| From Excess to Sobriety Success | | Alice Cooper Comeback Fueled By Sobriety Alice Cooper says he would have made many more hit albums if he had stayed sober. The shock rocker says he made four unsuccessful albums when he was in the grip of alcohol addiction and only made another hit record – 1989’s Trash – when he quit drinking. As soon as I got sober all of a sudden things got okay again. It took me going into a hospital and getting sober before I made another hit album.” READ MORE | | Chicago Feeling the Pain of Painkillers | | Chicago Sues Big Pharma for Deceptively Marketing Highly Addictive Prescription Painkillers Just weeks after two California counties filed suit against big pharma, the city of Chicago has followed their example. The city filed a lawsuit against five prescription narcotics companies, claiming that the companies, through deceptive promoting, contributed to the country’s prescription drug epidemic, according to Reuters. The companies under fire are: Purdue Pharma. Cephalon Inc., Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc, Endo Health Solutions Inc., and Actavis. READ MORE | | Children in Irish Homes Used as ‘Guinea Pigs’ by Pharmaceutical Industry Hundreds of children born to unmarried mothers in Ireland may have been used as guinea pigs for the testing of new vaccinations, according to new revelations that added to pressure on the government in Dublin to launch a full-scale investigation into the country’s care homes. GlaxoSmithKline, makers of Paxil and Wellbutrin, took over the drug firm that ran the trials, Burroughs Wellcome, said there were no laws on medical testing in Ireland until 1987. READ MORE | | Commentary by Dr. Gabor Maté | | Can Rob Ford Conquer His Pain and Become an Inspiration? Having incurred notoriety, the mayor of Toronto may become an inspiration to many if he is helped to salve the wounds that impelled him into compulsive substance use, if he finds the courage to accept his pain and not run from it, and the humility to acknowledge that behind the physical and political heft he has gathered there has been hiding a sensitive and vulnerable being, in need – as we all are – of compassion. READ MORE | | The Empty Room Like James Joyce’s “Ulysses,” “The Empty Room” tracks an entire life that plays out in one day. It is the story of Colleen Kerrigan, an isolated, middle-aged woman with a serious drinking problem. Davis employs black humor to create cognitive dissonance. Colleen remembers getting sick-drunk for the first time at age 14, and sees herself sprawled on the bathroom floor. We see Colleen as a child, stranded between an absent but loving alcoholic father and a bitter, mentally ill mother. READ MORE | | Journalist Interviews Thanatos for Story | | Maureen Dowd on Sweet Pot Candy: ‘I became convinced that I had died’ In Maureen Dowd’s latest column for the New York Times, she describes her scary experience eating a pot candy bar while reporting on legalized marijuana in Colorado. She sat in a Denver hotel room experimenting with the legalized edible, “nibbling” on some of the chocolate-flavored bar. Sitting in my hotel room in Denver, I nibbled off the end and then, when nothing happened, nibbled some more. I figured if I was reporting on the social revolution rocking Colorado in January, the giddy culmination of pot Prohibition, READ MORE | | It’s a Family Affair … and Funeral VIDEO | | Son Dies, Mom Hospitalized in Heroin Overdose VIDEO A 31-year-old man died and his mother was hospitalized after they overdosed on heroin, police said, days before their neighborhood was to launch an initiative to fight the heroin epidemic. His mother, Patricia Eversole, remained hospitalized, but details of her condition weren’t available. The overdose happened two days before Project DAWN – Death Avoidance by Naloxone – was scheduled to be launched. READ MORE | | All Paths Lead to Big Pharma AUDIO NPR | | For Addicts, There May Be Another Road To Wellness AUDIO For decades, inpatient rehab has been one of the go-to treatments for substance addiction. Nearly two million Americans seek treatment for addiction each year, but there’s a movement in the medical community to change how we perceive the condition – and how to treat it. READ MORE | | Robert Downey Jr. to Produce Rehab Drama for Showtime “Orange is the New Black” and “Justified” writer Gary Lennon will write the currently untitled drama. It comes from Sony Pictures and Lennon, Downey Jr. and Susan Downey’s production Team Downey. It will follow a rehab community in Venice Beach in 1983. Lennon will exec produce, with Downey Jr., Susan Downey and Amanda Burrell for Team Downey and the company’s Chris Mammolito as co-exec producer. READ MORE | | Chicago Dope Time Magazine | | Chicago Sues Big Pharma for Epidemic Addictions to Painkillers The City of Chicago filed a lawsuit Monday against five pharmaceutical companies alleging that they deceptively marketed opioid painkillers like Percocet and OxyContin for chronic pain management, even though the companies knew the drugs were ineffective at treating chronic pain and carried a high risk of addiction. READ MORE | | Check Out the 2013 REEL Recovery Highlight Reel COMING to CHICAGO , Nov. 11-12-13, 2014 | REEL Recovery Film Festival HIGHLIGHT
