SPEAKING HER TOOTH – March 2, 2021 – “Dental hygiene is really and extremely important,” Nowakowski said in a series of TikTok videos. Nowakowski said she was told in 2017 that she would need her entire top row of teeth removed and replaced with dentures. “It was the lack of dental hygiene, not going to the dentist and the soda drinking,” Nowakowski said. She said that at that point she had been drinking soda on a daily basis for a decade. “I’ve been drinking Coca-Cola, dark soda, for like the last 10 years, every single day all day. I started…
Author: Leonard Buschel
BE DELICATE – 2021 – Instead let us be present for our friends and loved ones and say: I hear youI am listening to youI am here for youLet me help you It is tough that all is so overwhelming right now. The world is upside down: You have my support And let us validate our words through actions: A phone callA safe in person visitA listening earA small token Or help your family, friend, work associate get the help they need by getting them the emotional support they need. more@AllAboutInterventions
THEY SING THE BODY ELECTRIC – Feb. 28, 2021 – Now McGregor has called on ministers to properly consider NET, suggesting they start by watching the documentary he narrated called The Final Fix. He said: “This film takes a hard look at this different kind of treatment and it really seems to work. I would hope that the authorities would take notice and perhaps explore for themselves. It’s at least worth exploration. Current treatment for drug addiction often utilises other addictive drugs and that may not be the answer.” Heroin substitute methadone has been central to the government’s drugs policies…
OXYMORONs – March 3, 2021 – According to Chesterfield Sheriff Karl Leonard, the alleged drug smugglers exploited a regulatory loophole regarding legal mail that is addressed to inmates. While jail staff conduct thorough examinations of all general mail addressed to inmates, they are prohibited from applying more than a cursory level of scrutiny to correspondence from an attorney, judge, clerk of court or other legal entity. In this case, the Suboxone strips were concealed between two sheets of letter-sized paper that had been glued together and mailed to the jail. The envelope was addressed to an inmate and contained a…
HOUSING NOT HOSING – March 1, 2021 – Jei Africa, director of Marin County’s Behavioral Health and Recovery Services division, said, “We’re calculating that an additional 48 folks will have some temporary housing as they’re getting services for substance abuse.” Africa said there are five recovery coaches working with the program. The grant will make it possible to add one more. Africa said some of the grant money also will be used for ongoing operation of the program. He said the county has been receiving grants from the Bureau of Justice Assistance to help support the program since 2017. “We…
ANYONE CAN DECIDE TO STOP – Feb. 28, 2021 – She is now eager to tell her story and help show people there is a “solution to this disease”. “I lived a life full of misery and prayed every time that I slept to please not wake up. I thought for a long time that I would never get out of there,” Madison said. “When I had enough, I found a new way of living. It is possible, there is help. Grab on and don’t let go.” Madison went on: “‘I was in my first rehab at the age of…
MUCH LESS THAN HIS FACILITY – March 3, 2021 – Rosen’s next court date is in April. He’s shacking up at the Huntington Beach City Jail, which charges about $3,000 a month for accommodations. Surf City’s pay-to-stay inmates are housed separately from all other inmates and have minimal contact with them. They have to pitch in with chores — cleaning and sanitizing cells, taking out the trash, washing inmate laundry, mopping floors, cleaning the prisoner compartments in patrol cars and general cleaning of the jail’s facilities as needed, said Lt. Brian Smith of the HBPD. If they’re unable or unwilling…
WATCH – SCREAMING? – March 4, 2021 – Actor Jamie Lee Curtis joins Hoda and Jenna to talk about her show-stopping Golden Globes dress and how she has found confidence in herself through sobriety. She also talks about how people can help to raise money for Children’s Hospital Los Angeles through her company, My Hand In Yours, and the Make March Matter campaign. more@Today
SPREADING THE GOOD NEWS – March 6, 2021 – “Booze, drugs — too much tore me down,” he said in a speech to a high school class posted on his website in 2015. “That ladder that took so many years for me to climb to the top of, I came tumbling down one day. Slid all the way to the bottom. But I picked myself up and cleaned myself off … The best times of my life were in the past six years … Now when I wake up in the morning I can remember where I was yesterday.” “Booze,…
HAND WASHING, NOT HAND WRINGING – March 3, 2021 – “But yeah, right now, I gotta be fully on. Jason and I have definitely had moments because we’re both sober — that’s where we met, in an AA meeting — we’ve both had moments where we’re like, ‘If we had a glass of wine right now, nobody would blame us.’ “And then we talk it through and realize that our lives are better [without alcohol] and we find something else to do. And it usually involves being with the kids, doing something to get your mind out of that.…
