WHERE ONE OR MORE ARE GATHERED – Feb. 2021 – The pattern of failure to control intense sexual impulses or urges and resulting repetitive sexual behavior is manifested over an extended period of time (e.g., 6 months or more), and causes marked distress or significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning. Distress that is entirely related to moral judgments and disapproval about sexual impulses, urges, or behaviors is not sufficient to meet this requirement. So in these respects, sex and porn addiction are quite similar. That said, not all sex addicts struggle with…
Author: Leonard Buschel
BOTTOM LINE MATTERS MORE – Feb. 12, 2021 – Additionally, the settlement said that their website funneled consumers to what were called “treatment specialists” for a consumer to call for assistance in deciding which treatment provider to use. This terminology implied that the website was a third-party referral site that would provide independent and informed recommendations to those in need of treatment. These supposed “treatment specialists” had no particular training or experience and referred consumers almost exclusively to the company’s own treatment providers. They are paying a total of $100,000, including $88,000 to be allocated for a Pennsylvania nonprofit providing…
DOCTOR FEELGOOD – Feb. 6, 2021 – As Hart continues: “I do not have a drug-use problem. Never have. Each day, I meet my parental, personal and professional responsibilities. I pay my taxes, serve as a volunteer in my community on a regular basis and contribute to the global community as an informed and engaged citizen. I am better for my drug use.” It’s hard to recall a more unapologetic defence of hard drug consumption. What’s particularly powerful about Hart’s testament is that it’s not written by a beat poet or avant-garde artist, but a highly regarded research scientist whose…
LISTEN – GETTING HELP – Feb. 15, 2021 – “It’s a very hard system to navigate,” said Ryan Hampton, who spent years trying to get help for his addiction to prescription opioids and heroin. His family “was preyed upon by unscrupulous treatment centers.” They borrowed money and maxed out credit cards to pay his rehab bills. Hampton has been in recovery for six years… more@NPR
STICK WITH THE WINNERS! – February 12, 2021 – Stevie Mack voted top dancer by People magazine in the Oscar nominated Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, “Can’t Stop the Feeling” music video by Justin Timberlake, which also won a Golden Globe, Grammy and Critics’ Choice Award. Stevie Mack’s acting and comedic talent keeps him sought after for movie, TV and commercial roles. Stevie Mack began his acting career when he was 10 years old, as an extra in the movie, “Uptown Saturday Night”. He later joined the Young Saints Academy where he toured Los Angels singing, acting and performing choreography. Q.…
TIME TO READ … MORE! – Feb. 9, 2021 – In early recovery, the stories of others are an invaluable resource. We hear stories around our recovery meetings, read stories online, and find hope in the stories of individuals who have gone through the same thing as us. We even love hearing stories from recovery podcasts. But in my search for new recovery memoirs to read, one thing that has stood out to me on these lists of memoirs is that there are limited titles that are authored by Black people in recovery. And so, I decided to compile one. …
by Christopher Dale WHAT A PRICE TO PAY – Feb. 16, 2021 – On Sunday, February 7, 16-year-old Samuel Chapman asked his father for a cheeseburger, then went to his room to play video games. An hour later his mother – Dr. Laura Berman, relationship therapist and host of In the Bedroom on the Oprah Winfrey Network – went into Samuel’s room to discuss a planned summer internship. She found her son lying on the floor. He was dead. Dr. Berman broke the tragic news the next day, via Instagram. “A drug dealer connected with him on Snapchat and gave him fentinyl (sic) laced Xanax…
WATCH – WHEN DOES IT STOP? – Feb. 11, 2021 – “I thought the worst thing that can happen on Snapchat were nude pictures or saying something inappropriate or something like that,” Berman said. “I had no idea there were drug dealers on there.” The couple describes Sammy as an amazing kid with great grades, huge dreams and unbelievably sweet and funny. “He was also a football player and had been stuck inside in front of the computer screen for a year because of COVID. So when these social media platforms do the wrong thing, the COVID-19 pandemic puts a…
PETE NIELSEN DOES HIS THING – Feb. 12, 2021 – CCAPP knew they had to act to stop this new adversary that threatened to abuse patients and cast a cloud of doubt over the legitimacy of the treatment itself. As soon as the legislature reconvened in 2016, the organization sponsored the first anti-kickback legislation for the industry. A full year before the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act (EKRA) was passed by Congress, CCAPP partnered with Senator Steven Bradford (D-Los Angeles) to introduce Senate Bill 636, Addiction Treatment Kickbacks, to provide the state with the tools needed to prosecute those in the business of…
IT’S NOT GAMBLING … OR IS IT? – February 13, 2021 – Day trading can be very, very addicting! However, that doesn’t exactly mean that day traders are addicts. I myself am an addict. This March I will be sober six years. My drug of choice was alcohol. My name is Daniel, and I am an alcoholic. I started day trading when I was about 18 months sober. So needless to say that I already had my work cut out for me when I started to trade stocks. I was jumping into a very addicting way of making money. Already…
