| WATCH THE 2013 RRFF HIGHLIGHT REEL | 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 | | People Are Not Their Diseases | | It’s Time to Stop Calling Them Alcoholics and Addicts by Dr. Neil Capretto Society has moved away from these words because they are pejorative, harmful and inflict pain. The same applies to words such as “alcoholic,” “drunk,” “addict” and “junky.” Such words stigmatize those who are diagnosed with a disease, creating a barrier to treatment. People are not their disease. By using “people-first” language we identify a person with an illness rather than a person whose identity is dictated by an illness and we promote respect for the worth and dignity of all people. READ MORE | | Drink Alcohol? Signs of Drinking Too Much Not all people who are alcohol abusers go on to drink their way to full-blown alcoholism, but it is a risk. Sometimes it develops suddenly after a stressful life change. Other times it begins gradually as a person’s tolerance to alcohol increases. READ MORE | | With a Little Helps from Friends and AA | | Shia LaBeouf Gets Help From Brad Pitt to Overcome Alcoholism Shia LaBeouf’s run-in with the law has inspired him to seek professional help. He’s also getting help from someone else who wasn’t mentioned in the original reports. TMZ reports that the actor has been getting help from Brad Pitt for his issues with alcoholism. Although Pitt isn’t directly helping him, the tabloid site says he didn’t want to risk embarrassing his co-star in the upcoming war film, “Fury.” READ MORE | | Abuse and Neglect: The Toxic Lives of Drug Endangered Children An 8-month-old baby drowns in the bathtub while his father gets high smoking marijuana with friends. A baby girl is barricaded inside her playpen, ignored while her parents party with friends. A grade school boy wanders the early morning streets alone in his Halloween costume, not knowing how to get to his school party because his mother is at home, passed out on drugs. READ MORE | | DR. KREVOY EATING DISORDERS PROGRAM | | It Works if You Work It AUDIO | | Do 12-Step Programs Really Work? with Dr. Adi Jaffe AUDIO Dr. Adi Jaffe, discusses the success rate of AA and other 12-step programs, as well as if it is the best option and what other treatment options are available for the type of treatment you’re seeking. Another reason why the 12-step program might fail is its faith-based principles. Some people have a hard time agreeing to this and “letting go” to a higher power. READ MORE | | BOOK REVIEW: Slaying the Dragon | | What It Was Really Like – AA History from Bill White Those among us having a fondness for history are accustomed to being transported to the past, and Mr. White does this deliciously in the second edition of Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America.Although this book is primarily directed toward the members of the professional community who encounter addiction in the performance of their service roles, this volume is far too interesting not to be in the possession of EVERY moderately erudite alcoholic and addict. READ MORE | FOR EVERY Past Issue of the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin
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Writers In Treatment | | Letting Go of Your Disease Moniker | | You Are Not Your Addiction: 5 Ways to Beat the Stigma of Substance Abuse Disorders But just because you’ve spent time in a drug and alcohol rehab center doesn’t mean you have to live with the stigma of addiction forever. Just by getting sober and staying sober, you are living proof that the negative stereotypes passed around about addicts and alcoholics simply aren’t true. READ MORE | | FDA Oks New Painkiller From Oxycontin Maker To Fight Addiction To Pain Pills The FDA has approved a new combination pain pill from the maker of OxyContin that is designed to discourage abuse by painkiller addicts. Purdue Pharma’s new drug Targiniq ER is an extended release tablet that combines oxycodone – the active ingredient in OxyContin – with the drug naloxone. READ MORE | | Confessions of a Sex Addict JOANNE Brodie has been wearing the “been there, done that” sex addiction T-shirt for 20 years now – the length of time she’s been “clean”. This means that she is no longer promiscuous, nor does she masturbate obsessively. But her clients do. READ MORE | | Forgive Us Our People Addiction | | Mike ‘The Situation’ Sorrentino Talks Life AfterJersey Shore and Getting Sober That included gaining control of an addiction to prescription medication, drugs and alcohol, with atrip to rehab in 2012. “I’ve spent the last year in recovery,” says Sorrentino, 31, adding that he feels lucky that he finally took control of his issues. “But,” he adds, “today makes eight months [of sobriety]. No drugs, no prescription drugs, no hard drugs. None of that stuff.” READ MORE | | And I’ll be in Scotland Afore Ye | | The Best-Kept Recovery Secret In Scotland – by Kuladharini Let’s brief you on one of the best kept secrets in Scotland. There is a new world being created that is gathering momentum and getting bolder and cheekier. You won’t read about it in the mainstream press, see it on the TV or hear from us at a work conference that you had to pay to go to. READ MORE | | One in Five Over Age 65 Drink Every Day One in five pensioners drink alcohol at home every single day, new research has revealed. While public perception has often focused on drinking issues among the young, a new report reveals that alcoholism among older people is an increasing concern. The study found the over 65s were much more likely to drink every day than those aged between 18 and 24. READ MORE | | Hundreds March To Raise Awareness Of Drug Abuse In North Jersey Roxanne Davis didn’t want anybody to know her son, Gabriel, died of a drug overdose. Fearing that her family and neighbors in Mahwah would label Gabriel a drug addict, Davis told everyone that his death in January 2014 was caused by a mysterious infection. She even told the lie to her younger son. “We just kept lying and lying,” Davis said. “I was worried about the shame.” READ MORE | | Is Your City on the List? | | These Are The Sex, Drug, And Gambling Capitals of America Cities won’t be adding these credits to their tourism brochures. It probably won’t come as a surprise that Las Vegas is the gambling capital of the U.S., but new research suggests more unassuming cities do some brisk trade in vices, too. READ MORE | | Community Doesn’t Always = Fellowship | | Sober House Owners Want to Help Police Facilities In places across the country, a lack of state or federal restrictions for owners of sober living has contributed to regrettable outcomes. Deaths in some of the city’s sober homes-the most recent one in May-may thrust some residential recovery facilities and owners into the spotlight for the wrong reasons. At the least, the group is looking to improve the quality of life and safety for recovering addicts transitioning back into mainstream society following deaths that cast aspersions on the local recovery housing industry. READ MORE | | Attention New Yorkers! Invitation to Receive FREE Passes to our 2014 New York REEL Recovery Film Festival | | | INDIEGOGO Goes for REEL Recovery Film Festival, New York & Los Angeles | | Hillary Clinton Blames Bill’s Mom for His Sex Addiction According to the Daily Mail, Frank stopped short of publishing Hillary’s comments at the time because of the media frenzy that already surrounded the Lewinsky affair. “He was abused. When a mother does what she does, it affects you forever,” Franks recalled in her new book that Hillary said. According to Franks, she didn’t specify the type of abuse Bill endured, but she did blame it for his infidelities. READ MORE | | COMMUNITY RECOVERY L.A. TREATMENT CENTER | | L.A. Man Who Smuggled Cocaine in Surfboard Gets 5 years in Prison A hollowed-out surfboard containing nearly seven pounds of cocaine was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison. Officials estimated the drugs – divided into four plastic bags inside the freshly painted surfboard – would have fetched $750,000 in Australia. READ MORE | | ‘Mad Men’ Season 7 Prediction: Will Don Draper’s Alcoholism Be His Downfall? It’s no secret that Mad Men’s protagonist, Don Draper, likes a drink every now and again … and again … and again. Occasionally, the show will shine a light on his drinking problem, but very rarely does it lay out just how bad it is so clearly. READ MORE | | A Most Remarkable Woman AUDIO | | Fresh Air Remembers Actress And Singer Elaine Stritch AUDIO We’re going to listen back to an excerpt of my interview with Elaine Stritch, a performer lucky enough to have debuted songs by Noel Coward and Stephen Sondheim and to have been coached by each of them. She died last Thursday at the age of 89. Stritch used to describe herself as a Catholic, diabetic, alcoholic pain in the ass. READ MORE | | One Down, How Many to Go? | | Doctor Gets 10 Years in Oxycodone Probe A New York physician has been sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for illegally distributing painkillers. Stambler was convicted of providing prescriptions for hundreds of oxycodone pills for patients who had no legitimate medical need for the painkillers. READ MORE | | Where Addicts are Pawns VIDEO | | John Oliver on the Prison-Industrial Complex VIDEO America’s prisons are broken. Just ask John Oliver. In case you missed it: WATCH HERE | 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.
