PLAYING IT SAFE – Nov. 30, 2021 – The term “boundary” is defined by Lexico as both “a limit of something abstract, especially a subject or sphere of activity” and “a line which marks the limit of an area; a dividing line.” When discussing boundaries, both definitions are essential and relevant, as they each define different types of boundaries; one refers to emotional and mental boundaries and the other defines physical boundaries. While the concept of boundaries is fairly well known, this article will look at how people recently out of treatment can set boundaries and how their loved…
Author: Leonard Buschel
AMERICA DOES NOT – Nov. 30, 2021 – Funded rehab was virtually abandoned in Scotland after being regarded as ineffective and too costly by SNP health ministers in recent years. But the drug death rate has soared from 455 in 2007 to 1,339 last year, creating a recognised emergency. Constance stridently announced in Holyrood that, over the next five years, “everyone who wants residential rehabilitation, and for whom it is considered clinically appropriate, can access it”. The latest announcement follows relentless campaigning by the Daily Record to increase funding for drug programmes and channel cash into new strategies. more@DailyRecord
THE SOUL KNOWS – Nov. 29, 2021 – The road to sobriety hasn’t been an easy one for de Lesseps. She went into rehab after the arrest, but it didn’t seem to take. She was soon drinking again, which ultimately led to a breakup with her then-boyfriend. She returned to rehab, but the second stint didn’t take, either. In 2019, once de Lesseps completed all of her probation requirements, she was back to drinking once more. As she once admitted on “Megyn Kelly Today” (via Page Six), “I feel like I’m almost allergic to alcohol, because I can’t be…
PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO DIE, THEY JUST WANT TO GET HIGH – Dec. 1, 2021 – “We’re at a greater risk for having unknown substances put into the drugs,” said Tanya, 45, who lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. She asked that CNN not use her last name to protect her privacy. Tanya has been using heroin on and off for the past 20 years, but she says now is the most dangerous time to use. “It’s so uncertain,” she says of the drug supply. “If I change dealers, or I get something from somebody that I don’t know, I…
GRATEFUL EVERY DAY – Dec. 1, 2021 – He added that, though he wishes he “did not have to learn some lessons the hard way,” the “difficulties” of alcoholism helped him “learn those things in an authentic, meaningful way to really learn the lessons that I’ve really internalized, that have created the values that I have now even though most of them were born of failure.” He continued, “The only real cure for alcoholism is suffering. You just hope that your threshold for suffering is met somewhere before it destroys your life.” Personally, his attitude toward life’s hard lessons…
WATCH – STILL DON’T BELIEVE IN EVIL? – Dec. 2, 2021 – The DEA says they know just the smallest presence of fentanyl in powder form poses a public safety risk, but what’s concerning about the danger of ingesting it with a vape pen is that the consequences are not known for either those ingesting it, or anyone close by. “I was hoping we would never have to have this conversation,” said Pat Fogarty, the Senior VP of Operations at Addiction Recovery Care. “But it’s here, and you see it once and we’re probably going to see it more.”…
WATCH – DON’T LOSE YOUR WEEKEND – Dec. 2, 2021 – Addiction and recovery are potent sources of drama, and are thus frequently portrayed in media. They’re also easy to get wrong: to veer into melodrama, or to reach for easy answers and unearned conclusions. There are few aspects of human nature more complicated than addiction disorders, and our media isn’t always up to the challenge. Some movies, though, get things right—at least in part. These 12 movies aren’t perfect in their depictions, but they do shine a light on aspects of addiction and recovery that reflect real life,…
THE LAND OF RE-ENCHANTMENT – Dec. 3, 2021 – My family has called Chimayó home for more than 300 years, and I spent most of my summers there with my grandmother in the 1960s and 1970s, surrounded by relatives who lived nearby. Chimayó back then was mostly known for flavorful chiles and the annual pilgrimage to El Santuario, an old adobe church (built by one of my ancestors). After college, I bought some family land and my great-grandfather’s long-unused weaving studio in the village; I went on to write three books about Chimayó and helped create a museum there,…
WATCH – HEAVEN CAN WAIT – Dec. 4, 2021 – The mayor says workers intervened as overdoses were happening. The drug injection centers are the first of their kind in the nation. Overdose Prevention Centers are proven to reduce overdose deaths and successfully treat drug addiction, according to studies conducted in Europe and Canada. Experts say the sites are also proven to improve the overall safety of the communities they’re in by reducing the amount of public drug use and decreasing syringe litter. more@ABC7NY
“If you can own up to your fears…then you have the basis for courage and intelligence.” – Thomas Moore
NEW YORK ENLIGHTENED STATE OF MIND – Nov. 30, 2021 – Mayor Bill de Blasio began championing safe injection sites in 2018, citing their use and success in European and Canadian cities. The decision to officially allow the sites to open comes during the mayor’s last few weeks in office and as he considers a run for governor. He said in a statement that the decision will show other cities that “after decades of failure, a smarter approach is possible.” The mayor also sent a letter to the providers promising “not to take enforcement action” against their operations. Four…