by Christopher Dale IS THAT REALLY A BAD THING? – March 8, 2021 – As we pass the one-year anniversary of widespread COVID-19 lockdowns, a bright spot in an otherwise dark year has been the adaptability of Alcoholics Anonymous. As in-person gatherings shuttered seemingly overnight, the deft digital pivot to online meetings performed by dedicated AA members around the world has helped keep millions engaged, involved and most importantly sober. As I’ve shared in this space, I see Zoom rooms as an emergency stopgap measure that should largely recede in parallel with the pandemic. As society reopens, so must in-person…
IT’S A HARD KNOCK LIFE – March 5, 2021 – “I spent over a decade terrified that I’d peaked at 10 years old,” Reyes said in their essay. Reyes told the Post, however, that they did not regret doing “School of Rock.” “I have never lost gratitude for that, or wish that I wasn’t part of it,” they said. Reyes said the other child actors in the movie quickly became close friends and stayed in touch via group chats and multiple reunions over the years. Reyes said Black had also stayed in touch with the cast as well, calling the…
WATCH – COOKING NOT INCLUDED – March 3, 2021 – People in recovery may encounter a long road finding a place to stay when choosing to lead a clean life. Two women from Wyoming County have opened their own sober living homes, to help those in need, reach that second milestone. Jamie McAndrew and Ashley Bunnell both have a passion for helping people and have had a long time dream of opening a sober living house. Now it has finally become a reality for the two friends from the Tunkhannock area. When Jamie started her own recovery journey years ago,…
PUT ON A HAPPY FACE – March 4, 2021 – Few of us want our negative moods to drag others down. But in practice, a lot of people follow a theory of happiness that can be summed up in the famous line from airline-safety videos: “Put on your own mask before assisting others.” In other words, you can’t make others happy unless and until you are happy yourself. I get the reasoning: Unhappy people often bring wretchedness to those around them. Think of the most miserable boss you’ve had, and you’ll know what I mean. None of us wants to…
“Those who would give up their civil liberties for security deserve neither.” —Larry Flynt
PHISHER FOR SOULS – March 4, 2021 – “Substance use disorders affect people from all walks of life,” Anastasio said in a statement, “and the problem is intimately linked with isolation — whether that’s isolation due to the pandemic or for any other reason. The Beacon Jams helped us find a way to connect people and get this project off the ground. To be able to do that together during this difficult year touches my heart.” Vermont ranks 11th in the country for overdoses but contains only four state-certified residential treatment centers. Anastasio’s center will serve people of all income…
WATCH – SO I BECAME A BARTENDER – March 3, 2021 – “How do you make this guy likable and not this grump, snarky drunk? That was the challenge,” he told The Los Angeles Times. “You can’t just load a character up with all the best quips. You have to understand why people are frustrated with him.” “Herman, with that self-effacing humor, he was at lunch, drinking with a friend, who said, ‘Why don’t you go home sober for once?’ And he answered, ‘What? And have [my wife] throw me out as an impostor?’ I did the same thing,” the…
PRE-FENTANYL – Feb. 19, 2021 – Christiane Felscherinow’s lengthy taped interviews with two journalists formed the backbone of the book Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, which was published in 1978 and made into a film directed by Uli Edel in 1981. An eight-part series with the same title launches in German on Amazon Prime on Friday evening. Edel’s original grim and gritty low-budget film, which used mostly first-time actors and had a soundtrack by David Bowie, shocked critics and audiences with its decrepit depictions of a lost generation of Berlin youth who turned to heroin. The leftwing newspaper Die Tageszeitung…
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR SOME – Feb. 25, 2021 – During the antebellum decades, addiction to rudimentary opiates such as laudanum and opium in gum, pill, and powdered forms was common among white Americans. Discussion of opiate addiction, often dubbed the “opium habit” or “slavery” to opiates, frequently appeared in medical journals, monographs, textbooks, and even newspapers beginning in the 1830s. Psychiatrists, physicians, and other Americans widely attributed opiate addiction to the sufferers’ mental illness, constitutional weakness, or moral failings. Consequently, Americans afflicted by the so-called opium habit were frequently victim-blamed, stigmatized, and even institutionalized. more@PsychiatricTimes
WATCH – SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER – Feb. 25, 2021 – TODAY’s Carson Daly interviews Darius Smith, co-founder of Black Space, for his ongoing mental health series, “Mind Matters.” They discuss the 2020 social and racial protests and how Black Space is normalizing mental health and wellness through free group therapy sessions with communities of color in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. more@Today
