Wicked Twist of Events – NOV 8, 2018 – 20-year-old Jonah Lake faces four counts in the shooting death of Kevin Lake. The victim had earlier pleaded guilty to federal fraud, tax evasion, and drug charges for allegedly running a pill mill. The victim was found in his New Albany home in June. Kevin Lake was also a former trustee of Ohio and Bowling Green State universities. Full Story @ News-Herald.com
Author: Leonard Buschel
Whatever Works – Nov. 11, 2018 – In October the Kennedy Center in Berkeley County started offering a new medical option for addicts who commit to counseling, and treatment for opioid or heroin addiction has shown that it can work when it’s accessible. Meantime as new treatments make their way into rural communities, where the crisis takes root, another health concern is surfacing from the scourge — hepatitis C. Numbers from the Berkeley County coroner’s office show that between Jan. 1, 2018 and Nov. 8, 2018 there have been 30, accidental overdose deaths in Berkeley County, 20 are confirmed, 10…
It’s Complicated – Nov. 2, 2018 – Attorneys for Deem say on the day Arbuckle signed the arbitration agreement, he was in the throes of addiction and lacked the capacity to contract. A drug screen performed the same day by Solutions indicates Arbuckle tested positive for fentanyl, norbuprenorphine, hydromorphone, and norfentanyl. “Defendants had a practice of routinely and knowingly requiring clients such as Arbuckle to sign admissions paperwork that included not only an arbitration agreement, but also a complete waiver of liability, when they were acutely intoxicated and not of sound mind,” wrote Deem’s attorneys. “Determining enforceability of an arbitration…
Into Action – Oct. 2018 -Soon Cuttaia left her job managing car dealerships to pursue a career in social work so she could help those who, like her son, were stuck in what she called “the hamster wheel” of rehabilitation. Now they both live in South Florida, a sort of ground-zero of the opioid recovery industry—a place where people go to get clean, but often end up on the streets because of lapsed insurance or a lack of space in treatment facilities. The mother-son duo teamed up to create their own activism group, the Fuck Heroin Foundation, to help those…
Good Advice – Nov 05, 2018 – Today I want to focus on the environmental domain, which not only contributes to addiction, but also maintains it. Environmentalists and social scientists believe that external factors and forces dictate our behavior. Addiction, according to supporters of this camp, is primarily a result of external, and not internal, factors. For example, we know that alcohol and drug use increases during adolescence (ages eighteen to twenty-four), because this is a time when young people socialize with each other and are susceptible to “peer-pressure.” Full Story @ PsychologyToday.com
It’s a Start – November 7, 2018 – The insurer will cover oxycodone alternatives Xtampza ER and Roxybond, which are designed to be more difficult to abuse. It will also cover Lucemyra, a newly approved non-opioid designed to treat symptoms of opioid withdrawal. According to Alabama’s opioid action plan, there were 741 overdose deaths in 2016. The insurer said in a statement that opioid prescriptions have decreased 18 percent in the last two years, but continued action is needed. Full Story @ WSFA.com
Not Kool? – Nov. 10, 2018 – A separate report from the Washington Post this week said that the FDA was planning to announce a ban on the sale of flavored cartridges, or pods, in “tens of thousands of convenience stores and gas stations across the country” as soon as next week. The rumored ban comes as a crackdown on what the agency calls an “epidemic” of teen vaping. The ban will reportedly not affect the sale of menthol pods, however, as the Post said the agency didn’t want to inadvertently encourage the purchase of traditional menthol cigarettes. The Journal…
We Can Rise Again – November 10, 2018 – Edwards was buried alive here on Thursday and brought back to Earth on Saturday. Edwards is on an anti-drug mission hoping to provide hope to so many in despair. He used his time underground to counsel with anyone who wanted to talk. Edwards was brought to the site by members of the Wilkens Avenue Mennonite Church who kept watch the past two days. They hope the so called ‘gravechat’ will serve as a wake up call. Full Story @ FoxBaltimore.com
Stay Focused – 11-10-2018 – “I was really sad and I didn’t want to feel my feelings,” she says. “I turned to the most natural way I could find to cover that all up and I started using drugs: prescription pills; heroin for a little bit of time.” Veum’s family got her into treatment. She’d been sober for nine years when she and her husband, Ben, decided to have a baby. Motherhood was something she wanted to feel. If she needed an epidural during labor, Veum told her doctor, she didn’t want any fentanyl in it. She didn’t want to…
Still in the News? – NOV 10, 2018 – Meanwhile, another person came forward in defense of Henry. “The designer has never tried to hide his past struggles with addiction, and he is currently clean, sober and focused on maintaining his sobriety. He’s passionate about his art and his business.” Lately, the pop star has been spotted post-rehab slowly getting back to her normal life. She was out and about at the annual Halloween Horror Nights and even made a special appearance on social media to urge her followers to vote. Full Story @ CelebrityInsider.org
