Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Crime Pays –

Oct. 21, 2020 – The controversial settlement, valued at more than $8.3 billion, would restructure Purdue Pharma, which entered bankruptcy last year. Going forward, the company would operate as a public trust under government control, continuing to manufacture opioid medications. The Justice Department also said much of this settlement will help states and communities, providing them with “extraordinary new resources” for treatment of people suffering addiction.

In recent days, critics worked to head off this deal even before it was made public, saying it would entangle the government in a risky drug-making operation without holding the company or its owners accountable.

In a letter sent last week to Attorney General William Barr, 25 state attorneys general urged the Justice Department to “avoid having special ties to an opioid company” that “caused a national crisis.”

Nearly three dozen Democratic members of Congress also sent a letter to Barr last week insisting any resolution of Purdue Pharma’s role in the opioid crisis result in prison time for company owners and executives.

“Purdue and the Sackler family perpetrated one of the most egregious criminal acts in American history,” lawmakers argued in the letter, calling for more aggressive prosecutions.

more@APNews

The post Sackler Family Makes $8B Opioid Deal for 100,000’s Deaths. No Jail Time. appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH –A bop from the cop –

Oct. 13, 2020 – “I think that’s why I’m so passionate about it because I was that person,” says Hamilton. Every year Hamilton posts on social media about his inspiring recovery. This time his message reached the right person. Phoenix police arranged for Hamilton to meet Carro.

“That was pretty heartfelt when I first read that,” says Carro. “You just felt the soul; the gentleman’s soul was just so genuine.”

Carro has been with Phoenix police for 13 years. He does not remember Josh and never expected such an interaction to lead to a show of gratitude.

“I just treat everybody fairly, and with respect, the same way I’d want to be treated or I’d want my family to be treated,” says Carro.

Early next year, Hamilton will celebrate five years of sobriety. He wants every officer to know they make a huge impact every day, even if they don’t know it.

“Especially now,” says Hamilton. “We need you. We need you, and it’s super important for them to know that.”

more@AZFamily

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

More than advice: Action –  

Oct. 12, 2020 – My company KM Consulting & Coaching provides two levels of services. Consulting, which focuses on helping companies target the right audience, while providing unique skills and methods in building brands and relationships to enhance productivity. Coaching, which focuses on one-on-one professional coaching, and plant-based nutrition coaching that allows for transformation with the people I work with. I take a compassionate holistic approach with a balanced focus on mind, body and spirit because they’re all connected.

Last year, after receiving certification in plant-based nutrition from Cornell, I expanded my coaching services to include a specialized nutrition program focused on plant-based eating to support my clients in implementing healthier habits that help them level up their health, vitality and overall well-being. I customize a plan for each client based on their lifestyle and challenges and together we level up to make improvements and achieve results. Making real, positive change in our lives is about taking small, actionable steps that we incorporate into our daily lives to create lasting habits.

I’m a teacher, connector, and ultimately a people person, and I love learning how people communicate. I listen with the same passion with which I want to be heard so I can show up with an open mind and an open heart to serve.

I am most proud of my own resilience and how I’ve continued to bounce back, regardless of the obstacles or challenges. I think one’s ability to adapt to failure and navigate their way through it is the foundation of resiliency.

As a coach, I specialize in helping people with reinventing their lives. I ask specific questions to get to their why and support them in the process. My clients are people who are on the growth path. As a certified plant based nutrition coach, I create customized plans that address the seven dimensions of wellness for continued growth and balance and adjust weekly as we move toward their goals — a full integration of physical, mental and spiritual well-being. I provide continued guidance and creative tools that support and elevate them as they achieve results. After decades of seeing people struggle with food and emotional eating, I created this as a lifestyle that will allow one to feel at peace and empowered around nutrition and to nurture themselves in a healthy, loving way.

more@SDVoyager

The post Meet Karen Meisels: Consulting and Coaching appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LISTEN – Death Reduction –  

Oct. 14, 2020 – While there are many organizations trying to help others overcome substance abuse and addiction, USARA is unique says McMillin.

