Sober Home Task Force makes 26th arrest – takes aim at labs VIDEO
May 11, 2017 – After six weeks without an arrest, the Palm Beach County Sober Home Task Force roared back into action on Thursday, making four arrests in 24 hours and expanding its investigation into business practices of labs that perform costly urine drug tests. The new arrests – plus additional charges against a prior arrestee – bring the total arrests by the task force to 26 and also mark the first time the state’s patient brokering statute has been used to prosecute lab owners, said Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg at a press conference on Thursday. The crimes are third-degree felonies and carry a five-year maximum prison sentence. “You cannot clean up the industry without cleaning up the labs,” Aronberg said.
WATCH MORE @ MyPalmBeachPost.com
Government By The People
Opioid epidemic looms over Senate’s Medicaid talks
May 15, 2017 – The nation’s opioid epidemic is looming over the Senate’s effort to repeal Obamacare. Senators from states that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act are worried about the fate of their residents, especially those affected by the opioid crisis. The trepidation is a big hurdle right out the gate for Senate Republicans working on their own Obamacare repeal legislation after the House passed a bill earlier this month. “We’re just trying to make sure that at a time we are facing this crisis, we are not making things worse,” said Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio … About 700,000 people in Ohio took advantage of Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion, and Portman said mental health and substance abuse account for about 50 percent of the costs of the expansion.
Maher slams Apple, Facebook as ‘drug dealers’ for addictive apps VIDEO
Bill Maher scolded Apple, Google and Facebook on Friday night, characterizing the Silicon giants as “essentially drug dealers” for creating addictive applications that kids can’t stop using. The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children,” said Maher on his weekly “Real Time” program on HBO. “Because, let’s face it, checking your ‘likes’ is the new smoking… (Warning: Language)
Miley Cyrus Shares How Her Life Has Changed Since She Quit Smoking Weed and Drinking
May 14, 2017 – “I haven’t smoked weed in three weeks, which is the longest I’ve ever [gone without it].” And weed isn’t the only vice Miley gave up; she also said she’s stopped drinking alcohol, as well.” Miley Cyrus is only 24 but she’s gone through more reinventions than, um, literally anyone I can think of. Now, the former crazy about cannabis singer is saying no to drugs. On Friday, Miley talked about how her life has changed since she stopped smoking marijuana 9-10 weeks ago. “Look at my eyes, look at how white they are,” she said. “They’re clear and open and I can see and all that.” She continued: “A lot of people have reached out to me and they’re like, ‘You know, if you want help or if you want to go to these meetings,’ and I’m like, ‘No, when I want something, I can do it.’
School Accidentally Hired Church of Scientology-Backed Group to Teach Drug Education
May 14, 2017 – After a drug-related tragedy, administrators at California’s Santa Monica High School decided the school needed a drug education program. But the school went cold turkey on its new drug education program after just three seminars when parents realized the program was actually run by the Church of Scientology. After the LSD-related death of a Santa Monica High School first-year student in March, the school hired the Foundation for a Drug-Free World to host three anti-drug assemblies for freshman and sophomores, the Hollywood Reporter initially reported. But behind the group’s innocuous-sounding name was controversial religious organization. Although the affiliation is not immediately clear through any of the Foundation’s literature, the group is run by the Church of Scientology, a highly controversial organization sometimes accused of being a cult.
How effective is medication-assisted treatment for addiction? Here’s the scienceVIDEO
May 15, 2017 – Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price sparked a firestorm last week with his comments about medication-assisted treatment, saying that “if we’re just substituting one opioid for another, we’re not moving the dial much” in the nation’s opioid epidemic. Notably, the former surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, took him to task on Twitter for, as he put it, moving away from evidence-based treatment protocols … MAT can work in one of two ways. Doctors can give people opiates that activate the same receptors but are absorbed into the blood over a longer period of time – staving off withdrawal symptoms and breaking a psychological link between taking a drug and immediately feeling high. Doctors can also give someone an opioid antagonist – a non-opioid drug that sits on those same receptors and blocks them – so that if someone relapses, he or she won’t feel anything. (If someone goes off the drug and relapses, however, that can have deadly consequences. A person’s tolerance for the drug decreases after long periods of sobriety – especially after antagonist treatment.)
Origins Behavioral HealthCare Acquired by TRT Holdings, Inc.
