WATCH – A YEAR WILL BLOW HER MIND – August 6, 2021 – Admitting you need or want help is the first and hardest step. Let’s beat this! One day at a time. Not for tomorrow, just for today! Help is out there.’ Michelle rounded off her post by sharing details of the Alcoholics Anonymous help group. Her post garnered several positive and encouraging messages from fans and celebrity pals including Danielle Lloyd, Simon Webbe and Samia Longchambon. Michelle recently opened up about her battle with alcohol addiction three months after leaving a rehabilitation centre where she was given…
Author: Leonard Buschel
COOKING FOOD! – August 7, 2021 – Nearly six years later, McMenemy has remained sober, having discussed a passion for cooking, and is now inspiring others to do the same with his new found TikTok fame. He shares daily cooking videos to over half a million followers on his TikTok channel, SouthernVibin, and over 81,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, SouthernVibin Cooks. “The kitchen/cooking has saved my life, and I now get to inspire millions of people by cooking,” he said. McMenemy became addicted to pain pills and went down a long dark road of addiction for about 10…
NO SHAME IN THEIR GAME – August 7, 2021 – Our understanding of substance use disorders as chronic but treatable health conditions has come a long way since the dark days when they were thought of as character flaws — or worse. Yet societal norms surrounding drug use and addiction continue to be informed by myths and misconceptions. Among the most harmful of these is the scientifically unfounded belief that compulsive drug-taking by individuals with addiction reflects ongoing deliberate antisocial or deviant choices. This belief contributes to the continued criminalization of drug use and addiction. While attitudes around drug…
A PUFF PIECE ON AN EX-POTHEAD – August 2, 2021 – Occasionally the gang and I would wait at the news stand for the ‘bulldog’ edition, dropped off at 11pm. An early edition of the morning Inky, nickname for the Philadelphia Inquirer. I was mostly looking for sports scores, horse racing results, current events, and recent executions. I was fascinated by local news, news or the country, the world and outer space. The pride and adulation I receive as the publisher and editor of the Addiction Recovery eBulletin, with 22,000 subscribers, and ten thousand additional online readers, makes me…
IN THE ROUGH – July 24, 2021 – Golfer Grayson Murray publicly disclosed suffering from alcoholism in a statement Friday and accused the PGA Tour of refusing to help him with the issue. “The PGA Tour didn’t force me to drink. But the PGA Tour never gave me help,” Murray wrote. “In my five years of experience of being on tour not once have I ever had a request been acknowledged by the commissioner or the PAC [Player Advisory Council] other than ‘we will get back to you.’ I hope not only the PGA Tour steps up in the…
THE SECRET IS OUT – August 6, 2021 – I’ve worked in the music industry since I was a teenager and been in recovery from addiction since 2007. I decided to set up the Secret Drug Addict a few years ago as an online account to talk about drugs, addiction, recovery and any other stupid shit that comes into my head. It’s grown into something far bigger than I ever thought it would and my Twitter now get over 70 million impressions a year … and I receive around 50 messages a week from people affected by addiction asking questions…
WATCH – ROYAL RECOVERY – August 3, 2021 – “I’ve spoken about mental illness for years as well as being a hard worker my whole life but never thought I’d have to go through intense treatment the way I did this year,” she began writing in a lengthy Instagram post. Reminding her followers “there is hope” at the end of the tunnel, Mulroney wrote, “I’ve found it through sobriety and therapy. My life is happy again. I wish this for you all.” Mulroney also mentioned the people who shunned her during this time, “It can be lonely having the world,…
EXTRAORDINARY EXPOSÉ – July 27, 2021 – But poppers aren’t exactly a household name, at least when compared to other recreational or sex drugs like molly or Viagra, especially among straight people, even if more of them are using poppers. “Consider poppers the homosexual peyote,” the LGBTQ magazine the Advocate declared in 2013, writing that they have an “open secret status” and that few outsiders “know the first thing about them.” As it turns out, not many insiders know much about them, either. Where did they come from? Who made them? How did they find their way onto the…
LIVING FUNNY – August 4, 2021 – o his followers, Lewis added, “If you’re struggling you can get help. I did. 8/4/21 27 years sober.” The post was liked more than 116,000 times as of Wendesday morning and was commented on by many followers, some of whom added their own stories of survival and struggles with addiction. August 3, 1994 I thought that I was near death from alcoholism.Early the next day I was rushed to the ER and turned my life around a day, sometimes a minute at a time. If you’re struggling you can get help. I did.8/4/2127…
HURTING CHILDREN AS POLICY – July 2021 – Meehan started developing Enthusiastic Sobriety, which was both a theory and a practice. In order to entice teens, he believed, clean living needed to be just as fun—and just as reckless—as the alternative. If teens wanted to grow their hair long, smoke cigarettes, stay out all night, or even drop out of school, parents should let them—whatever kept them off drugs and alcohol was a good thing. Thus liberated, kids could enter the alternate social world of PDAP, which had its own dances, campouts, and house parties, all of them substance-free. Spirituality…
