SO YOUNG, SO SAD, SO NEEDLESS – Sept 8, 2021 – Read on for stories of “Intervention” stars who sadly died. Chris Brady featured in Season 6 of “Intervention.” The 34-year-old was in the full throes of alcoholism — barely able to function and incapable of holding down a job, the Delaware native would reach for a vodka bottle the moment he awoke to stop the tremors caused by alcohol withdrawal while he slept. Chris’ intervention resulted in him entering a California treatment center. “I just feel good about life in general,” he said following 90 days of sobriety.…
Author: Leonard Buschel
WATCH – EVERYONE WINS – Sept 30, 2021 – “Filming ‘Freedom’ was a way for me to be vulnerable and reminisce on the past while being able to share my story of growth, which is important,” O’Brien, 30, told HuffPost. “I wanted to share my story in a way that was authentic to who I was and who I am now … Creating art has not only been a passion of mine, but it’s been extremely therapeutic in my journey with sobriety.” more@HuffPost
WATCH – IT BETTER – Sept. 29, 2021 – Fisher, 36, who lives in West Virginia, is the third patient enrolled in a clinical trial being conducted at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute. To be included in the study, which uses a technique called deep brain stimulation, patients must have gone through numerous rehabilitation efforts that didn’t work and suffered multiple overdoses. At first, Fisher, who had been using drugs since high school, easily found doctors willing to write prescriptions for his social anxiety. When that stopped working, he began buying from friends and eventually started stealing from…
WATCH – THESE AIN’T GUCCI HANDBAGS – Sept. 30, 2021 – The risk posed by the fake medication was the subject of a public safety alert issued earlier this week by the DEA, the first such bulletin in six years. The notice was intended to highlight the “significant nationwide surge in counterfeit pills that are mass-produced by criminal drug networks in labs, deceptively marketed as legitimate prescription pills, and are killing unsuspecting Americans at an unprecedented rate.” more@USAToday
BETTER ‘SAFE’ THAN SORRY – Sept. 29, 2021 – Véran said two new centres would be created each year at a national level. A law from 2016 authorises the creation of low-risk consumption rooms, but so far just two have been set up – one in Paris and one in Strasbourg. Those test facilities were due to run until 2022, but the government announced last week that they would be extended until 2025. “I myself was an MP in 2015, involved in the creation of the first consumption room in Strasbourg and things are going very well,” he said.…
LISTEN NPR – RECOVERY CAN START ANYWHERE – Oct. 2, 2021 – Money from opioid settlements will flow into recovery services around the country. Some residents of Parkersburg, W.V., say their small city is under strain as a result. more@NPR
YOUR NEW CONNECTION – Oct. 2021 – The COVID-19 pandemic drove the demand for telehealth in 2020, but experts say that telehealth will likely become a permanent fixture in both the tech and healthcare landscapes. In fact, global venture capital funding for digital health companies hit a record $15 billion in the first half of 2021, according to a report by Mercom Capital Group. “Research on telehealth use conducted during the pandemic showed that there was a 1400-percent increase in substance use care in telehealth,” said Weinstein. “Additionally, a survey found that 81 percent of addiction treatment providers in…
DEATH AVERTED – Oct. 2, 2021 – “He said to me ‘I think you have something to tell me. You need to say it out loud’,” Kathleen added. “And I looked at him and said ‘I’m an alcoholic’. That was the first time I had said it out loud and it was very freeing.” The damage to her body is long term and potentially irreversible. Her liver was so damaged it caused her legs to swell and she now has to walk with a stick. Alcohol is a “great deceiver” she said, and she is happy to have ditched…
WE NEED MORE SCHOLARS – Oct. 1, 2021 – Working with College of Health Sciences professors Nicole Weiss, Sarah Feldstein-Ewing and Manshu Yang, Goldstein will spend the next two years poring through the data to determine health outcomes for the underserved race and sex populations she is targeting. She ultimately hopes to advise the health community on how to better serve those populations. “In addition to alcohol-related health disparities, my interests include historical trauma and racial discrimination; also access to resources,” Goldstein said. “We know that people who have more access to resources still drink, but have less harm,…
IS THERE A 12-STEP PROGRAM FOR THAT? – Oct. 4, 2021 – I am a black woman in recovery. In my 35 years of recovery, and as a recovery professional, I have experienced bias and racism. When I entered treatment, I was the only black in the entire treatment facility—including staff and residents. No one there looked like me, thought like me or could relate to my intergenerational and cultural trauma. It was never even addressed, therefore vital aspects of my recovery were not met, and I left treatment feeling under-served.I can assure you, I am not alone. I…
