Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – OD Ideation? – 

Jan. 1, 2021 – That’s the grim, unfortunate reality of the drug, that Roy and Wendy Plunk know all too well.

“I mean, I’m never going to be the same, you know? Part of my heart is gone,” Roy Plunk said.

The Plunks say their son, Zach Plunk, overdosed and died from fentanyl back in August 2020.

Zach was known for playing football for Hamilton High School, and Roy and Wendy say his life took a turn a few years back.

“He got addicted to it and we just could not get him off of it,” Roy Plunk said. “We tried everything.”

Oz said her DEA agents seized six million fentanyl pills in Arizona in 2020. That’s up from 1.4 million in 2019 … The DEA also found a new variant of fentanyl in 2020 called para-fluorofentanyl that agents believe is more addictive and likely more deadly, leaving a grim reality ahead in 2021.

“We’re on an upward trajectory which is not a good place to be,” Oz said.

Oz is concerned about how many more lives could be taken, as a lethal dose of the drug is equivalent to two grains of salt. Meaning, one pill can be the difference between life and death.

“That’s unfortunately what happened to Zach,” Roy Plunk said. “He got a hold of a pill that had a lethal dose for five people, so he didn’t even have a chance.”

more@12News

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Rolling joints, not hundreds – 

Jan. 4, 2021 – Aware of earlier findings that social isolation triggered spikes in drug use, researchers at New York University’s Langone Health Center wanted to quantify what social distancing measures imposed during New York’s lockdown in the spring did to that city’s party scene.

Among the 128 adults surveyed, large majorities reported using less cocaine (78.6 percent), less MDMA (71.1 percent) and less LSD (68 percent). Even those who still use cocaine reported using less of it, and less frequently. Only one drug surveyed showed a large, across-the-board increase: 35 percent of respondents reported using more cannabis, according to the survey, published in December in the journal Substance Use & Misuse.

According to the researchers, “this study is among the first to investigate changes in drug use behavior” caused by “widespread implementation of social distancing measures to contain COVID-19.”

more@Observer

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Prisoner of greed – 

Jan. 2, 2021 – Li would later become known as a notoriously reckless supplier of lethal drugs — the first doctor in New York state to be convicted of killing his patients with pills.

For $150 in cash, which he would slip into his white coat pocket, Li freely wrote out prescriptions for potent narcotics to anybody willing to pay, virtually no questions asked.

“It’s very mechanical,” said one witness at his trial, according to “Bad Medicine: Catching New York’s Deadliest Pill Pusher,” by Charlotte Bismuth which was published by One Signal. “He’s doing it to feed an addiction network as part of his business model.”

And the results were devastating: 16 people died of overdoses, some within days of seeing Li, writes Bismuth — the prosecutor who put him away.

One baffling part of Li’s practice was that he was a highly educated physician who emigrated from China as an MD, did a fellowship at the University of Pittsburgh Hospital and worked for Robert Wood Johnson Hospital in New Jersey.

more@NYPost

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

OPINION by Ryan Hampton –  

Dec. 31, 2020 – Recovery works — I’m living proof — but it requires community-based, long-term support. Connections, whether with friends and family, support groups or other types of programs, are critical to recovery. The coronavirus pandemic has interrupted support and services, amplified stress and anxiety, and added physical distancing requirements to people already feeling isolated. Those factors have made it even harder for people to take the first step toward remission from substance use disorder.

As a result, experts have called for more resources and heightened intervention to reduce substance use disorders since early in the pandemic. With little action from federal and state governments over the past 10 months, however, we are starting to see alarming trends.

more@USAToday

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

BOOK: Approved literature –  

Jan. 5, 2021 – Paramahansa Yogananda made an indelible impression on the spiritual landscape of the United States. Arriving in America in 1920 from his native India, he established Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) that same year. Throughout his ministry, he taught the underlying unity of all the great faith traditions—devoting himself to fostering greater harmony and cooperation among all religions, races and nationalities. He brought the knowledge of yoga and meditation to millions through his public lectures and writings, as well as through the many SRF meditation centers he established throughout the world. In 2014, an award-winning documentary about his life and work, AWAKE: The Life of Yogananda, was released in theaters.

In the preface to the book, W. Y. Evans-Wentz, author and translator of many classic works on yoga and the wisdom traditions of the East, writes: “As an eyewitness recountal of the extraordinary lives and powers of modern Hindu saints, the book has an importance both timely and timeless … His unusual life document is certainly one of the most revealing … of the spiritual wealth of India, ever to be published in the West.” 

