Ace-ing His Recovery – December 16, 2018 – Ace Frehley revealed that non-sobriety was a contributing factor to the dismissal of his solo band … Frehley, who struggled with addiction issues during and after his time with Kiss, before finally resolving them, admitted he’d put his former colleagues “through hell” and that he now had no time for people who hadn’t learned the lesson he’d finally grasped. I mean, today I have no tolerance for being around drunk people. Full Story @ UltimateClassicRock.com
Author: Leonard Buschel
Pizza Gallery – Dec. 29, 208 – In the research, 500 participants were surveyed on their food cravings. During the study, meals containing cheese were the most sought-after, owing to the amount of dairy found in the dish. The dishes, including pizza, ranked highly due to high levels of casein, which triggered the participants’ brain opiod receptors to offer a similar reaction to that of drug addiction. Full Story @ MensHealth.com
Sweet Jesus – December 26, 2018 – It’s not the only disease that’s reared its ugly head in recent decades. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease – a buildup of extra fat in liver cells, which can lead to cirrhosis, or scarring of liver tissue – wasn’t even a known diagnostic entity 30 years ago. Now almost one-third of U.S. adults have it. The disease is on track to become the leading cause of liver transplantation within five years. And doctors are treating the first generation of kids with fatty livers. Full Story @ UCSF.edu
Buying Your Way Out – December 14, 2018 – A 2016 Pew study about online shopping found that 65 percent of online shoppers prefer buying things in person when they can, compared with 34 percent of people who prefer online. Something is shifting when we buy without having to physically travel to a store. Some would argue it’s the human interaction that is lost… but maybe there’s something else too: the loss of going about your business in a more active manner, as opposed to a more passive one. Full Story @ Vice.com
Stick with the Winners! – Kat Cross is a native Chicagoan with an impressive background of life experiences. Alongside studying three subjects — Theater; Psychology; and Recreation, Parks & Tourism — at Western Illinois University, she served in the Army National Guard for 10 years. After her studies, she worked abroad in the United Kingdom serving the United States Navy and Royal Air Force. Q. At which of the schools you attended did you learn the most? A. While I was Army Boot Camp and Advanced Individual Training I learned so much about myself and how much more I was capable…
Still Doin’ It – December 13, 2018 – There are myths, misconceptions and stigma associated with aging and sexuality … The first myth is that older adults are not as sexually attractive or desirable as their younger counterparts. While an 80-year-old may not be as appealing to an 18-year-old, he or she may be very desirable to peers. More importantly, he or she may feel more sexually desirable and confident than their younger self. Full Story @ Newsweek.com
Dancing with the… – Dec. 20, 2018 – In addition to providing treatment to tens of thousands of individuals struggling from substance abuse issues, AAC operates websites that provide directories of treatment centers and information about the disease of addiction, such as rehabs.com and recovery.org. AAC’s online directories include more than 1,500 listings for independent treatment centers and those listings have led to more than 1.8 million calls to non-AAC treatment providers by people searching for help. YPR will provide expertise on how young individuals seek and access treatment through online resources and will recommend best practices to adopt. The…
NY Times Multi Media – December 2018 – To understand what goes through the minds and bodies of opioid users, the New York Times spent months interviewing users, family members and addiction experts. Using their insights, we created a visual representation of how the strong lure of these powerful drugs can hijack the brain… Full Story @ NYTimes.com
BUMMER – December 24, 2018 – In the study, the more drugs people took, the higher their depression risk. About 7 percent of those taking one such drug were depressed compared with 15.3 percent of those taking at least three. This is concerning for older adults, who may take multiple medications and are more vulnerable to drug side effects, says Michael Hochman, an associate professor of clinical medicine at Keck Medicine at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. But even if you’re taking medications linked to depression, they’re not necessarily the cause. “It’s important to bear in mind…
Bold Move, Smart Move – DECEMBER 28, 2018- The programs will offer medication and counseling to manage nicotine withdrawal to any tobacco users, including e-cigarette users, who are admitted to the facilities for substance use treatment. Staffers and visitors will be prohibited from smoking or bringing tobacco products onto the premises. City officials cited pointed to research that shows people with an addiction to drugs or alcohol are more likely to die from a smoking-related illness than from other substances they are consuming. “Providing substance use treatment in a smoke-free environment will not only help us to improve addiction recovery…