BOTTOM FEEDERS – Oct. 2, 2021 – “People with substance use disorder deserve quality treatment options that are safe and effective,” Attorney General Maura Healey said in a statement. “As the opioid epidemic continues to plague our communities, we’re not going to let patients and their families be exploited and have their pain further compounded.” Hislop, when reached by The Boston Globe, said, “I was never involved in anything like that.” A voicemail message was left with Hirsch. Hislop was paid commissions in 2016 when he worked as a “runner,” recruiting patients at Massachusetts substance abuse meetings for Florida…
LISTEN – ANOTHER REASON TO GET SOBER – Sept. 27, 2021 – The agency said it has seized more than 9.5 million fake pills so far this year, more than the last two years combined. It said its lab has found that two out of every five fake pills with fentanyl contain a potentially lethal dose of the drug. The DEA said the counterfeit pills — made to look like real opioid medications such as oxycodone, Percocet or Adderall — are sold on the street by dealers or online, including through social media platforms. “If you have a smartphone…
IT’S ABOUT TIME – Sept. 27, 2021 – About 20,000 of the convictions expected to be expunged under Gascón’s Monday order were for felony possession or cultivation of marijuana, said Jean Guccione, a spokeswoman for the L.A. County district attorney’s office. The remainder were misdemeanors filed in jurisdictions that do not have their own city attorney’s offices, she said. It was unclear how far back the case review went, but while in San Francisco, Gascón had sought to overturn cases dating to the mid-1970s. Felicia Carbajal, executive director of the Social Impact Center, a Los Angeles-based community center, said…
WHO FUNDED THE STUDY? – Sept. 27, 2021 – The study also found that 46 percent of participants reported that the smoking ban was impacting their decision about whether or not to seek inpatient addiction treatment. Of the participants who had at some point entered inpatient treatment within the last two years, over half (55 percent) reported they left treatment prematurely (whether voluntarily, against medical advice or kicked out). Most starkly, of those who left treatment prematurely, 85 percent said not being able to smoke was part of their reason for leaving. The data clearly show that banning smoking…
WATCH – DRINK UP, IT’S FOR A CLEAN CAUSE – Sept. 30, 2021 – Hurt struggled with alcohol and drug addiction before finding a path to recovery and starting CLEAN Cause. His company gives half of its profits from every can sold to people recovering from addiction. “We had our 50% percent give back commitment before we had a brand name and before we had a product,” Hurt said. Slade Skaggs is a recipient of one of more than 1,300 living sober scholarships CLEAN Cause has awarded in the Southwest region since inception. Many of those in Austin. “Being…
MOVIES ARE MEANINGFUL – Oct. 1, 2021 – This exploration of religion and addiction “was always particularly special to me because it’s been so interwoven into my life and my childhood”, Flanagan says. Midnight Mass revolves around the small community of Crockett Island, where Riley Flynn (Zach Gilford) returns home a disgraced black sheep. Raised as a believer, Riley had his life derailed in a drink-driving accident that killed a young woman – an incident that sent him to prison for four years and also took away his faith. Riley reconnects with his pregnant childhood love Erin (Kate Siegel),…
HOW MANY ‘LIKES’ CAN JESUS GET ON DEC. 25? – Oct. 1, 2021 – I started using Instagram in 2013, to post about getting sober, and it was a love-hate relationship from the beginning. But it always felt like the benefits outweighed the costs. I made connections with people I’d have otherwise never met, many of whom became great friends and invaluable business colleagues. I found community and accountability when I so desperately needed it in the wobbly days of early sobriety, and I had a place to consistently share my work. I had built “a platform” in publishing-world…
HIGHLY PROCESSED WORLD – Oct. 2, 2021 – Our brains are designed to find high-calorie foods rewarding to ensure we survive the periods of famine. Carbohydrates (like sugar) and fat are high in calories and trigger the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain. For much of human history, the best hit of sugar we could hope for was finding some fruit. Fat would come from hunting down an animal or finding some nuts. While our brains are still in the Stone Age, the food industry has become skilled in jacking up carbohydrates and fats to unheard of levels…
GRATEFUL GRADUATE OF THE COLLEGE OF LIFE – Sept. 30, 2021 – Over the last nine years, Burton has gotten into hiking, climbing, cycling and running, which has been “probably the most transformative thing that I have ever allowed myself to experience,” she said. Burton and her 15-year-old daughter just moved to San Diego from Rochester, Washington, for a new job opportunity. Her older children are 28 and 29. Burton also posts about her recovery journey on social media as a way to encourage some of her friends who are still in active addiction, who she keeps in touch…
WATCH – THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE MADNESS – Oct. 2, 2021 – DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWQC) – September is National Recovery Month. But in 2020, a record number of Americans died from drug overdose—93K people succumbing to addiction’s worst outcome. Christine Naman’s daughter, Natalie, spent years being a full-blown heroin addict. In the interview, she tells some of the story covered fully in the book, “About Natalie: A Daughter’s Addiction. A Mother’s Love. Finding Their Way Back to Each Other” (Amazon). She traces her daughter’s years-long battle with addiction in the compelling memoir that opens a raw and honest…
