Splash Mountain? – June 10, 2018 – The center helps men turn their lives around through a 6-12 month program. Cory Johnson, Michael Byrd, and Mark Parrett say though addiction is something few can understand, they appreciate those who led them to Christ. “I got to where I couldn’t even function as an alcoholic,” Johnson said. “I’d be laid up for weeks at a time.” Drugs and alcohol took over their lives, a pattern Michael Byrd says repeated itself. He says he lost his mother to addiction. As a birthday present to his daughter, Byrd hopes his baptism shows her…
Author: Leonard Buschel
Tap Here – June 11, 2018 – This digital age is changing the way people reach out for help. There’s an app for that and “that” means your mental health. Apps for meditation and counseling are letting people literally take their mental health care into their own hands. Stephanie Jennings runs Stepping Stones, a women’s sober living home in Huntsville. They’ve been taking full advantage. “It seemed really important to bring in what’s happening and what younger women use in this day and time,” Jennings said. “Everybody uses apps so how can we make that in our everyday lives, in…
Female Troubles – June 14, 2018 – The number of people dying by suicide in the United States has risen by about 30 percent in the past two decades. And while the majority of suicide-related deaths today are among boys and men, a study published Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics finds that the number of girls and women taking their own lives is rising. “Typically there’s between three and four times as many suicides among males as among females,” says Dr. Holly Hedegaard, a medical epidemiologist at the NCHS and the main author of the new study.…
It’s an Inside Job – June 1, 2018 – Yale scientists have identified a possible neurobiological home for the spiritual experience – the sense of connection to something greater than oneself. Activity in the parietal cortex, an area of the brain involved in awareness of self and others as well as attention processing, seems to be a common element among individuals who have experienced a variety of spiritual experiences, according to a study published online May 29 in the journal Cerebral Cortex. “Spiritual experiences are robust states that may have profound impacts on people’s lives,” said Marc Potenza, professor of…
For 2 Weeks? – June 4, 2018 – A nine-year-old girl living in the UK was sent to an addiction rehabilitation program after becoming addicted to “Fortnite,” the wildly popular video game with more than 125 million players, the girl’s parents told British newspaper The Sunday People. The girl’s mother, Carol (whose last name was not used to protect the family’s privacy), told The Sunday People that they bought their daughter an XBox in January, where the daughter played the game. By March, the parents noticed her grades were slipping, she’d been neglecting extracurricular activities, and racking up charges on…
Beauty Saves Lives – May 2018 – We are living in complicated and difficult times. We are all affected by what is happening on the world stage, regardless of nationality, political affiliation, gender, age, race or religion. Those of us who are privileged are not completely exempt, even if all that touches us is the cacophony of news reports about mass suffering. In fact, while writing this article, another public shooting event is unfolding on social media as it is happening in real time. The creative arts are able to help people find balance, meaning and purpose. The Greek root…
All in the Family – June 14, 2018 – Decades ago, Rick Dyer, 66, was using 48 to 50 bags of heroin a day. When he finally got sober, it was after experiencing the agonies of withdrawal in a Massachusetts jail cell. Rick, who’s been sober for 42 years now, went on to start a family. As his son, Eric, grew up, he was open with him about his past struggles with addiction, believing that if Eric knew his story, he wouldn’t fall into the same trap he did. “He had never seen me drink or do drugs,” Rick, who…
Because They’re Smarter Than Men? – June 14, 2018 – Rising numbers of women and over 40s are seeking treatment for cannabis addiction in England and Wales. The number of women entering drug addiction treatment for the use of cannabis alone increased by 95% over 10 years, according to new research published by the University of York. Cannabis is the most popular illegal drug in the UK, although the number of users in England and Wales went down by 25% from 2005-06 to 2015-16. Full Story @ BBC.com
Crazy – June 13, 2018 – A proposed psychiatric hospital in Clive is getting some pushback from potential neighbors who don’t want the facility in their backyard. But mental health advocates are pushing back, too, saying the concerns are based in ignorance … Mercy Medical Center would build its facility right next to an existing campus just east of Interstate 35/80, but some neighbors, such as David Newton, want it elsewhere. Full Story @ KCCI.com
MEDIA: Summer Books – June 1, 2018 – Even the most modest mystery novel has the dignity of its lineage. It runs from an echt genius, Edgar Allan Poe, through Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett, downriver in time to Kate Atkinson and Tana French. In the permanent war that all genre fiction wages for respect, it can claim partial but persuasive ownership even of Dickens, of Voltaire. But the thriller is new money. Where did it come from? It has indistinct antecedents in the adventure novel, the spy novel and the hybrid midcentury experimentations of Elmore Leonard, but realistically, the…