True Confessions – Dec. 25, 2018 – Besides, I didn’t drink every day, and certainly not in the mornings, in fact, I could even occasionally give up for weeks on end, so how could I possibly be an alcoholic? What I had failed to acknowledge was my inability to stop once I’d picked up that first drink, that once I’d started, I was like a train going downhill with no brakes and had no control of how much alcohol I put into my body. Before a night out, I used to pray that I wouldn’t get drunk, as I was…
Surrender To Win – December 19, 2018 – On Dec. 13, the treatment court team, with the aid of numerous vets, made fleece blankets and scarves, which will later be donated to Hope Not Handcuffs and Macomb County Friends of Foster Kids. The morning endeavor is one of a few events the court attempts to do annually as a way to give veterans in treatment a change of pace, said 41-B District Court Judge Carrie Lynn Fuca, who presides over the treatment court. The court itself has been up and running since April 2012. The court collaborated with Macomb County Circuit…
Treatment Works – Dec. 18, 2018 – When Adamovic was just 14 years old, she became addicted to drugs and that led her to a life in and out of jail. “The drugs felt good. They made everything feel good. From the first time I did drugs, I thought I wanted them for the rest of my life. I never wanted to be without them again,” Adamovic said. She felt that way until she met Carla Grantt, the founder and CEO of Mary’s House of Restoration in Little Rock. “I saw a light bulb go on and she said, ‘I…
Merry Christmas – Laura Nyro (born October 18, 1947; died April 8, 1997) was an American songwriter, singer, and pianist. She achieved critical acclaim with her own recordings … Her style was a hybrid of Brill Building-style New York pop, jazz, gospel, rhythm and blues, show tunes, rock and soul. In 2012 she was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79WuuqTpSgw&feature=youtu.be Watch VIDEO @ YouTube.com
Christmas on the ‘natch! – December 21, 2018 – 1. Put your sobriety first. Don’t stop going to meetings because a family event is the same night. Instead, double up on meetings. Schedule exercise, meditation and meetings first — social plans and family gatherings second. Believe me, family and friends understand. They want you to stay sober. 2. Be realistic and don’t think too far ahead. Those in recovery know: Take it a day at a time, one minute at a time, or one event at a time. Yes, you are invited to a lot of events — but no…
Reading. Remember that? – Oct. 2018 – I love books. If I go to the bookstore to check a price, I walk out with three books I probably didn’t know existed beforehand. I buy second-hand books by the bagful at the Friends of the Library sale, while explaining to my wife that it’s for a good cause. Even the smell of books grips me, that faint aroma of earthy vanilla that wafts up at you when you flip a page. The problem is that my book-buying habit outpaces my ability to read them. This leads to FOMO and occasional pangs…
Prevention Rules! – DEC 12, 2018 – A first violation would carry a fine of $500 and a second violation would increase to $1,250. It would also require businesses to pay $500 a year for a tobacco retail license to the city. There would be a $75 penalty for a late application or fee payment. “With this vote, we can make an entire generation and the generation after that infinitely healthier,” said Landsman. Seelbach said he was conflicted about the decision. “I can’t get past the fact that I philosophically believe that government should not tell adults what they can…
Shaken and Stirred – DEC 12, 2018 – But a new study published in the Medical Journal of Australia,however, casts a shadow on all this booze, saying Bond displayed “severe alcohol use disorder” over the course of six decades and 24 movies. The study authors found that in his entire onscreen career, Bond drank 109 times. His most excessive outing, when he downed six Vespers and raised his blood alcohol level to approximately .36 grams per deciliter in Quantum of Solace, was “enough to kill some people,” they noted. Bond’s actions, including binge drinking, driving after drinking, fighting after drinking,…
Magician, Mesmer or Merlin? – December 21, 2018 – Robert Bly grew up in Western Minnesota in a family descended from stoic Norwegian immigrant farmers. Bly says he experienced “a recovery of feeling.” … “Certain emotions are coming out that maybe I have kept in,” he said. “My father being alcoholic, from an alcoholic family, we tend to repress a lot. Try to be overly cheerful. I see this stuff coming out, it helps me tremendously.” That introspection led to Bly’s most famous book — a nonfiction work called Iron John: A Book About Men. Published in 1990, it became an…
USA USA USA – Dec. 20, 2018 – One factor may be the shift in the country’s population. There is a growing number of Mexican Americans, who account for about two-thirds of Hispanics in the US, and that group tends to be a little shorter, said one of the report’s authors, Cynthia Ogden of the federal agency the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings come from a 2015-16 health survey that measures height and weight. A sample of more than 5,000 US adults took part. CDC records date back to the early 1960s, when the average man was…
