Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

ANOTHER STATE GOES TO POT – 

April 1, 2021 – New Mexico was set to become the 16th state to legalize recreational marijuana after the Legislature passed a bill on Wednesday, joining a national movement to rethink antidrug laws that are increasingly seen as impediments to racial justice and the economy.  Under the New Mexico law, people over 21 would be permitted to have up to two ounces of marijuana, and individuals could have six plants at home, or up to 12 per household. Sales would begin no later than April 2022 and be taxed at 12 percent, eventually rising to 18 percent, plus gross receipts taxes.

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a Democrat, said she would sign the bill, which would also expunge the criminal records of people who possessed marijuana for personal use. She said in a statement that workers, entrepreneurs and the government would benefit from the new industry, creating jobs and tax revenue.

“And those who have been harmed by this country’s failed war on drugs, disproportionately communities of color, will benefit from our state’s smart, fair and equitable new approach to past low-level convictions,” she said.

The bill passed on the same day that New York State legalized recreational marijuana. Lawmakers in both states said they were motivated to produce a legal, tax-revenue-generating industry that formerly operated underground, and to end arrests for low-level offenses.

more@NYTimes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SAVE THE COUNTRY – 

April 2, 2021 – Price wrote that her decision to get sober came after she “started drinking more frequently again” during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly during the late summer and early fall of 2020.

“The election and the political climate and the cyber bullying and threats were wearing on me,” she wrote. “I thought about wiping my social media accounts off the face of the earth and retreating to the Mt. Baldy Zen Center in Los Angeles, the place Leonard Cohen had studied with the Buddhists and became a monk for a brief time.” But Price, of course, didn’t want to leave her children — daughter Ramona, 21 months, and son Judah, 11 — or husband Jeremy Ivey behind. 

“I had a family to raise — a full-time job with overtime and no sick days,” she wrote. “I loved it, but I also missed my career and the way things used to be. My life was a balancing act, and lots of days I fell very far off the tightrope.”

more@People

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

KIDS SAY THE DAMNEDEST THINGS – 

March 30, 2021 – When adolescents are online, they adapt to a different set of social norms than when they’re interacting with their peers in person. Oftentimes, they are more aggressive or critical on social media because of the anonymity they have online and their ability to avoid retaliation. Additionally, cyberbullies may feel less remorse or empathy when engaging in these behaviors because they can’t see the direct impact of their actions.

“The perpetrator doesn’t get a chance to see how damaging their bullying is and to learn from their mistakes and do something different,” said Giordano. “It’s a scary situation because they don’t have the natural consequences they do with offline bullying.”

Teenagers who are addicted to social media are more likely to engage in cyberbullying, as well as those who spend more time online. Participants in the study reported spending on average over seven hours online per day, and the reported average maximum hours spent online in one day was over 12 hours.

“Social media addiction is when people crave it when they’re not on it, and continue their social media use despite negative consequences,” said Giordano. “Some negative consequences could be they’re tired during the day because they’re scrolling all night long, they’re having conflicts with their parents, they’re getting poor grades in school or they’re engaging in actions online that they later regret, but they still continue to use social media.”

Social networking sites are designed to give people a dopamine hit, she added, and some people compulsively look for that hit. “It’s feeding into that addictive behavior, and they may be using cyberbullying as a way to get likes, shares, comments and retweets,” she said. “That’s the common thread you see in behavioral addictions — people start relying on a rewarding behavior as a way to make them feel better when they’re experiencing negative emotions. And so, I think the social media addiction piece is really interesting to show that there’s another factor at play here in addition to the number of hours spent online.”

more@ScienceDaily

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – THE MIRACLE OF MEN – 

March 24, 2021 – Now, they’re ready to take their efforts a step further by creating a structured sober living facility in Southern California that’s equipped with a “community of retail and restaurant employment opportunities,” Schneidman told Fox News. 

It will be geared toward anyone who is struggling with alcoholism or drug addiction. The caveat? They have to be willing to do the work to turn their life around, he said. 

