Made a Decision… – Feb 26, 2020 – “I am speaking for probably I would say every woman in this industry that your image and your weight is up for conversation, and it’s just uncomfortable,” she said. ”It’s hard enough being a woman. I’m sure a lot of us develop extreme insecurities and disordered eating and really unhealthy thinking about ourselves.” Because her music wasn’t being released, JoJo said she turned to other outlets for affirmation. “I felt that how I was must have been not enough, must have been dissatisfying,” she said. “I started getting really (expletive) up, drinking,…
Author: Leonard Buschel
Everyone Can Use Some More Love – FEBRUARY 28, 2020 – Elle, who plays Violet Markey, has actually been involved with the project for years (she’s also a producer on the film). She first read the book by Jennifer Niven at 14 (she’s 21 now) and related to the emotions in the story, eventually filming the adaptation a year and a half ago. The novel follows Violet, a teenager who is reeling from the loss of her sister, who died in a car accident both girls were involved in. After her classmate Theodore Finch (Justice) stops Violet from attempting suicide,…
Still in the black – February 26, 2020 – In January 2009, Victor Borelli, a Mallinckrodt salesman, exchanged emails with Steve Cochrane, who worked at drug distributor KeySource. “Keep them coming,” Cochrane wrote. “Flying out of here. It’s like people are addicted to these things or something. Oh, wait, people are.” Borelli responded: “Just like Doritos. Keep eating, we’ll make more.” After the comment become public, the company disavowed it, calling it “callous.” Borelli said that as a reward for sales, he got bonuses ranging from $101,000 to $119,000 from 2008 through 2010, and that he twice received the company’s…
Ultimate Harm Reduction – February 22, 2020 – “It breaks the cycle of people revolving through emergency shelters, through jails, though hospitals,” Dr. Bernie Pauly, scientist with the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research and professor in the University of Victoria School of Nursing, told CTV News. Pauly is part of a nationwide study now evaluating the effectiveness of these facilities, but previous studies show MAP participants had fewer hospital visits, detox episodes and fewer arrests after joining MAP. These programs began in Toronto more than 20 years ago to prevent people from freezing to death on the streets. Today,…
Sometimes, bad things happen – February 23, 2020 – Adam H. Weintraub, one of plaintiffs’ attorneys, said that as far as he knows this suit, filed in Superior Court in Los Angeles Jan. 31, is the first personal-injury lawsuit involving Vivitrol, the newest of three medications to treat opioid addiction. The legal action brings an ironic twist to the debate over the role of pharmaceutical companies in the opioid crisis, said Leo Beletsky, a Northeastern University professor of law and health sciences. Multiple lawsuits have blamed the explosion of opioid-related deaths on the marketing practices of painkiller manufacturers such as…
Sober Victory – Feb. 28, 2020 – Bobby Ryan. Hockey player. Takes a leave in November to get treatment for alcoholism. Has been sober 100 days. His first game back with the @Senators was tonight. He scores a hat trick (3 goals). This is him on the bench after his 3rd goal. Just wow! @Today
Depends on your sponsor… – Feb. 27, 2020 – The harms are in two basic buckets. There are the acute harms of alcohol because of what it does to our judgment and our cognition. Then there are the longitudinal harms because of what it does to our organ system. Alcohol tolerance isn’t just a weight thing? No. Even matched for size, men can tolerate more alcohol than women. And then there are significant ethnic variations. Famously a lot of ethnic Asians have a very low tolerance for alcohol, which simply means they have low levels of alcohol dehydrogenase. So how…
Not All Awards Are Gold – Feb. 27, 2020 – At the end of January, Jessica Simpson sat down with Hoda Kotb and revealed that she struggled with alcohol abuse in the past, even admitting that she was drunk during an interview with Ellen DeGeneres in 2017. Still, that “weak moment” wasn’t her rock bottom. That Halloween she filled her sparkly cup “to the rim with alcohol” at 7 a.m. and drank continuously throughout the day. “I was just dazed and confused and I just wanted to go to sleep,” she told Hoda. “I didn’t take (my kids) trick or…
“Figure out who you are—then do it on purpose.”—Dolly Parton
It Can Happen To Anyone – Feb. 24, 2020 – Taylor’s decision to drop out of the Republican primary in Arizona’s 1st Congressional District was first reported by The Arizona Republic and the Gila Herald. Taylor, a married father of two who served two combat tours in Afghanistan, had struggled with opioid addiction in the past. His campaign website says he founded a nonprofit in 2014 called Desert Eagle Addiction Recovery “dedicated to helping individuals, especially fellow combat veterans, suffering from drug addiction.” A report by the National Bureau of Economic Research last year found that exposure to combat puts…
