To Start the New Year – Jan. 3, 2018 – Sometimes, to become successful and get closer to the person you can become, you don’t need to add more things — you need to give some of them up. There are certain things that are universal, which will make you successful if you give up on them, even though each one of us could have a different definition of success. You can give up on some of them as soon as today, while it might take a bit longer to give up on others. 1. Give Up On The Unhealthy Lifestyle “Take care…
Author: Leonard Buschel
Anonymity: A New Paradigm? – Jan. 6, 2018 – For members of the official Alcoholics Anonymous fellowship, the news is shocking and further vindicates their decision not to start a Facebook Group themselves. They are now warning addicts about the dangers of losing anonymity and how that can affect recovery … Corrine Mills, managing director of Personal Career Management, said: “A third of HR people have said that they have rejected people precisely because of things that they’ve found on social media. So we know it affects people’s chances. Full Story @ News.Sky.com
The Enemy Within – Jan. 5, 2018 – After losing his son Jonathan to the opioid epidemic, James Wennefeld, a retired Navy Admiral and Fmr. Vice Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and his family dedicated themselves to fighting the opioid epidemic one family at a time. Wennefeld started the organization SAFE, and joins Andrea Mitchell to discuss the opioid epidemic. Full Story @ MSNBC.com
Worse Than Heroin? – Jan. 5, 2018 – Some 40-50% of smokers try to quit each year, but fewer than 5% of them succeed … In fact, smoking also harms bystanders in a more important way: Each person who becomes a smoker makes it more likely that others will become smokers as well … today’s environment is different mostly because of the taxes and other regulatory measures we have taken to discourage smoking. Well and good, but does anyone think that still having more than one smoker in six people is a desirable population ratio? Full Story @ NYTimes.com
No Torture We Hope – Jan. 6, 2018 – “We are going to do everything we can,” said Trump. “It’s a very difficult situation, difficult for many countries. Not so difficult for some, believe it or not, they take it very seriously, they’re very harsh, those are the ones that have much less difficulty. But we are going to be working on that very, very hard this year, and I think we’re going to make a big dent into the drug problem.” Full Story @ Newsweek.com
JANUARY 4, 2018 – The Civil War helped set off America’s opiate epidemic. The Union Army alone issued nearly 10 million opium pills to its soldiers, plus 2.8 million ounces of opium powders and tinctures. An unknown number of soldiers returned home addicted, or with war wounds that opium relieved. “Even if a disabled soldier survived the war without becoming addicted, there was a good chance he would later meet up with a hypodermic-wielding physician,” Courtright wrote. The hypodermic syringe, introduced to the United States in 1856 and widely used to deliver morphine by the 1870s, played an even greater role,…
Addicts for Sale – Jan. 7, 2018 – An undercover investigation by The Sunday Times has found that the internet giant charged the middlemen as much as £200 each time someone accesses their website with a single click on the advertised link at the top of a Google search page. The brokers, known as referral agents, advertise themselves as free advice helplines but are able to afford the exorbitant Google rates because they can receive as much as £20,000 a month commission by referring only one caller to private rehabilitation clinics … One agency uses 300 websites to lure thousands of…
The Year’s Best – Jan. 2, 2018 – I’ve seen most of these in the theater, a few at home. (Ratings based on personal reaction, opinion, enjoyability and my delight for the art. Not a critic’s critique. A LOVED to LOATHED list, not Best and Worst. Also a WHATEVER category. All titles and photos are HOTLINKED. Thank GOD for foreign films. Feedback welcomed. Suggest films you loved or movies to avoid. Film is my ‘drug of choice’. ABOVE IS My Favorite Film: Full list @ HERE
A Letter from the Editor/Publisher — Jan. 2, 2018 – Dear eBulletin readers and beloved advertisers, It’s 2018 and the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin is very excited to be launching our new website, www.addictionrecoveryebulletin.org We would like to assure you that the eBulletin will continue to aggregate (occasionally aggravate) the most interesting news and important information regarding the recovery community, the addiction crisis and the $35 billion a year treatment industry. (seems like we should have more advertisers) Full Story @ AddictionRecoveryeBulletin
WARNING – Dec. 22, 2017 – VIEWER COMMENTS: It’s been preached for years that Big Pharm does not care about you.They haven’t cured nothing since Polio. Please do the research. Inform yourself and trust nothing or no one but God … Legal drug dealers. That’s why we went to Afghanistan to protect the poppy fields and keep the heroin and opioids flowing. Full Story @ YouTube.com
