Author: bkellaway

THE END OF EVERYTHING (Astrophysically Speaking)

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

MEDIA: Book Review –

August 4, 2020 – The eye of astrophysics reaches a great deal farther now. Cosmologists calculate the curve and complete the figure by employing a potent arsenal of instruments and methodologies. Optical, radio, X-ray and gamma ray telescopes on mountaintops and in space, underground neutrino detectors and gravitational-wave observatories extend our sight to the edges of the universe. But what that really means is that they extend our sight into the past. This is perhaps the most basic fact of cosmology, sometimes taken for granted, and Mack explains it elegantly. Telescope users have a window into time. Light travels at finite speed, so everything comes to us with its own time delay. We see the sun not as it is now but as it was eight minutes ago. All we can know of a galaxy 10 billion light-years away is what it looked like 10 billion years ago, when the universe was young. “We can look even farther back,” she writes, “and see matter swirling into supermassive black holes in a universe less than 500 million years old, when starlight had only just begun to penetrate the darkness between galaxies.”

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MTV to premiere series on teenagers battling addiction

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – A show showing the reality –  

August 31, 2020 – That’s why she decided to let others see what the battle of addiction looks like. It’s a story that – while it may be difficult to watch, and difficult for Lipinski, her students and staff to live through each day – is one that needs to be told, she said. That particular year at the school, much of which was caught on camera, was particularly difficult, said Lipinski. Eight members of the school community died that year – a current student, a former student working as an intern, and others who had attended the school in the past. Those losses are catastrophic for a small student body – the school had 55 students last year.

But the benefits of allowing the rest of America in to see what it’s like for teenagers and young adults battling addiction, and the work that can be done to help them via intervention, is worth it, Lipinski said.

“Definitely for me and for my staff, and for my students and their families, the benefit [is] being able to normalize it,” she said in a recent interview with Boston.com, noting that families of her students supported having the school’s story told.

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More than one person a day died of an overdose in SF last year

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

American Horror Story –  

 Sep. 1, 2020 – According to a Department of Public Health report released Monday, 441 people died of an overdose in 2019. That is more than one per day for an entire year, and an astronomical jump from the 259 overdoses recorded in 2018. Fifty-four percent of the deaths in 2019 were related to fentanyl, a drug that can be 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine.

“This doesn’t surprise any of us,” said Kristen Marshall, who manages the Drug Overdose Prevention and Education (DOPE) project at the National Harm Reduction Coalition, a city-funded program that coordinates San Francisco’s response to overdoses. “We had been sounding the alarm bells for the last three, four, even five years. We said fentanyl is coming.” Monday’s report confirms what many already knew: Fentanyl is killing more people as it becomes increasingly prevalent on San Francisco’s streets, and the city doesn’t have adequate services to handle the surge. The report also showed that the majority of overdoses occurred among Black people, men and those in their 50s.

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Al-Anon: Recognizing Abuse and Those Left Behind

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Program of difficult options –

August 30, 2020 – Societal judgments create shame when people attempt to receive addiction recovery treatment. DePasquale said that is why some people do not reach out for help sooner.

“People feel ashamed and embarrassed, and it makes the topic not spoken about. Alcoholism isn’t a moral failing,” said DePasquale. “It’s a medically recognized disease, and it takes more than someone saying to get over it.”

When stigmas influence an individual, it creates limitations that make a person question if they are worthy of being helped or if the disease has led them on too far.

Desperately asking what to do, Debbie received no answers. She constantly followed her son around town, did his schoolwork and obsessed over whether she could fix him. Debbie soon realized how powerful addiction was.

Addiction is one of those barriers that limit people from searching for the tools necessary to guide and support them. But through Al-Anon, acceptance and personal recovery are two of the first steps to moving on.

“Recovery is stronger than addiction,” said DePasquale. “We cannot change everything on our own, but we can accept the flaws that represent the struggles of someone we know faces.”

Being deeply engaged in a stressful situation can be a challenge to break away from, but Debbie learned to do just that.