Reel 2013
See clips from last year’s Award Winning REEL Recovery Film Festivalwith Paul Williams, Russell Brand, Robert Blake, Barbara Eden and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. See VIDEO | | Fatty Arbuckle Missed His Calling | | Celebs Who Are In The Booze Business Now that Brad Pitt thinks of himself as a “farmer” who produces his own wine from his vineyard in France, he joins an impressive roster of celebs who also peddle their own booze brands. From musicians (Sammy Hagar) to athletes (Wayne Gretzky) to directors (James Cameron and Francis Ford Coppola) to actors (Jason Priestley) to comedians (Dan Aykroyd), here are just some of the stars who have gotten into the alcohol-slinging game. Please enjoy this gallery responsibly. READ MORE | | Gwar Frontman David Brockie Died Of Heroin Overdose Gwar frontman David Brockie’s death this March was caused by an accidental heroin overdose, the Virginia State Medical Examiner’s Office has announced. Arkuie Williams of the state’s medical examiner’s office confirmed to Reuters on Tuesday (June 3) that the 50-year-old died of “acute heroin toxicity and the manner of death is accident.” The singer was found dead in his Richmond, Virginia, home by his roommate on March 23. READ MORE | FOR EVERY
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| | What Is Was Like and What’s It’s Like Now | | Rob Lowe Dishes on Sobriety and Old Party Buddies Sheen and Downey Jr. He reveals of once-wild, now-sober “Iron Man” star Downey – with whom Lowe was a member of Hollywood’s so-called Brat Pack: “He was always in the dead center of – the scene. Now he commutes from a safe distance and does it in doses – we see each other a bunch but – we’re not the last ones to leave a party anymore.” On Sheen: “I love him, even though he hates sobriety. There’s no funnier, smarter, more enjoyable raconteur than Charlie – I admire him living the life of his choosing.” READ MORE | | Invitation to Receive FREE Passes to our 2014 New York REEL Recovery Film Festival Click Here for Our Sign-Up Form | | I Left My Heart Attack in San Francisco | | Tony Bennett’s Cocaine Confession But his real savior was the managerof controversial comic Lenny Bruce, who died at age 40 of an accidental morphine overdose in 1966. “He told me he (Bruce) sinned against his talent with his drug habit,” says Bennett, now wed to 40-years-younger school teacher Susan Crow. “THAT sentence changed my life. READ MORE | | | Today is A.A.s 79th Anniversary VIDEO of BILL W. | | AA Celebrates 79 Years While Debate on
Effectiveness Celebrates 78 years | | Here’s Proof That Alcoholics Anonymous is Just as Effective as Professional Psychotherapies A physician named Robert Holbrook Smith had his last alcoholic drink 79 years ago this week. He and Bill Wilson, the friend with whom he had sobered up, thus anointed June 10 as the official founding date of the organization they created together: Alcoholics Anonymous. AA is the most commonly-sought source of help for problem drinking in the United States and many millions of people have participated in it and the other 12-step organizations it inspired around the world. READ MORE | | 79th Anniversary of 12-Step Recovery | | Thousands In Akron for A.A. Anniversary Event At Founders Day, attendees will pay homage to the many high points in the A.A. story. Attendees will visit Dr. Bob’s grave at Mount Peace Cemetery; the Gate Lodge at Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, where Irene Seiberling, daughter of the rubber mogul, introduced Wilson and Dr. Bob; and Summa’s St. Thomas Hospital, where Irish-born Sister Ignatia helped Dr. Bob to admit alcoholics. READ MORE | | Keith Urban Opens Up About Time in Rehab Urban would return to rehab eight years later, shortly after he and Nicole Kidman married. His return trip was thanks to an intervention staged by Kidman. It was in rehab that Urban learned he had won the CMA Award for Male Vocalist of the Year. “I said to my roommate, ‘Hey, I just won Male Vocalist of the Year,’ and he’s like, ‘That’s awesome,'” Urban recalled. “I just lay there in the dark going, ‘How weird is this?'” READ MORE | | Wake Up and Smell the Reefer HuffPost | | A Marijuana Coffee That Really Lets You ‘Wake And Bake’ Marijuana coffee is coming to the state of Washington, and the product is promising consumers a caffeinated buzz. The cold-brewed cannibis-infused coffee, called Legal, is expected to hit the market in early July, product developer Adam Stites told The Huffington Post on Monday. Stites also calls it “the wake and bake drink,” according to My Northwest. READ MORE | | Marijuana Laws Becoming Harder to Digest | | We Sadly Need to Make Marijuana Edibles Maureen Dowd-Proof This incident shows two things. First, it is a reminder of how relatively safe marijuana is. Even when you consume