‘Refrigerator’ Perry struggles with alcohol abuse, has ‘traces of CTE’ VIDEO
The former Chicago Bears defensive tackle, who is now 53, has ballooned to well over 400 pounds. He’s ignored the advice of doctors, who have told him to stop drinking and Perry nearly lost his foot in January because of an infection in one of his legs. Perry has lost nearly all of the millions of dollars he earned over his 10-year NFL career and was forced to sell his Super Bowl XX championship ring last summer. He still owes the IRS thousands of dollars in back taxes.READ MORE @ WashingtonPost
BIG PHARMA
The Domino Effect
Rx PIZZA: ONE free meal can sway doctor prescribing
As little as one free meal from a drug company can influence which medicines doctors prescribe for Medicare patients, according to a study using Medicare records and recently released data from the health care law’s Open Payments program. The study highlights the subtle ways doctors may feel inclined to prescribe a drug after receiving just a small gift, even if the drug is more costly for patients and their insurance plans…
READ MORE @ AP.org
RECOVERY FELLOWSHIP
The Only Requirement…
Dream with Us-How ‘Gay and Sober Men’ Brings Support, Love & Safety
Gay and Sober Men is a safe and fun community-and 2017 looks to be their biggest year yet … In recent years, a question seemed to be keep coming up-are special interest gay friendly meetings and LGBT-specific treatment centers relevant or even necessary in society’s current age of progressiveness, tolerance, and acceptance … On a personal note, being a straight woman in recovery, I have been surrounded by and helped tremendously by sober fellows of the gay community. My numerous stints in rehabs taught me that I have an unhealthy need for male attention …
Demi Lovato Recalls Addiction and Eating Disorder Battles: “I Was Going to Die Young”
The pop star, now 23, had battled drug and alcohol addictions, bipolar disorder and an eating disorder for years and underwent rehab in 2010, at age 18. She has spoken about her personal struggles before and revisits them in a shocking new candid interview with American Airlines’ inflight magazine American Way.
The lawsuits, filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court, allege that sober-living homes Capo By the Sea, at 27036 Azul Drive, and Sovereign Health Group, at 25512 Evans Pointe, are operating as drug abuse recovery and treatment facilities without state licenses – City officials have filed two lawsuits seeking to shut down two sober-living houses affiliated with two treatment centers in Capistrano Beach…
All-Star Bret Boone Talks New Book, Career, Alcoholism
Can you talk about your alcoholism, which you revealed in the book? “It’s something that kind of slowly snuck up on me. It ripped the passion out of me. I fight it today on a daily basis. It’s a disease and I have it. I’m well aware of it. I put that in the book…so maybe some day, I can help another guy so he doesn’t have to go down the same road. It can be pretty dark.” Read a few excerpts and listen to the complete interview below:
California’s Rehab System is in Crisis … It’s Time to Borrow a Page from Florida’s Playbook
… I detailed some of the issues facing California’s extensive rehab and recovery industries. As in all industries, the unscrupulous operate alongside those who are committed to helping those battling addiction. One reader commented, “I was in a sober living (facility) in the valley for almost two years and it helped me build a foundation that I have now. I have been clean for almost five years and now I feel I have my life back.”
Drug abuse program explores problems like racism, incarceration
University of Illinois social work professor Liliane Windsor is the co-developer of a substance abuse treatment program called Community Wise, which addresses individuals’ experiences with societal problems such as racism, poverty and incarceration. The creators of a novel substance abuse treatment program have received an infusion of funding from a federal agency for an expanded study of their intervention, which targets marginalized populations who struggle with problems such as racism, sexism, poverty and histories of incarceration.
Candy Shop’s Secret Door Concealed Major NYC Heroin Mill
The cheery red, white and blue sign advertised candy and ice cream, but police say the Brooklyn store was selling something far more sinister. Behind a secret door at the Gates Candy & Grocery Store, officers found what appeared to be bags of heroin and barrels of fentanyl, the powerful painkiller officials say is behind a nationwide epidemic of opiate overdoses. Fentanyl is often mixed with heroin to boost its effect.
Content warning: this article describes first-hand accounts of drug use. Before his first manic episode and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, RJ’s substance use was a daily routine. RJ*, 22, would use to get through university classes and his part-time job. Nights were spent drinking until he fell asleep. “Whenever I could get my hands on any drug, whether it was ketamine, blow, ‘shrooms or MDMA-whatever would skyrocket my mood-I’d use, and smoke weed once the comedown kicked in,” RJ says. He calmed his highs and managed his lows like this-until he woke up one day in a psychiatric ward. His mind was wiped clean of a month’s worth of memories.