January 4, 2018 – A new House bill would require mandatory jail time or rehabilitation for drug users who violate their probation. Local representative Niraj Antani introduced the bill. He said it’s all about saving lives. Antani explained: by requiring jail time or rehab for drug users who violate their probation with a failed drug test, you’d be removing them from an environment where drugs are easily accessible. SEE MORE @ TV News Source
ARREST THEM POTHEADS – Jan. 4, 2018 – “It puts the industry on notice in these states who thought they had cover from the states and the feds,” he said. “All these people are going to wake up today with a bit of a heartache because they thought were scot-free, when in reality, they’re not.” … “This is outrageous,” Mr. Blumenauer said. “Going against the majority of Americans — including a majority of Republican voters — who want the federal government to stay out of the way is perhaps one of the stupidest decisions the attorney general has made.” Full Story @…
Cashoholics Anonymous — Dec. 27, 2017 – The vans, she learned after tailing one, were ferrying addicts all over town to what amounted to halfway houses for those in recovery: sober living homes. “I followed those vans around for three months,” said Ms. Burk, a young mother of five whose sleuthing identified dozens of sober living homes in her city — including 15 within a block of her house. “Then I cried for a long time.” … To meet the demand, an armada of former addicts have become entrepreneurs, offering a new and cheaper version of rehab. That is what…
No One Told Him to Slide — Dec. 24, 2017 – “It was a pretty crazy lifestyle, you know,” Strawberry said in the interview that runs on Thursday’s show. “All addictions have to do with behavior.” … Strawberry, 55, played 17 seasons in the majors with the New York Mets, Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees. He said coaches and teammates “covered” for him as he had sex during games. Full Story @ USAToday.com
0 Tolerance – Dec. 26, 2017 – Laura Plummer, 33, was arrested after authorities found her bringing 300 tablets of Tramadol, a powerful class C painkiller, into Egypt, the BBC reports. Tramadol is legal in the U.K. with a prescription, but illegal in Egypt … Jayne Synclair, one of Plummer’s sisters, added that Plummer’s partner, Omar Caboo, did not know she was bringing the pills for him. “He did not even know she was bringing them,” Synclair told the BBC. “She was doing it to be kind. How can you be sentenced to three years just for being kind?” Full…
The Family Afterwards — December 28, 2017 – An Ohio father made a Facebook post about losing his daughter to a heroin overdose, opening people’s eyes up to the harsh reality of opioid addiction. Tim Sherman on Tuesday wrote a post after his daughter, Karisten Sherman, 23, died on Christmas Eve. He said she struggled with heroin for years, but she’d been clean for a year. However, she apparently relapsed. A detective called him Sunday, saying she died of a heroin overdose, he told Facebook users in his post. Full Story @ TheEpochTimes.com
Double Agent — Dec. 27, 2017 – Prosecutors say accused heroin dealer David Francis delivered drugs to overdose victims, vouched for his alleged New York suppliers in order to get them released from custody to his purported treatment center and used his tax business to prepare false returns for clients … She said his tax business, All Personal Matters, which Mr. Francis says brings in $700,000 a year, appears to be a front for drug dealing. Full Story @ Post-Gazette.com
Slave Labor is Back — Dec. 28, 2017 – A sign marks the entrance to the Faith Based Therapeutic Community Corporation recovery program in Fort Gibson. The program is under investigation for alleged food stamp fraud. The department’s investigation focuses on Fort Gibson’s Faith Based Therapeutic Community Corporation and the Ada-based Southern Oklahoma Addiction Recovery program, The Oklahoman reported. The probe began after program graduates and other participants alleged they were forced to sign up for food stamps but didn’t receive the benefits … Those who go through recovery programs at the centers are often required to do by the court…
Evil Woman — Dec. 28, 2017 – “Foster and Kaczmarek piled misrepresentation upon misrepresentation,” Superior Court Judge Richard J. Carey wrote last June, “to shield the mental health work sheets from disclosure to the drug lab defendants.” The delay in revealing Farak’s misconduct caused some defendants to wrongly spend years in prison, the judge found. “Kaczmarek and Foster compounded and aggravated the damage caused by Farak. Their intentional and deceptive actions ensured that justice would certainly be delayed, if not outright denied.” Full Story @ WashingtonPost.com
Help for the Addiction Services — Dec. 28, 2017 – On Thursday, Kickstarter Co-Founder and current CEO, Yancey Strickler, took to Twitter to announce his support for five nonprofits after reading predictions that President Trump’s tax bill may have a huge negative impact against the organizations. Strickler’s support went to the following nonprofits, Bold Alliance, Bronx Defenders, Fractured Atlas, The McShin Foundation, and Pen America. Full Story @ CrowdFundInsider.com
