August 30 Addiction Recovery eBulletin

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August 30, 2016 Treatment Industry & Recovery Community News Vol. 4., No. 4

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NPR AUDIO

Investors Seize Opportunities In Opioid Addiction Treatment

The first time Ray Tamasi got hit up by an investor, it was kind of out of the blue. “This guy called me up,” says Tamasi, president of Gosnold on Cape Cod, an addiction treatment center with seven sites in Massachusetts … “The guy” represented a group of investors; Tamasi declines to say whom. But they were looking to buy addiction treatment centers like Gosnold. “He had checked around and learned that we were one of the more reputable programs. We had a good reputations in the community – nice array of services,” Tamasi recalls. “He wanted to know if we were interested in becoming part of his company.” Tamasi was intrigued.

LISTEN HERE – NPR AUDIO 5 Minutes

You’re Innate and Getting Rich

Millionaire from Addiction Treatment Under Scrutiny

Expensive cars. Flashy watches. Strip clubs. Casinos. Tattoos … This is the lifestyle of Eric Snyder, one of a breed of 20-something addicts who came to Florida to get clean and ended up making fortunes by housing and treating fellow addicts and testing their urine … Three former employees say Snyder’s treatment program staff forged medical records to collect on insurance money, investigative files and legal documents show. A doctor in a recent deposition said much the same thing: His license was used to order urine drug screens without his permission. The urine of drug addicts with insurance is worth millions of dollars to the operators of labs, sober homes and intensive outpatient programs, such as those Snyder operated. Addicts with good insurance are so prized that the feds have dubbed their investigation Operation Thoroughbred … How much did Snyder make over the years? More than $50 million…

READ MORE HERE

2017 Recipient: Experience, Strength and Hope Award in Los Angeles click here for details

CBS sportscaster Pat O’Brien on overcoming alcoholism VIDEO

For a long time, former CBS sportscaster Pat O’Brien thought he was a normal drinker. But when normal drinkers would stop, he wouldn’t. His drinking escapades eventually led to public embarrassment when a decade ago voice mails he left seeking sex became public. Although he sought help at the time, he continued to drink himself into oblivion. Then on Election Day in November 2008, he was found face down on a Nantucket beach after consuming 14 bottles of wine that day. He was taken to a hospital and eventually a substance abuse treatment facility, where he learned he was drinking himself to death. That’s when the light came on, the 68-year-old said.

READ & WATCH HERE

Hoax or Hell?

Opioid Epidemic Greatly Exaggerated?

The same can be applied to painkillers like OxyContin, says Bennet. In 2014, the number of people who reported using painkillers for “nonmedical use” in the past month was 5.1 million. Martin and Neill, the authors of the policy brief, write, “This is not a small number of potentially problematic users, but it is a small segment of the U.S. population-1.6 percent of those age 12 and older.”

READ MORE @ TheFix.com

And Nothing to Get Hung About

Elizabeth Vargas to Share Story of Alcohol Abuse … in Book and ABC Special

20/20 anchor Elizabeth Vargas will mark the release of her new book, Between Breaths: a Memoir of Panic and Addiction, with an hour-long ABC News special…The special edition of 20/20 will feature ABC News Diane Sawyer interviewing Vargas about the secret she kept for years-and the difficult recovery she continues today.

READ MORE @ AdWeek.com

…or Wish to Shut the Door on It VIDEO

WCNC reporter documents painful journey to discover his past VIDEO

Watson, who has been sober for 23 years, dug into public documents and the prison archives of Georgia, where he was born, to find his father … Former WCNC (Channel 36) investigative reporter Stuart Watson is using his skills in a new way – he’s making a documentary about the central mystery of his life. Watson, 57, was born to an unwed mother, went immediately into foster care and was adopted at four months old to a loving couple he still calls Mom and Dad. Now he’s making a film that uncovered the identity of his biological parents and the insights into alcoholism

READ MORE @ CharlotteObserver.com

Soul Food for Thought

Demonization of Simone Biles’ Birth Mother Shows National Addiction…

Biles’ amazing 2016 Olympic run challenged our imaginations. And while the media has been filled with accounts of her rise to Olympic greatness, it has also predictably used her life as a way to trot out one of the most pernicious tropes of the war on drugs: the “black, drug-addicted mother.” According to the media, Biles’ rise is all the more astonishing because she spent the first several years of her life under the care of her mother, Shannon Biles, who was eventually deemed “unfit” to care for her daughter because of her problematic use of drugs and alcohol.

