At the Helm – Jan. 22, 2019 – “I am excited about the future of Southworth Associates and feel deeply honored John entrusted me to carry on his name and vision. I know the name John Southworth is synonymous with interventions, but his other passion was bringing better outcomes to the treatment field. He wanted to see the unmatched success rates we see with our recovering professionals translate to any person seeking recovery. Full Story @ PRNewswire.com
Author: Leonard Buschel
Government Population Control? – Jan. 24, 2019 – “I think that the FDA has learned nothing. The modus operandi of the agency is that they talk a good game and then nothing happens. Working directly with the agency for the last five years, as I sit and listen to them in meetings, all I can think about is the clock ticking and how many people are dying every moment that they’re not doing anything,” he said. “The lack of insight that continues to be exhibited by the agency is in many ways a willful blindness that borders on the criminal.”…
It’s OK at Costco, if you have 100 cans – Jan. 12, 2019 – Officers responded to a call around 9 a.m. about a suspicious person in the store’s parking lot, the Times Record News reported. Investigators found the woman at a nearby restaurant and told her she was banned from the Walmart. The caller said the woman had been riding around the store’s parking lot since 6:30 a.m., drinking wine from the potato chip can. Full Story @ AJC.com
No Meds, No Treatment, No Hope? – Jan. 13, 2019 – But unlike the opioid epidemic — for which medications exist to help combat addiction — medical providers have few such tools to help methamphetamine users survive and recover. A drug such as naloxone, which can reverse an opioid overdose, does not exist for meth. And there are no drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration that can treat a meth addiction. “We’re realizing that we don’t have everything we might wish we had to address these different kinds of drugs,” said Dr. Margaret Jarvis, a psychiatrist and distinguished…
Contagious? or Not? – Jan. 9, 2019 – Drug addiction is an intergenerational disease, just as prevalent in the family tree as cancer or diabetes. In fact, studies found that animals exposed to prenatal stress tend to exhibit the same signs as seen in addiction and are more likely to self-medicate when given access. Addiction is a serious brain disease that targets the “opioid attachment-reward system, the dopamine-based incentive-motivation apparatus and the self-regulation areas of the prefrontal cortex.” Essentially it hijacks the very parts of our brain responsible for goal-setting and motivation… Full Story @ BaltimoreSun.com
Go For It – JAN 19, 2019 -How many of you think we should do liver transplants for alcoholics?” About half the hands were slowly raised, while the other members of the class looked around nervously. These were third-year medical students, and I was giving my monthly lecture on organ transplantation. “How many of you think the potential recipient should have six months of absolute sobriety before being offered a transplant? … eneman doesn’t remember a specific time when he suddenly increased his drinking. He doesn’t remember a dramatic liftoff. Alcohol just slowly started to permeate everything he did. He…
ANTI-ADDICTION ADVOCACY – Jan. 2019 – Center on Addiction was founded in 1992 by Joseph A. Califano, Jr., former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare in the Carter administration and Chief Domestic Advisor to former President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was created to focus on addiction and substance use rather than any particular substance. Califano organized under one roof the skills needed to assess the impact of all substances in all sectors of society… Full Story @ CenterOnAddiction.org
Population Control? – January 18, 2019 – Researchers used three measures of opioid marketing: number of payments to doctors, marketing value in dollars, and number of physicians receiving marketing. The analysis found all three measures were significantly associated with increased opioid overdose deaths. The mediating factor between marketing and overdose deaths is that more prescriptions are written when doctors receive more marketing, a finding that has been widely supported by previous research. This study went a step further, said lead author Dr. Scott Hadland, a pediatrician and addiction medicine specialist at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine,…
Please Use One – JANUARY 19, 2019 – During the first stage of the study, each participant received 10 fentanyl test strips, which work like an over-the-counter pregnancy test. A single-use strip is dipped into water containing a bit of drug residue (before drug use) or urine (after drug use) and either one or two red lines quickly appear—one line means the liquid contains fentanyl, and two lines means the test did not detect the drug. The strips cost about $1 each and are beginning to be distributed by harm reduction organizations in the United States. Full Story @ MedicalXpress.com
Collateral Damage – Jan. 20, 2019 – Authorities said it appeared King had rolled over onto the boy and suffocated him. He was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. The mother has been charged with endangering the welfare of child and is currently being held in Burlington County Jail. Full Story @ NJ.com