“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.” — Neil deGrasse Tyson Happy Birthday Born: Oct. 5, 1958
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN – 2021 – In a soaring chapel space, a men’s choir sings two resounding songs to the beat of a band. It’s a diverse group—old, young, African American, white, some looking dapper in button-downs, others in T-shirts revealing sleeve tattoos. What joins them together is that they sing with heart, like their lives depend on it. And, in a way, they do. The non-denominational chapel is located at the Helping Up Mission (HUM) in East Baltimore, and the choir singers are just some of the participants in HUM’s yearlong, 12-step-based, spiritual recovery program (SRP). It…
WATCH – NOT ALL THAI REHABS ARE CREATED EQUAL – Sept. 22, 2021 – Media reported the addicts were there both voluntarily and as a condition of their release by police. All had to pay 12,000 baht each once they agreed to treatment, and an additional 2,000 baht a month for food. The treatment was by 12-month contract. Another 10,000 baht was demanded for an early discharge or breach of contract. “In my view, there is an organised gang involving police, temple and rescue workers,” Mr Jeeraphan said. “It’s unusual that police from Kalasin and Roi Et provinces took…
WATCH – ALL THE RIGHT STEPS – Sept. 20, 2021 – In the video Burke posted Monday morning, Burke drove while she spoke to the camera about how doing the show sober was “scary for her,” and that while she could easily go on and on about how excited she was to be back, she wanted to be “real” with fans about how she was feeling before hitting the dance floor. “I’m Nervous for DWTS…,” Burked admitted. “Confession time – this may be my 24th time doing #dwts, and even though I’m SO excited, I also have major nerves.”…
WATCH – PUNK LIVES – Sept. 20, 2021 – “ My aunt jumped off Niagra Falls and died when she was in her twenties. She was such a badass hippie activist: she told me no matter if it takes a couple hours, days, months, years; no matter how long it takes, things are going to get better. To keep on trucking: hang on tight for the good times ‘cause the future holds surprises that you have no clue about.” Thus Keep On Truckin’ is flush with gentle support, soul-baring confessions designed to comfort, and the kind of ‘fuck it’…
SCIENCE MAY ONE DAY DO SO… – Sept. 21, 2021 – The study is his first paper under the HEAL Initiative, or Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative, a $945 million, multi-university funding endeavor sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Moore’s work is among dozens of research projects taking place across the United States as part of HEAL, which was launched in April 2018 to provide scientific solutions to the national opioid overdose crisis, including improved treatment strategies for pain as well as opioid use disorders (OUDs). Funded by Congress, the initiative involves numerous universities and almost every…
HOW LITTLE IS A LIFE WORTH? – Sept 24, 2021 – I had a long conversation with one of his patients, Zachary, 31, who asked to be identified only by his first name, to protect his career. Zachary’s addiction trajectory is pretty typical. In his late teens, he began using prescription opioids like Vicodin and anti-anxiety drugs like Xanax. As public health experts became alarmed at the increasing number of opioid overdose deaths, and the enormity of the crisis was becoming clear, prescription opioids became harder to find. “All of a sudden, everyone had switched from prescription stuff to…
NOW YOU TELL US – Sept. 24, 2021 – This all sounds good. A simple classification system for understanding people’s personality ought to be a great tool for people to understand themselves and for managers to get to know their reports. Anything that helps people recognize the ways in which their motivations differ from those of the people around them should be useful in resolving conflicts and influencing behavior. Unfortunately, the MBTI is a bad tool in ways that are likely to be misleading. The discipline of personality psychology is a real success story in the field of psychology.…
WATCH – IT’S HARD TO CONTROL YOUR BRAIN – SEPT. 23, 2021 – She’s a widow, who’s recently retired, and said the lack of things to do, led her to visiting the casinos. Eventually, it turned into an addiction, leading Spohn to spend away her car, retirement, and even her husband’s life insurance. “It was very devastating and very demoralizing, I felt very much, so much like a failure. And that led to basically thinking, there is no way out of this, other than suicide,” said Spohn. At her lowest point, Spohn reached out to Maryhaven and was put…
NO ONE IS IMMUNE – Sept. 24, 2021 – A witness who called in the crash to authorities said the passengers in the car, who all suffered minor injuries, performed chest compressions on Castellano, according to the report. An inspection of the car allegedly showed that no one in the Rolls Royce was wearing a seat belt before the crash, according to the arrest report. When a patrol officer arrived on the scene, he noted Ferraro had watery eyes and allegedly a strong odor of alcohol, the report said. Ferraro was arrested and taken to the Clark County Detention…