The American Holocausters – June 16, 2018 – Now the Sackler name is front and center in a lawsuit accusing the family and the company they own and run, Purdue Pharma, of helping to fuel the deadly opioid crisis that has killed thousands of Americans. Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey took the unusual step of naming eight members of the Sackler family this week in an 80-page complaint that accused Purdue Pharma of spinning a “web of illegal deceit” to boost profits. Full Story @ NBCNews.com
The Business of Treatment? – June 11, 2018 – A federal grand jury indicted a Washington County woman on charges of unlawfully dispensing drugs and health care fraud. Federal prosecutors said Monday that Jennifer Hess, the owner of Washington-based Redirections Treatment Advocates LLC, conspired with five physicians to illegally dispense the drug-treatment medication buprenorphine and fraudulently submit Medicare and Medicaid insurance claims to cover the costs of the drug. Redirections Treatment Advocates has offices in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. U.S. Attorney Scott Brady said Hess “operated a network of addiction treatment clinics, which could be helping those in their hour…
Clean and Supreme – June 16, 2018 – After the tragic events of Manchester, with the senseless loss of life and the fear that came from knowing my family was unsafe and that I was completely powerless to protect them, I went to a very dark place with no tools to handle the feelings that came along with the devastation of the attack. I tried to pull myself out of the darkness by drinking and abusing prescribed drugs as I had done in the past for so many other reasons… but that only made the hole that I was trying…
Grabbing Them By The Cojones – PHOTO ESSAY – June 11, 2018 – ON A RECENT April morning, the artist Nan Goldin and around 100 protesters entered the Smithsonian Institution’s Arthur M. Sackler Gallery on the south side of the National Mall in Washington. The Sackler Gallery is a squat, geometric building that unspools into a subterranean museum beneath one of the Smithsonian’s public gardens. Its founding collection of some 1,000 works of Near Eastern, Asian, and Southeast Asian art was donated along with $4 million in 1982 by a physician, Arthur M. Sackler, whose name is carved on the…
Corruption on the Rocks – June 15, 2018 – The extensive government trial was intended to settle an age-old question about alcohol and diet: Does a daily cocktail or beer really protect against heart attacks and stroke? To find out, the National Institutes of Health gave scientists $100 million to fund a global study comparing people who drink with those who don’t. Its conclusions could have enshrined alcohol as part of a healthy diet. As it turned out, much of the money for the study came from the alcohol industry. Earlier this year, The New York Times reported that officials…
Killers on Trial – June 13, 2018 – The state of Massachusetts is taking a new step in the fight against the opioid epidemic, filing a lawsuit against Purdue Pharma that also names the OxyContin maker’s executives. The suit alleges the company and 16 of its current and former directors misled doctors and patients about the risks of its opioid-based pain medications. “Their strategy was simple: The more drugs they sold, the more money they made — and the more people died,” the state’s attorney general, Maura Healey, said at a news conference on Tuesday, flanked by Gov. Charlie Baker…
Wonder Wonder – June 12, 2018 – She went on to address her own experiences surrounding mental health. “I have struggled for a long time, both being public and not public about my mental health issues or my mental illness,” she said, according to E! But, I truly believe that secrets keep you sick.” (Related: 5 Ways to Support a Loved One Struggling with Depression) It’s true: Gaga has kept her mental health anything but a secret. She’s opened up about suffering from PTSD and filmed a Netflix documentary giving a raw look at her highs and lows. She’s been…
A Hero for Our Times – June 17, 2018 – “People are dying.” That’s what whistleblower Joe Rannazzisi told 60 Minutes over and over again. “People are dying.” This week, the broadcast airs Bill Whitaker’s interview with Rannazzisi, a former high-ranking DEA agent who saw the opioid epidemic killing hundreds of thousands of Americans, tried to stop it, and ran into a brick wall – in the form of Congress. Full Story @ CBSNews.com
Good News, Bad News – June 14, 2018 – One in seven high school students reported misusing prescription opioids, one of several disturbing results in a nationwide survey of teenagers that revealed a growing sense of fear and despair among youth in the United States. The numbers of teenagers reporting “feelings of sadness or hopelessness,” suicidal thoughts, and days absent from school out of fear of violence or bullying have all risen since 2007. The increases were particularly pointed among lesbian, gay and bisexual high school students. Nationally, 1 in 5 students reported being bullied at school; 1 in 10…
TV is Addictive Too – June 11, 2018 – Which is the truest portrait of addiction on screen? There is Nick Cage in Leaving Las Vegas dying in the arms of a prostitute – but I didn’t believe in the prostitute. There is Richard E Grant in Withnail and I, but I didn’t believe in the jokes. Addiction can look comical – it’s prat-falling – but it isn’t really funny watching a soul collapse. It would have been a more truthful film if Withnail had killed himself. Then there is Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in Who’s Afraid of Virginia…