READ MORE @ TheRoot.com

You’d Smile Too

Epi-Pen Execs Gave Themselves $$$ Raises As They Hiked Prices VIDEO

Heather Bresch, chief executive officer of drugmaker Mylan Inc., speaks during an interview in New York,
After Mylan acquired EpiPen the company also amped up its lobbying efforts. In 2008, its reported spending on lobbying went from $270,000 to $1.2 million..EpiPen prices aren’t the only thing to jump at Mylan.

READ MORE @ NBCNews.com

COPS VIDEO

Albuquerque police storm syringe exchange, make arrests VIDEO

The videos cast doubt on APD’s key claim: the detectives did not know the van was a syringe exchange prior to storming it. The detectives ask the Health Care for the Homeless staffers who they work for, but at no point do any of the officers ask about what is going on inside the van. One of the officers seems to have known without being told what Gabaldon was doing inside – exchanging syringes. That same officer enters the van and appears unsurprised by what he finds. And the footage clearly contradicts the department’s assertion that detectives “did not interact with the staff nor the patrons” at the exchange. (APD did not respond to requests for comment on the contradictions.)

READ MORE @ NewMexicoInDepth.com

ESSAY

We must bring addiction out of the shadows

By Ricci and Vernae Graham
In the hope that we can help other families confronting addiction and mental illness, we are sharing our journey and our prolonged fight for our son, Malcolm Rushe Graham. Malcolm died of an apparent heroin overdose just as he was attempting a fresh start. Although it is difficult to write this just hours after being informed our beautiful son passed away, we feel compelled to do so. Some may think this is too personal of a story to share in this manner. We feel drug addiction is an issue that must be addressed out loud, in public. We need to speak out about the heroin epidemic that few comprehend and too many accept as it continues its slow yet insidious invasion into our lives.

READ MORE @ SFChronicle.com

Eating Well is the Best Revenge VIDEO

Anti-alcohol diet: What YOU can eat to reverse decay… VIDEO

“Steer clear of fatty foods, such as butter, cheese, cream, margarine and meat.” “Consume all colours of fruits and vegetables – papaya and watermelon are especially useful.”…”Herbal teas – four cups per day – of anise, chamomile, fennel, ginger, ginseng, grape seed extract, reishi mushroom and seaweed. “Tomatoes – lightly cooked and must be consumed with a very small drop of cold pressed oil or fish. Avocado is good to eat with tomatoes as it has natural plant oils which aid in the absorption of lycopene in tomatoes.” Alarmingly, ARLD doesn’t usually cause any symptoms until the liver has been severely damaged, but symptoms can include-

READ MORE @ Express.co.uk

Crime Kills VIDEO

Mom of overdose victim: ‘Drug policy is the reason people are dying’ VIDEO

In March, Louise Vincent was forced to live every parent’s worst nightmare. Her daughter Selena died after a drug overdose. She was 19. Yet despite Vincent’s grief, it’s not heroin that she blames for Selena’s death. “Drug policy is really what’s killing people. That’s what would have saved my daughter,” Vincent told CNN. The way society treats drug users also needs to change in order to prevent overdoses and keep those struggling with addiction out of jail, Vincent said … That’s where Vincent comes in. After everything she’s been through, she’s determined not to give up on those who are battling drug addiction. “I’m telling them they can make changes, they can do these things, and then they do them, and it’s amazing,” she said.

READ MORE @ CNN.com

Safe House

Seattle housing for homeless where it’s OK to use heroin ?

The Heroin Task Force formed by Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and King County Executive Dow Constantine has endorsed the creation of safe-consumption sites for addicts, which would be a first in the U.S. A majority of the task-force members support a place or places for addicts to use heroin and other drugs besides public restrooms, alleys or homeless encampments such as The Jungle, said Dr. Jeffrey Duchin, task force co-chair.

