Use them all! – Sep. 19, 2020 – Some say that’s the hardest. It’s that period of uncertainty where the newly sober attempts to make all sorts of concessions concerning their hell-raising lifestyle and break lifelong habits that have historically led them to the bottom of a 12-pack and a night of drunken indiscretion. Nevertheless, I’ve managed to hold it down without falling off the wagon. I didn’t even scrape my knee trying to get on. How did I do it? Well, it certainly hasn’t been the easiest of challenges. But I’d like to think that the following five tricks…
Author: Leonard Buschel
Prison sounds too nice – Sept. 17, 2020 – The owner of several Houston substance abuse recovery facilities has been accused of sexual assaulting three women he met as patients, according to court records. During the press conference, Detective Baker expressed concern that there could be more victims that have not come forward. more@HoustonChronicle
Chemical Addiction – Sept. 19, 2020 – As such, public health experts argue ‘aerosol’ is a more accurate description, as e-cigarette clouds have been shown to contain harmful chemicals that may hang in the air and settle on nearby surfaces. The change in name might sound pedantic, but new research suggests it has a real impact on public policy and how individuals assess their risk of exposure from tobacco products. Comparing three terms for e-cig emissions among 791 college students, researchers found the word “vapour” was linked to a lower sense of risk from secondhand exposure. On the other hand,…
CNN WATCH! – Sep. 18, 2020 – Earl Moore is a recovering opioid addict who found peace and achieved sobriety after discovering his passsion for crafting instruments. Moore discovered the power of opioids to take that pain away while attending college at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. After a series of minor surgeries for ingrown toenails, Moore ended up with more than 400 pain pills in his medicine cabinet. “My friend came over and showed me that I could use these pills then to feel better, to study longer, to just have increased performance and it was great in…
Lighting up the virus – Sep. 19, 2020 – Study co-author Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, said people with addiction disorders often have compromised lungs and cardiovascular systems, which may contribute to their heightened susceptibility for COVID-19. “Another contributing factor is the marginalization of people with addiction, which makes it harder for them to access health care services,” she said in a news release from the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). Black people with a recent opioid use disorder diagnosis had more than four times the risk of COVID-19 than white people,…
“My alma mater was books, a good library … I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.” —Malcolm X
Real Life Hollywood Horror – September 16, 2020 – One death is a tragedy; two deaths are a pattern. As the strange events on North Laurel Avenue captured the attention of the national media, a shocking new detail came to light. It appeared that Buck was not a nobody. He was a Democratic Party “megadonor and political activist” (ABC News); a “prominent political activist” (NBC). He was “high-profile” (The New York Post); he was “high-powered” (Fox). Frustrated by the lack of response from law enforcement, the family of Gemmel Moore filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Buck, the county and the…
Sober Out Loud – Sept. 10, 2020 – “I see it everywhere,” she said of alcohol on social media and other online sites. “I actually had to stop listening to the podcasts that I really enjoyed because they normalize all of the heavy drinking by saying ‘we need to or we have no other choice.’ It’s just very scary for me.” Scary, because Hanson has called herself an alcoholic since she was 21 years old. Now she’s hoping to turn the social media tide a bit by bringing online attention to sobriety. Hanson, who grew up dancing and in musical…
Lives lost forever – Sept. 11, 2020 – Unwanted medications can sometimes end up in the wrong hands, which is a contributing factor to the opioid epidemic. “We usually have an annual candlelight vigil at Echo Lake for Overdose Awareness Day, but with social distancing, this was not possible this year. Instead, we did the display at town hall for Route 9 visibility, social media posts, and a Howell Township proclamation recognizing Aug. 31 as Overdose Awareness Day,” she said. The proclamation was read by Howell Mayor Theresa Berger during a recent Township Council meeting. Riddle noted that in…
Smoke gets in your lungs… – Sept. 4, 2020 – At one point, Mr. Moein said, his doctors gave him a 5 percent chance of survival. He resolved that the wax pen he had vaped before his hospitalization would be his last. When he contracted a mild case of Covid-19 during a family barbecue three months ago, he knew he had quit not a moment too soon. “If I had caught Covid-19 within the week before I got really ill, I probably would have died,” he said. ince the start of the pandemic, experts have warned that the coronavirus…
