The Master is Back – July 6, 2018 – A Gus Van Sant film has moments of strange wonder when those at the fringes — pill-poppers, boozers, gay hustlers and a genius janitor — find communion amid the souls of troubled others. The director roams the broken places, and his portrayals of self-destruction and addiction are disturbing, comical, intimate and not always redemptive. His new film, “Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far On Foot,” is based on the life of John Callahan (Joaquin Phoenix), an alcoholic turned paraplegic by a car accident. Callahan became an irreverent cartoonist, a wheelchair-bound iconoclast…
Author: Leonard Buschel
It’s Too Late to Stop Now – July 4, 2018 – Instagram is rolling out a new feature under which it will notify you when you’ve reached the bottom of the most recent posts. The feature, called “You’re All Caught Up,” aims to end the mindless scrolling that we all find ourselves doing when waiting for coffee or at the bus stop. It’s all a part of the new initiative that Mark Zuckerberg is getting behind, “Time Well Spent,” which aims to combat the “digital attention crisis” which has been brought on by social media. The feature will notify you…
Farms and Friends – June 29, 2018 – Opening a wider window into a world many of us know only from news reports and the long-running television series “Intervention,” Elaine McMillion Sheldon’s “Recovery Boys” tracks four young opioid addicts through the chutes and ladders of recovery and sober living. Hailing mainly from rural West Virginia, the men cycle in and out of Jacob’s Ladder, a farming-based rehab clinic founded by the warmly empathetic Dr. Kevin Blankenship, a specialist in critical care. Full Story @ NYTimes.com
Children Will Listen – June 25, 2018 – More than 11,200 calls concerning children’s exposure to buprenorphine, an opioid medication used to treat opioid use disorder, were made to US poison control centers from 2007 to 2016, a new study found. Eighty-six percent of the exposures were in children below the age of 6; 89% of the exposures were unintentional. “This is never prescribed for children under 6. It is a significant risk to them,” said Henry Spiller, director of the Central Ohio Poison Center and an author of the study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics. Full Story @…
MEDIA: Book Recommendation – July 2018 – I feel like I’m drowning! Does that describe you at times? Addiction, conflict, and dysfunction can destroy a family. But even in the depths of adversity and despair, there is hope. You can learn to cope and overcome the pitfalls: • Drama, drama, drama • The silent treatment • Enabling • How do I detach? • Arguments and denial • Relapses • Division and grief • We won’t be victims Full Story @ BarnesAndNoble.com
A Moving Target is Harder to Hit – July 2018 – We all know that exercise is good for you. But did you know that it can also help fight teenage drug abuse, addiction, and teen depression? Research shows that regular exercise can help people get off drugs and alcohol and combat depression. Furthermore, it helps people stay in recovery. As a result, scientists are looking closely at the neurobiological underpinnings of this discovery. They are also examining its ramifications for teen mental health treatment. Hence, what they do know is that it works—on multiple levels … Addictive drugs stimulate…
High ACE from ICE – June 29, 2018 – With separation, children will experience tremendous surges in adrenaline from the terrifying events. Adrenalin is the neurotransmitter that contributes to creating a permanent memory of the experience. This emotional trauma is one of the adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) associated with “a wide range of physical and mental health problems throughout a person’s lifespan” including chronic pain, substance use disorders, depression, aggressive behavior, and post traumatic stress disorder. According to the Adverse Childhood Experiences study, unusually difficult childhood experiences lead to a higher ACE score. The higher a child’s score, the greater…
BRAVO! – June 27, 2018 – She wrote: “Special moment. 2 years no booze – through two of the toughest years of my life, I’m not sure I’d have survived intact had it had not been for my sobriety & #recovery … Zoe Ball has admitted she’s not sure she would have survived the last two years if she was still drinking. The presenter took to Instagram on Tuesday to celebrate two years of sobriety, thnaking her nearest and dearest for helping her get through “two of the toughest years of my life.” Full Story @ HuffingtonPost.co.uk
She’s Baaaaack – And she’s been just as open about her most recent battle with the bottle. Demi’s new song, “Sober,” is a surprisingly confessional ballad detailing her lapse back into addiction. Sadly, Lovato’s relapse was not a one-time event but has instead proven to be a source of ongoing difficulty. Sources say Demi is still drinking, and has been for more than two months. But it seems she feels that it’s important for her fans to see her at her lowest depths, as Radar Online is reporting today that Lovato is planning to grant a candid TV interview to…
Taking a 90 Day Bone? – June 29, 2018 – The class, which Kover calls “Moving Forward with Dogs 12 Steps at a Time,” is now up and running at The Mission’s new women and children’s center in downtown Bakersfield. The program has already been used at the men’s center, but the current class is a first for the women. The class, which takes place at the center on Thursday mornings, runs for twelve weeks. It involves discussion of the current step in the 12-step recovery addiction process in the first half of the class (this week’s involved turning your…