That Disease Sure Comes in Handy – June 13, 2018 – A man who pleaded no contest in connection with a hit-and-run crash that killed a pedestrian in a North Hills crosswalk and an ensuing police pursuit that ended in Pacific Palisades was ordered Wednesday to complete a minimum six-month live-in drug treatment program and three years on probation. Mark Christian Johnson, 56, has already served a year in county jail following his no contest plea in April 2017 to one felony count each of hit-and-run driving resulting in death and fleeing a pursuing police officer’s motor vehicle while driving…
Tripping the Lights Fantastic – June 13, 2018 – It’s no surprise that psychedelic drugs such as LSD and ecstasy alter brain function, leading to the drugs’ “trippy” effects and possible hallucinations. But now, researchers have shown that these drugs can also physically alter the brain, changing the structure of brain cells. The new study was done on nerve cells in lab dishes and in animals, but if the findings also hold true in humans, these drugs could have surprising benefits for patients with certain mood disorders, the researchers said. That’s because, in people with depression or mood and anxiety…
Betrayal of a Dream – June 15, 2018 – We hear it all the time, the horrible stories of the addiction: the overdoses, the pain, and the suffering. It’s just one aspect ABC57 News has shown you during “Addicted America” series.” One local veteran wants to change the way these stories are told. “When I came back from my tours, I ended up having a back surgery. The VA put me on a number of different medications, one of those being prescription pain pills,” Brandon Adolf says. “My life kind of spiraled out of control for awhile, taking pills in…
A Little Web Will Do Ya – June 13, 2018 – Seventeen years ago, Tess Sweet wanted to disappear. Suicidal, addicted to heroin and consumed by shame and rage following a sexual assault, she couldn’t see how she might someday help others suffering similar pain. Today, Sweet is a filmmaker living in Santa Cruz, California, using her experiences with addiction and mental illness to shift the conversation about recovery and help other addicts — by turning them into actors. When Sweet launched her passion project, Cleaner Daze, a darkly comic web series set in a youth rehab facility, she knew…
Letting It ALL Hang Out – JUNE 14, 2018 – Ahead of Father’s Day on Sunday, The Dad Network has launched a campaign to tackle the stigma surrounding men’s mental health. The Dad Network’s #FatherFigures campaign aims to highlight the importance of seeking help in light of research that shows men are much less likely to disclose mental health problems to their friends and family than women. They are also less likely to seek medical support. Full Story @ Independent.co.uk
Catch 22 – June 12, 2018 – More than one-third of American adults may be using prescription medications that can potentially cause depression or increase the risk of suicide, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Some hormonal birth control pills, heart and blood pressure medications, proton-pump inhibitors, antacids and painkillers were among the more than 200 commonly used prescription drugs that researchers said have depression or suicide listed as a potential side effect. The researchers, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, looked at how more than 26,000 people from 2005 to…
From Drinker to Darling – June 4, 2018 – Maz Compton is a self-confessed party girl, or at least she used to be. The former 2DayFm breakfast radio host and MTV VJ never considered herself to be an alcoholic, in fact, she “was totally fine — but I drank a little bit too much, a little bit too often,” she told 9Honey. Like many women over 30, she suddenly found herself regularly drinking, whether it be at parties, media events or just at home after a long day. “I would drink most days, I would have a glass of wine…
North Carolina. Is that in America? – May 25, 2018 – The program Recovery Connections Community operated out of two facilities in Buncombe County and one in Harnett County. It was founded in 2011 by Jennifer Warren, an addictions counselor who was stripped of her license in 2012. When clients arrived at the rehab centers, sometimes at the order of a judge, they found there was in fact no treatment. Instead they were expected to put in 16 hour days working at adult care homes, and they sometimes found themselves dispensing the same drugs they were addicted to. Host Frank…
Beautiful – June 6, 2018 – In 2014, Madison County had the second-highest number of prescription painkillers in the nation. In that year, there were enough pills in the county for each person, including children, to have 126 pills each. In 2017, there were more than 17 million pills in the county Collinsville, like many other cities, has had to adjust rapidly to the opioid epidemic, which includes prescription pills, heroin and other powerful drugs. An overabundance of pills Eighty-seven people died in 2017 from overdoses in Madison County — or one every four days on average — according to…
Science May One Day, Blah Blah Blah – June 6, 2018 – Specific impairments within six large-scale brain networks during drug cue exposure, decision-making, inhibitory control, and social-emotional processing are associated with drug addiction behaviors, according to a systematic review of more than 100 published neuroimaging studies by experts at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and published Wednesday, June 6 in the journal Neuron … Drug addiction is a disorder that encompasses not only excessive drug-seeking and taking, but also fundamental changes in cognition and emotional processing. It comprises core clinical symptoms and behavioral manifestations including a…