Talent and Tenacity – Sept. 8, 2020 – Ryan Ekmark used art as an outlet that helped him on his road to recovery and sobriety. He has since turned his wood art into a business named Recovered Calling. more@DallasNews
Laughing your way to sobriety – Sept. 8, 2020 – There are a number of ways to recover from the trauma of substance use disorder — including 12-step programs, medication, treatment centers and counseling. Rarely does one method work without the help of another, and of course, it’s never instant. With that in mind, humor also helps. Recovery meme accounts — often Instagram, Facebook or Twitter pages — poke fun at the horrors of addiction and the cliches that come along with it. The power of ‘gallows humor’ Kat, who runs the Junkee Brewster account, told In The Know that…
LISTEN – MEDIA: Book Review – Sept. 7, 2020 – Although this memoir follows Laura’s journey to sobriety, it’s not your typical addiction story. Laura has crafted a fearlessly honest presentation of her journey with grace and humility. She destroys the stereotypical image of an alcoholic. She’s an educated woman with a young daughter and a fancy career living in the city of her dreams. Despite these facts, and the normalization of drinking in all aspects of her life, she has lost herself in her addiction and it’s become a disaster. She unflinchingly describes her most vulnerable moments and the…
WATCH – A force for good… – Sept. 8, 2020 – “When it was time for me to graduate from law school, I passed the bar on the first try,” she told In The Know. “I moved back to the city, I got my apartment [and] had a job, but I just wasn’t used to having this nine-to-five.” Unsure of how to adjust to her new reality, Olagoke said her alcohol consumption increased following her graduation. That, in turn, led to a struggle with an addiction she initially had trouble recognizing. “I just wasn’t familiar with addiction,” she said,…
“Buy U A Drank” NOT – September 4, 2020 – People wanting to go sober in September this year may find it’s less popular due to the pandemic. The stress of 2020 have led to a spike in drinking; data released in July by Nielsen showed that in-store alcohol sales had increased by 54% and online alcohol purchases by 500% compared to 2019. If you feel like your quarantine drinking habitshave gotten out of hand, though, Sober September may offer a reset button. The idea of Sober September may have emerged in England with the charity Cancer Research UK, which…
Too many sunsets – Sept. 13, 2020 – Florida reported 5,621 overdose deaths, a 14% increase from January 2019 to January 2020, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And in parts of South Florida, early numbers suggest 2020 could be even worse. In Palm Beach County, overdose deaths are already 49% higher from January to August of this year than they were for the same period last year, according to records. At the current rate, the county could see nearly 200 more deaths in 2020 than there were in 2019. Palm Beach Fire Rescue said…
No one way? Or no any way? – Sept. 11, 2020 – Further still, when a life event, such as a death in the family, divorce, etc. demands real clinical care, they simply increase a patient’s dosage. The aforementioned population that constitutes a majority of the people getting opioid “treatment” in Colorado don’t actually see much of a quality of life improvement beyond the replacement of IV and street opioids. Though certainly getting off of recreational opioids is a major improvement, these individuals are no better prepared to find the sort of life one can achieve through evidence-based therapy, a…
Is there a chip for 8.8 months? – Sept. 10, 2020 – Shaun Weiss was arrested again at the beginning of the year over burglary charges and drug charges. He was placed in jail and The Mighty Ducks fan community rallied behind him. Free rehab was offered by many, including Lindsay Lohan’s father, Michael. Weiss’ good friend Drew Gallagher even set up a GoFundMe to help get him back on his feet. Weiss took people up on their offers and started a rehab program after serving his sentence where he has been since. more@MovieWeb
No, really? – Sept. 12, 2020 – The surge of painkiller abuse that started in the 1990s has long been linked to OxyContin, which launched in 1996. Unlike the original drug, the revamped version was found to limit abuse through snorting and injecting, though data from Purdue and others did not indicate the updated version overall led to a decline in abuse or overdoses, FDA experts said in nonbinding votes. Making them more difficult to crush and dissolve, Purdue representatives said Friday, signaled a “meaningful incremental improvement” over the drug’s predecessor. Like with many other drugs involved in opioid addictions,…
Does a bear hibernate in the woods? – July 8, 2019 – A brain-imaging study last year found the brain’s neural circuitry is alteredin young adults with cannabis dependence, especially for those who start in adolescence. “People with heavy cannabis use had abnormally high connectivity in brain regions important for reward processing and habit formation,” wrote the researchers, led by Peter Manza at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The findings were detailed in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. All human addictions point back to dopamine, a chemical that transmits information between the brain’s neurons.…