Hold in NZ – June 26, 2018 – STARTS AT 8:45 minutes in. Alcoholics Anonymous has been helping alcoholics in NZ for 70 seventy years. Our special guest Paul talks about AA and his own recovery from alcoholism through the 12 -Step programme with Hamish Coleman Ross and psychotherapist Kyle MacDonald. With thanks to NZ on Air. Full Story @ NewsTalkZB.co.au
Doctor Charged with 650 Deaths – July 1, 2018 – Their fears were vindicated last month when an inquiry found Dr. Jane Barton responsible for the deaths of up to 650 people and a culture in which powerful opiates were routinely and recklessly prescribed. Most patients were not terminally ill and less than half were recorded as being in pain. The report says one nurse alleged that until late 1991 deaths on her ward were rare, but “suddenly they could have as many as three deaths a night”. Full Story @ TheTimes.co.uk
Greedy Bastards – June 29, 2018 – The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation says beware of anything offered for free. That could be a sign of kickbacks. As well as this, be sure to visit the facility beforehand. “If there’s ever an area where ‘let the buyer beware,’ this is one and I can’t stress that enough,” stated Mark Mishek, president and CEO of the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. “There’s no reason not to knock on a neighbor’s door and find out, are they good neighbors?” Full Story @ WHEC.com
As Good an Excuse as Any – June 29, 2018 – A Key Largo woman being booked into jail Thursday on a driving with a suspended license charge said the cocaine detention deputies found in her purse must have been in the bag when she bought it from the Salvation Army. Magdalena Soutelo Rodriguez, 50, was arrested on cocaine possession, smuggling contraband into jail and driving with a suspended license charges. Full Story @ MiamiHerald.com
Smaller Yachts? – June 28, 2018 – Lawsuits and media reports have accused Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, of aggressively marketing the powerful narcotic even after it knew the drug was being misused. Prosecutors have charged the founder of Insys Therapeutics and several of the company’s sales representatives and executives for their roles in an alleged conspiracy to bribe doctors to use its fentanyl spray for unapproved uses. State and local governments have sued a host of drugmakers, alleging they deceptively marketed opioids and seeking to recoup what it costs to treat people addicted to the drugs. Full Story…
Scoring a New Goal – June 27, 2018 – Maradona began taking cocaine in the mid-1980s, developing an addiction to both that and alcohol which would last until 2004. It was a problem for the Argentine at the peak of his career, which ran from 1976-1997, with him leading his country to World Cup glory in 1986 and winning Serie A with Napoli in 1987 and ’90. The drug use began whilst playing for Barcelona in 1982 and grew worse thanks to his mafia connections in Napoli, where he moved in 1984. In 2014 he told Argentina’s Tyc Sports: ‘I…
Walking the Walk – July 1, 2018 – SPLASHING my face, I glimpsed myself in the bathroom mirror and gasped. Why did I have a black eye? I knew I’d been up until the early hours at a booze- and drug-fuelled party, but I couldn’t remember a thing. As I looked at my knotted hair, twitching face and dull skin, I barely recognised the girl staring back and knew my cocaine addiction was out of control … I was 22 and had recently moved into my own flat in south London after graduating with a degree in neuroscience from the…
Lost Generation – June 30, 2018 – Mickey and Tina Baltz raise their two grandchildren after the loss of their daughter to opioids Lacy Atkins / The Tennessean, Nashville Tennessean. Full Video @ Tennessean.com
Sadly Blending In – July 1, 2018 – Too often, depression sufferers are depicted as exclusively white, cis, straight women, while the disease itself is presented as an all-consuming, incapacitating misery that binds its victims to their beds. Such a narrow scope not only excludes the experiences of millions of PoC and LGBTQIA+ people with depression, but ignores the existence of high-functioning depression, denying its sufferers the chance to recognise their illness and seek the help they deserve. Full Story @ Bustle.com
The Man Who Fell to Earth – June 29, 2018 – Rideau Hall announced 105 new appointments to the Order of Canada on Friday, a list stocked with leaders in research, community activists, authors, politicians and athletes. Nearly two-thirds of the appointees are men. Half are from Ontario. Among the health-related appointees are Peter Henry St George-Hyslop, who discovered genes responsible for the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease; Sharon Sholzberg-Gray, who fought to make publicly funded health care more accessible for marginalized people; and Gabor Maté, who brought to light how childhood trauma can lead to addiction later in life.…