Send to NA or Treatment – Feb. 18, 2020 – Addiction may be grounds for getting fired, but in the end, that may hurt not only the employee but the business. It’s not an easy decision for business owners. Do you keep an employee with an opioid addiction? There are obvious reasons to answer no, but Pathway Healthcare, an addiction care center in multiple states, says employers could save money by helping that employee and then keeping them employed. @ABC27
Please Hurry! – February 17, 2020 – “When you look at homelessness, one of the pieces is drug addiction, and it needs to be tackled and addressed with intensity,” Carlos Baldovinos, the executive director of the Mission at Kern County, said. The Kern County point in time count from January 2019 found that 51% of the individuals surveyed reported being addicted to drugs. If they decided to seek treatment, they could have to wait weeks to get it. That’s because California’s MediCal insurance funds medication, but does not provide reimbursement for hospital providers, Bakersfield Mayor Karen Goh…
Smart people drink these? – February 19, 2020 – “Diet soda can alter your gut microbiota, which can have negative impacts on digestion and hormone regulation,” says Oh. More research is needed to understand exactly which artificial sweeteners affect gut bacteria and how. So far, preliminary studies have found that saccharin, sucralose, and stevia may alter the bacteria in your gut, though it’s unclear what impact this may have on your health. Kidney damage: “Long-term consumption of diet soda can increase production of free radicals in renal tissues, potentially causing damage to the kidneys,” says Oh. Additionally, a 2017 study…
We Can All Punch In – February 19, 2020 – He wrote: “I post this not as a pat on the back for myself. Rather, this is for you. To those who have less time than my two years – keep putting one foot in front of the other. We share the same path. And to those of you who have more sobriety time than I do – thank you for showing me the rewards that come with sobriety. We share the same path. And, for those of you who may be thinking of getting sober – We ALL…
MEDIA: Book Recommendation – FEBRUARY 19, 2020 – Tessa and I met toward the end of my stay in rehab. She’d been attending their intensive outpatient program. She was five years old than me, a rock ‘n’ roll girl through and through, with long dark hair, and a cool vibe, like she just stepped off Led Zeppelin’s tour bus in the midseventies. She worked for a record label, and her boss sent her to treatment when he noticed that she was spinning out on alcohol and cocaine. She was my first real friend in sobriety. The tall, skinny guy had…
Everyone was in on it – February 19, 2020 – Subsequently, Faulhaber has suffered from an array of bodily and mental damages, the suit continues, including “severe” discomfort and pain, functional disabilities, memory loss, emotional distress and loss of enjoyment of life. His wife is also seeking damages upwards of $50,000 for the pain and suffering she’s endured on account of her husband’s addiction. Neither staff at the Pain Management Center nor the attorney representing Walgreens in the case, Brian Wood, returned calls for comment. However, Wood filed a motion in Ramsey County District Court shortly after the suit was…
MEDIA: Whacked Non-Fiction – Feb. 11, 2020 – It remains a bit of a mystery how the 28-year-old Peres, who was working as a correspondent in Paris, got the head job at a major Condé Nast title, and an even bigger mystery how he kept that job for 15 years. By his own admission, he was largely uninterested in fashion, fitness, night life, music, sex or celebrities other than David Copperfield — the magazine’s staple topics. And soon after he got the job, in 2000, he was zonked on a dose of 60 Vicodins a day. (“Man, that would explain…
Not Recommended! – Feb. 21, 2020 – A trip can sometimes last 12 hoursor more, pumping up heart rate, intensifying colors and sounds, and altering the perception of time. Because the LSD molecule, which mimics serotonin, has a “lid” that locks into serotonin receptors, it can remain there for hours. This is how low concentrations of the drug can be so potent. Because of this sensitivity, it can be easy to overdose on LSD. But what happens when people take extreme amounts of LSD? This is the subject of a new report co-authored by Mark Haden, the executive director of…
No Joke – Feb. 22, 2020 – If you said yes to any of these questions, you, or someone you know, might be suffering from food addiction. What’s food addiction? It’s an addiction to junk food that’s as strong as drug addiction and as damaging, if not more. Like any addiction, food addiction can kill you prematurely by causing obesity, heart disease, high cholesterol and a range of lifestyle disorders… and if it doesn’t kill you, it makes you miserable by taking from you slowly till you’re left a shell of your former self. On this podcast, I document my…
Healing Headquarters – Feb. 20, 2020 – “We decided to sign up. We said, ‘Oh, heck — why not? What are we doing? We’re not doing much. Sure, we’ll do it,’” Collins recalled. “That started this journey.” That journey started last March, and just about a year later, it’s finally taking flight. It means a lot to these women who have experienced tough pasts with substance abuse. “When you do bad stuff your whole life, the scales tip,” Anderson, the CEO of Pir2Peer and a former heroin addict in San Francisco, explained. “You can’t undo any of the bad stuff,…