WATCH – Musical Interlude – Sept. 10, 2020 – YoungBoy – Never Broke Again – Drug Addiction more@YouTube
Foundation made of love – Sept. 10, 2020 – “It was a long journey. In the end, there’s a small amount of peace knowing he’s not in pain anymore,” Etheridge said Thursday on “Today.” “Of course, we miss him. My wife and my other three children, we come together, and we know he’s there in spirit. So, we do what we love, and we love each other and come together. You just do it one day at a time.” The singer established the Etheridge Foundation in June to support research into the causes of narcotics addiction. The foundation will hold…
Stick with the Winners! – Sept. 4, 2020 – LARA’s mission is to create Recovery Community Organizations in Spanish that will ultimately reduce health disparities among the Hispanic communities. Angelo Lagares has worked as an activist and leader in prevention in treatment services internationally. Since 1991, he has received extensive professional training and development throughout the years.He trained with Boston University Public Health and CASA in The Joined Together Program in 2009 until 2012, Introduction to Certified Addiction Professional at Palm Beach Community College in 2008, and Human Service Specialist at Boricua College in New York in 2004. He was…
WATCH – It’s M.A.T. or DIE says Wall Street Journal – Sept. 8, 2020 – When Covid-19 struck, the U.S. was already in the grip of an expanding drug-overdose crisis. It has only gotten worse since then. Counties in states spanning the country, from Washington to Arizona and Florida, are reporting rising drug fatalities this year, according to data collected by The Wall Street Journal. This follows a likely record number of deadly overdoses in the U.S. last year, with more than 72,000 people killed, according to federal projections. The pandemic has destabilized people trying to maintain sobriety or who…
Mad Man No More – Sept. 13, 2020 – The insider explains that booze “became a problem as he and Jen were going through their own issues” and “neither one cause the other, but they didn’t help either.” Though the outsider claims Jon Hamm’s rumored affair with his Mad Men costar January Jones put pressure on the marriage, Hamm didn’t cheat, saying … Gossip Cop thought one major detail stood out and you might have noticed it too. Where were the quotes from Jon Hamm? As the headline says, “Jon Tells All,” a reader would understandably expect to see some…
WATCH – British TV star tells it like it was – August 28, 2020 – Coronation Street’s Kevin Kennedy discusses his battle with addiction and explains the signs to look out for. more@Express
You got to have… – Sept. 6, 2020 – Then this year in July, he was spotted in public in Beverly Hills with a cigarette on his lip, shortly after his breakup with girlfriend Molly Hurwitz. The actor looked quite disheveled and under the weather and quite unlike how fans remember him, according to Mirror. The show that was responsible for his massive success along with the rest of the cast aired 26 years ago in 1994 and it’s natural to not look the same, Perry’s looks had started to alter way back in 2000, while the show was still…
Where everyone knows your first name only? – Sept. 8, 2020 – Texas began reopening its bars May 1, but instead of joining the many Texas bar owners packing customers in shoulder-to-shoulder, Marshall decided to pivot and find ways to share the Sans Bar experience in a virtual way—while creating a new revenue stream. “This is a space for wellness and community, and as much as we need community right now, we need wellness more,” Marshall says. Marshall, 37, is a member of a number of communities that are each experiencing unprecedented pressures right now: Black men. Small business…
Act your age, not your THC level – August 31, 2020 – The researchers said one of the reasons they embarked on the study was a concern that the effects of cannabis in older adults might be different from what younger people experience. Young adults ages 18 to 25 remain the biggest users of the drug in the U.S., with 38.7 percent reporting use in 2018, according to a government report. “Our colleague from Canada was thinking about the use of cannabis in nursing homes, as that has gone up,” Jesdale said. “There is very little evidence base on how…
Fortunes are at stake? – Sept. 8, 2020 – The opioid epidemic is not over. Even as Covid-19 rages, opioid-related deaths continue to devastate communities across our states. In New Hampshire, overdose deaths rose in April and May over last year’s levels. In the first four months of 2020, Rhode Island overdose deaths jumped 29% from the same period last year and 38% from the same period in 2018. Opioid addiction remains a persistent, lethal menace. We just learned a big reason why the opioid crisis was allowed to get so bad. The Guardian recently unearthed new details in the…