Life Savers – Dec. 14, 2018 – First responders tonight get a chance to see that their efforts aren’t wasted,” said Paul Curci, an addiction recovery specialist for Blueprints. Opioids can drain the life from users, but they also weigh heavily on first responders whose call volume has dramatically increased from the epidemic. “Come back a week later, a day later, maybe even the same day and have to Narcan them again,” said George Yaeger, a retired deputy chief with the Philadelphia Fire Department and a recovering addict over three decades clean. As taxing as it may be, recovering addicts…
Can One Actually Be Better? – Dec 14, 2018 – E-cigarette users’ pee contains more heavy metals as well as signs of exposure to carcinogens and other irritating chemicals than the pee of non-vapers, hinting that the habit might come with serious health risks. At the same time, vapers who switched completely from cigarettes still had lower levels of these substances in their urine than their smoking peers, new research says. Full Story @ TheVerge.com
Like Father Like Son – December 11, 2018 – The actor took to Twitter on Tuesday to reveal a photo of his Alcoholics Anonymous sobriety coin.” so, THIS happened yesterday! a fabulous moment, in my renewed journey.” … Sheen was famously fired in 2011 from the TV series “Two and a Half Men” after criticizing the show’s creator, Chuck Lorre, during an interview with Alex Jones . He also criticized psychologists and programs like AA, calling them “losers” who “have been lying to me for two decades. Full Story @ CNN.com
…the least among us – December 13, 2018 – The United States is mired in an opioid addiction crisis, and even babies haven’t escaped unscathed. In the new study, researchers compared the head sizes of close to 860 babies born from 2014 to 2016, half with NAS and half from mothers who had not taken opioids while pregnant. Newborns with NAS had a head circumference nearly 1 centimeter smaller, on average, than babies not exposed to the drugs, the team found. Full Story @ ScienceNews.org
Drug Policy Tragedy – Dec. 9, 2018 – Last May, KQED reported that four inmates at San Quentin had died from drug overdoses since the beginning of 2017. Of those four, two involved fentanyl, according to the Marin County Sheriff’s Office. Willis said the recent rise of cases at San Quentin is part of a cyclical trend. “This is typically the pattern: We see a bad batch or very high-potency batch of fentanyl or heroin come into the community, and we’ll see spikes,” he said. The cases are reviving attention on efforts by the CDCR to reduce the flow of…
Cold As Ice – December 11, 2018 – Peter Komendowski, the president of the Partnership for a Healthy Iowa said a big reason some young people use methamphetamine is to cope with harsh aspects of life. “We have a generation of young people who are being bred on more dreams than reality can allow,” … “Taking drugs is a way to approach life with a dream. We have no capacity to live that impaired. It’s completely artificial, it’s not sustainable, and [it’s] destructive. If the context for success has been defined by something that is not obtainable, people try to…
Stick with the Winners! – Adam Mindel is co-founder of Recover Integrity an Extended Care Program for men in Santa Monica and Brentwood. Adam has been a pillar in the Los Angeles recovery community for the last 15 years. For over a decade, Adam triaged the day to day clinical program of one of the nation’s largest non-profits specializing in addiction. Adam is highly sought out nationwide by programs and families as an interventionist, and working with family systems struggling with the disease of addiction. Adam works closely with our clients and their families, creating a safe space for recovery.…
Chillin’ with the Villains – December 11, 2018 – Curious, I hit them up with a simple proposal: I ordered their products for delivery to my home, offered them a beer, and shot the shit with them. As we chatted about their illicit activities, we tasked ourselves with finding episodes of the series that—whether for nostalgia or personal relevance’s sake—provoked the biggest responses from them. As we chatted about their illicit activities, we tasked ourselves with finding episodes of the series that—whether for nostalgia or personal relevance’s sake—provoked the biggest responses from them. Here’s what they had to say… Full…
Russian Roulette – December 11, 2018 – As a result of the fine, the ARF – a skeleton crew battling Russia’s alarming drug-related HIV epidemic – is now fighting for its life. Amnesty International described the fine as “suffocating”. If they can’t get the money together by Christmas, they’re finished – and this will have a direct impact on Moscow’s most at-risk citizens. The ARF is the only organisation providing Moscow’s heroin-injecting population with clean needles, HIV prevention and harm reduction advice. Full Story @ Vice.com
App for Living – December 11, 2018 – “Digital technologies and data science have incredible potential to unlock the next chapter of medical innovation and to help individuals finally take control of their own health in a meaningful way,” Richard Francis, CEO of Sandoz Inc. said. “New digital therapeutics such as reSET-O also have the potential to fundamentally change how patients interact with their therapies and thus improve patient outcomes. At Sandoz, we are proud to be a joint pioneer in this exciting new field.” ReSET-O is a 12-week prescription digital therapeutic for opioid abuse that works similarly to the…