According to McMillin, USARA comes from a place where they’ve been through the struggle because their employees know addiction firsthand.

“We are a called a recovery community organization and it is run by people in recovery themselves,” McMillin said. “[We] are people with a lived experience so [we] are individuals who have had a substance abuse disorder, struggled with addiction themselves.”

And that’s what makes them so unique says McMillin. It also opens up the door to understanding the role harm reduction plays on a recovering addict.

They’re not worried about the labels of addiction according to McMillin. USARA’s goal is to be supportive and helpful in any way possible and quite often, that starts with a conversation.

“When we meet with somebody, it’s [for] the individual. We’re not sitting down saying what drugs are you using or how much are you drinking,” McMillin described. “We’re not identifying them by a label, we’re addressing them as a person.”

more@FM100

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Rolling Stoned –

Oct. 12, 2020 – Mick Jagger, speaking with Rolling Stone, put the band’s prior creative lull in the ’70s down to one thing, “Everyone was using drugs, Keith [Richards] particularly,” said the frontman in 1995. “So I think it suffered a bit from all that. General malaise. I think we got a bit carried away with our own popularity and so on. It was a bit of a holiday period. I mean, we cared, but we didn’t care as much as we had. Not really concentrating on the creative process.” 

Richards has racked up five drug charges since the start of his career which never deterred him to take the path to sobriety like so many of his contemporaries who swap the substances for smoothies. Instead, his reason for packing in the habit was boredom. Speaking to the Telegraph in 2018, Richards was asked about his well-known hedonistic tendencies, “Drugs are not interesting these days,” he said. “They are very institutionalised and bland. And, anyway, I’ve done ’em all,” he boasted.

“I’m not saying I’m definitely off all of this stuff,” he also admits. “In six months’ time, I might be on it again. But at the moment, for a couple of months, I haven’t touched it,” before going on to say he finds sobriety “novel”.

more@FarOut

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Talk to the screen –  

Oct. 12, 2020 – Telemedicine has long been seen as a potential remedy, but pre-pandemic adoption rates were low among addiction treatment providers, according to studies by Lori Uscher-Pines, a senior policy researcher at the RAND Corporation, and Haiden Huskamp, a health economist at Harvard Medical School, who, along with their colleagues, are researching telemedicine care delivery for substance use disorder treatment. Since March, they have watched a treatment paradigm historically centered on strict in-person monitoring and layers of regulation quickly transform into one that relies heavily on virtual care.

“Everything has changed since COVID-19,” says Uscher-Pines. “The regulatory barriers, patient readiness barriers, all of those things are different now… Our research shows that only about 17% of licensed treatment facilities had any telemedicine capabilities prior to the pandemic. What we’re seeing now, both qualitatively and quantitatively, is an explosion of telemedicine use.”

Virtual 12-step program meetings, online psychotherapy, and private companies offering remote medication-assisted treatment (MAT) to opioid use disorder sufferers have become the norm since the pandemic began. Early research suggests that MAT prescribers transitioned easily to telemedicine with established patients but have been hesitant to take on new ones.

The process of initiating MAT, usually with methadone or buprenorphine, is subject to specific federal and state regulations. Many of these and other regulations have been loosened to facilitate increased access to treatment via telemedicine during the pandemic, but the regulatory environment remains complex.

The following federal policy changes, detailed in a recent study by the nonprofit Center for Connected Health Policy, are in place at least for the duration of the coronavirus pandemic and have opened up options for telemedicine-delivered addiction treatment for patients with access to a computer or telephone:

more@JournalistsResource

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Don’t bogart that snake my friend –

Oct. 12, 2020 – A Holladay man has been arrested and is facing charges after animal-control officers found 20 Burmese pythons roaming around his residence.

According to a probable cause statement filed by a Unified police officer, the man, 64, sold a baby python — which is considered an exotic animal — to an undercover officer. After the sale, Salt Lake County Animal Services verified that the man had no permits for either exotic or dangerous animals since 2017.

