that’s how desperate I was,” Buckhalter told CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Soon, Buckhalter became the first patient in a four-person research study testing the safety and feasibility of deep brain stimulation, or DBS, as an addiction treatment. The study is funded by a $750,000 grant from the…
MODERATE MODERATION – Feb. 17, 2022 – “Increasing awareness of the alcohol–cancer link, such as through multimedia campaigns and patient–provider communication, may be an important new strategy for health advocates working to implement preventive alcohol policies,” they add. “This is the first study to examine the relationship between alcohol control policy support and awareness of the alcohol–cancer link among a national US sample,” the authors write. The results show that there is some public support for the idea of adding written warnings about the alcohol–cancer risk to alcoholic beverages, which is something that a number of cancer organizations have been…
VIDEO – GOURMET COFFEE ONLY? – Feb. 17, 2022 – “I’m lucky that I have also a father that’s in recovery, too,” he said. These days, Rucker also finds support in a group called Ben’s Friends. “There’s winemakers, there’s baristas, there’s restaurant owners, there’s bus boys, there’s servers, cooks, and we get together, once a week, in person. And then there’s also a zoom meeting every day,” Rucker said. “We all relate to each other, the stresses that we deal with the night before, with me overcooking a steak or the kind of things where maybe we go home, go…
FINALLY SOME HUMANITY – Feb. 18, 2022 – Sedgwick’s joins at least a few other Kansas jails that do so, including Crawford County in southeast Kansas. “I mean, something’s got to change,” Crawford County Sheriff Danny Smith said of the decision to allow addiction treatment. “Otherwise, it’s just a revolving door all the time.” Studies suggest two-thirds of prison inmates have substance use disorders. Allowing treatment for people in jails or prisons aims to break the cycle of incarceration — and to save lives. Fatal overdoses have rocketed during the pandemic in Kansas and nationally, driven in large part…
“Don’t send funny greeting cards on birthdays or at Christmas. Save them for funerals, when their cheery effect is needed.” —P.J. O’Rourke (Nov. 14, 1947–Feb. 15, 2022)
A CRACK IN THE STORY – Feb. 15, 2022 – It started with a story in the Washington Free Beacon that falsely said a federal Department of Health and Human Services grant was handing out free “crack pipes” to Black people. It wasn’t true. The six-month-old grant program, which included the same sort of needle-exchange services pushed by Rehder in the Missouri Legislature, also offered “safe smoking kits,” which similarly reduce the spread of HIV and hepatitis. The grant said nothing about pipes. But the controversy — which soon became labeled by critics as President Joe Biden’s free crack pipes…
VIDEO – MORE PREVENTION FOR TEEN USE – Feb. 8, 2022 – Scholz joined us to talk more about teen substance abuse trends which include a spike in Fetanyl use, alcohol use, marijuana, prescription pills and even over-the-counter medicines. He says teens using substances is more concerning due to brain development and neural pathways being developed. Consistent use during adolescence increases the likelihood of adult addiction. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. It can impact every type of family regardless of background. more@Fox
PHARMA PHARMA? – Feb. 10, 2022 – In April 2021, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) took steps to lower some barriers for doctors (and nurse practitioners and physician assistants) to prescribing buprenorphine. Buprenorphine, a partial opiate agonist, has been shown to reduce mortality and illicit opioid use in patients with opioid use disorder. Before this, only about 6 percent of active physicians in the U.S. held the Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) “X-waiver,” permitting them to prescribe buprenorphine. Why not provide this education and training to every new doctor before they graduate from medical school? Recent data from…
J’accuse – Feb. 7, 2022 – Facts of the Case – Mr A was a 21-year-old university student who had a problem with recreational drugs. His childhood friend, Mr Z, 20, also was struggling with substance abuse problems. The friends often used opioids together, and drugs were the topic of much discussion between the two. Mr Z’s mother suffered from multiple myeloma and was prescribed several opiate pain medications which she filled at a small, local, independent pharmacy. Mrs Z was aware that her son had a substance abuse problem, so she instructed the pharmacy not to allow her…
FROM HEROIN TO HEROINE – Feb. 2, 2022 – Parker is honest about what it took to recover, hard work, medical attention and a lot of help from agencies dedicated to providing support for those in recovery. “I had to learn skills to learn how to live life differently and to be able to face those demons and deal with what had been plaguing me,” she said. Parker said she started taking suboxone to address the chronic pain and withdrawal symptoms without leaving her craving more and dependency counselors and agencies helped her apply for disability until she was ready…
PLEASE, PLEASE SUBSCRIBE – Feb. 5, 2022 – While you may crave approval, it’s important to remember that another person’s opinions are just that — someone’s highly subjective, personal opinions. Their input may not be neutral. Their opinions about you or your work, if it is not objective, may be influenced by personal biases or circumstances that may have nothing to do with you. So this may manifest in behavior or opinions that are more of a reflection of what’s going on in their world than an objective portrait of you. This may sound like a cliche, but your…
TV IS ADDICTIVE TOO – Feb. 8, 2022 – “I was in rehab for alcoholism in Stanhope Street and there were people there who couldn’t tell their partners they were attending.” Hugh and his partner Martin Corbett got married in a civil partnership in Dublin city back in Locke’s Brasserie in 2012. Hugh explained: “Martin understood what was going with me because he had been there himself.” The RTE star talked about how he doesn’t have anything to be ashamed about. Hugh said: “It gives you confidence. I am an alcoholic. It is a disease. “I don’t have any shame.…
EDUCATE AND ELUCIDATE – Feb. 8, 2022 – Addiction viewed through an existential-humanistic lens. I view addiction, and the road to recovery, through an existential-humanistic lens. This includes the following: On a physical level, you have a biochemical imbalance. Often, there is a genetic predisposition to addiction. The predisposition can be recognized if you have biological family members who have a drug and alcohol addiction, whether they are active or recovering. Having a predisposition doesn’t mean you will become addicted to drugs or alcohol. It just means there is a higher chance you will. If you abuse drugs or…
AUDIO – NEW COUNTRY MUSIC – Feb. 2022 – He wrote the song in seven minutes, and he did it sober. This was a turning point for the rising star, because he realized he didn’t need to use drugs to produce the songs he wants to be known for. “That was kind of my wakeup call,” McCollum reveals. “It’s probably the second time ever that I’ve written something and gone, ‘Man, that is really good.’ Most of the time, I think everything sucks. I don’t know that I would call it a life-saving moment, but it was really good…
VIDEO – KEEP TRYING AND STAY ALIVE – Feb. 8, 2022 – Benton says she was stunned when her 17-year-old son was discharged from Novant without receiving any treatment. “Told my dad, you have to come get him. We can’t help him until he’s an adult. So bring him back when he turns 18,” Benton said. “But he might not make it until he’s 18.” Benton says she was unaware of regulations around drugs used to treat younger addicts and says someone shouldn’t be denied help just because of their age. “They should never turn a child away, that’s…
REDUCE THE COST OF BURIALS – Feb. 8, 2022 – The pandemic has contributed to a surge in substance misuse including fatal overdoses. At least one in 10 Americans initiated or increased drug use amid rising anxiety, depression and trauma, and reduced access to services. The social and psychological impact has been devastating, but economic costs are also high: drug overdoses cost the US economy about $1tn annually, the commission estimated. “In terms of loss of life and damage to the economy, illicit synthetic opioids have the effect of a slow-motion weapon of mass destruction in pill form,” the…