Soaring numbers of overdose deaths are adding to woes already plaguing medical examiner and coroner offices, resulting in a shortage of places to store bodies and long delays in autopsies and toxicology testing … Medical examiners and coroners say overdose deaths are adding to a strain on their offices that already includes a surge of urban violence, inadequate facilities, budget problems and the shortage of forensic pathologists qualified to perform autopsies.
READ MORE @ SeattleTimes.com
Addiction/Recovery eBulletin
Go Make a Movie
REEL Recovery Film Festival
is a social, educational, networking and recovery forum showcasing first-time filmmakers and experienced professionals who make films about addiction and recovery. Our audience is treatment professionals, people in recovery, members of the entertainment industry, media representatives, educated moviegoers & the general public.
Nora Volkow just smashed a huge misconception about addiction PBS VIDEO
If drug addiction is a disease like cancer or Alzheimer’s, how do you explain the seemingly amoral behavior – the lying, cheating, and hiding – that has come to be linked with so many addicts? The answer … as National Institute on Drug Abuse director Dr. Nora Volkow perfectly explains in a recent PBS episode of “The Open Mind,” on addiction.
Trauma is the Root Cause of Addiction by Dr. Gabor Mate VIDEO
Mate, a doctor from Vancouver, is one of the keynote speakers. He worked for 12 years in Vancouver’s downtown east side, which is one of the most concentrated areas of drug use in Canada. He also wrote a book about addiction entitled In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. His talk at the conference, A Bio-physical Perspective on Addiction, focused on the nature of addiction, what causes it and the way to best approach people who are suffering from it. “Before we ask how we handle something, we have to understand what are we handling,” Mate said.
Sobering Up, and Facing the Reality of Sex without ‘Liquid Courage’ NPR
by Sarah Hepola I stopped drinking at the age of 35, roughly two decades into my sex life. I was scared to quit for a lot of reasons. I thought I’d be boring. I thought other people would be boring. When you drink as long, and lovingly, as I did, you will find a lot of excuses not to hang up your beer mug. But nothing frightened me as much as sex without alcohol. As in, no way. Not happening…
New Mexico ranks 2nd in the US for drug overdose deaths VIDEO
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -New Mexico ranks second in the nation for drug overdose deaths and now federal leaders are saying enough is enough. “Unfortunately, we’re in an epidemic with heroin and prescription opiates,” U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez said. He said just under 500 New Mexicans died of overdoses last year and about 540 the year before.
“Bottled: A Mom’s Guide to Early Recovery,” by Dana Bowman of Lindsborg was recently named to the 2016 Kansas Notable Books List. The list honors 15 books either written by Kansas authors or about a Kansas-related topic. A memoir about her path to sobriety as a mother of two young children, Bowman’s book is a humorous look at a serious topic.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek H. Murthy is on a wellness campaign that includes attacking addiction and promoting disease prevention and healthy living … Despite all of these efforts, however, more is still needed to educate the public. The majority of opioid addicts, according to Murthy, don’t get their pills from a doctor or a clinic but from friends and family – often without the knowledge of those friends and family members.
The AA is run without taking any monetary help from any person or institution. The meetings are held in the halls of various villages and are done with contribution from the members of the meeting group. The Chairman of Alcoholics Anonymous said that the success rate of the group is high because of the practical approach to convincing the alcohol addicts. The Chairman, claiming a success rate of 10%, says: “At the village and group meetings the alcoholics share the bad experiences they faced when they were alcoholics and how life has improved after they got rid of the habit.” “Over 10% remain sober after they attend the meetings of AA,”…
Teen pot use in Colorado lower than national average
“The survey shows marijuana use has not increased since legalization, with four of five high school students continuing to say they don’t use marijuana, even occasionally,” the department said in a statement.
READ MORE @ FoxNews.com
RECOVERY STORIES
Nature Springs Eternal
Baltimore garden is symbol of growth and recovery from addiction
Glenwood Life Counseling Center hosted its annual Juneteenth celebration, which normally commemorates the end of American slavery in 1865, in a new way this year – by also marking it as celebration of “breaking the chains” of addiction. In addition to presenting lively music, praise dancing and food outside the center’s doors Saturday, the methadone clinic and recovery center held the official ribbon-cutting for its “recovery garden,” a 40-by-60-foot labor of love and metaphor for the hard work of recovery from addiction.
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