Author Jack Canfield, co-creator of the Chicken Soup for the Soul® series, whose own personal journey began by reading AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI, says, “You would be hard-pressed to find anyone on the spiritual path whose life has not been influenced by this profound work of literature.” In the 300-plus interviews conducted for the book American Veda, author Philip Goldberg found that AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A YOGI “prompted more Americans to explore Indian spirituality than any other text.”

more@PRWeb

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LISTEN – Staying sane and sober – 

Jan. 1, 2021 – When Vladimir Celestin and his extended family realized they couldn’t get together on Christmas, they got creative.

“My cousins on my father and my mother’s side, we decided to put a sort of presentation for my grandmother, as well as my other aunts and uncles,” says Celestin, who has only seen his parents and grandmother in Long Island, N.Y., once since the pandemic began.

The presentation included old photos and video clips from past holidays and vacations gathered by family members, who live in different places. He says the project, which they later shared in a live Zoom session with the whole family, was meant to be a reminder of the good times still ahead when they can be together in person again.

Not only did his grandmother love the gift, he says, but it also made him feel more connected to his extended family.

“We were learning all these stories that we grew up experiencing, but maybe from others’ perspectives — like my cousin’s perspective that I’d never heard before,” says Celestin. “I don’t think that I would have taken the initiative to seek this out on my own if I hadn’t been presented with a global pandemic that we’re all sitting in together.”

more@NPR

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Safe in the end zone – 

Jan. 7, 2021 – Étienne Boulay revealed this Wednesday on social networks that he has been sober for 4 years now. 4 years ago to the day, I escaped it for the thousandth time. I had tried quitting so many times and it never really worked. I almost gave up that day, telling myself I would never make it. But before I throw in the towel and do something irreparable, I decided to ask for help. Just a little “help me please”. Only that. Worse here I am 4 years later! What was my greatest weakness today has become a strength. It takes a starting point. One step at a time, no matter how small. If you don’t go, ask for help He writes.

more@InspiredTraveler

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Pandemic relief –  

Jan. 5, 2021 – “To get methadone, you have to show up in person every day and have people watch you take the medications,” Burke said. “Imagine if you had diabetes and you had to show up to get insulin every day – people would often miss doses and have health problems. So it’s a huge barrier.”

Ideally, patients should have similar access to both methadone and buprenorphine, researchers said. But since buprenorphine is available by prescription only, those who don’t have health insurance or a primary care physician may not be able to get it — and doctors who are able to prescribe it aren’t always doing so. 

According to the report, “the median active buprenorphine provider in our sample in 2017 served only about half as many patients in a given month as they could have,” the report said. “Even more concerning, beginning in 2016, an increasing number of providers in our sample appear to have stopped prescribing buprenorphine altogether, despite continuing to prescribe other medications.”

Rhode Island officials should take a closer look at where buprenorphine prescribers are located, and figure out what might be keeping them from treating more people with buprenorphine, Burke said.

“One surprise is that some practitioners have said they treat zero patients with buprenorphine,” she said. “What is going on with them? Why did they burn out? We need to see if the regulatory oversight needs more work. We need to get to the bottom of this, and it’s not just in Rhode Island.”

more@BostonGlobe

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Sobriety sometimes leads to marriage –  

Jan. 8, 2021 – The lessons from the love story of Irene Sibaja and Hal Karp are many, but here are some of the more obvious: The old dating adage “right person, wrong time” is real; forgiveness is a gift; sharing your darkest moments can have a positive outcome; and looking for an ex online can sometimes be a good idea.

Mr. Karp and Ms. Sibaja first met in 1993. Mr. Karp, who graduated from Southern Methodist University, had grown up in Denver and Dallas, the oldest of three children of David Karp and Renee Karp. Ms. Sibaja, from Houston, was the third of four children of Jane Root and the late Dr. Elihu Root. Ms. Sibaja graduated from Rice University and has an M.B.A. from Harvard, and was working in Dallas for Bain & Company in strategy consulting.

Mr. Karp was then a freelance writer and editor. He had organized an event, through a young adults’ group at Temple Emanu-El in Dallas, to update a playground he had designed a few years earlier for children with H.I.V. Ms. Sibaja went to volunteer. 

more@NYTimes

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Happy to be alive – 

Jan. 2, 2021 – The 33-year-old sought help and weeks before Christmas 2020 he told his followers on Instagram that he was nearing the milestone of a year of sobriety.

“A year ago today on my birthday I was rushed into hospital after a near fatal drug overdose,” he said.

“Today I’m over 11 months clean & sober, If I can achieve this in 2020 with everything against me then I believe I can achieve anything. “Thank you for your love & best wishes. I will continue to make my family, friends & supporters proud of me.”

more@Yahoo

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