TV’s quiet 12-step revolution: Prestige comedies are changing the way we see addiction, sobriety and AA
In the fifth episode of “Love,” a crooked little romantic comedy on Netflix, the heroine Mickey (Gillian Jacobs) sits in an AA meeting.
“My friend had this party and let’s just say I let things get out of hand,” she says. “I didn’t drink. I’m still sober. But it was the first time in a long time that I felt like getting fucked up, so I thought I should get myself to a meeting.” … In fact, Hollywood has long played a role in public awareness around AA. Movies like “The Lost Weekend” (1945), “I’ll Cry Tomorrow” (1955), and “The Days of Wine and Roses” (1962), were early sympathetic portraits of alcoholism that touted AA’s rare ability to help a very lost person find their way. In the ’80s and ’90s, movies gave us a glimpse into the burgeoning 12-step rehab industry: Michael Keaton in “Clean and Sober,” Meg Ryan in “When a Man Loves a Woman.”
This Heroin ‘Safe Zone’ Permits Users to Shoot Up VIDEO
There’s a radical approach to the growing heroin epidemic: a site where medically supervised injection is actually allowed. Continued @ NBC.com
Making The Best of It
Jodie Sweetin Dishes On Her Sobriety
Jodie Sweetin is opening up about her sobriety. The former child star is not giving up on ABC’s Dancing with the Stars. And she’s not giving up when it comes to her sobriety. The Fuller House star celebrated her fifth anniversary of her sobriety this month. The 34-year-old is also taking TV by storm by starring on the Netflix reboot and appearing on Dancing with the Stars. Sweetin’s long addiction to drugs and alcohol began shortly after Full House ended in 1995.
Man walking across America to raise awareness on drug addiction VIDEO
“She started using heroin a month or two before she died,” Bramble said. “My sister was the closest person in the world to me. Some people thought we were twins.” Bramble started his 3,200-mile journey on March 13 in Delaware. He plans to finish his trip by October or November in San Francisco. “I think of my sister every day,” said Bramble. “There is not one day that goes by that I don’t miss her.
CONTINUED @ Fox5DC.com
JT Pens Marvelous Memoir
John Taylor of Duran Duran Talks About Sobriety
In 2012, Taylor published a self-revealing memoir, In the Pleasure Groove: Love, Death, and Duran Duran, in which he recounts the story of the band’s formation, their massive success, and his descent into the abyss of self-destruction before becoming sober. In 2014, Taylor received the 4th Annual Experience, Strength & Hope Award that is given to well-known individuals who have written honest memoirs about their journey from addiction to recovery.
Drug Addiction Behind Spike in Child Abuse, Neglect
Child-abuse and -neglect cases in Essex County went from 51 in 2013 to 120 in 2015. And child-support dockets increased from 562 in 2014 to 593 last year. Eighty-five to 90 percent of those soaring numbers are due to drug and alcohol addiction, County Attorney Daniel Manning III said.
CONTINUED @ PressRepublican.com
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Psychology Today – Dr. Joseph DeSanto
Achieving Sobriety With Support, Strength, Self-Forgiveness
If you could make one change in the culture’s perception of mental illness or substance abuse, what would it be? If I could change one thing about our culture’s perception of substance abuse it’s this: Addiction knows no pay grade or profession; it knows no religion or moral attitude. It can happen to anyone at anytime given the right genetics and environmental circumstances. It can even happen to doctors. (Dr. Joe is in recovery and co-hosts The Recovery Show with Dr. Joe and Angelina, on KOCI 101.5 FM in Orange County.)
CONTINUED @ PsychologyToday.com
AN EXTRAORDINARY BOOK
The First Coffee Table Book on AA
A global journey which leads to interesting people and place… All celebrating the foundation of AA. This book is the story of an AA traveler, who set out after the 2010 World Convention of AA in San Antonio, Texas, to visit AA meetings, conventions, tourist spots and out-of-the-way places in over 50 countries ending up in the USA for the 2015 World Convention of AA in Atlanta, Georgia.