WOW! Interview with Attorney Mick Meagher – June 25, 2018 – The centers often keep patients addicted so they can keep administering services, said Mick Meagher, an independent California attorney who specializes in consumer protection. When the patient has exhausted the plan’s addiction-treatment benefit, the facility kicks the patient out and stops paying their premium. “The abuse is so obscene, it’s mind-boggling,” Meagher said. There are a whole host of problems with the drug rehab industry, according to a major investigation by the Southern California News Group: No degree, medical or otherwise, is required to get a facility license; and…
Renew Netflix Subscription – June 27, 2018 – …Sitting on leather couches at a West Virginia farm, a father of two reckons with terrible news about his three-year-old daughter, who he just learned had been molested while in foster care. “I don’t know what to do,” says Jeff, who was at the farm to treat his opioid addiction. The silence lingers until addiction counselor Craig Cohen carefully asks the four men, each a portrait of masculinity in camouflage caps and tattoos: “Are we just talking shit every day? Are we just having fun?” … Then, something quietly revolutionary occurs: the…
Demand and Supply – June 26, 2018 – The non-medical use of prescription drugs is becoming a major threat to public health and law enforcement worldwide with opioids causing the most harm and accounting for 76 per cent of deaths where drug use disorders were implicated, according to the latest World Drug Report, released today by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Fentanyl and its analogues remain a problem in North America, while tramadol – an opioid used to treat moderate and moderate-to-severe pain – has become a growing concern in parts of Africa and Asia. Accessibility…
More Like a Nicholas Cage Film – 2018 – Purdue Pharma and El Chapo had provided kindling: The pharma company’s unprecedented marketing campaign for its blockbuster OxyContin painkiller did not stop with pill sales. Purdue marketing helped ensure that for the first time in U.S. history, heavy doses of one of the most addictive substances known to man would be prescribed by family doctors for everything from sprained ankles to migraines. Mexican drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, long focused on marijuana and transporting South American cocaine, took note of America’s new-found appetite for narcotics and began seeding mountainsides with…
Politics As Usual – June 28, 2018 – 1. Marco Rubio killed a critical prescription drug monitoring program over “politics.” Florida had the chance to implement a program that would track overprescribing by doctors – considered a “silver bullet” against pill mills – but one person blocked it in 2002, early in the opioid crisis, according to the Post: “And there was one person who was responsible,” said former state Sen. Burt, now an Ormond Beach insurance executive. “And it was Marco Rubio.” Full Story @ TampaBay.com
Happy Independence Day – Look what’s happening out in the streets Got a revolution Got to revolution Hey I’m dancing down the streets Got a revolution Got to revolution Ain’t it amazing all the people I meet Got a revolution Got to revolution One generation got old One generation got soul This generation got no destination to hold Pick up the cry Hey now it’s time for you and me Got a revolution Got to revolution Come on now we’re marching to the sea Got a revolution Got to revolution Who will take it from you We will and who…
Till Death Do Us Part – June 24, 2018 – For five years, Kim Pack suspected her stepfather, Dr James Kauffman of killing her mother, a bubbly host of a popular local radio show. But it wasn’t until January of this year that the prominent New Jersey endocrinologist was charged with putting a hit out on April Kauffman’s life. Before he could go to trial, Jim Kauffman was found dead of an apparent suicide inside the county jail where he was being held. “I was stunned,” Atlantic County prosecutor Damon Tyner said. Full Story @ 9News.com.au
Bernie Madoff’s newest roommates? – June 27, 2018 – Kenneth Bailynson, owner of the defunct Good Decisions Sober Living in West Palm Beach, and Eric Snyder, owner of Real Life Recovery and Halfway There, both face more than 20 years in prison and forfeiture of millions of dollars and dozens of condominiums and homes if convicted of bilking insurance companies out of more than $50 million for bogus urine drug tests for addicts. The FBI raids at Bailynson and Snyder’s businesses in late 2014 grabbed headlines and were the first in an ongoing multi-agency federal crackdown on patient brokering and…
It’s Hard to Abuse Abstinence – June 27, 2018 – David got up from his folding chair. Several people reached out to shake his hand or slap him on the back as he passed. Everyone in the room knew how tough it was to achieve that first month of sobriety. But as the little red medallion was handed to him, the question that had haunted him for the last month flashed across his mind: “Am I a fraud?” … Back in his folding chair, he turned the small A.A-engraved token over in his needle-scarred hand, and the last bit of…
From One Prison to Another – June 15, 2018 – Nearly 30 years ago, when he was 18 years old, Sy Eubanks had surgery for a knee injury he got while competing on his high school’s wrestling team. His doctor prescribed him opioid painkillers, the dangers of which are now widely known. All Sy knew was that he liked the feelings his prescription gave him, and he wanted more. After graduation, Sy got a job as a logger. It was then he realized he couldn’t stop taking opioids. Whenever he did, he’d get so sick from withdrawal that he couldn’t…