‘CLASS’ OF 1991 – Feb. 9, 2021 – “It was no different than craft services,” he explains. “Where are the Red Vines, and where is the great Peruvian blow…? Cocaine was the thing that successful people did. There was always that wonderful moment when, as an active drug abuser, you’d go on the set and figure out which department was selling the coke.” He also opened up about kicking his habit, adding, “Nothing can make you get sober except you wanting to do it. The threat of losing a marriage, losing a job, incarceration – you name the threat, it…
POISONED AMERICA c/o BIG PHARMA – 2020 – “I could not put down Gerald Posner’s Pharma, the definitive story of how one family, the Sacklers, set out to get exquisitely rich on the back of unsuspecting Americans—then blamed the so-called ‘abusers’ instead of their own highly addictive drug. Posner has unearthed important new material that illuminates our national tragedy, crafting a meticulously reported page-turner that is as juicy as it is clear-eyed.” —Beth Macy, New York Times bestselling author of Dopesick “A withering and encyclopedic indictment of a drug industry that often seems to prioritize profits over patients … Pharma…
A COMPLICATED PLACE – Feb. 4, 2021 – I’m 34 but this feeling isn’t unfamiliar; this spiralling soothed by the strange comfort of a sterile white room. I felt the same thing when I was just 17, enduring another – albeit entirely different – physical crumpling. Awful, in many ways. But, my God, the enforced pause. That was welcome. Even more so now. Recently I’ve thought of poisonous mushrooms and oncoming traffic. The kind that just clips you but puts you down enough to enjoy an achingly slow passage of time, statements not questions, white rooms and malt biscuits. This…
SET OUR PEOPLE FREE – Feb. 13, 2021- All the evidence, for decades, shows that the drugs that children under 17 or 18 years old are most likely to use are marijuana, alcohol and tobacco. That’s where my education would focus. With teaching about other drugs at that age, you are distracting them and using scare tactics with them. If you’re doing the education because you’re concerned about the health of the people who you’re talking to, then you’re talking about alcohol, tobacco and marijuana. For marijuana, the major effect that young people have to worry about is taking too…
MAYBE – Feb. 10, 2021 – Pro Tip: If you’re on social media and see things that trigger you, you should try to counter that with enjoyable things to ruminate on in positive ways. Some people think of a memory, others think of scenes in nature, religious people might think of scripture. Select something that centers you and makes you feel pleasure or joy. Have two or three of those things in mind in advance to replace triggers on social media. Think of it as putting away the file you have on social media and retrieving a new file. Reframe…
DOCTOR (CAN’T) HEAL THYSELF – February 11, 2021 – USA TODAY spoke with half a dozen mental health workers who told us the pandemic has been the most challenging year of their professional lives. Every one of them said they’d experienced symptoms of burnout. Some are in therapy themselves, but most are not. These professionals are helping their patients cope with stress, anxiety and sometimes unimaginable loss while also managing their own suffering. Many have taken on heavier caseloads with more patients experiencing trauma and suicidal ideation. Most have transitioned to telehealth, which made therapy possible during the pandemic but…
WATCH – CRAPUE du SOLEIL? – Feb. 10, 2021 – Hold on. The worst moment in “Music” is the quick-cut, frenetic, orange-tinted fantasy musical number when the title character flails about making exaggerated facial and body contortions that would embarrass the worst mime ever to work a city street corner. Ah, no need to argue or debate. They’re ALL terrible moments — and there are so many more — in this well-intentioned but woefully executed directing/co-writing feature debut by the Australian pop sensation Sia, who compounds the problem by making one of the most tone-deaf and grating celebrity cameos in…
PAINTING THE TOWN CLEAN & SOBER – February 9, 2021 – They’re just a few of the artists who live or work in the Downtown Eastside and are part of a new group called the Downtown Eastside Artists Collective. The group was started by Trey Helten, the manager of the Overdose Prevention Society at 390 Columbia St. For artists in the neighbourhood, making art is much more than a hobby: for many, art has been a lifeline through mental illness or substance use. Art has been a part of the Overdose Prevention Society for years, and the walls in its…
“I never learned anything while I was talking.” —Larry King
WATCH – DEAR GOD, MAKE IT STOP – Feb. 8, 2021 – Berman first shared the news of her son’s death on Instagram Sunday, writing that her son got “the drugs delivered to the house” in an “experimentation gone bad.” “My beautiful boy is gone. 16 years old,” the host of “In the Bedroom with Dr. Laura Berman” captioned a picture of herself embracing her smiling son. “My heart is completely shattered and I am not sure how to keep breathing.” Berman said her son got his hands on the unknowingly fatal drug through Snapchat and warned other parents to…