STAYING VIGILANT – 2020 – Many people who misuse alcohol or drugs have trouble dealing with anger. If left unchecked, anger can have a negative impact on your health and your lasting sobriety. Anger is a normal and natural emotion, but how you deal with it will make a difference in maintaining your recovery. For many people with a substance use disorder, it’s simply a matter of never having learned the appropriate way to manage your anger. Talk to your therapist, other healthcare provider, or sponsor about how to deal with your anger in ways that won’t cause you to…
WISHING HIM THE BEST – Feb. 25, 2021 – When Mulaney was a teenager, his parents sent him to a psychiatrist, who told him that he was one part nice kid, one part “gorilla that wants to kill the other half.” And in his 2012 special “New in Town,” he said, “I don’t drink. I used to drink, then I drank too much, and I had to stop. That surprises a lot of audiences, because I don’t look like someone who used to do anything.” After years of blacking out and even drinking perfume, the tipping point was a 2005…
WATCH – STAYING CLEAN IN BODY AND SOUL – Feb. 25, 2021 – Retailer reflects on drug addiction, crime, and finding purpose. more@OzarksFirst
NOT ON TOP – Feb. 25, 2021 – The muscular camerawork of Newton Thomas Sigel, with its swooping drone shots and virtuoso tracking sequences, is impressive on a craft level, especially if you’ve ever felt the need for a seeing-eye anal probe. But none of the tricksy visuals or ostentatious embellishments, like profane insults splashed across the screen in blood-red text, make you care about the characters. Which is too bad for Holland, who hurls himself into the role with the misapprehension that Cherry has something profound to say about the protagonist’s dark existential void. Coming on the heels of…
WATCH – BUT DARKER – Feb. 26, 2021 – The story, in which Mondragon shaped using his own personal experience with drugs, sees Sprouse kidnapped by a young woman (Sam Quartin) and whisked away to distribute medication to those on the fringes of society. The movie was shot pre-pandemic in California’s Slab City and Bombay Beach, with non-actors among the cast. “I wrote the film after getting clean — around the time when life was becoming richer and everything I used to chase became meaningless,” said Mondragon, in a statement to THR. “I wanted to tell a story of someone…
JUSTICE PREVAILS – Feb. 26, 2021 – Gov. Tony Evers said “It continues to be extraordinary listening to the stories of so many who have paid their debt and deserve a second chance. Today, I am glad to be able to grant these 13 pardons.” Brenton Bach was in his early twenties when he sold marijuana to a friend working as an undercover informant. Living now in Mount Horeb, he is trained and eager to chart a career path in coding.Samuel Cantrall was a teenager when he and a friend committed a series of thefts, burglaries, and damage to…
WATCH – GOING TO ANY DEPTHS – Feb. 25, 2021 – For about 15 years, Rosa has been raising money through Chucky’s Fight to support recovering addicts and speak to youth about addiction at schools. ”I believe it all starts at prevention,” Rosa said. “If you don’t start, you don’t know what you’re not missing, basically.”In 2003, Rosa’s 20-year-old son Vincent died of a drug overdose. The next year, his 23-year-old son Domenic lost his battle with substance abuse, too. Rosa scattered his sons’ ashes in the ocean where he now swims at least once a day. “I’m not doing…
FROM LOSS COMES HOPE – Feb. 26, 2021 – “As overdose cases are rapidly increasing and treatments for substance use disorders are becoming more challenging, we arrive at a critical moment within the opioid and addiction crises,” said Nancy Hale, CEO, Operation UNITE, a collaborative organization striving to prevent abuse of drugs and facilitate recovery. “We are extremely pleased to host the 10th Annual Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit online. We are excited to once again welcome a vast assembly of stakeholders who are hyper-focused on creating solutions to address this public health emergency. A powerful lineup of field leaders…
FROM THE ICE TO ICED TEA – Feb. 27, 2021 – Thousands showed their support. Some talked about their own battles. Some talked about how Therien was a role model. “Very proud of you,” said ex-Flyers star Reggie Leach, who overcame alcohol addiction 36 years ago and, along with his son, Jamie, teaches hockey and life skills to youngsters all over North America. “It’s a great feeling when you help others.” After posting his messages, Therien received dozens of phone calls. “I had two former NHL teammates call me crying that day,” Therien said. “Crying because they’re still in addiction…
PROBLEM DRINKERS HAVE PROBLEMS – Feb. 23, 2021 – It’s thought that painful past experiences are frequently at the root of drinking problems. Professor David Nutt, lead author of the study, said: ‘This clinical study supports the practical experience of many leaders in psychiatry that psychedelic-assisted treatments, including MDMA for mental health disorders, have the potential to deliver significantly better outcomes for many patient groups.’ The study involved 14 patients who took part in ten psychotherapy sessions over eight weeks. During two of the sessions, on weeks three and seven, they were given a dose of 125mg of the drug,…