Live To Get High To Live? – 01/20/2019 – “There has never been a system that demands quality of care for treatment of substance use disorders,” said Nora Volkow, the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, which has collaborated with advocacy groups on treatment quality. “Programs have not had any incentive to actually change their practices or improve what they are doing.” Even centers that do offer state-of-the-art treatment — and have accreditations and licenses — have many patients who relapse. Noting that about 50 percent of patients relapse even when they are getting medication-assisted treatment, researchers stress…
No More Inhaling – January 20, 2019 – “He went from being a straight-A student to an F student,” Luka’s mother, Kelly Kinard, said. “(It was) a very rapid decline in grades. His behavior became explosive. He was very angry and it just wasn’t him.” The teen quit all of his old hobbies, from fishing to boy scouts, and spent all his free time in his room vaping. Full Story @ Inquisitr.com
Like Drug Free Magic – Jan. 20, 2019 – For their recent study, Hoeppner and her team surveyed 531 adults who self-described themselves as seeking or being in recovery from problematic substance use. The participants for this study were recruited from recovery-focused websites. The randomized online survey taken by each person in this study consisted of written positive psychology exercises and two other written control exercises that each took about four minutes. Full Story @ PsychologyToday.com
Helping the Helper – JANUARY 17, 2019 -”When I met her, I said, ‘Over my dead body, you’re not going to be on the street, don’t worry.’ She cried, and I told her ‘I’ll take you under my wing, don’t worry,’” Biton-Jackson said. Biton-Jackson took her in, bought her clothes and fed her until she could get back on her feet. Queen now has her very first apartment, thanks to Biton-Jackson’s help. Now, Biton-Jackson is in some hot water of her own, and Queen is trying to return the favor. “She had bought a house in the city, and she…
Better Needles – January 18th 2019 – Derek Johnson, a licensed acupuncturist with UC Medical Center, says that acupuncture therapy uses tiny needles which are placed into pressure points to promote the body’s own healing. “It is triggering the body’s healing responses,” said Johnson. “The body is able to improve, to a certain extent, from just about everything given enough time, resources and support so acupuncture will stimulate that and speed it up.” Johnson also says that people are finding that their own results are similar to findings in a 2016 study published by the National Institute of Health. Full…
Doses Are Too High – January 16, 2019 – “Everyone wants a simple answer about why this is happening, but it just doesn’t exist,” said Dr. Michael Genovese, a clinical psychiatrist and chief medical officer at Acadia Healthcare, “There is much more expected of women in the workplace and at home,” Genovese said. “They feel like they need to be all things to all people. It’s not surprising that mental health issues like addiction are on the rise among women given the additional stressors they face and the current societal norms.” Full Story @ Healthline.com
Marketing Death/Smoking Gun – Jan. 18, 2019 – A new study offers some of the strongest evidence yet of the connection between the marketing of opioids to doctors and the nation’s addiction epidemic. The authors, from Boston Medical Center and New York University School of Medicine, found that counties where doctors received more industry marketing subsequently saw an increase in both the number of opioids prescribed and opioid-related overdose deaths. Full Story @ NYTimes.com
Missing the Mark – January 16, 2019 – Researchers interviewed teachers who had been on long-term sick due to mental health problems, as well as school leaders who had experience of dealing with mental health problems among staff… Many said the focus on targets and results was altering the role of teachers and getting in the way of their relationship with pupils, according to the study, published today in Educational Review. Many also said they felt they were under constant pressure to perform to unrealistic expectations… Full Story @ Forbes.com
Good News – JANUARY 20, 2019 – Mulaney mentioned on Saturday night that he wanted to show Davidson—who briefly left S.N.L. in 2017 to get sober—how to have some substance-free fun. Though Mulaney hasn’t made his past struggles with alcohol a central aspect of his comedy, he did have a lengthy bit in 2009’s “The Top Part” about getting black-out drunk and combining the prescription drug Ambien with daiquiris. According to that bit, Mulaney started drinking at the age of 13. In 2014’s “New in Town,” Mulaney acknowledged that he’s an unlikely poster boy for substance abuse: “I don’t drink.…
Detained in the UK – January 17, 2017 – The problem has become more acute as demand for care home places rises. There are around 300,000 people over 65 in residential care in the UK; many suffer from dementia. Restrictions on liberty are also sometimes imposed on those with mental health conditions and those being cared for at home. Barbara Keeley MP, Labour’s spokesperson on mental health and social care, “It is reckless that this vital bill has been rushed through parliament without proper consultation by a government more interested in cost-cutting than safeguarding the human rights of vulnerable people…
