| Why Is This Man Smiling? Read Below! | | American Addiction Centers Goes Public Brentwood-based American Addiction Centers will begin trading on the New York Stock Exchange today. Doing business as AAC Holdings Inc., the company has priced its common stock at $15 per share, representing net proceeds for the IPO of $65.6 million. Shares will be traded under the ticker symbol “AAC.” American Addiction Centers, founded in 2004, operate 467 beds at six facilities throughout the U.S. CONTINUED | | Science May One Day Accomplish This… | | ‘Mild Alcoholics’ Offered New Pill to Stop Drinking Too Much DEBATE This pill really represents, it seems to me, the growing medicalisation of perfectly normal and harmless human behaviour by the overweening state. The human condition is tough and we all seek out altered states to escape it, whether it’s caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, a spliff or whatever. But the vast majority of us know our self-medication requirements far better than any doctor does. We don’t beat up our partners, mistreat our children or turn up to work late and incapacitated. CONTINUED | | Legalize It? Oh, It Already Is | | Alcohol: Deadliest Drug in the United States, and It’s Not Even Close Which intoxicating substance is associated with the most lethal violence? Devotees of the Wire might presume that cocaine or maybe heroin would top the list, especially if you asked the worst causes of violence in poor, minority communities. The correct answer, by far, is alcohol. It’s involved in more homicides than pretty much every other substance, combined. Alcohol’s relative importance has grown over the last fifteen years, as aging populations of cocaine users account for a declining proportion of violent crime. CONTINUED | | BENCHMARK RECOVERY CENTER | | Challenging the Treatment Industry | | OPINION: Most People With Addiction Simply Grow Out of It While treatment can often support the principles of natural recovery, too often it does the opposite. For example, many programs interfere with healthy family and romantic relationships by isolating patients. Some threaten employment and education, suggesting or even requiring that people quit jobs or school to “focus on recovery,” when doing so might do more harm than good. CONTINUED | | Detroit Mansion to Become Drug Addiction Retreat Self-help guru Brad Lamm will run the retreat and live in the mansion. “Palmer Woods is a residential community … It’s not zoned for commercial use or a group home,” she said. “There are clear zoning guidelines and a rehab center is not zoned for Palmer Woods.” Officials with Breathe Life Healing Centers told The Detroit News that the 28-room, Tudor Revival-style building will be a “spiritual retreat.” CONTINUED | | Drug Addiction Seen as ‘Moral Failing’ “In recent years, it has become more socially acceptable to talk publicly about one’s struggles with mental illness. But with addiction, the feeling is that the addict is a bad or weak person, especially because much drug use is illegal,” she added. The survey revealed that only 22 percent of people would be willing to work closely on a job with someone with a drug addiction, while 62 percent said they would do so with a person with a mental illness. About 30 percent of respondents believed that recovery from either drug addiction or mental illness is impossible. CONTINUED | | Up In Arms, About In The Arm VIDEO | | Denver Neighborhood Wants to Stop Drug Rehab Moving In VIDEO The plane is to turn a now vacant building at East 17th Avenue and Gaylord Street into a treatment center that would help heroin addicts from 5:30 a.m. until early afternoon six days a week. Neighbors met for the first time Thursday night to see what they can do to stop the clinic from moving in. The simple answer is ‘not very much.’ “They are permitted to use these facilities, it’s a use by right approach, I don’t think there’s much we can do on this one,” a neighbor said. CONTINUED | | Watch 2013 REEL Recovery 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 | | Not Sure About Sex Addicts at New Dawn Gulag | | Russian Psychologist Claims to Cure Alcoholics, Drug, Sex Addicts with Whipping Dr. Sergei Speransky said that his treatment involves thrashing patients across the bottom up to 60 times, the Daily Star reported. He said that his patients have seen that this treatment is working where everything else has failed and it worked for him, and that he’s not a sadist, but still advocates caning. He said that they cane the patients on the buttocks with a clear and definite medical purpose – it is not some warped sado-masochistic activity. ) CONTINUED | | Trying Again to Drink Like A Lady VIDEO | | Zoe Ball Admits Breaking Her Sobriety VIDEO The It Takes Two host, 43, revealed in an interview with Essentials magazine that although she is no longer abstaining from alcohol she can’t drink as much as she used to. Ball, who married DJ Fatboy Slim in 1999, gave up alcohol ten years into their marriage on the morning of New Year’s Day 2009 following a party of ‘total carnage’. The same year she gave up alcohol was the year that her husband, real name Norman Cook, checked into rehab for alcohol abuse. Speaking back in 2010, the former radio presenter revealed: ‘I sat sobbing, knowing if I didn’t stop I’d end up in a mental home. I called a therapist I’d been seeing and asked for help.’ CONTINUED | | Worried You’re Becoming A Pill Addict? | | Worried You’re Becoming an Alcoholic? There’s a Pill for That Since the drug only helps regulate rather than eliminate alcohol consumption, it is recommended for mild alcoholics who want to curb their drinking problem rather than stop cold turkey. Men who consume over 7.5 units of alcohol (about four pints) or women who consume over five will be eligible for the treatment, thus meaning about 600,000 people in England and Wales who would want to reduce their drinking qualify. According to the International Business Times, the new program is expected to cost taxpayers $288,000,000 a year. CONTINUED | | Michael Phelps Goes To Rehab After DUI Arrest VIDEO “I recognize that this is not my first lapse in judgment, and I am extremely disappointed with myself,” Phelps said. “I’m going to take some time away to attend a program that will provide the help I need to better understand myself. Swimming is a major part of my life, but right now I need to focus my attention on me as an individual, and do the necessary work to learn from this experience and make better decisions in the future.” “Every day you’re out of the water it takes about a half day to develop that feel that you’ve missed,” he added – so if Phelps stops training for six weeks, it would take three weeks to get back. CONTINUED | | VISIT OUR NEWSLETTER ARCHIVES | FOR EVERY
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Addiction/Recovery eBulletin CLICK HERE | | Warning Labels About Cancer On Alcohol: Do We Need Them? How would you feel if your bottle of merlot or cider came with a health warning about the increased risk of cancer from drinking alcohol? Doesn’t sound like an idea to be warmly embraced by those who like a drink but the findings of a recent survey of more than 2000 drinkers suggests we might be more receptive than you’d think. They found that younger, more educated drinkers – especially women – were more likely to find the messages believable and relevant. Especially interesting was the finding that heavy drinkers – those tippling more than two drinks a day and more than four drinks in one sitting – were also more likely to consider the messages personally relevant than people who drank less. CONTINUED | | Speeds Past Traffic Accidents | | Overdose Deaths Double Although deaths from heroin overdoses have increased dramatically, deaths from narcotic painkillers still far outnumber them. In 2012 alone, more than twice as many people died from prescription narcotic overdoses as died from heroin in these states, the report said. CONTINUED | | Did You Make The Cut? VIDEO | | 100 Friends in 2 Minutes at the REEL Recovery Film Festival over the last 6 years. If you are on the reel, you’ll get 4 FREE tickets to Los Angeles.
| | | Mackenzie Phillips Talks Addiction, Incest VIDEO Best known for playing the rebellious teenager Julie on the 1970s sitcom “One Day at a Time,” and as the oldest daughter of the late Palm Springs-resident John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas, her life spiraled out of control at an early age. She’s battled drug addiction throughout most of it.
“Drugs give a false sense of reality and well-being,” wrote Phillips in her memoir, “High on Arrival.” “Then, without warning, they turn on you and take control of your reality instead of enhancing it. You’re on the fast track to endless demoralization. But you’re the last to know you’re completely out of control.” CONTINUED | | Britons Spend More on Drugs and Prostitutes Than Beer and Wine The Office for National Statistics, which tracks changes in spending habits across the country, found miscreants spent an enormous £12.3 billion last year on illegal substances and sexual gratification. This was more than the amount spent on wine and beer in 2013. Spending on prostitution was believed to be £4.3 billion a year during this period, with data derived from a 2004 government study and “extrapolated”. The overall estimate for drugs and prostitution for 2013, taking into account inflation, was £12.3 billion. CONTINUED | | DUFFY’S NAPA VALLEY REHAB | Los Angeles Reel Recovery Film Festival October 24-30 – Laemmle NoHo Cinema | | 43 Films in 7 Days Laemmle NoHo Cinema 5240 Lankershim Blvd.