Drug Czar Michael Botticelli answers questions from The Addict’s Mom
(Drug Czar on the Right) A few weeks ago, I joined in a Facebook chat with The Addict’s Mom, an online community of mothers with children and family members suffering from substance use disorders. It was a privilege for me to listen to their experiences and help provide answers on the heroin and prescription opioid epidemic in this country.
CONTINUED @ WhiteHouse.gov
Rates for eBulletin Advertising
Balancing Act
A Look Back at Jeff Schultz’ ‘at His son’s Addiction, Recovery
For the AJC’s popular sports columnist Jeff Schultz, saving his son from addiction meant letting him go. In June 2015, Schultz opened up about his son’s journey in a candid and widely read installment of the award-winning “Personal Journeys” series. “Lost and Found,” Schultz’s first-person piece, was read or shared on social media thousands and thousands of times, garnering equally candid reaction from its audience. “This is a beautifully written story with amazing photos,” one reader wrote.
CONTINUED @ AJC.com
Not So Neighborly Love
Mission Viejo Residents Demand Regulations on Sober Living Homes
Orange County has seen a spike in the number of alcohol and drug addiction treatment facilities in residential neighborhoods, and cities are seeking ways to regulate them. The county accounts for more than 15 percent of state-sanctioned rehab facilities, according to figures from the Department of Health Care Services. In addition, there are sober-living homes that don’t provide treatment and don’t need licenses or approval to open anywhere in California…
New York Photographer Captures Drug Epidemic in Tenn. Va. VIDEO
A man is on a mission to highlight the drug epidemic in our area. New York photographer Chris Arnade has spent the last six years writing and documenting drug addiction. Most of his work has been done in the Bronx. But recently, he’s been traveling across the country to parts of rural America, taking pictures and asking tough questions about addiction.
CONTINUED @ WCYB.com
Bloomberg Editorial
Doctors Can Do More to Fight Addiction
Doctors also blamed time constraints, concern about managing addiction and (most tellingly, perhaps) resistance from their colleagues. The American Medical Association acknowledged this week that physicians need to do more. Until more doctors put aside their unease or lack of interest in treating addicts, the opioid epidemic won’t end.
A Major Step Forward for Addiction Medicine by Nora Volkow
A major milestone was reached on March 14, 2016, when the American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) formally announced recognition of the field of Addiction Medicine as a medical subspecialty. This is a development with enormous symbolic and practical implications for health care and for those affected by drug and alcohol use disorders, including nicotine addiction.
Oct. 21-27, 2016 To Sponsor, call Savannah Ryan 818-762-0461
Will Power and Action
Will Arnett Shares His Struggle With Sobriety
“I spent four or five months doing nothing and feeling sorry for myself,” he tells the publication, adding that a female friend intervened. “I just crumbled. I went to an AA meeting that day.” Finally sober, Arnett moved to California for a fresh start, attending AA meetings daily and working full time. But a trip back to New York City changed his life. He met future wife Amy Poehler, who would soon be cast in Saturday Night Live and he would nab…
Women And Binge Drinking: When Too Much Is Not Enough
As binge drinking has spiked-again, dramatically more among women than men-recognition of the problem and looking for help has trailed behind. This is no big shock to professionals in the field. The increase in binge drinking doesn’t surprise Terri Fukagawa, clinical director of the New Life Recovery Centers in San Jose, California, where 15 of her 24 treatment beds are filled with clients primarily addicted to alcohol.
“I Want People to See the Way I Am” – Meet the “Junkies of Instagram VIDEO
[Warning: This article contains images and video of injecting drug use and self-harm. If you do not wish to view such material, please do not continue reading.]
Online spaces where people display stigmatized behavior are often scrutinized for their perceived promotion of harm-“Proa-Ana” websites and instructional suicide pages are perhaps the best known examples.
CONTINUED @ TheInfluence.org
Staggering Performance
Is ‘The End Of Longing’ Matthew Perry’s Best Performance Yet?