Model of Moderation – January 18, 2019 – ‘Kate is like a new woman and a much better version of herself. She is focused, professional and glowing with health…’Everyone is amazed at how well she has done in not drinking for a whole year, considering what she used to be like…’But she has found it easier as time has gone on — and when you see her she is actually more chatty and confident as she doesn’t have that fake confidence that drinking gives you.’ Full Story @ DailyMail.co.uk
No Unagi for Me – Jan. 20, 2019 – They found the fish “appeared hyperactive” compared to eels kept in cocaine free waters. While the powder may be increasingly popular with the country’s elite – an estimated 3.64% of the highest income bracket in a Home Office study taking the drug in 2017/18, up from 2.2% in 2014/15 – fish are probably not such big fans. The Naples researchers found the drug accumulated in the brain, muscles, gills, skin and other tissues of the cocaine-exposed eels. The eels’ skeletal muscle showed evidence of serious injury, including breakdown and swelling, which…
Music of the Spheres – Jan. 15, 2019 – In the modern pop-culture tradition, being a musician has often come with a series of default lifestyle expectations, ones of indulgence and recklessness, larger-than-life living, and a diligent pursuit of altered forms of consciousness. Some see these expectations as having played a part in what happened to them, though most ultimately see their decisions and actions as also—if not mainly—a matter of their own psychology and personality and predisposition. Some delight in a dark humor about their earlier excesses; others talk in a way that suggests that to dwell on these…
Acting As If – January 18, 2019 – A: I think, for me, my emotional ups and downs were becoming so extreme that I was not recognizable to myself. My downward spiral started around when I was 30, which was a time of discovery. It was life lessons that I needed to learn, and I should have learned when I was young. But I was so scared, I was so controlling when I was in my 20s that I never allowed myself to experience anything. When I hit my 30s, I thought, I’m an adult and I need some life…
Deep Drama – Jan. 19, 2019 – Ant McPartlin breaks silence on drink drive arrest to The Sun and reveals how new lover Anne Marie Corbett saved his life in world exclusive interview Ant McPartlin weighs in on ‘girl code’ row between ex Lisa Armstrong and new lover Anne Marie Corbett and reveals he doesn’t speak to former wife Ant McPartlin reveals he and ex Lisa Armstrong just ‘want the best for beloved dog Hurley’ as they fight over his custody Ant McPartlin on how he feared he’d injured his mum as star relives horrific drink drive crash that ‘brought…
Reality Damage – Jan. 14, 2019,- “Most people would likely assume that one or two uses (joints) would have no impact, so we were curious to study this — and especially to investigate if first uses may actually produce brain changes that affect future behavior like subsequent use,” Hugh Garavan, lead author of the study and a professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont School of Medicine, said in an email to NBC News. The study did not say what the increased brain matter volume means, but the researchers noted that the enlargement of gray matter contradicts normal adolescent…
Money Over Lives – Jan. 14, 2019 – According to a Palm Beach Gardens Police report dated last Wednesday, Mylett was the co-owner of Reliance Treatment Center, a licensed substance abuse center on U.S. 1 in North Palm Beach … The county’s Sober Homes Task Force had arrested Alexander Vandervert in December 2016 on patient-brokering charges connected to the Saje House, a sober home Vandervert owned. Vandervert later told investigators he received kickbacks of $375 to $400 for each patient he referred to Reliance. Investigators listed 29 checks totaling $54,286. They also listed a $1,275 check that might have been…
American Terrorists Killing Our Youth – January 16, 2019 – The two physicians and several others, who became Purdue’s most frequent prescribers in Massachusetts, eventually lost their licenses but not before authorizing hundreds of thousands of pills each. At least three of the physicians lost patients to an overdose death. In 2013, according to the memorandum, staff told the Sacklers that drug overdose deaths had tripled since 1990, while OxyContin had become the top-selling painkiller in the country. The complaint alleges “staff told the Sacklers that tens of thousands of deaths were only the ‘tip of the iceberg.’ … [F]or…
Snakes on a Plane – Jan. 9, 2019 – Jackson also recalls another night when was smoking crack and spotted another actor he greatly admired — Jessica Lange. She was taking a smoke break while working on A Streetcar Named Desire. Just a few years later, the pair were co-starring in Losing Isaiah.Jackson hit rock bottom when his wife and daughter discovered him facedown on the kitchen one day. They maintained he go to rehab and he agreed. Though, while sobering up, he was sent a script from Spike Lee. The already famous director wanted Jackson to act as a…
Money Gets People to Die – January 10, 2019 – Michael Babich, the former CEO at Insys Therapeutics, pleaded guilty in federal court in Boston on Wednesday for his role in a nationwide scheme to bribe physicians to prescribe the company’s oral-spray painkillers meant for cancer patients facing extreme pain. “It is very important that companies like Insys be held responsible for corrupting the medical community, as well as endangering and sometimes killing innocent patients,” said attorney Mike Moore, who’s leading some efforts to sue pharmaceutical companies two decades after securing a massive settlement against tobacco companies. Moore, the former…