READ MORE @ SeattleTimes.com

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Hard To Handle

6-Year-Old Boy Watched Dad Overdose on Heroin VIDEO

CINCINNATI, OH (KTRK) – Police in Cincinnati had a busy night investigating at least 20 overdoses across the city’s west side. In one incident, a six-year-old boy was in the parking lot of a Shell gas station when his father overdosed inside their vehicle. Officers said the little boy was hysterical, jumping all over his dad in an attempt to wake him up.

READ MORE @ ABC13.com

REMEMBER It Kills

Heroin laced with elephant tranquilizer hits the streets

(CNN) -The American heroin epidemic has become more dangerous, as reports of heroin laced with carfentanil are being reported throughout the country … Carfentanil can slow breathing significantly. It’s not approved for human use but is used commercially to sedate large animals, such as elephants. About 2 milligrams can knock out a nearly 2,000-pound African elephant.

READ MORE @ WPTZ.com

Addiction/Recovery eBulletin

Lawrence Block speaks in New York. Sept 28
The True Story of a Fictional Drunk’s Recovery

We Are Not a Glum Lot VIDEO

AA Destroying The Social Lives Of Thousands Of Once-Fun Americans VIDEO

In The Know panelists discuss how Alcoholics Anonymous wreaks havoc on the friendships of Americans by turning the ‘life of the party’ into a sanctimonious bore. (satire)

READ MORE @ YouTube.com

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Cop Cops Pills VIDEO

Sheriff indicted on 43 drug counts VIDEO

FREMONT, OH – A Sandusky county grand jury has issued 43 indictments – of which 38 are felonies – against Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer. The indictments come following an investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation that began in Sept. 2015. The investigation started when a number of local police chiefs in Sandusky County expressed concerns about Overmyer’s behavior in connection with prescription drug disposal drop box collections.

READ MORE @ Fox8.com

Shaking Off The Signal

Yankees offer to send Doc Gooden to rehab; ‘I feel great’

The Yankees are stepping up to help former flamethrower Doc Gooden battle his fiercest opponent – addiction. The Bronx Bombers were so moved by Darryl Strawberry’s plea to get his former teammate help, the franchise vowed to help pay for Gooden to get treatment, if that’s what he wants. The offer came after Yankees officials saw the front page of Monday’s Daily News that featured Strawberry sounding the alarm about Gooden’s cocaine abuse – urging him to get help before it’s too late.

READ MORE @ NYDailyNews.com

A is for Alcoholism, B is for Bingeing

College Students Missing Meals to Drink More Alcohol

Television programs and movies about American college life have images of wild parties with young people either drinking alcohol or holding a drink. Now, a new study of alcohol use suggests that some college students may be missing meals so they can have more drinks or get drunk faster. Researchers are calling this kind of behavior, “drunkorexia.” The study involved 1,184 college students between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six years. Most of the students attended the University of Houston in Houston, Texas, while the others went to school in other parts of the country. Researchers asked the students about their alcohol use. They found that eighty percent of those studied had demonstrated some kind of drunkorexia in the past three months.

READ MORE @ LearningEnglish.VOANews.com

The Hero’s Journey

Danny Trejo Celebrates 48 Years and Recounts Moment in Prison That Changed His Life

Danny Trejo may play one badass after another on screen, but it is all cleaning living in real life thanks to a promise he made 48 years ago Tuesday. “Everybody asks me, how do you stay so young? I consider myself 48-years-old.”… the 72-year-old actor tells Heat Vision. Trejo, who has appeared in dozens of films, including Heat, Con Air, Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, Reindeer Games and Machete, got his break as an actor playing a boxer in the 1985 film, Runaway Train; his decision to live sober occurring years prior.