He’s as much of a joy to watch on stage as he is on screen – engaging, satirical and impeccable comedic timing. Plus, many of Perry’s own experiences filter into the plot. He recently admitted to Alan Carr that the anecdote in which Jack tells Joseph that he accidentally blared porn through his garden speakers while masturbating at 2pm actually happened to him. Eek.
Inside A Small Brick House At The Heart Of Indiana’s Opioid Crisis AUDIO
This story is part of NPR’s podcast Embedded, which digs deep into the stories behind the news. In the spring of 2015, something was unfolding in Austin, Ind. The town with a population of about 5,000 people became home to one of the biggest HIV outbreaks in decades, with more than 140 diagnosed cases. At the root of the outbreak was a powerful prescription painkiller called Opana..
This story starts about 60 days ago. One of our associates, a psychologist at a treatment center I work with, mentioned that he was going to go to the 4 day long, Okeechobee Music Festival. This event was being put together from the same folks who promote Bonaroo in Tennessee. He then said that his daughter works for the promoters in a managerial capacity. Our first question was, is there going to be a “safe tent” there and if not, can we do it? For the next week or so, we went back and forth with phone calls and emails getting more information about the event, telling promoters about InTheRooms.com & Satori Waters Treatment Centers.
CONTINUED @ ILoveRecovery.com
MEDIA: Book Recommendation
The Hospital Always Wins: A Memoir
Review “I picked up The Hospital Always Wins and couldn’t put it down. Issa Ibrahim writes with remarkable clarity and an artist’s skill for evoking place and time and the inner landscape of his own mind.” -Robert Whitaker, author of Anatomy of an Epidemic.
Finding the Best Addiction Treatment, With Hired Help
“Doing this research on your own can be a superscary process,” said Mike Ferguson, founder of FBHC Advisors, in Santa Monica, Calif., who worked with the Frawleys. “You have a financial adviser. Why wouldn’t you want someone who knows the field and can help you that way?”… Mr. Ferguson’s fees are on the lower end, at about $10,000 a year. Bill Messinger, founder of Aureus, an addiction consultant group in Minneapolis, charges $5,000 to $10,000 to set up an initial plan of care and then $5,000 a month for close monitoring for six months or so after that.
A new study has claimed that adolescents addicted to alcohol and other kinds of substance abuse have a distinctively low awareness of other people. The study published recently in the Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse also claims that addiction-specific behavior in adolescents is characterized by a general disinclination towards volunteering for other people. Developmental psychologist Dr. Maria Pagano has been working with her team … She has uncovered a key “dose-response” link between substance use and sensitivity to others.
The film’s subject is heroin addiction and its effect on Reiner and his son, Nick. Substituting for them are a fictional father and son – with the father’s fame linked to politics, not Hollywood. It was the U.S. premiere of the film, presented as part of this weekend’s Annapolis Film Festival. The movie focuses largely on the complicated nature of rehabilitation, with an eye to how a privileged lifestyle does not always give someone the best tools to take advantage of a second chance.
Red flags preceded child’s death from methadone overdose
Isabella Mazaba was born addicted to methadone and died of a methadone overdose 20 months later. Her mother, Elizabeth Perry, shared with Isabella both her addiction and, inadvertently, the sip of methadone that killed the child Sept. 25. And while the Milwaukee County medical examiner’s office has ruled that Isabella’s death was an accidental poisoning, a report released Tuesday by the state Department of Children and Families suggests that the girl’s death could hardly be a surprise.
Mouseketeer-turned-‘Idol’ Contestant Died After Battle with Alcoholism
Marque Lynche, the former “Mickey Mouse Club” star who passed away late last year, died of “acute and chronic alcoholism.” The manner of death was confirmed to Page Six by a spokesperson for the Office of Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York on Thursday. Lynche’s body was discovered by his roommate his New York apartment in early December. Initially it was reported that the 34-year-old had died under suspicious circumstances, but that has since been dis-proven.
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