NOT TOO KOOL – July 27, 2021 – Addiction is now understood to be a chronic neurological disorder that, like other chronic diseases, responds to treatment. Ideally, management of nicotine addiction combines medications to suppress cravings with counseling to help patients reprogram their behavior, just like treatments for high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes often combine medication with counseling for stress management or behavior change. The FDA has given varenicline (Chantix) an indication for smoking cessation. It works by blocking and partly activating the nicotine binding spot in the central nervous system, reducing the pleasurable effects of smoking while…
VA VA VA ZOOM? – July 19, 2021 – Such an approach allows a patient to conduct weekly sessions with a doctor, while also accessing digital tools and chat features that nudge or support them in the interim. “People don’t want to spend a huge amount of time on their healthcare, but want to be doing the stuff that is high impact,” Sherwani adds. The different programs also send related physical tools needed for treatment like a breathalyzer that can analyze nicotine levels for the tobacco track or Naltrexone, a medication that helps prevent relapses, prescriptions for the alcohol…
GOOD CITIZEN AWARD – August 7, 2021 – Actress Marlee Matlin has thanked Henry Winkler for letting her live with his family while she got sober as a young adult. The deaf star first met Winkler when she was 12 years old and the “Happy Days” actor really encouraged Marlee to pursue her acting dreams and not focus on her disability. more@AceShowBiz
SNORTING IT 24/7 – August 6, 2021 – To reach these conclusions, the team led by Horký, in coordination with colleagues from the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, designed an experiment that measured the level of addiction among the fish. The scientists divided 120 brown trout in two tanks filled with 350 liters of water for eight weeks. One of the tanks contained hundreds of nanograms of amphetamine per liter, the same concentration of the drug encountered in the Czech Republic’s rivers. At the end of the eight weeks, the researchers removed the amphetamine from the experimental tank…
SILENCE = DEATH – August 4, 2021 – Q: Why are the recorded rates of anxiety and depression among males so much lower than among females? Kristin Wilson: For girls, it’s much more acceptable to talk about being sad. For teen boys and young men, it can feel like a sign of weakness to admit that they’re struggling with their mental health. Talking about being sad doesn’t fit what society views as acceptable male behavior. As much as things have shifted in recent years around gender norms and the ability to have open conversation about mental health, it’s still…
“Children must be taught how to think, not what to think.” —Margaret Mead
SOBER DYING – July 22, 2021 – The Red Door’s niche in L.A.’s competitive premium-rehab realm isn’t luxury accommodations or individually tailored care plans. Those are givens. Instead, it’s a firm commitment to what the couple characterize as its harm-reduction approach to treatment. Harm reduction, a catchall for various non-penalizing alternatives to abstinence (from supplying sterilized needles to providing safe harbor), has the immediate goal of limiting the risk of death or of contracting infectious diseases, such as HIV. “I’ve worked with that same population: a lot of well-known and high-net-worth clients,” says addiction counselor Seven Graham, who helped establish…
WATCH – DEPTH OF THINKING OBSOLETE? – July 29, 2021 – This unhealthy relationship can often lead to the comparison of your own life to others. Depression, anxiety and low self-esteem can form as a result. “Everyone’s got their business out there. I do like to use it sometimes if I want to post a little pic on the gram, so my friends can see me looking cute and stuff, but other than that, I don’t like to use it too much because I don’t like to let that stuff distract me from my real goals,” said Instagram user,…
MAKE UP YOUR MIND – July 24, 2021 – My experiences with alcohol and substances came up recently when I met my editor at San Francisco Examiner. After more than a year and a half, we had never seen each other face-to-face. While sipping coffee and tea at the Westin St. Francis, she asked, “How did you get a cocktail column when you don’t drink?” “You tell me, your paper gave it to me,” I said with a laugh and a bit of an evil grin. No, I clarified. I had been pitching a former iteration of a mixology series…
FEELING NO PAIN NOR POVERTY – July 23, 2021 – Restricting the drug supply: One reason people get addicted to drugs is that they have access to them in the first place, via prescription (OxyContin and other painkillers) or on the streets (also prescription drugs, but heroin or fentanyl too). So one part of the solution could be efforts to reduce access to drugs, including reductions in opioid prescriptions, law enforcement efforts to break up and take down drug markets, trade policy, border control measures, and international cooperation. This is not enough to vanquish drugs forever. But a study on…