Officers served a search warrant Friday. In his home, according to the probable cause statement, they found 20 pythons “mostly free-roaming inside.” Ten of the snakes measured longer than 10 feet.

more@SaltLakeTribune

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Euphoria & Greed –  

Oct. 10, 2020 – People who have achieved sobriety from other substances can easily fall into opioid addiction.

On Sept. 21, actor and comedian Dax Shepard released to the public that after 16 years of sobriety, he had relapsed with Vicodin. Shepard was prescribed the painkillers after surgery for four broken ribs following a motorcycle accident in August.

Like many people who are prescribed opioids, Shepard didn’t initially feel like taking the prescribed medication would be a problem.

During the episode of his podcast, “Armchair Expert,” Shepard explained that he was taking eight 30-milligrams pills of the drug every day while hiding his addiction from friends and family.

“I know that’s an amount that’s going to result in a pretty bad withdrawal,” he said on the podcast. “And I start getting really scared, and I’m starting to feel really lonely. And I just have this enormous secret.”

more@GreeleyTribune

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Compassion and Understanding –

Oct. 14, 2020 – Dry January, Sober October, no longer full of shame Thursday. I have been in recovery for three years and nearly three months and haven’t had a drink since that last pint of gin. Compared to some of my sober friends, I am a rookie; compared to the person trying to wrap their head around the idea of sobriety while not quite ready to admit to themselves they have a problem, I may seem like an impossibility. Staying sober felt impossible for me too, but I found ways to string 1,171 days together as of writing this. I am the person who makes a choice every day to not drink. I don’t always love that choice, but I don’t love the power of addiction either. Sobriety means something different to each person in recovery, but here are a few things I’ve learned along the way when it comes to being the sober friend.

From playdates to date nights, alcohol is usually the center of most people’s activities. Mommy wine culture and “Daddy needs a beer” sentiment starts at the baby shower and wraps its way through all aspects of parenting. I used booze as a joke and crutch to get through my early parenting days, too. And, parent or not, plenty of people imbibe to add a layer of enjoyment to an evening alone or with friends.

more@ScaryMommy

The post What You Should Know About Your Sober Friend appeared first on Addiction/Recovery eBulletin.

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Paying it forward –  

Oct. 15, 2020 – As Chris Bilyk pulls a shipping label off the printer he says, “I’m a one man show.” Moments later Bilyk slides a gray t-shirt into a bag and seals the end.

“This one is going to Miami Beach,” Bilyk says proudly. “I’ve never done anything like this. I’ve never worked for myself.”

Bilyk is the founder of State of Gratitude USA, a t-shirt and apparel company whose corporate headquarters resides in a closet in the spare bedroom of his home.

Not bad when you consider the company was started just a few short months ago using Bilyk’s government stimulus check.

“I had no idea what I was doing,” Bilyk said with a laugh. “ I just bought $1200 worth of shirts.”

The closet is stocked with shirts, hats, water bottles and decals. Everything has a State of Gratitude logo.

Bilyk is learning on the job and trying to take a bad situation and help others at the same time.

“COVID and the pandemic kind of gave me the time to work through an idea that maybe would have only remained and idea had this pandemic not occurred.”

Bilyk’s idea was to market a brand around the concept of gratitude and give part of the profits back to the addiction recovery community.

“I used to tell people to live in a state of gratitude as I was getting sober myself,” he continued. “Okay, things aren’t going the way you planned but remember the positive things.”

Bilyk lost his job in the hospitality industry when the nationwide shutdown occurred.

“So many times in my life I’ve been like ‘doing something like this would be cool,” Bilyk remembers. “But when you’re living a fast paced lifestyle it just kind of gets in the way.”

Bilyk reflects on how that lifestyle brought him to this point.

“I just threw up my hands in surrender,” Bilyk said. “I didn’t even have the energy to deny the fact that I had a problem with alcohol and drugs. That was the moment everything changed for me.”

more@ClickOrlando

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