“I’ve learned to practice compassion and learn how to lovingly detach from trying to control the management of someone else’s disease,” said DePasquale.

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New Jersey Govenor signs ‘Overdose Awareness Day’ resolution

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Hymn for the Dying –  

Sept. 2, 2020 – “Every single life lost to an overdose is a tragedy made all the more heartbreaking with the knowledge that many of those deaths could have been prevented if more people had a better understanding of this serious issue,” Verrelli and Benson said Monday in a joint statement. “The purpose of designating an Overdose Awareness Day in New Jersey is to ensure our participation in an existing international effort to prompt more discussions about overdose prevention and allow families to share the grief many feel they cannot outwardly express because of the stigma surrounding their loved one’s death.”

In certain parts of the world, Aug. 31 is regarded as International Overdose Awareness Day, a global campaign spearheaded by Australian public health advocates.

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Addiction and overdose are dirty words. That only makes them more dangerous.

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

The truth shall set you free –

Sept. 1, 2020 – I found out later that my parents had been harboring a dark secret that ultimately killed them, a secret that I’ve taken on the burden of owning now that they’re gone: They were addicted to opioids.

“Overdose” is a dirty word. For years, I lied about how my parents passed away. The falsehoods were made easier by the concealing they had done themselves about their condition. Eventually I realized that had they told me their painful truth, I could have helped them battle their addiction, and that I needed to share my story in hopes that it could save others.

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Captain Sandy Celebrates 32 Years of Sobriety

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

All hands on deck –  

August 31, 2020 – Sandy Yawn opened up to Showbiz Cheat Sheet about her struggles as a young adult. “I was a mess,” she shared. “By the grace of God, I’m alive. No matter how much money you have, it’s not going to save your life if you are an addict or an alcoholic. And I was a major addict and alcoholic.”

She said she was constantly getting arrested for drinking and driving. “I always got bailed out,” she said but reflected on her dangerous behavior. “But I could have killed someone. My life would be very different right now.” Yawn shared her story as a way to provide hope to others.  “And the only way I can help is to share my story,” she said. Adding that she wanted to inspire others who feel down and out. “Maybe college isn’t their thing and maybe, like me, they are in the school of hard knocks,” she said. “It’s like a painful journey. And I want to help them.”

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A pain reliever that alters perceptions of risk

Original post: Newswise - Drug and Drug Abuse A pain reliever that alters perceptions of risk

While acetaminophen is helping you deal with your headache, it may also be making you more willing to take risks, a new study suggests. People who took acetaminophen rated activities like “bungee jumping off a tall bridge” as less risky than people who took a placebo.

Exercise and Diet Are More Important Than Ever With Virus at Large

If your life these days is anything like mine, a pre-pandemic routine that included regular exercise and disciplined eating has probably given way to sedentary evenings on a big chair, binge-watching reruns of your favorite TV series while guzzling chocolate ice cream or mac ’n’ cheese.

But let’s not beat ourselves up about it. Several doctors I spoke with recently said most of their patients and many of their colleagues are struggling to maintain healthy habits amid the anxiety of the pandemic. “The Quarantine 15” (pounds, that is) is a real phenomenon.

The double challenge of protecting our health, including our immune systems, while battling unhealthy temptations “is a struggle everyone is dealing with,” says Dr. David Kilgore, director of the integrative medicine program at the University of California-Irvine.

Well before COVID-19, more than 40% of U.S. adults were obese, which puts them at risk for COVID-19’s worst outcomes. But even people accustomed to physical fitness and good nutrition are having trouble breaking the bad habits they’ve developed over the past five months.

Karen Clark, a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee, discovered competitive rowing later in life, and her multiple weekly workouts burned off any excess calories she consumed. But the pandemic changed everything: She could no longer meet up with her teammates to row and stopped working out at the YMCA.

Suddenly, she was cooped up at home. And, as for many people, that led to a more sedentary lifestyle, chained to the desk, with no meetings outside the house or walks to lunch with colleagues.