Why? – Nov. 2, 2018 – Bailey, a 26-year-old Northern Kentucky man who’d been arrested with heroin, hadn’t reported to his probation officer on three different days or found a job, court documents say. He also didn’t complete cognitive behavioral classes that had been ordered. The county probation department recommended that Bailey undergo residential drug treatment at River City Correctional Center. The Camp Washington facility is a local alternative to prison for nonviolent offenders. Common Pleas Judge Charles Kubicki faced a dilemma. Under a law that went into effect last year that limits sentences for probation violations for offenders convicted…
Voters Had Their Say – Nov. 6, 2018 – Ohio prosecutors, judges, coroners and even Gov. John Kasich urged a “no” vote on the proposal, which would have reduced fourth- and fifth-degree drug possession charges to misdemeanors. Among the most compelling arguments: Ohio Supreme Court Justice Maureen O’Connor argued someone found with nearly 20 grams of fentanyl – enough of the dangerous opioid to kill 10,000 people – could no longer face prison time. Instead, they would face a misdemeanor and face a county jail sentence only after three offenses over two years. Issue 1’s proponents argued that anyone with…
Back in the Big Apple – Nov. 2, 2018 – Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life. Buschel spoke to The Fix about how he got here and what makes this year’s RRFF so special. “After 26 years of abusing everything from Valium to vodka and cocaine to codeine, I crashed and burned. I smoked my breakfast, drank my lunch and snorted my dinner.” Finally, beaten to his bottom, the depressed and close-to-hopeless Buschel schlepped himself into 12-step recovery at the Betty Ford Center. Full Story @ TheFix.com
Still Saving Souls – Please Pray for Rain – Nov. 10, 2018 – Even amid the chaos and danger, treatment continues as scheduled at off-site locations for spots like Malibu Hills Treatment Center and Milestones Ranch Malibu. The latter facility has not been damaged by the fire. But an employee says the current blaze is starting to feel like a semi-regular work hazard. “We weren’t under mandatory evacuation during the Ventura Fire of 2017, but our executive director felt that since the winds were really high it would be best to evacuate the clients sooner than later, rather than in…
The Act of Letting Go – Nov. 12, 2018 – Kim isn’t an addict, but like everyone else in the room, drug and alcohol abuse had sunk its barbs into his kids, and that was robbing him of his health, sanity, and nearly every penny he had. For close to a decade, he and Michelle had shuffled their two sons in and out of rehab centers and hospitals. They paid for cars, medical bills, and legal fees. They handed their sons cash for food, gas, and clothes, and when they realized it all went toward drugs, they tried giving them…
Keep Trying – November 7, 2018 – CHICAGO (CBS)–With the increase of opioid addiction across the U.S., drug addiction is devastating more families than ever, and one mother in suburban Chicago is fighting to change her power to save her 24-year-old daughter’s life. Renee Portokalis started losing her daughter Danielle to drugs when she was still a student at Batavia High School. Portokalis says her daughter first started smoking pot before trying pills and eventually turning to heroin … What’s clear, however, is that when she’s under the influence she doesn’t want help. Under Illinois law, friends and family members…
Spiritual Sickness – November 9, 2018 – “Some of the people I talked to, they call it the heroin hug,” Scott explains. “And they said you know, the first time you do it, you just get this secure feeling. It’s almost like a warm embrace, like a hug from your grandma. That’s the way it’s been explained to me. And they said once you feel that you crave it constantly. I can’t imagine being under the control of having to have that.” There was a time when overdose calls were few and far between, but now they’ve become routine not…
Taking matters into your own hand – Nov. 9, 2018 – It’s the impairment part that matters — people must feel like the thoughts or behaviors interfere with normal life in some way. They used data from a large national questionnaire, the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, to see how common sexual behavior problems might be. It asks a range of questions, including: How often have you had trouble controlling your sexual urges? How often have you felt unable to control sexual behavior? How often have you made pledges or promises to change or alter your sexual behavior?…
Full Time Job – November 11th 2018 – The mission was a success, but just as his men were preparing to leave, an American Blackhawk helicopter was hit. This was the infamous Black Hawk Down moment. Hooten and his team spent next 18 hours fighting their way to the crash site and securing the dead. “Not only were we rushing to get there,” Hooten said. “Every other hostile militiaman in that city was doing the same thing. We were going to go in and recover every person that went in if it took us forever to do so.” 18 Americans…
It Can’t Hurt – 11/09/18 – More than I care to admit, my usual 12-step meeting times will pop up on my calendar and I’ll think to myself, “Can I get away with skipping this one?” A lot of folks in the rooms will tell you that you shouldn’t skip meetings because relapse happens when we get lax in recovery. You get out of recovery what you invest into it, and the practice of consistently showing up makes your program stronger. Full Story @ TheFix.com
