Growing Problem – November 21, 2019 – A recent study led by the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience in London, suggests that the number of people who experience eating disorders is growing, and skewing younger, with children as young as eight being diagnosed with an eating disorder. The American Psychiatric Association defines eating disorders as group of illnesses, “in which the people experience severe disturbances in their eating behaviors and related thoughts and emotions. The three eating disorders that are currently recognized by DSM-5 [Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, 5th edition] and are most typically diagnosed in…
Author: Leonard Buschel
Lock up your weed! – November 21, 2019 – Danny Conroy, co-founder of the 20-year-old AIM House group home in Boulder, attended the meeting to help Bosma answer questions. The AIM facility provides a sober living environment for people who have battled addiction or mental health issues. Bosma has yet to choose an operator for the facility if it is approved, but said he would consider Conroy if the AIM House leader had a desire to run it, as well as others who run similar group home programs in the area. A group home use is allowed by right in…
Gateway Dealer – Nov. 21, 2019 – The doctor allegedly issued prescriptions for opioids and other drugs without a “legitimate medical purpose.” Authorities say he also allegedly submitted bills to the government to pay for the prescriptions and other services. The FBI states that between January 2018 to May 2019, the doctor wrote prescriptions for oxycodone, hydrocodone, lorazepam and alprazolam “outside the usual course of professional practice.” According to authorities, he used fake diagnoses to write the prescriptions and falsified patients’ pain levels in their charts. He also “allegedly ignored the test results of certain patients, which repeatedly indicated the…
Harm Reduction = Death Reduction – NOVEMBER 20, 2019 – Drug overdoses led to the deaths of more than 70,000 people across the United States in 2017, and more than 68 percent of those deaths involved a prescription or illicit opioid drug. Community health centers, such as Ryan Health, care for the most vulnerable people who are dealing with drug abuse, just as they care for the most vulnerable people in general … “Primary care, or places where it’s easier to access that people go more often, you have a better chance of doing addiction treatment, because people are more…
Quiet – November 11, 2019 – She was born with a malformation in her pelvis that led to pain. Over the span of two decades, she underwent more than a dozen major surgeries, yet none of them gave her relief; each procedure left more scar tissue and nerve damage. “I felt desperate, “ Bobb says. “I didn’t feel like I had any control.” She couldn’t do basic things such as cook — or take care of her family. “I was completely debilitated,” Bobb says. “And when you get to that point, you can’t see beyond the pain — you’re…
Especially If You Don’t – Nov. 22, 2019 – The number of people who think e-cigarettes pose a similar danger to conventional cigarettes is rising in the US, according to a new survey published this week in JAMA. It found that the percentage of adults who said e-cigarettes are less harmful than combustible cigarettes dropped from 29 percent to 26 percent between 2017 and 2018. Meanwhile, the percentage who believe e-cigarettes are as harmful as cigarettes increased, from 36 percent to 43 percent, in the same period. There was also a rise in the number who believe vaping is more…
Best Share Ever – Nov. 24, 2019 – Eleven families in the juvenile court system will have one less thing to worry about this Thanksgiving after the Fearless Rock Underwater Memorial dive team donated full meals to each of them on Thursday. Dive team member Will Stevens said the project started when they heard the Kamo’s Kids Foundation raises money every year to provide meals to the families that participate in Helping Everyone Reach Our Sobriety, or H.E.R.O.S., juvenile drug treatment program. Stevens said they asked how much it costs to feed a family a Thanksgiving meal. Full Story @Sentinel-Record
One Mile at a Time – Nov. 23, 2019 – No more repeating an alcohol-fueled set of routines ad nauseam. No more consuming every meal out of a beer bottle, which he did to maintain his alcoholism while keeping off the 50 pounds he had recently dropped through Weight Watchers. No more being content with never really being present, either in body or mind, for his wife Jenn and young daughter Molly. “I just really got to a point where I realized I was not being the best version of myself,” said Donahue. “I feel like I wasn’t living my…
This is serious business – November 24, 2019 – “I did all kinds of things I’m not proud of,” says Lisa, a mother of two from the Houston, Texas-area who asked The Post not to use her last name for privacy reasons. The days between Black Friday and Dec. 25 make for an especially challenging time of year for people like Lisa who are compulsive shoppers. They’re believed to make up about 5 percent of the population, according to 2015 research that ran in the journal Addiction. “The addiction affects both men and women,” explains Terrence Shulman, founder and director…
Juul Jail? – Nov. 22 2019 – “I’m now ordering all law enforcement agencies to arrest everybody vaping in public because, like smoking, you contaminate people,” the president told reporters. He added that the use and importation of the e-cigarette devices would be banned, though he did not say when this would come into effect … “I will ban it, the use and the importation. I hope everybody is listening. Please relay this to them. You know why? Because it is toxic,” Duterte said. The president’s comments came just days after the after health authorities in the Philippines reported the…