“I reverted to comfort food and comfortable routines and watching an awful lot of Netflix and Amazon Prime, just like everybody else,” Clark says. “When I gained 10 pounds and I was 25, I just cut out the beer and ice cream for a week. When you gain 12 pounds at 62, it’s a long road back.”

She started along that road in July, when she stopped buying chips, ice cream and other treats. And in August, she rediscovered the rowing machine in her basement.

But don’t worry if you lack Clark’s discipline, or a rowing machine. You can still regain some control over your life.

A good way to start is to establish some basic daily routines, since in many cases that’s exactly what the pandemic has taken away, says Dr. W. Scott Butsch, director of obesity medicine at the Cleveland Clinic’s Bariatric and Metabolic Institute. He recommends you “bookend” your day with physical activity, which can be as simple as a short walk in the morning and a longer one after work.

And, especially if you have kids at home who will be studying remotely this fall, prepare your meals at the beginning of the day, or even the beginning of the week, he says.

If you haven’t exercised in a while, “start slow and gradually get yourself up to where you can tolerate an elevated heart rate,” says Dr. Leticia Polanco, a family medicine doctor with the South Bay Primary Medical Group, just south of San Diego. If your gym is closed or you can’t get together with your regular exercise buddies, there are plenty of ways to get your body moving at home and in your neighborhood, she says.

Go for a walk, a run or a bike ride, if one of those activities appeals to you. Though many jurisdictions across the United States require residents to wear masks when out in public, it may not be necessary — and may even be harmful to some people with respiratory conditions — while doing strenuous exercise.

“It’s clearly hard to exercise with a mask on,” says Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. “We go hiking up in the foothills and we take our masks with us and we don’t wear them unless somebody starts coming the other way. Then we will put the mask on, and then we take it off and we keep going.”

If you prefer to avoid the mask question altogether, think of your house as a cleverly disguised gym. Put on music and dance, or hula-hoop, Polanco suggests. You can also pump iron if you have dumbbells, or find a cable TV station with yoga or other workout programs.

If you search on the internet for “exercise videos,” you will find countless workouts for beginners and experienced fitness buffs alike. Try one of the seven-minute workout apps so popular these days. You can download them from Google Play or the Apple Store.

If you miss the camaraderie of exercising with others, virtual fitness groups might seem like a pale substitute, but they can provide motivation and accountability, as well as livestreamed video workouts with like-minded exercisers. One way to find such groups is to search for “virtual fitness community.”

Many gyms are also offering live digital fitness classes and physical training sessions, often advertised on their websites.

If group sports is your thing, you may or may not have options, depending on where you live.

In Los Angeles, indoor and outdoor group sports in municipal parks are shut down until further notice. The only sports allowed are tennis and golf.

In Montgomery County, Maryland, the Ron Schell Draft League, a softball league for men 50 and older, will resume play early this month after sitting out the spring season due to COVID-19, says Dave Hyder, the league’s commissioner.

But he says it has been difficult to get enough players because of worries about COVID.

“In the senior group, you have quite a lot of people who are in a high-risk category or may have a spouse in a high-risk category, and they don’t want to chance playing,” says Hyder, 67, who does plan to play.

Players will have to stay at least 6 feet apart and wear masks while off the field. On the field, the catcher is the only player required to wear a mask. That’s because masks can steam up glasses or slip, causing impaired vision that could be dangerous to base runners or fielders, Hyder explains.

Whatever form of exercise you choose, remember it won’t keep you healthy unless you also reduce consumption of fatty and sugary foods that can raise your risk of chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension — all COVID-19 risk factors.

Kim Guess, a dietitian at UC-Berkeley, recommends that people lay in a healthy supply of beans and lentils, whole grains, nuts and seeds, as well as frozen vegetables, tofu, tempeh and canned fish, such as tuna and salmon.

“Start with something really simple,” she said. “It could even be a vegetable side dish to go with what they’re used to preparing.”

Whatever first steps you decide to take, now is a good time to start eating better and moving your body more.

Staying healthy is “so important these days, more than at any other time, because we are fighting this virus which doesn’t have a treatment,” says the Cleveland Clinic’s Butsch. “The treatment is our immune system.”

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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