READ MORE @ HollywoodReporter.com

It’s Only Human

We are all ‘wired’ for addiction, says researcher

Drug addicts and non-addicts may have more in common than ever thought, according to a researcher at Texas A&M University who found that to some degree, everyone’s brain is “wired” to become addicted…” This suggests that these seemingly ‘pathological features’ of addiction may in fact reflect a normal cognitive process – that we are all to some degree ‘wired’ to become addicted,” he explains.

READ MORE @ ScienceDaily.com

Profits From Death, Time to Invest?

Purdue Pharma tells New Hampshire attorney general NO on information on suspected diversion of OxyContin

“They are just refusing to turn over documents,” state Atty. Gen. Joseph Foster said of drugmaker Purdue Pharma in an interview. “On one hand, they tell us they have nothing to hide and they are doing everything appropriately, but then why are they fighting so hard not to turn over this information?… the Times found that the company’s confidential files include field reports, witness statements, prescribing data and surveillance photos on doctors and pharmacists across the nation suspected of catering to addicts and drug dealers … in refusing to comply with the New Hampshire subpoena, Purdue cited longstanding objections to the state’s use of a private law firm in an ongoing investigation of the company and other opioid makers.

READ MORE @ LATimes.com

So Sad

The Lonely Death of Jason Jacobs

…at a breaking point last August, Jason, 32, walked into a Toronto hospital emergency room and told staff he was suicidal. A few days later, he phoned his mother and left a voicemail announcing he had got into a rehab program. Weeks later, Jason was dead. Social workers discovered his body on Sept. 30 in his Crescent Town supportive housing apartment. Pill bottles – dozens of them – were scattered across tables and shelves and stuffed into drawers. An empty bottle of lorazepam, an anxiety drug, was found near the bed where he lay. Jason had been dead for days. His body was so decomposed his own social worker could not identify him, and the coroner could not determine a cause of death. There was no suicide note. It was likely an overdose, but whether accidental or intentional, no one knows.

READ MORE @ TheSpec.com

This Isn’t Even Florida

How Staten Island’s Drug Problem Made It a Target for Poaching Patients

“They are opportunistic people or organizations who are preying on people of vulnerability at a time of high stress,” said Luke Nasta, director of the addiction treatment center Camelot of Staten Island, which has been there for 45 years. “It’s unethical. It’s borderline criminal.” “There are enough people doing it who seem to think it’s O.K., or know that it’s not and don’t care,” said Marvin Ventrell, the executive director of the
National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers,

which has about 550 members. “The addiction industry was no longer a small collegial group that was carefully working together and trying to do the best thing for clients,” Mr. Ventrell said. “Rather, it had become a very competitive business.”

READ MORE @ NYTimes.com

Blow This: AA is Not Treatment

Book to ‘blow lid’ off alcohol addiction treatment industry

Joe Miller, a Columbus State University assistant professor of English, has signed a contract to have his new manuscript, “US of AA: Science, Alcoholism, and the Rise and Fall of the Twelve Steps,” published in 2018 … Pande compared the potential impact of Miller’s book to “Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal,” the 2001 bestseller that was made into a 2006 movie starring Greg Kinnear and Bruce Willis. Miller’s book will detail “the history of how AA became the de facto alcoholism treatment policy even though much more effective treatments are available,”…

READ MORE @ Ledger-Enquirer.com

A Look Behind

There’s pain behind sex and drug addiction

The truth hurts, but it must be told. In “The Heart of the Soul,” Gary Zukar and Linda Francis say it frankly-the real cause of drug addiction is intense emotional pain. Whether the use of prohibited drugs is occasional or frequent, it just differs in degrees of dependence. But the trigger is the same-fear of rejection, humiliation, acceptance, being judged, not measuring up or failure. Underneath it all is pain.

READ MORE @ NewsSource.com

Save Lives, Not Face

Upcoming Overdose Awareness Day in Orange County Urges Harm Reduction

The United States has been behind the times up until just a few years ago in regards to harm reduction,” says Diane Goldstein, an Executive Board Member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Overdose Awareness Day in Orange County is important because we have a high rate of overdose deaths relative to the issue of opiates- heroin use in particular. The heroin problem in Orange County isn’t going away, no matter how much our county government ignores the issue.”

READ MORE @ OCWeekly.com

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