May 9, 2017 – Origins Behavioral HealthCare today announced it has been acquired by TRT Holdings, Inc., a diversified private holding company owned by the Rowling family of Dallas that owns other successful brands, including Omni Hotels & Resorts and Gold’s Gym. This major acquisition in the substance use disorder treatment industry will mean more robust treatment options for people struggling with addiction. Origins currently offers age- and gender-specific residential treatment centers in West Palm Beach and Vero Beach, Florida and South Padre Island, Texas.
READ MORE @ OriginsRecovery.com
Who’s Next?
Rehab Mogul will stand trial in $176 million fraud case
May 9, 2017 – Self-titled “Rehab Mogul” Christopher Bathum will stand trial on charges of fraudulently billing companies $176 million, one of the largest criminal cases against an addiction facility in state history, a judge ruled Tuesday … Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Michael Pastor ruled there was enough evidence after a preliminary hearing to send Bathum and finance officer Kirsten Wallace to trial on nearly 50 charges of grand theft, identity theft & money laundering involving Community Recovery of Los Angeles.
READ MORE @ OCRegister.com
Emergency for Emergency VIDEO
Synthetic drug potentially too powerful for overdose reversal VIDEO
May 11, 2017 – A powerful drug has made its way to the Upstate, and a popular remedy could not be as effective in treating potential overdoses. The synthetic drug U-47700 or “pink” became more widely known in the Upstate after two people were arrested and indicted on federal charges for selling it out of a Greenville apartment complex … “We’re losing people,” Jones said. “People we know, people that we’ve known along the way, good kids, older people who’ve fell prey to this, so it’s very personal to us.”
Odds of drug having significant safety issue after winning FDA approval are nearly 1 in 3
Almost one-third of new drugs approved by U.S. regulators over a decade ended up years later with warnings about unexpected – sometimes life-threatening – side effects or complications, according to a new analysis in the Journal of the American Medical Assn … “The large percentage of problems was a surprise,” and they included side effects not seen during the review process” … The study counted black-box warnings for dozens of drugs. These warnings involved serious problems including risk of death or life-threatening conditions linked with the drugs. There were also alerts for less serious potential harms related to dozens of drugs. Among them: Humira, used for arthritis and some other illnesses; Abilify, used for depression and other mental illness; and Pradaxa, a blood thinner.
Appalachia’s approach to drugs at odds with Attorney General policy
In Appalachian states hit hardest by the opioid epidemic, the tough-on-crime policy announced Friday by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions runs counter to a recent emphasis on treatment and less prison time for low-level drug offenders. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul strongly opposed the Department of Justice directive, which reverses an Obama-era policy that prescribed leniency for nonviolent, low-level drug offenders. “We should treat our nation’s drug epidemic as a health crisis and less as a ‘lock ’em up and throw away the key’ problem,” Paul said in a statement released shortly after Session’s announcement.
READ MORE @ Live5News.com
Money and Heart Can Save Lives
New York City To Open Crisis Centers
May 11, 2017 – New York City plans to spend $90 million to open two centers where police can bring people with mental illness or substance-abuse issues instead of arresting them. The short-term stay facilities, known as diversion centers, are intended for people who might otherwise be arrested or issued a summons for low-level charges. City officials estimate the two, approximately 20-bed centers, designed largely for stays of up to five days….
Recovering Alcoholic Reveals The Questions To Never Ask Her
A recovering alcoholic has revealed the questions others should never ask someone coping with their type of addiction … In the UK alone, more than 1.4million people are dependent on alcohol, according to Government statistics. However, the stigma surrounding alcoholism means that those not coping with addiction may be unwittingly hurting those who are. Writer Anne T. Donahue – who has been sober for four years – has laid bare what she wishes people would stop asking her, in her newsletter That’s What She Said.
Russell Brand – fatherhood more satisfying than sex, drugs & fame
May 11, 2017 – Russell Brand has said fatherhood has satisfied something in him that he previously tried to fill with fame, sex and drugs. The comedian and actor, 41, welcomed daughter Mabel with partner Laura Gallacher in November. Asked whether parenthood had satisfied something once placated by more rock ‘n’ roll pursuits, Russell told NME: “Yeah, it has. “The corollary of each of those things is transcendence of self. “Fame means a version of you exists that is not you. Drugs take you out of yourself. Sex takes you out of yourself. They’re all sort of transcendent. “Fatherhood, literally another person comes out of you and is of you. “What it makes you realise, and this is the opposite of the con trick because you don’t want to believe this is true, but you can’t be happy if all you do is spend your time trying to make yourself happy.”