TALKING HEADS – February 5, 2021 – to the car (“You know your dad hates you”) and then to work, where the dope, wearing a pin-striped olive jacket and gold chain, keeps the bit going through lunchtime. (“Eat normal.”) He’s a nuisance, a torment, and not especially original—the kind of bargain-bin hater that makes all the rest of us critics look bad.This dope, or some form of him, is also the subject of “Chatter,” a new book by the experimental psychologist Ethan Kross. (The book’s subtitle—“The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It”—reflects a slightly…
WHO CARES? – Feb. 4, 2021 – Can you be addicted to chocolate? Though this is still a controversial topic, a growing amount of research supports treating food addictions like other types of substance addictions. Addictive foods impact many of the same brain and nervous system pathways typically affected by drug addictions. They might also elicit behaviors similar to those caused by other addictions (4Trusted Source, 5Trusted Source, 7Trusted Source, 8Trusted Source). Thus, food addiction may occur when specific foods or nutrients repeatedly trigger your brain’s reward system. Some foods are believed to be more addictive than others. Highly processed…
WATCH – YET, THERE IS SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR – Feb. 4, 2021 – They say increased isolation and dwindling access to support has been a huge blow to those in recovery. “We have a pandemic within a pandemic happening,” Ryan-Gimenez said. In 2018, North Carolina’s opioid overdose rate dropped for the first time in 5 years. The pandemic has shattered that progress. “Suicides are up 1,000%, mental health calls are up 850%, overdoses are up 33%, alcohol sales are up 250 to 300%,” Ryan said. “Prescriptions for anti-anxiety meds, Xanax, sleeping pills are up 63%. There are not…
WATCH – REGULAR DUDE LOVES SOBRIETY – Feb. 4, 2021 – Addiction runs in his family, he said, he said before he knew it, he was following in the footsteps of those he’d watch struggle with their own addictions. Pete abused alcohol through high school and college. After graduating from the University of Richmond, which he attended on a football scholarship, he worked in public relations at USA Basketball and then in the NBA for the Charlotte Hornets and Philadelphia 76ers. Seven years later he was on the air, calling NBA Development League games. But the addiction followed him into…
WATCH – TOO MUCH EVERYTHING – Jan. 30, 2021 – Among the many romantic relationships featured in the film was one with a man who Williams said “ruined” her credit by renting cars on her credit cards without telling her. In the end, she ended up pregnant with his baby. “Our relationship, I mean if you could call it that, didn’t even last a year,” she said. “When it was all over, my credit was ruined — and I was growing his seed.” Ultimately, she decided to have an abortion. “I went alone and I went in secret,” she narrated…
FINALLY! – Feb. 1, 2021 – For Janie Gullickson, rock bottom came both slowly and all at once. A long time drug and alcohol addict, Gullickson pushes back on the idea that one terrible day on the street leads to an epiphany and a climb back to normalcy. That’s what happens in movies, not real life. “I lived in the bottom for years,” says Gullickson, now 52. “For me and people like me, I laid there and wallowed in it for a long time.” But if she has to pick the lowest point – one that lasted years, not days,…
ARE THE HORSES ON STRIKE? – Feb. 1, 2021 – She said they mostly appeared briefly, but one family books one of her other goats, Margaret, every Saturday morning for a longer catch-up. “They call her Marg and she is one of the family now,” she said. “They love to hear her news – from her first hot date to news that she is expecting.” She said her team had struggled to keep up with the number of calls, but the success had seen her buck the trend of furloughing staff and allowed her to keep her two employees on…
BOOZE APP, WHAT COULD GO WRONG? – Feb. 2, 2021 – Drizly will eventually integrate with the company’s Uber Eats app, but it will also maintain its own Drizly app, per the release. Drizly has been called the “Uber for alcohol delivery.” Feb. 2, 2021 – “By bringing Drizly into the Uber family, we can accelerate that trajectory by exposing Drizly to the Uber audience and expanding its geographic presence into our global footprint in the years ahead,” Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi said in the press release. The deal is expected to finalize by this summer, with more than 90%…
SOMETHING TO SCREAM ABOUT – Feb. 4, 2021 – “A LONG time ago … In a galaxy far, far away … I was a young STAR at WAR with herself,” she began. “I didn’t know it then. I chased everything. I kept it hidden. I was a sick as my secrets. With God’s grace and the support of MANY people who could relate to all the ‘feelings’ and a couple of sober angels … I’ve been able to stay sober, one day at a time, for 22 years.” Curtis, 62, said the picture she shared serves as a reminder of…
LISTEN – FORTY-NINE MORE STATES NEEDED – Feb. 5, 2021 – And on February 1, the new law, called the Drug Addiction Treatment and Recovery Act, went into effect. To help break down this act, Portland Monthly spoke with Ron Williams, outreach director at the Health Justice Recovery Alliance, the statewide advocacy coalition tasked with ensuring the new law is implemented. more@PDXMonthly