Spoiler Alert – He Dies – February 24, 2020 – “He was just this really sweet, no-nonsense person who was committed to justice and equity,” she says. “Even though he was suffering in many ways, he had a very calming presence.” People close to Beeler describe him as a “blue collar guy” who liked motorcycles and home carpentry, someone who was gentle and endlessly curious. Those qualities could sometimes hide his own struggle with anxiety and depression. Over the next year, Beeler’s other struggle, with opioid addiction, would flicker around the edges of their life together. Eventually, it killed him.…
Sober To The Core – February 22, 2020 – The actor spoke openly about his family’s history with addiction and said that five years from now, he hopes people will say that he’s “sober and happy” and seeing his kids regularly. @YahooNews
Black Words Matter – February 19, 2020 – After 13 trips to detox and an equal number of arrests, Kearse “hit rock bottom” on the roof of his mother’s house in a failed suicide attempt. Today Kearse is Vice President of Recovery Services and Community Partnerships at Samaritan Daytop Village, the Briarwood headquarters of one of New York’s largest health and human services non-profit organizations. “I was a full-blown knucklehead, I think that would adequately describe me,” Kearse said. “I was going through a constant revolving door of getting released from prison and going back to my community a high…
Steps, Stock Markets and Meds – Feb. 20, 2020 – For the addicts of drugs like opioids, the addiction initiates with receiving medications with relatives & friends who have been prescribed with medications or with the exposure to prescribed medications. The risk associated with the drug and how fast an individual gets addicted differs according to the drug being taken. The severity of the condition is observable from the fact that, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in the U.S., approximately 21.7 million individuals or 8.1%…
Siri, I can’t quit you – February 18, 2020 – Grey matter in the brain is vital, as it contains a majority of neuronal cell bodies and includes the regions that are associated with muscle control, speech, and seeing and hearing. It also has a strong effect on one’s mental wellbeing, housing the areas that are in charge of emotion, memory, decision making, and self-control. “This study provides first evidence for distinct structural and functional correlates of behavioral addiction in individuals meeting psychometric criteria for SPA,” the paper, published in Science Direct, notes. The experiment, conducted at Heidelberg University in…
So Open – February 21, 2020 – “I’m sorry to everyone whom I called ugly on Twitter,” Bynes said. “I was feeling so ugly at the time and it was really hard for me to express myself at the time because I was so drugged out, and now I’ve remained sober for over a year—same with Paul.” In 2013, Bynes went on something of a Twitter rampage. She caught heat for posting a photo of Jay-Z accompanied by the caption “Ugly face,” before going on to label her ex Kid Cudi the same. And, in May, Bynes famously railed into…
She lost her baby to a bagel – February 19, 2020 – This policy, known as universal screening, proactively screens all new mothers regardless of whether drug use is suspected. Those who favor universal screening argue that its alternative, risk-based screening may lead to unfair targeting of low-income women. In states such as Iowa and Minnesota, drug testing is required by law if there is suspected drug use during pregnancy. But drug testing is not a solution for parental substance abuse; it is simply a test confirming…
Addition is Addiction – February 18, 2020 – “I think when you have certain people around you that are telling you certain things that you should look a certain way, it makes it harder,” she says. “I was in that situation, and I was just running myself into the ground. I honestly think that’s kind of what led to everything happening over the past year was just me thinking I found recovery when I didn’t, and then living this kind of lie and trying to tell the world I was happy with myself when I really wasn’t.” @Click2Houston
Reality In Your Face – February 20, 2020 – We are honored that they would step forth and share their stories with the community and trust us to be a part of this work,” said Jennifer Muggeo, deputy director of the Ledge Light Health District. A professional photographer, Fred Hartman, volunteered his time to take the portraits. “Photographing these volunteers gave me opportunity to put faces on individuals in the recovery process,” Hartman wrote in a press release. The exhibit is on display in the concourse at the State Capitol through the end of the month. The portraits will then…
AA’s First Commercial – Feb. 21, 2020 – Alcoholics Anonymous is an international fellowship of people who have had a drinking problem. It is nonprofessional, self-supporting, no cost, all gender, apolitical and available almost everywhere. There are no age or education requirements. Membership is open to anyone who wants to do something about their drinking problem. We are alcoholics helping other alcoholics recover. For more information, contact the Public Information Desk at the General Service Office at [email protected] or call (212) 870-3119 @BusinessWire