Many Paths, One Destination — Dec. 31, 2017 – New Year’s resolutions come and go, but a resolve to get sober is accessible and sustainable throughout the year. Experts working in addiction treatment and the recovery community contribute actionable ways to get sober in the new year with minimal or no cost … 1. Meetings! – “ ‘90 in 90’ is a popular phrase in the recovery community,” responds Kate Toomey, Manager of True Intentions Sober Living in Tarzana, California. Full Story @ PRWeb.com
Call Centers Connect – Dec. 27, 2017 – More than 200,000 people seek addiction treatment on the phone or online every month. Few of them realize that their pleas for help are a valuable commodity — one that is quietly fought over by those angling to turn a distress signal into cash. Addicts represent big money to treatment centers, which are happy to pay a middleman $50 for a “lead” on a patient who might generate $40,000 or more in insurance claims in a matter of months. That is why television ads offering help to addicts air constantly nationwide. Full…
Philly Photo Essay – Dec. 28, 2017 – Seth Ditizio, an investigator for nine years in the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office and before that a veteran of the Army infantry in Iraq, knows death. And the polite 36-year-old with a bushy beard and iron grip has come to know his role in the crisis that has shaken his city and doubled the workload of his office. He is a bridge … Stories from a record-breaking year of loss. Between mid-November and mid-December, 70 people died of drug overdoses. An additional 10 deaths in those 30 days were suspected overdoses awaiting…
Wasted Minds – DEC. 24, 2017 – Amazon listed as one of the most common items purchased along with the video game Call of Duty 4? A brand of adult diapers. Yes, apparently some video gamers are wearing diapers so that they don’t have to pause their Call of Duty when they are experiencing a call of dooty. Full Story @ Forbes.com
GREAT IDEA – Dec. 27, 2017 – “Vulnerable New Yorkers struggling with addiction are being targeted and falsely promised life-saving treatment services and then are given inadequate and ineffective treatment at outrageous costs,” Governor Cuomo said. “With this campaign, we make it clear that this reprehensible practice will not be tolerated in New York and will help ensure that people receive the appropriate assistance they need to reclaim their lives.” The campaign was developed through a collaboration between OASAS and the New York Association of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers and features posters encouraging people to report patient brokering activities…
Anything Goes — Dec. 28, 2017 – “There are people in the 12-step community who tell their own, ‘You have a sponsor, don’t listen to your doctor. Don’t take that medication. Don’t take anything,’ ” said Dr. Joe Desanto, whose own addiction to prescription opiates six years ago nearly cost him his medical license. “It’s horrible.” … “The difference between getting off drugs and staying off drugs is the difference between a wedding and a happy marriage,” Ling said. “The wedding is a big deal, but it has nothing to do with a happy marriage. Right now, our entire treatment system…
Doing a Life Saving Deed — Dec. 29, 20167 – As the opioid crisis worsens, Lori Erion is finding success fighting it just outside Dayton, Ohio. Her organization “Families of Addicts” focuses on celebrating milestones and not shaming those who relapse. Full Story @ NBCNews.com
AA Not the Only Way… — DEC. 28, 2017 – “I went to war with addiction,” Mr. Wilson said. There, he encountered a woman who told him about an Alcoholics Anonymous program held in the basement of a church in Bay Shore, also on Long Island, nicknamed the Pit. She said that she was a regular attendee and lent him a copy of the “Big Book,” the obligatory text for Alcoholics Anonymous. Mr. Wilson went to several meetings, hoping to find her and return her book. “Nobody there had ever heard of the woman,” he said. “I kid you not.…
The Right Side of History — Dec. 30, 2017 – Recovery Centers of America is in negotiations with the Aspen Institute to purchase the River House and a portion of the Houghton House parcel … The conference center, which boasts 18th century English gardens, two outdoor pools, a tennis court, and scenic trails for walking and biking, is an exclusive site that has hosted several historic meetings such as the 1998 Wye Accord for Peace in the Middle East, attended by President Bill Clinton. Griffith says RCA proposes to keep the look of a residential home, but the desire is…
All for Higher Ratings? – Dec. 29, 2017 – STAT and The Boston Globe published an exposé on Thursday, which includes accounts from multiple guests who say their substance addictions were enabled by members of the TV psychiatrist’s staff in hopes of boosting ratings. Todd Herzog—who struggled with alcohol abuse in the years after winning Survivor—said that when he arrived on the Dr. Phil studio in 2013, he found a bottle of vodka in his dressing room and was given a Xanax to “calm his nerves.” Herzog had to be carried on set before his sit-down with Dr. Phil (whose real…