Situations that use to baffle us… – NOVEMBER 19, 2019 – In a 2014 study in Psychological Science, researchers asked 75 participants to remember a time they felt grateful, a time they felt happy, or what they did on a usual day. The participants then made a series of choices between smaller, short-term rewards (i.e., receiving less money but sooner) or larger, long-term rewards (i.e., receiving more money later). For example, one question asked participants, “Would you rather receive $40 now or $55 62 days from now?” The researchers found that participants who had written about gratitude were more likely…
Hey bud! – November 21, 2019 – David Sloane of Fort Worth has been a member of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws since the 1980s. “I’m encouraged by all the baby steps were seeing.” Sloane said the bill would right a wrong. “All these people who have been arrested all this time over all these years disproportionately has affected not only people of color but people of lower socioeconomic status,” said Sloane. The bill would also allow doctors at the Veterans Administration to prescribe medical marijuana … Melissa Caldwell-Engle, a licensed professional counselor, though said she…
20 Years = 100 Tips – November 21, 2019 – In commemoration of her 20-year recovery journey, award-winning documentary filmmaker and founder of Reach Out Recovery Lindsey Glass is introducing her new book, “100 Tips for Growing Up,” the roadmap that set her on course for a healthier, happier life after dependency. The book is for anyone, anywhere, to use as a resource for empowerment from whatever emotional problems hold them back. “100 Tips for Growing Up” walks the reader through the colossal effort that went into Glass’s recovery. Glass shares her experiences to help others follow a path to…
With A Little Help From Their Friends – NOVEMBER 21, 2019 – Standing near his own self portrait, senior Keno Page reflected on what he included in his artwork. “My name [is] Keno, but like, a lot of people call me Ken and I play football for John Adams High School,” Page said. “I just put everything in the portrait that basically is me.” Page also participated in recording a song for his peers for the showcase, the lyrics of which were compiled from students’ writing. He said he hoped it inspired his peers and helped them feel less stressed. …
Finally! – Nov. 23, 2019 – Addicts are to be supplied with free heroin at the NHS’s first drug-assisted treatment centre in a “last resort” bid to combat the highest drug death rates in Europe. The drug addicts will get medical grade heroin to inject up to three a times a day supervised by NHS nurses and health experts at the Heroin Assisted Treatment” (HAT) centre in Glasgow, which will be unveiled this week. It was only allowed to go ahead after being granted a licence to supply diamorphine – a pure form of heroin – by the Home Office,…
Lights, Camera, Narcan? – Nov 23, 2019 – Bobby Brazell got hooked on booze and drugs. It was a way to avoid dealing with a terrible trauma. “It was drinking, then pot, then pain medication,” he recalled. “I developed a physical dependence (and) turned quickly to using heroin. In less than two months, I was an IV drug abuser.” Now Brazell is founder and executive director of Midlands Recovery Center in Lexington. These two men, along with Jonathan Myers, each with their stories of drug abuse, worked closely with 20-year-old Columbia-based filmmaker Zoe Miller on her short film “Ocean Boulevard.”…
Survey says… – Nov. 15, 2019 – When I drank before my sobriety, I had drank with the intention of getting drunk. I rarely cared about the quality of alcohol that I was consuming. Like any good alcoholic, I cared only about its cost and effectiveness. But now that I have been living a sober lifestyle it is uncomfortable enough being around people who are drinking alcohol. I look for an alcohol free drink to hold in my hand during conversation that can ease some of that discomfort. Drinking water becomes monotonous and boring, and most other drinks are too…
If Only We Could Trust the AMA – November 20, 2019 – “I would be 100% with the AMA if they were seeking a ban on all tobacco products that are smoked, including e-cigarettes,” said Jonathan Foulds, a tobacco addiction specialist at Penn State University. “But right now, nicotine electronic cigarettes are competing with and replacing the most harmful legal product in this country.” Gregory Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, a pro-vaping advocacy group, said the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has made clear that its focus “is not store-bought nicotine vaping products, but illicit contaminated THC…
AMERICAN HEARTACHE – WHY? – OCTOBER 22, 2019 – Meanwhile, homicide ranked as the third most common cause of death for teens aged 15-19 and adults aged 20-24, and the fifth most common cause for children aged 10-14. “After a stable period from 2000 to 2007, suicide rates for persons aged 10-24 increased from 2007 to 2017, while homicide rates increased from 2014 to 2017,” the report explains. “The pace of increase for suicide was greater from 2013 to 2017 (7 percent annually, on average) than from 2007 to 2013 (3 percent annually).” Although it declined from 2000 to 2007,…