“This structured sober living that I went through taught me how to become a man,” Schneidman said. “And that’s what I want to share with people that are like me.”

The upper part of the facility, where he hopes to house roughly 12 people who are struggling with addiction, will be centered around recovery, he said. Each day will be structured and include activities “conducive to sobriety,” from in-house meetings, outside meetings, outside therapy sessions to yoga retreats. 

more@FoxNews

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LISTEN – LOVE IS THE FIRST STEP – 

April 5, 2021 – He has been in and out of rehab numerous times over the last two decades and has had long periods of sobriety between relapses.

It’s also a story about a family’s love and loss. Biden was 2 years old when his mother and sister died in a car crash. Hunter and his brother, Beau, were seriously injured but survived. Biden writes that his addictions entered a particularly dark phase after Beau died of brain cancer in 2015. It got to the point where in an intervention in early 2019, his father held him in a bear hug, saying, “I don’t know what to do.”

Hunter Biden says his wife, Melissa, got his life under control shortly after they met later that year. In an interview with NPR’s Scott Simon airing on Morning Edition, Biden credits his family’s unflinching love for his survival.

There was “never a moment that they weren’t trying to save me,” Biden says.

He also addresses his well-paid work for the Ukrainian gas company Burisma, which began in 2014 while this father, Joe Biden, was vice president. Former President Donald Trump portrayed it as a corrupt deal that involved Joe Biden. Trump’s effort to pressure Ukraine to investigate the Bidens led to Trump’s first impeachment.

more@NPR

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

ESSAY/OPINION/AL-ANON SHARE – 

March 27, 2021 – My brilliant and weirdly eccentric father, who I thought was the most interesting man in the world, indulged in a combo of pills and alcohol.

Even as a teenager, I wasn’t attracted to the boys who turned their homework in on time and were on track with post-high school scholarships and a career path lined up. I was drawn to the brooding, artistic boys with plenty of attitude and a love of partying. I had to drive my senior prom date home because he got drunk on the giant Tequila Sunrise he’d made for the night.

When I was in my 20s my boyfriend was a professional drummer. And a sex addict. He toured every summer and — surprise, surprise — cheated on me constantly. I work in the entertainment industry, so I am surrounded by some of the most creative people in the world. And that turns me on. The problem is that a lot of these really cool, tortured, brilliant artist types have something else going on that fuels, or dulls, all that passion and pain: addiction. 

more@LATimes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – SINGING SOBER – 

March 29, 2021 – Of all the pop stars, Pellow seemed such an unlikely addict – so clean-cut, bouncy and upbeat. After being outed by the tabloids in 1999, he never denied his problems. But he always liked to accentuate the positive. He would smile his famous smile, admit he had had a rough old time of it and hurdle the tricky stuff. He preferred talking about his solo albums, his performances in West End and Broadway musicals and his blessed life. And talk he can – Pellow is smart, informed, funny, obsessed with music and full of stories. 

Today, Pellow is speaking from the spare bedroom of the house in Windsor he shares with his long-term partner, Eileen Catterson, a former Miss Scotland. There is a vintage four-poster bed in the background and a few guitars dotted around the room. Pellow is wearing a paisley shirt and a pair of loose-fitting tartan slacks that could double as pyjamas. The ponytail of old has long gone. These days, it is all short hair and professorial glasses. One thing that hasn’t changed is the smile, but nowadays he flashes it with more discretion.

more@TheGuardian

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SICK OF SCHOOL – 

April 1, 2021 – Campbell Stowell, another first-year student, reiterated these worries. “My depression and anxiety are at their peak,” said Stowell, describing how the simplest of tasks such as attending a virtual class or finding a Zoom link feel “overwhelming most days.”  “I am constantly stressed with the lack of breaks and navigating online school,” Stowell said. “I am more worried about my mental health than getting COVID-19.”  An MHS counselor at UHS — who Stowell said is “very supportive” —  has helped her find a therapist in the Madison area; yet, Stowell remains frustrated with UW’s decision to provide only a few wellness days, one of which was Saturday, March 27 while the others are Friday, April 2 and Saturday, April 3, in place of a Spring Break. The breaks all take place on Fridays or Saturdays, days that many students do not have class.  “Quite frankly, I think that the one day is a joke and that [the university] is putting in the least amount of effort to pretend that they care about the student body,” said Stowell, referencing the UW Faculty Senate’s decision. 