MIGHTY BIG TRANSFORMATION – July 18, 2021 – “Mighty Ducks” star Shaun Weiss is making strides in his recovery. The former actor graduated from a drug court program this week in California, the Yuba County District Attorney’s Office announced. The graduation also means Weiss’s burglary case in the county has been dismissed. He was arrested in Marysville, Calif., last January for breaking into a person’s garage and gaining entry into their car. The accomplishment follows a turbulent period for Weiss, who in recent years has faced a number of hurdles amid a struggle with addiction. He first entered into the…
HELL IS HARD TO GET OUT OF – July 25, 2021 – But in time, after daily use, my body built up tolerance to the pills, and one wasn’t enough. Soon I needed two to feel the high, and eventually three. I would buy whatever was available. When I ran out of pills, the withdrawal was certain and unbearable. I had restless leg syndrome, chills, anxiety, insomnia, nausea, sweating, cramps, vomiting, diarrhea and fever, all for several days or longer. I would do anything to avoid getting dopesick, even returning to the drugs. To wean myself, I tried using synthetic…
IT’S ALL DOWNSIDE – July 26, 2021 – “Targeted drug enforcement and over-policing in communities of color have led to severe consequences to Black and brown populations,” said Perez. “I’m not just talking about high-level trafficking. I’m talking about severe consequences for simple use and possession.” The drug war also targets non-citizens, including green card holders, asylum seekers and DREAMers, and low-level drug offenses can put them at risk of immigration detention and deportation, she said. In fact, drug offenses are one of the most common causes of deportation, second only to illegal entry. “The drug war is also…
THE FINAL SOLUTION – July 27, 2021 – The killings have alarmed Western governments, U.N. rights experts, and human rights groups. Duterte has acknowledged that he failed to fulfill a campaign promise to eradicate the drug menace and deeply entrenched corruption within six months of becoming president. But he said he had found at least nine police generals and Bureau of Customs officials were involved in the drug trade. “I did not know that I was fighting my own government,” he said, although the involvement of law enforcers and public officials has long been reported. Randy Delos Santos, whose 17-year-old…
LISTEN – KEEP LOOKING – July 26, 2021 – ROCK: He knew he needed help, but there were few therapists specializing in this kind of trauma in Boston. Holland shoved his pain back down. It took another five years, his brother’s suicide and a pulmonary embolism for Holland to try again. This time, he found a men’s support group. HOLLAND: But it was uncomfortable. I didn’t want to be there, and my heart was beating. ROCK: At the first session, Holland remembers that everyone’s eyes were locked on the carpet. Sharon Imperato of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center helped…
THE ART OF DESTIGMATIZATION – July 30, 2021 – FRANKLIN — Amy Adams has the same name as the Hollywood superstar actress, but not the fame. Instead, Adams is focused on sending the message that there’s no stigma tied to mental health challenges associated with drug addiction. She’s doing it with her new public art installation, “I Am Here.” It will go on exhibit publicly starting Saturday on the front lawn of the First Congregational Church in downtown Natick, and will remain there for several weeks. Adams gave the Daily News a sneak peek on Wednesday as the installation sat…
STILL GROWING A HEALTHY SOCIETY – July 30, 2021 – The gist of this little pearl of wisdom is that if you have been unable to deal with your personal traumas, you are more likely to project those traumas onto others. While there is certainly truth in that saying, the opposite is also true: healed people can heal other people. Look no further than Baker Lake’s Allan Qiyuaryuk, who started an Alcoholics Anonymous group for the community this summer. Speaking to Kivalliq News earlier this month, Qiyuaryuk was very open about some of the trauma he has experienced. Following…
WATCH – IT’S ONLY A DRUG – July, 2021 – Best-selling author Michael Pollan talks to CNN’s Anderson Cooper about caffeine. more@CNN
LISTEN – WHERE ARE YOU GOING NOW? – July 29, 2021 – She worries that rehab programs are bringing vulnerable people to Parkersburg who may struggle to get back on their feet. “If they come and they decide after one or two days they want to leave, they kick them out. They’re on the streets,” Kuhl said. “Then they become homeless. Then they become Parkersburg’s problem.” But health and recovery advocates say preventing homelessness is exactly why these recovery homes are so important. “Quality recovery housing is essential to keep people off the streets,” said Renee Steffen speaking to…
WATCH – NEVER GIVE UP, ALWAYS GET UP! – July 30, 2021 – The daughter of a minister and a nurse, Johnson said her parents raised her lovingly and with good morals. But molestation that started when she was only 4, she said, at the hands of a now deceased, distant family member, made her feel broken. “When I put the drug in me, it helped me to become somebody else. It helped me escape how I really felt about me on the inside,” Johnson said. She kept trying rehab, but she wasn’t all in. “I knew I wasn’t done,…