It Didn’t Write Itself – OCT. 23, 2019- The “Big Book,” as it’s commonly known, is arguably the most significant self-help book published in the twentieth century. Released in 1939, it has sold an estimated 37 million copies, been translated into seventy languages, and spawned numerous recovery communities around the world while remaining a vibrant plan for recovery from addiction in all its forms for millions of people. Full Story @KPCW
People Refilling Them? – November 24, 2019 – As previously reported here and here, there is no correlation between opioid prescription volume and non-medical use or opioid use disorder among persons age 12 and over. But policymakers and law enforcement continue to pressure health care practitioners into undertreating patients in pain. At a recent international breast cancer conference experts stated the under-prescribing of opioids to breast cancer patients in the U.S. is now comparable to treatment in third world countries … Recently the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a written clarification, stated that policymakers and legislators are misapplying…
Bottom Line Hits Rock Bottom – Nov. 22, 2019 – Fahy initially tried to get inpatient treatment for his addiction to opioids, cocaine, and alcohol at two different facilities in New Jersey. But his health plan administrator, Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield, and its behavioral health benefits manager, Beacon Health Options, repeatedly denied his claims. Fahy’s family, after a desperate search, found treatment that was covered in Florida.O’Reilly said none of it would have happened if Horizon and Beacon approved inpatient treatment in New Jersey, instead of pushing Fahy to Florida. “You can’t be yanked out of this place…
CSI – Vermont – November 21, 2019 – At first blush, it made no sense. Two young men, cousins, as privileged and connected as you can be in a place this size, dead within hours and 25 miles of each other. But this is a small place that has experienced big problems at that intersection of drugs and madness, and many people intuitively knew this was that intersection. With the gunfire over and the shooter dead, Brian Kilcullen, the city’s police chief, was trying to seal off the crime scene that his own station had become, and to reassure his…
Selling Addiction – Nov. 24, 2019 – From the beginning, there was plenty of evidence of teenage use on social media that should have been apparent to a company that had made social media the core of its marketing strategy. A sampling of tweets from Juul’s first 18 months of sales showed that juuling had quickly become a fad among high school students, long before the company acknowledged that there was a problem. “petition to make our school mascot a juul,” said one tweet in December 2015. “horizon highschool, where every1 is juuling in the bathroom,” said another in January…
Staying In The Ring – Nov 20, 2019 – As someone with my own addiction and recovery story, please allow me to welcome The Foxy One to the fellowship. She’s asked for help and is now doing something to help others who may be going through what she’s been through. Those two things were instrumental for me, and many of my sober friends and acquaintances. They’re a great start for Alicia on a not-always-easy but always-worth-it journey. Keep a good thought for her. And if you’re struggling with addiction, reach out (somewhere like here). You don’t have to do it…
“To see we must forget the name of the thing we are looking at.” —Claude Monet
Joy to the World – November 16, 2019 – So, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glorify to your Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Gratitude enlarges the heart and allows even more goodness to enter, and it can help you to create the life of your dreams. When an attitude of gratitude becomes a habit, you’ll recognize that your days are filled with infinite possibilities. And, similar to the mother in this story, you will be a power for good … Yet, perhaps, you’ve been floundering. You are…
Televised 5th Step? – November 15, 2019 – There was just one problem: “I knew I had a drinking problem,” he recalls. “My life was falling apart. I started getting into drugs on top of the drinking. I mean, I was sinking very quickly.” … One Saturday, after a day of drinking, Dunlap came home to a note waiting for him on the couch. His wife of four years had left him, and Dunlap knew that this time, it was for good … “I had a decision to make,” he says. “I could grab that 357 on the couch and…
THE ART OF PEACE – Nov. 10, 2019 – Harry Kavadas, 59, a U.S. Army veteran, gets instruction from Sarah Hellmann, director and founder of ‘Art for All People’, who teaches a painting class each week for residents of Joseph House in Over-the-Rhine. The veterans only house supports men battling addiction. Through the art class, these men have a chance to paint their addiction. Kavadas said he started with a circle and it turned into two sides of a face. One side crying due to the addiction and the other side happy because he was clean. Daryl Hampton 57, a…
Sound Familiar? – Nov. 11, 2019 – The biting cold hits the people who come out of the Moscow subway this evening. It is a 45-minute ride from the city center to Marino, the most populated district of the Russian capital. There seems to be no end to the communist-era apartment buildings. A minibus is parked not far from the subway station. It bears the acronym ARF, for the Andrey Rylkov Foundation for Health and Social Justice. A man hobbles towards it. There are several boxes of syringes, medicines and disinfectant. “Vanya!” says the social worker, Maxim. “What’s up?” Vanya…