UHS Mental Health Services director to students: “I care”   Director of Mental Health Services at UHS Dr. Sarah Nolan maintains that the university and UHS are committed to ensuring that students have access to mental health care. Emphasizing that as students struggle with the circumstances of COVID-19, online schooling and cope with global events such as the Atlanta shooting targeting Asian Americans earlier this month, Nolan stated that MHS’s ultimate goal is to support students and their mental health. “If [students] have experiences that prevent them from seeking our services, I want to know about it,” said Nolan. “I want students to feel like there is something at MHS and UHS that can help them through this time.”

more@DailyCardinal

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

BUSINESS OF GREED – 

March 30, 2021 – Prosecutors say more than $350,000 in suspected kickbacks were paid to Moore by the sober living home operators. The money was “covered up by bogus contracts for ‘marketing’ services,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The sober living homes were able to submit claims to health insurers tied to the new patients Moore is accused of bringing them, prosecutors allege. In one recorded conversation cited in court filings, Moore and a sober living home employee reportedly discussed the cash value of the “clients” Moore had allegedly helped place in the facility.

Prosecutors also cited text messages between patients and Moore in which they reportedly asked for money and to be placed in treatment. Prosecutors allege Moore responded by telling them he would only talk through Signal, an encrypted phone app.

Federal investigators in court filings say that such schemes – known as “patient brokering” – result in substance abusers who have no intention of actually stopping using drugs getting money from insurers to participate in treatment programs.

Brokers are generally paid per patient based on the anticipated reimbursement rate from a patient’s insurance policy, investigators wrote. The brokers often promise patients anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars, depending on their insurance benefits and how long they are expected to stay, investigators added.

more@OCRegister

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

SYSTEMATIC BREAKDOWN – 

March 24, 2021 – In a spectacular display of stigma related to the disease of addiction and its treatment, there has not been a rush to expand capacity, address decades of old workforce shortages, or properly prepared for the tidal wave of death and destruction now washing onto the shores of California. And now, the state’s failure to understand the critical role that licensure for the profession plays in attracting and maintaining the workforce has come home to roost. We are behind; far behind in developing the resources needed to treat addiction.

In California, one voice stands alone to address this crisis – San Francisco Assemblymember David Chiu. His Assembly Bill 666 was the only bill introduced to address workforce during this catastrophic system failure. It’s $9 million spending plan hopes to create more certified counselors, attract more multi-lingual practitioners, cross-train other licensed professionals, and address the desperately high needs of LGBTQ youth with addiction. The bill is a much needed short-term capacity builder that will save lives, but when will the legislature and administration address the systemic problems that have decimated this workforce? According to the California Senate Committee on Appropriations’ analysis of SB-1101 Alcohol and drug counselors: regulation (2015-2016), “In recent years, there have been several bills proposed to license drug and alcohol counselors, including SB 570 (DeSaulnier, 2013), AB 2007 (Williams, 2012), SB 1203 (DeSaulnier, 2010), SB 707 (DeSaulnier, 2009) and others. None of those bills were enacted.” (2016). The state’s largest and most vocal advocacy organization for addiction treatment and prevention, the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals (CCAPP), has been intimately involved in this multiple-year effort to create SUD counselor licensure in California. CCAPP’s vision for SUD counselor development involves a career ladder that begins with registered SUD counselor interns and progresses through levels leading to state-issued licensure. The tiered system allows SUD counseling professionals to advance according to specific education milestones and years of experience in the profession.

more@CounselorMagazine

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