WATCH – NEVER TOO YOUNG TO HELP – Nov. 24, 2021 – “Seeing Mom going through rehab and jail, it made me feel like I was alone,” Smith said. “My anger kept building up, and I didn’t know. I felt worthless. I felt like this was my new life. I didn’t think there was any way to fix anything.” But, Barringer knew she wanted to get better. “As a single mom, I wanted to prove to my boys that they deserved a life just like everyone else,” Barringer said with tears in her eyes. Smith stood by her side…
DON’T FORGET TO QUIT – Nov. 21, 2021 – One study from Boston University School of Medicine followed a cohort of 4,200 people, who periodically underwent cognition and memory tests. Participants were asked to provide information about their sugary drink intake, which the team used to determine damage. The findings of the study were significant. Researchers calculated that one to two sugary drinks per day was associated with 1.6 years of brain aging. However, when it came to assessing ageing in terms of memory, the results were more pronounced. One to two sugary drinks per day and greater than…
BETTER THAN ZOOM OR FACETIME – Nov. 26, 2021 – It’s been more than 20 years since Tony reluctantly sat down in Melfi’s office, where he was referred after suffering a panic attack. And although“The Sopranos” wasn’t the first TV series to feature a therapist character, many practitioners cited it as a refreshingly authentic representation of what therapy actually is. Before the hit HBO series, TV therapists tended to fall into two categories, said Glen Gabbard, clinical professor of psychiatry at Baylor College of Medicine. “You were either a buffoon or a killer.” Tony’s competent and compassionate shrink set…
WATCH – MOTHER AND CHILD REUNION – Nov. 23, 2021 – More than four years later, Compton, 33, is sober, has a job with Volunteers of America Mid-States, the non-profit agency that helped her, and is studying for a social work degree at Spalding University. She recently bought a house and, most importantly, kept custody of her son, Wyatt, 4, born a week after she entered the treatment program. “I learned how to be a mom,” said Compton, of her time at VOA’s Freedom House for pregnant women with addiction. “I learned how to stand on my own two…
NOT TOO MANY NOTES! – Nov. 25, 2021 – “I’m … just celebrating that whole feeling of if you would have told me eight years ago that I’d be sitting here talking to you (from Joshua Tree) getting ready to release my second record sober for seven years, I would have bet against you … because I just had tried everything … to get well,” Shannon said from inside his Airstream trailer. “And it wasn’t until I finally admitted that I had a medical problem that needed to be taken care of, and that was the disease of addiction.…
THAT’S A BIG SPREAD – Nov. 2021 – As a direct result, sports-betting revenues grew 69 percent from 2019 to 2020 and another 270 percent during the first quarter of 2021. Total gambling revenues in the U.S. are set to break the $44 billion mark this year, approaching the size of the market for movies, books, and music combined. For a certain kind of American bettor, yesterday’s Thanksgiving celebration meant wagering on favorites as much as eating turkey or passing out in front of the game. (In the NFL, by the way, playing the favorites is usually a poor…
THE REAL FIGHT OF HIS LIFE – Nov. 26, 2021 – He was too young at the time to truly understand that this was the result of alcohol addiction, but his family tried to explain it to him anyway, referring to those nights he would arrive home looking disheveled as “slip ups.” On those occasions, DeBlass — a former MMA fighter who competed in UFC and Bellator — knew something wasn’t right. “His hair would get flat when he was drunk,” DeBlass recalls to CNN Sport. “Usually, he would brush it back, [but] anytime he was drunk it would…
STOCKHOLDERS STILL HAPPY? – Nov. 23, 2021 – “The judgment today against Walmart, Walgreens and CVS represents the overdue reckoning for their complicity in creating a public nuisance,” the statement continued. The public nuisance argument was rejected twice earlier this month, by judges in California and Oklahoma in cases against opioid manufacturers. The judges ruled that the companies’ activities were too removed from the overdoses and deaths, and that this application of public nuisance law had been stretched beyond recognition. But in this case, brought by Lake and Trumbull counties in northeastern Ohio, lawyers for the plaintiffs used the…
WATCH – OF UNFATHOMABLE GRIEF – Nov. 27, 2021 – “I have my moments when I cannot hold tears back. I have my moments when I scream and I fight, said Iris Seda. Seda’s daughter, 22-year-old Anna Sepulveda, died on Tuesday. She says she’s speaking out — as painful as it is to do so — to help build awareness about the opioid epidemic. “My daughter had a lot of potential, she was doing her thing,” added Seda. “She got her EKG certificate with a 4.0. She had her phlebotomy certificate also — so she was doing her thing,…