North Hollywood, CA Oct. 24-30, 2014
CLICK HERE FOR TICKETS | Pharmaceutical Industry Puts AA On Hit List AUDIO
| | 12-Step Programs Going Bye Bye AUDIO In the last 75 years, American medicine’s approach to addiction has gone through an evolution. Once seen as a moral weakness, a crime and a behavioral problem, the experts were mostly former addicts turned self-help leaders. Professional associations in the medical field didn’t see a role for doctors. Now substance abuse is widely considered a medical disorder.This is driving the move away from 12-step programs, self-help and spiritual-based guidance. These approaches, once the standard, are losing favor to ones that emphasize science and medicine. CONTINUED | 2015’s Experience, Strength & Hope Honoree
| Read Joe Pantoliano’s Asylum: Hollywood Tales from My Great Depression: Brain Dis-Ease, Recovery, and Being My Mother’s Son
Most people know Joe Pantoliano from his memorable roles in The Sopranos, The Goonies, The Matrix, The Fugitive, and Risky Business, but the Emmy-winning artist has another important role-as an outspoken advocate for smashing the stigma of mental illness, or mental “dis-ease” as he prefers to call it. As a kid in Hoboken, New Jersey, he was just “Joey Pants,” the son of a fiercely controlling, schizophrenic mother. CONTINUED | | ACADEMY OF ADDICTION PROFESSIONALS | | Addicts Will Get The Help They Need When America Stops Stigmatizing Drug Abuse A majority of people are of the opinion drug addiction is a “moral failing,” not a medical condition – an opinon a new study published in Psychiatric Services found only exacerbates the number of drug-related deaths each year. There is science that shows addiction, whether it’s of drugs or alcohol, significantly changes a person’s brain. These changes result in compulsive behaviors that weaken a person’s self-control, qualifying all of it as a complex, chronic brain disease. A disease the United Nations found kills upwards of 200,000 people each year worldwide. CONTINUED | | DR. KREVOY EATING DISORDERS PROGRAM | | Have Your Kate and Eat It Too VIDEO | | Kate Moss “shoveled up so much cocaine and vodka, friends nicknamed her THE TANK” VIDEO Kate Moss used to put away so much drink and drugs in her wild days that she was nicknamed The Tank, a shocking new book claims. The catwalk queen would shovel up to three grams of cocaine in a session – between 20 or 30 big snorts – and down a bottle of vodka, reports the Sunday People. Friends used to call losing track of time with her as “getting Mossed” the book says. CONTINUED | | The Celebrity Expert Speaks VIDEO | | Entertainment Tonight Discusses Amanda Bynes with Howard Samuels VIDEO “ENTERTAINMENT TONIGHT – Amanda Bynes doesn’t have to be the next Lindsay Lohan. Let’s encourage her family to stay strong and Stay Involved! Families are a Vital part of recovery, especially when the loved one is this out of control.” CONTINUED | | ‘Selfie’ Explores Online Addiction, Embarrassment “When Siri is the only one there for you, you realize being friended is not the same as having friends,” sums up Dooley’s plight. Narcissism, isolation, control freakery: the deep impact of the Internet and social networks on our modern lives is coming under the spotlight in a new TV show and an upcoming movie this month. TV show “Selfie,” which launched on ABC this week and the film “Men, Women and Children,” which hits the big screen later this month, both reflect the ravages wreaked by being constantly online. CONTINUED | | One Toke Is Over the Line | | Teenage Marijuana Use and the Ramifications Even getting a high school diploma is 60 percent less likely. Not only are these young people seven times more likely to attempt suicide, but eight times more likely to use other illegal drugs such as cocaine, heroin, amphetamines or hallucinogens, as well as develop a long-term dependency on marijuana after the age of 17 and into their 20s. CONTINUED | | Stick With the Winners! ADVERTISE Here! | | DO YOU LIKE OUR eBULLETIN? | We Welcome Your Feedback! If you have any comments, compliments or suggestions for our weekly Addiction/Recovery eBulletin, please contact us at:
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Leonard Buschel – Send an email | | ‘Drug Addiction Comes with Huge Amounts of Stigma Attached’ Owen Bowden-Jones, a consultant psychiatrist talks about the problems associated with new drugs such as ketamine. The good news is that addiction is a medical condition and with the right treatment people can and do achieve sustained recovery. Treatment also depends on what a person wants. In my experience, it is crucial that a person with drug-related problems identifies their own goals rather than have them imposed by others. Telling people what to do just doesn’t seem to work. CONTINUED | | Just Five Alcoholic Drinks A Week Can Reduce Sperm Quality Among this group of men, researchers found that the higher the tally of weekly units, the lower was the sperm quality in terms of sperm count and the proportion of sperm that were of normal size and shape. Those who typically drank 40 units a week had 33% lower sperm count and also had 51% less “normal looking” sperm than men who drank between one and five units a week. CONTINUED | | Perverse U.S. Drug Policies Promote Drug Addiction and Deaths To get your mind around how dumb and perverse are our drug policies, you first have to absorb these astounding facts:
* The U.S. has more deaths from drug overdoses than from car accidents. Most are due to prescription narcotics, not street drugs.
* Heroin deaths have also doubled in the past two years because patients first hooked on prescription narcotics often have to switch to cheaper street drugs.
* States that have legalized medical marijuana have many fewer prescription narcotic overdoses than those that haven’t. CONTINUED | | A Rose by Any Other Name… | | California Has Finally Recognized that Crack and Cocaine are the Same Thing Whether sold as crack or powder, used on the street or in a corporate penthouse, the penalty for cocaine use should be the same for everybody,” Senator Holly Mitchell, chair of California’s Legislative Black Caucus and the proponent of the new bill, said in a statement. “We must break the drug-driven cycle of arrest, lock-up, unemployability and re-arrest. The law isn’t supposed to be a pipeline that disproportionately channels the young, urban and unemployed into jail and joblessness.” CONTINUED | | |