May 11, 2017 – In the 30 years since former Black Flag singer Henry Rollins intentionally smoked weed, he says he has never grown curious to try pot again. There was a secondhand smoke incident a few years ago in Colorado, when he was filming the cannabis episode of 10 Things You Don’t Know About for the History Channel – and while that made his sandwich taste very good, his indifference to personal use didn’t change. “I tried acid a few times, smoked marijuana once. I just never liked any of it. I would’ve rather drank a liter of paint.” … he has channeled his trademark anger into advocating for the legalization of marijuana. “Its illegality is based in ignorance and bigotry and racism and financing the prison-industrial complex,” he says. At the recent Oregon conference, he told a standing-room-only crowd of industry professionals that it was up to them to right the wrongs of prohibition’s past.
May 10, 2017 – Midtown-based therapist Kimberly Hershenson, who works with many high-functioning New Yorkers with substance issues, shares four warning signs. You’re drinking to relieve stress – “Going to a substance to help yourself calm down is not a healthy way to cope,” Hershenson says. “If you’re stressed out about something, find another way to deal with it. Try exercise, yoga or some deep breathing.” … People who don’t have drinking problems tend to drink socially,” Hershenson says. “When you’re drinking by yourself you’re doing it for some other reason … It could be to relax, or to numb something.”
Addiction/Recovery eBulletin’s NEW EXECUTIVE CORNER
Anne Elizabeth Lapointe has developed an expertise in Addiction Prevention and Treatment, working in the field for the past 15 years. Over the years, Anne Elizabeth has helped implant two prevention programs, collaborated on a number of researches, articles and publications. A great communicator, she has given hundreds of conferences on addictions. Her long-term goals are to continue to develop her expertise and leadership in the Addiction Prevention and Treatment field. She’s also developed a niche in ethics which is valuable both for professionals & clients… Q. At which of the schools you attended did you learn the most? A. The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre Q. Which film have you watched the most? A. Probably The Sound of Music Q. Who is your favorite celebrity in recovery? A. John Taylor Q. What prominent fe/male figure would you most like to date? A. Liam Neeson (why? Do you know him?) Q. TV/cable/digital series? A. GIRLS Q. Non-fiction book genre? A. Biographies Q. What is the proudest moment in your life? A. Accepting the offer to become the CEO of my father’s rehab center ALL 20 QUESTIONS and ANSWERS click HERE
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.
How $750,000 in drug ‘treatment’ destroyed her life
MAY 9, 2017 – When she enrolled in a South Florida drug treatment program in 2015, Alison Flory had high hopes of getting her life in order and starting anew. But instead of receiving life-saving health care, the 23-year-old from a Chicago suburb found herself being recruited from one recovery residence to another as a string of shady drug treatment facilities systematically overcharged her mother’s health insurance policy for expensive, unnecessary procedures and tests. By October 2016, Alison was dead.
Students raise money to purchase van for drug rehab facility
May 14, 2017 – For months students at St. Raphael the Archangel have been on a mission to raise money in an effort to buy a new van for the Queen of Peace Center. The Queen of Peace Center is a drug rehab facility that serves women and children. The new van was delivered to the center on Sunday morning. “I was extremely excited, I think I can speak for the entire student body when I say that we are extremely exhilarated that we were able to do this.”
WATCH MORE @ SFGate.com
She’s Gotta Have It VIDEO
Research Shows Women More Likely to Abuse Alcohol for Mental Health Problems VIDEO
May 8, 2017 – NBC 7’s Monica Dean speaks with Dr. Regina Huelsenbeck, the Clinical Director of Confidential Recovery, to discuss how women handle addictions. Research from Harvard found women are more likely to abuse alcohol for mental heath issues such as anxiety and depression….
Newsreader Talitha Cummins opens up about battle with booze
May 14, 2017 – Journalist Talitha Cummins has bravely shared the gritty details of her former alcoholism and spoke candidly about her booze spiral while working as a newsreader. The 37-year-old former Channel Seven weekend Sunrise reader revealed she was a high-functioning alcoholic and has told of the binge-drinking problem which gripped her for 20 years. The newsreader (pictured) candidly spoke of the years she spent binge-drinking and hiding her secret from friends and family … As the newsreader fronted cameras each morning, her co-workers had no idea she was harbouring a crippling addiction that could have ended her career. The mother-of-one has described herself as the modern face of alcoholism – young, professional, educated and high-functioning.