WATCH – SHE’LL HAVE HER DAY IN COURT – NOV. 24, 2021 – Speaking under conditions of anonymity to protect her identity, the woman who goes by the fictitious name of “Gahyne Doahe” to protect her identity explained to the I-Team why she decided to come forward. “I want to make sure that no other girl goes through the brutal torture that I endured on a daily basis for close to two months,” she said. Marlon was the CEO of CrossRoads of Southern Nevada. On Tuesday, the drug and alcohol addiction treatment center announced that one of its other…
A SECOND OPINION – Nov. 24, 2021 – Some addiction medicine specialists treat only alcohol addictions. Others will go beyond this and offer treatment for dependency on other drugs. As a patient, you’ll benefit greatly from finding a center with multiple therapies, such as cocaine, heroin, opioid, and oxycodone addiction. It makes sure you are getting over your addiction comprehensively. Drug rehabilitation centers are not just about receiving treatment but also offering you counseling. They will encourage you to discuss your problems in detail so that they can offer the best solution to help you recover completely. What’s more,…
KINDA KOOL IF IT WORKS – Nov. 28, 2021 – Carnahan is the director at a Westlake clinic opened last month by Field Trip Health, a Nasdaq-listed company selling medically supervised “psychedelic journeys.” She calls ketamine therapy a “new frontier” for understanding mental illnesses. In the past three years, at least a dozen such facilities have popped up around the Puget Sound region. “When we started seeing patients a little more than a year ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of volumes,” said Liana Ren, a nurse anesthetist who runs Lighthouse Infusions, a ketamine clinic in…
WORTH PUTTING ON CLOTHES – Nov. 28, 2021 – “Discreetness and comfort are high priorities for these sorts of devices. Traditionally, naloxone is administered either nasally or through intramuscular injection. So, having something the size of a smart watch that sticks to the abdomen, like a bandage you can take on and off, is the form factor we decided upon. It seems to be acceptable and discreet to people who inject opioids,” Chan said. In order to establish proof-of-concept, researchers carried out experiments under different settings. They first needed to establish the device’s ability to accurately track respiration rates…
WE ALL OWE SOMEONE – Nov. 27, 2021 – “You know that thing when you meet somebody famous and you’re super disappointed. It was the complete opposite of that,” Frierson said. “It was like everything I hoped for in a human being, I saw over a couple days. And I think possibly he saw something in our coverage that he wasn’t necessarily used to in the questions we were asking.” Frierson went on to say that he was inspired to create DMX: Don’t Try to Understand because he’s “always been really interested in people whose narratives have been shaped…
WATCH – ROYALS SUFFER, TOO – Nov. 25, 2021 – “So, for me, it was the relation of my personal life with the family or the incident I was at. I found that very difficult. There were a number of times when I had to take myself away because I was just getting too involved in it, and feeling it.” “Going to talk to someone else after the event was really important,” he continued. “But it continues — it doesn’t leave you there, you just manage it better.” The film covered a conversation he had with Emergency Care Assistant…
SOBRIETY IS THE SWEETEST THING – Nov. 22, 2021 – “How do I manage my own head that is just loud and negative and awful to me sometimes, but nobody else can hear it? You’re stuck in it,” the 39-year-old told Allison Kugel for the newest episode of the “Allison Interviews” podcast. “The thing about anxiety is, people think of panic attacks, but there can be a raging screaming voice in your head all the time that you just can’t get quiet,” the actress reflected about getting sober. “You just don’t want to listen to this voice, and especially…
ONLY IF THEY HAVE FEELINGS – Nov. 26, 2021 – “I think doctors should watch this series because it carries important lessons for doctors about how pharmaceutical marketing can result in a public health catastrophe,” Kolodny said. To this day, doctors continue to be targeted by pharmaceutical marketing strategies, including data gathering on their prescribing practices, he said Our patients ultimately pay the price for the influence that drug companies have,” Kolodny said. Kolodny values the industry’s “ability to find cures and treatments. But there needs to be much better firewalls so that drug and device manufacturers don’t have…
WE CAN’T SEE YOU NOW – Nov. 25, 2021 – But ‘changes to lifestyle and social circumstances during lockdowns’, as well as Covid itself, may have also driven the death rate upwards, it added. Ian Hamilton, a drug addiction researcher at the University of York, told MailOnline the figures are ‘shocking’. ‘While we have all been focusing on fatalities due to Covid it is now clear there were significant numbers dying prematurely due to drugs,’ he said. The OHID said the death rate among people receiving treatment increased from 1.1 per cent in the year leading up to March…
WEED USUALLY PREVENTS SEIZURES – Nov. 21, 2021 – Oregon State Police said it had seized roughly 500,000 pounds of processed marijuana in the latest large-scale bust in southern Oregon. Troopers served a warrant on five industrial-sized warehouses that were zoned for commercial use in White City, state police said in a statement. Over the course of two days, officers seized roughly a half-million pounds of processed marijuana, estimated to be worth $500 million by the Oregon State Police, along with a firearm. The amount was described in a press release as “epic.” more@OregonLive