way more than you should, the worst that normally happens is an unpleasant evening in bed. By comparison, if you consume way too much alcohol you die. More importantly, it shows the world is full of idiots and idiots come in all shapes, sizes, and ages. Even supposedly very smart New York Times columnists can be idiots. Almost anyone can be an idiot occasionally. READ MORE | | Bet You’d Never Guess Who | | 8 Pro-Athletes with Outrageous Gambling Addictions There are plenty of people who can enjoy an occasional night of gambling, but the hobby can turn into a full-blown addiction for some. It becomes a problem when the person has a psychological urge to gamble, despite knowing it will increase their financial strain or make them feel upset if they lose money. READ MORE | | Read eBulletin Testimonials | Cool People Love Our
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Testimonials Here | | How Psychedelics Saved My Life I invite you to take a step back and clear your mind of decades of false propaganda. Governments worldwide lied to us about the medicinal benefits of marijuana. The public has also been misled about psychedelics. READ MORE | | Daddy Mice’s Drinking Affects Future Offspring A new study from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine finds that male mice that were chronically exposed to alcohol, before breeding, had male offspring that were less likely to consume alcohol, and were more sensitive to its effects. Previous studies indicate that alcoholism can run in families, particularly father to son, but only a few human gene variants have been associated with Alcohol Use Disorder and they account for only a fraction of the risk of inheriting the problem, said investigator Gregg E. Homanics, Ph.D. READ MORE | | Feature Story – Tragic End for a Holy Millionaire | | The Dark Drunken Downfall of the Painter of Light The Painter of Light was pissed off. Thomas Kinkade’s death shocked his legions of fans-not only had the Painter of Light died at 54, but the cause was alcohol and Valium. How did the evangelical darling fall so far? READ MORE | | Carl Hart Proved It Works | | New Addiction Treatment: Bribing Drug Addicts? If the program works and helps to keep addicts clean, it could revolutionize the way addicts are treated for their disease. Similar research conducted in the U.S. by Columbia University professor Carl Hart indicates that such programs could be successful. Hart’s research involved recruiting crack and meth addicts and giving them choices during a hospital stay. The addicts were given the choice each day of either a hit of their drug of choice, or cash. The addicts overwhelmingly chose cash, proving that addicts are not necessarily enslaved by drugs, but are capable of making rational choices. READ MORE | | American Grafitti 21st Century | | Nearly One in Eight U.S. Children are Maltreated Before 18 By the time they reach age 18, about 12% of American children experience a confirmed case of maltreatment in the form of neglect, physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, according to a new study by researchers at Yale University. The numbers are even more sobering for black and Native American children, with one in five black children and one in seven Native American children experiencing maltreatment during the time period studied. READ MORE | | RIP ‘Sasha’ Shulgin: “Godfather of Ecstasy” Alexander Shulgin, who passed away Monday at the age of 88, was many things to many people. He was not just a pharmacologist, author, and medical chemist. Best known for introducing MDMA to psychologists in the 1970s, and for synthesizing more than 200 psychedelic drugs, Shulgin was previously a chemist for Dow Chemical before he moved on in 1965 to pursue his own research. This led him to publish the apparently-evergreen books PiHKAL (Phenethylamines I Have Known And Loved) and TiHkal (Tryptamines I Have Known And Loved) with his wife, Ann. READ MORE | | Let’s Ask Aldous Huxley AUDIO | | Antidepressant Drugs May Not Be Best Treatment AUDIO For the past 25 years, people suffering from depression have been treated with antidepressant drugs like Zoloft, Prozac and Paxil – three of the world’s best-selling selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, orSSRIs. But people are questioning whether these drugs are appropriate treatment for depression, and if they could be causing harm. READ MORE | | Visit Your Addictive Daughters in London Today | | “Persia & Joey are providing a much needed source of inspiration & wisdom to Generation Y.” – Vanessa Kirby, Actress (Great Expectations, BBC) We’re Persia & Joey – two 20-something best friends, and the founders of Addictive Daughter. Our goal is to lovingly guide you through your Quarter-Life Crisis (QLC) & inspire you to create a better life for yourself than you ever dreamed was possible. In other words, we’re here to help you get addicted to the good stuff. READ MORE | 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 and the general public.
| Publisher: Leonard Buschel | | |