SNL’s Pete Davidson talks sobriety and rehab on Weekend Update VIDEO
MAY 14, 2017 – Getting sober isn’t easy – just ask Saturday Night Live’s Pete Davidson, who announced his newly-earned sobriety in March. But with the new Republican health care proposal set to potentially make addiction a preexisting condition, thus removing protections for access to drug treatment and rehab, the comedian returned to the Weekend Update desk and riffed on what it’s like to be drug-free. “They tell you quitting drugs is hard, and that’s true,” joked Davidson of his life since. “But what they don’t tell you is how boring it is.”
Dr. Miriam Adelson shares thoughts on campus drug testing
May 13, 2017 – We asked Dr. Miriam Adelson, a physician and founder of two major drug abuse treatment and research centers and the co-founder of the Adelson Educational Campus in Las Vegas, to share her thoughts on drug abuse by young people. Your drug abuse clinic in Las Vegas treats adults, as well as teens, but you have always showed particular concern about drug use by the young. Why? Adolescence is an extremely vulnerable and damaging time period to be exposed to substance use and develop addiction.
Caroline Fenkel on Teen Mental Health and Suicide Prevention VIDEO
MAY 12, 2017 – Caroline Fenkel from Newport Academy talked about the prevalence of teen suicide amid the stir over a new Netflix series, “13 Reasons Why.” She spoke via video link from New York City.
With Alcoholism Rampant on Reservation, Nebraska Shuts Town Liquor Stores NPR AUDIO
May 11, 2017 – The battle over alcohol stores in tiny Whiteclay, Neb., has been going on for decades. Home to roughly about a dozen people, the town has been called a “rural skid row.” Images of Lakota people openly drinking in town or staggering drunk on its streets are commonplace. But now, that easy access to alcohol is gone. The state liquor board has shut down Whiteclay’s four controversial liquor stores. Together, the stores sold 4 million cans of beer every year – mostly to residents of the adjacent Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, which bans alcohol. The store owners are appealing the action by the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission, but that could take months.
Recovering alcoholic: I drank so much that I thought a VENDING MACHINE was a relative
A RECOVERING alcoholic who drank so much he was convinced a vending machine was a relative has shunned the booze and turned his life around. David Richardson, 51, lost his job, family, and dignity from drinking, regularly consuming up to 12 cans of lager and three litres of cider a day. His problems started as a teenager when he would enjoy drinking at weekends with pals. The father-of-two explained: “I started drinking as a teenager but didn’t know when to stop. “When I got a job in a pub, that just made things worse.” … “Eventually I went to the Royal Infirmary, where I was for 13 weeks. I’ve never seen my brother cry but he did that time. “He held my hand and said ‘ We’re going to lose you.’ … “I decided when I got out of hospital in 2009, I wouldn’t touch alcohol again.”
To Combat Overdose Deaths At Sea, Fishermen Look To Reversal Drug Narcan AUDIO
May 12, 2017 – Massachusetts fishermen are taking new steps to prevent overdose deaths at sea. The nonprofit health advocacy group The Fishing Partnership is training fishing captains to use the overdose reversal drug naloxone, also known as Narcan. The organization says it hopes to eventually make the drug a staple in every ship’s medical kit. Here & Now’s Robin Young talks with lobsterman Steve Holler and Fishing Partnership Health Facilitator Debra Kelsey (@fishing_partner) about the scope of the opioid crisis, and their approach to finding solutions.
To our Readers and Advertisers: An Open Letter from Leonard Buschel Publisher/Editor of the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin
Gratitude is always in season, and as we begin Spring, I want to thank our readers and astute progressive advertisers for your loyalty and confidence. The Addiction/ Recovery eBulletin is approaching four and a half years of continued growth and influence. This would not have been possible without the support of “The Good Guys” – our sponsors who continually stand on the side of truth, integrity and Best Practices. It is an honor to serve our readers and a responsibility I do not take lightly.
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Money Showers VIDEO
How peeing in a cup can cost you $6,250 VIDEO
May 2017 – A different kind of gold rush has come to Colorado … “There’s just no other way to explain the numbers when it comes to urine drug testing,” said California attorney Harry Nelson, a nationally recognized expert on the subject … Urine drug tests, long considered a relatively inexpensive and unremarkable medical procedure, cost the state of Colorado’s Medicaid program more than $1 million every month last year alone, according to an investigation by 9Wants to Know. To put that into perspective, in late 2014, the same program spent a little more than $50,000 per month or urine tests.
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