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Leonard Buschel – Send an email | | He’s F**king Happy To Be Sober | | Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes Thanks Fans For Helping Him Through Recovery VIDEO Sykes said: “I want to say something that I thought I’d actually never talk about. Before we wrote Sempiternal I was a f***ing drug addict. “I was addicted to a drug called ketamine; I was on it for years and I was f***ed off my head.” “My band wanted to kill me, my parents wanted to kill me and my f***ing brother wanted to kill me; everyone wanted to kill me.” READ MORE | | 49Ers’ Aldon Smith Credits Sobriety For Being Ready To Play VIDEO Linebacker Aldon Smith said Thursday he has maintained his sobriety since missing five games last season to seek treatment for substance abuse. And it’s no coincidence, he said, that he reported to 49ers training camp this week in the best physical condition of his life. READ MORE | | A Mother’s Plea: Our Community’s in Crisis; Addicts Need Help, Not Prisons The current trend in our country of criminalizing drug use and possession is doing nothing to curb drug use. We are the nation with the highest rate of drug offenders in a time that other countries’ rates are declining. Addiction doesn’t discriminate. It can happen to anyone’s family. Chances are you know at least one person in your life who is struggling, now. Yesterday it was my son. Will it be yours, tomorrow? READ MORE | | Sober Is The New Black A quick scan of the pop-culture landscape shows a collection of sober, serious operators-Rufus Wainwright, Tobey Maguire, Jason Bateman, Russell Brand, Marc Jacobs, Terry Richardson (best known for his photographs of hard-living luminaries), and the recently resurgent Colin Farrell (who has made being dry “a way of life” after giving up a weekly diet of “20 E’s, 4 grams of coke, 6 of speed, half an ounce of hash, 3 bottles of Jack Daniel’s, 12 bottles of red wine, 60 pints”). READ MORE | | Pizza Shops Hail Initiative | | New York Times: Repeal Prohibition Again It took 13 years for the United States to come to its senses and end Prohibition, 13 years in which people kept drinking, otherwise law-abiding citizens became criminals and crime syndicates arose and flourished. It has been more than 40 years since Congress passed the current ban on marijuana, inflicting great harm on society just to prohibit a substance far less dangerous than alcohol. READ MORE | | Rich Urban Mom Addicts Get Sobriety Coaches; Poor Moms Get Jail In America, addiction is judged through the lens of class. Sobriety coaches rake in big bucks to keep 1 percenters off their substance of choice. A-listers are so busy, after all, and treatment centers are both time-consuming and detrimental to privacy. Even when the wealthy do benefit from these centers, their newfound sobriety often doesn’t outlast the first weekend home alone. READ MORE | | The New Haight-Ashbury, Sort of… | | St. Paul A Great Place To Get Clean And Sober Out-of-state alcoholics and drug addicts agree: St. Paul is a great place to move in, get settled and stay sober The city is wrapped in a web of support services for what’s called the recovery community – people who’ve had problems with alcohol or drugs and are trying to build lives that don’t involve drinking or using. READ MORE | | U.S. Ally Rejects 12 Step Recovery | | Beatings And Addiction: Drug ‘Clinic’ Prescribes Torture Hashish addict Noor Rehman has spent three years chained to a concrete slab covered by insects. Beaten and malnourished, he lost his eyesight in a “clinic” run by a local cleric claiming to cure addicts who were kept against their will. The clinic’s methods fall on the more extreme end of the spectrum – even for Pakistan – but offers some insight into how the country deals with the subject of drug addiction. READ MORE | | WANTED: One National Interventionist to Sponsor Our Week Long REEL Recovery Film Festival in New York & Los Angeles RECEIVE A FREE BANNER AD Call for Details (818) 762-0461 | | Catchy Article of the Day | | Fish Oil May Help Reduce Effects of Alcohol Abuse This research strongly suggests that fish oil may have a protective effect in the brain. Research on rats doesn’t always pan out, since rat brains aren’t identical to human ones, but previous research has found that DHA can reduce inflammation in the body. Researchers have also uncovered numerous brain benefits to taking DHA, including better brain development in babies and a reduced risk of Alzheimer’s in adults. READ MORE | | |