Ya Think? – Nov. 11, 2018 – According to a 2017 poll conducted by Marist College and Yahoo News, more than half of American adults have tried marijuana at least once in their lives, and nearly 55 million of them, or 22 percent, say they use it currently. Close to 35 million are what the survey calls “regular users,” people who say they use marijuana at least once or twice a month. “Surprisingly, many people freely admit to using marijuana, but underreporting remains an issue,” said Jonathan Caulkins, a drug policy researcher and professor at Carnegie Mellon University. “To correct…
The Doctor & the Comedian – November 10, 2018 – Dr. Gabor Maté a renowned specialist in addiction, childhood trauma and stress joins me on the podcast today. We discuss the many forms addiction can take, how we can cope as damaged people in the world and are we being ruled by traumatised politicians? Gabor has a very loving, optimistic and benevolent worldview that you will hopefully benefit from listening to in this episode. Full Story @ RussellBrand.com
Industry in Denial? – November 8, 2018 – He said he had a feeling something was up when his 22-year-old son Alex, a recovering heroin addict, called to tell him he was planning to leave his treatment center in Florida for a new rehab facility in California … “What’s the word homie? You ready? Cali’s calling your name,” the next set of texts said. Then the person spells out in detail what was needed: “Send me your insurance info and I’ll run it to get you approved.” Another text said, “Send it tomorrow I’ll throw you the cash after 17…
The Deadlier Side of Drug Addiction – Nov 2, 2018 – Adamson told police that she had received a text from her methamphetamine dealer sometime on Oct. 21 regarding a dispute over a drug deal, the affidavit says. She loaded her pink and black .380-caliber handgun and chambered a round to protect herself from the dealer, whom she identified as “Beast.” Full Story @ Gazette.com
Paint it Bright – Nov. 2, 2018 – It’s the chemical addiction most people don’t see happening when they encounter an addict; the process that drives addicts to abandon friends, family, jobs, and children to get high. It’s important to understand because when people understand the chemical demolition that opioids do in the addict’s brain, society can better address what addicts need to get better. Full Story @ ChronicleOnline.com
Can you hear me now? – Nov. 2, 2018 – “The exposures used in the studies cannot be compared directly to the exposure that humans experience when using a cell phone,” Bucher said. “In our studies, rats and mice received radio frequency radiation across their whole bodies. By contrast, people are mostly exposed in specific local tissues close to where they hold the phone. In addition, the exposure levels and durations in our studies were greater than what people experience.” The researchers now hope to continue their investigations, using newer technologies that will make it easier to evaluate data in…
Local Sober Hero – 2017 – “I was dysfunctional, like my kids,” he said. “Some succeeded, I just helped get a kid into Cornell. I told Bouna Coundoul not to go to overseas. He didn’t listen. He listened to bad advice. You do what you can. “What I’ve done has been more covert than overt. We learn from every bit of life we’ve gone through, and it makes us stronger if positive. Overcoming my demons, the craziness, made me a better person. I truly believe it’s about helping others. “I wouldn’t be anywhere near where I am if not for…
Yellow Fever? – Nov. 2, 2018 – Both Waynes are cooperating with the government and expected to testify in an upcoming trial of doctors working at Reflections Treatment Center, one of a number of drug treatment facilities and sober homes operated by the notorious Kenny Chatman. Chatman is currently serving a 27-year sentence on charges of money laundering, sex trafficking and health care fraud; when women would come to his facilities for treatment, Chatman would keep them “in a state of impairment in order to ‘pimp’ them out.” One side hustle for Chatman was the sale of his patients’ urine,…
Film’s Can Help – Nov. 02, 2018 – Well, horror movies of all kinds act as harsh morality plays for teenagers. When it comes to helping teens learn to navigate the world around them, I always encourage positive exploration. With this in mind, I like to ask: What can we learn from these time-treasured terror tropes? Teenagers are horror movies’ key demographic, target audience—and subject. There isn’t one slasher film that features middle-aged virgins running from a killer or old people fighting off poltergeists without the aid of children or teens. Whether we’re watching the classic horror films, contemporary reboots,…
Reaching for the Bright Side – Nov. 3, 2018 – And for almost as long, those struggling from addiction have kept to the shadows, left to suffer in silence, cloaked unfairly in shame. But as the nation as a whole continues to be rocked by an opioid crisis that seems never-ending, and as events like Demi Lovato’s nearly-fatal July overdose and Mac Miller’s actually fatal OD in September continue to leave us gutted, the shame is slipping away, replaced by a clearly vital need to share one’s story. Whether it’s to help prevent yet another tragedy in their community or…