Category: From Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Crazy Times! Drugs Can Kill! –

August 2, 2020 – And that has left people who have another potentially deadly disease — addiction — with fewer opportunities for treatment, while threatening to reverse their recovery gains.

“It’s hard to underestimate the effects of the pandemic on the community with opioid use disorder,” said Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The pandemic has profoundly disrupted the drug markets. Normally that would drive more people to treatment. Yet treatment is harder to come by.” Drug rehabs aren’t as much of a COVID “tinderbox” as nursing homes, Alexander said, but both are communal settings where social distancing can be difficult.

Shared spaces, double-occupancy bedrooms and group therapy are common in rehabs. People struggling with addiction are generally younger than nursing home residents, but both populations are vulnerable because they’re more likely to suffer from other health conditions, such as diabetes or cardiovascular disease, that leave them at risk of succumbing to COVID-19.

more@GoodMenProject

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Pinning the Demons… –

August 5, 2020 – Celebrating 7 years of sobriety today. To all of you who supported me and stood by me, through good and bad, I want to thank you for not giving up on me. Salute! (With a glass of milk in my You Suck cup). 

more@Mandatory

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Slitherin’ out on top –  

AUGUST 5, 2020 – he actor admitted that he first got drunk at the age of 12.

The bartender, whom we then considered a hero, and now I understand that he belongs in prison, secretly brought us a full bottle of liquor. We drank it in the toilet and then staggered to the party. I vomited, I fell and tore off a giant curtain, climbed to kiss the girl, God bless her … I ran out into the street, vomited again, then I stumbled, smashed my head on the sidewalk and covered all my clothes with blood. The next morning I woke up with a splitting head, a stench from vomit, a huge scab on my head, and the memory of how I was completely disgraced yesterday. And I thought: I’d rather repeat it all. Why is that? I have no idea. Genes? Education? Zodiac sign? – Isaacs shared.

Jason also talked about what happened before he stopped using drugs:

I remember not long before I quit, it suddenly occurred to me that if everyone I knew died, literally everyone, I probably wouldn’t mind. I would even be glad because then it would be an excuse to sit in a room alone and take drugs, and everyone else would say: “You heard what happened, right?”

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Zoom and six feet away… –

August 6, 2020 – He says he was at his wits end: in-and-out of jail and loved ones giving up on him.

“I got 56 misdemeanors, 7 DUI’s, 6 felonies, and 16 driver’s suspensions. That’s all I used to know, that jail was an institution,” Anastasia stated.

Then he hit rock bottom.

“My mom died in 2011. She overdosed on Xanax and oxycodone, so I was just tired of my life. I just wanted to die,” he said.

Until a friend got him some help. He spent months at several treatment centers like Maryhaven, House of Hope, and a sober house.

“I took about 14 months just to work on myself,” Anastasia stated.

He started attending Alcoholics Anonymous meetings regularly and now helps recruit more members.

“The biggest part of my sobriety is staying busy and helping others.”

Making ever-lasting friendships during these meetings. But with COVID-19, meetings are now small or moved online, like Facebook.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Human interest story –  

August 5, 2020 – “According to numbers I received from the 911 center, we’ve had 277 911 calls involving overdoses. Last year, for the whole year of 2019, I think we had 360. So we are on course to expand on last year’s number,” said Wood County Sheriff Steve Stephens.

Walters says people with addiction need community and fellowship. He says it’s a crucial part of their recovery and the pandemic has largely taken them away.

“Different buildings have different rules and regulations. And people just aren’t willing to have people in those buildings and that’s unfortunate because fellowship is a big, big deal when it comes to addiction recovery,” said Walters.

On top of that, Walters says fear and hopelessness created around the virus has pushed people recovering from addiction to make bad decisions. He and the sheriff suspect the stimulus checks sent to millions of Americans this spring allowed many of them to make those bad decisions. “During the month of May we had 83 in Wood County, which was up from 35 in April and if you will recall that’s when the stimulus checks were starting to get mailed out. So, I’m sure there is a correlation there between that and the stimulus checks.

Walters has teamed up with J. Morgan Leach to try to help people with addiction find some community again by putting on the Fifth Annual Parkersburg Memorial Walk. In years past, the event has drawn hundreds of people. Leach says it is legal for them to host such an event despite Governor Jim Justice’s executive order limiting the size of certain gatherings.

“Now the governor’s office did amend that stay at home order to allow for more broader gatherings that are not purely social in nature.” said Leach. “ does have that higher purpose. There are more things going on than just a social aspect. We’re literally trying to reach out to people who are overdosing or committing suicide at a higher rate than they would have been because of the isolationist nature of this pandemic.” said Leach.

Organizers hope the event will be something positive in a world they say is full of negativity.

more@WTAP

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Doesn’t sound very Christian –

August 7, 2020 – “So, to me, I see that there’s clear need in Millville for this type of in-and-out patient addiction recovery service,” Worthington said. “There are people here now who are suffering from addiction. It’s not people from somewhere else. It’s people in Millville.

“The site has been hosting recovering addicts for more than 20 years now through Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous,” Worthington added. “So, `those people,’ as they were called, are already on that property.” As board members and witnesses noted, the variance was needed because city ordinance only allows up to 15 people in a residential treatment center. No city approval would have been needed had Hendricks House stayed within the ordinance limit.

Testimony from the nonprofit’s representatives, based on their similar operations in Vineland and Galloway Township, say a patient on average stays with them four to five months. Patients get counseling but also hold jobs, incrementally getting ready physically, mentally, and financially to go home.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Nothing compares 2 this –

August 7, 2020 – “There were things out of my control, of course,” the 59-year-old told Rolling Stone. “And there came a time when I needed to really sit down with myself and say, ‘I can’t save him. I can’t give up my life and go try to live his life for him.’ And I had to come up against the possibility that he might die. But I had to be able to go on living.”

“Of course it’s nothing a parent ever wants. But as a human being, I just needed to be at peace with a troubled son who did the best he could, who believed what he believed and then his life ended way, way too soon.”

On May 13, Etheridge confirmed that Beckett had died.

“Today I joined the hundreds of thousands of families who have lost loved ones to opioid addiction,” she announced on social media. “My son Beckett, who was just 21, struggled to overcome his addiction and finally succumbed to it today.”

The Grammy winner, who is also a mom to daughter Bailey, 23, and 13-year-old twins Johnnie Rose and Miller Steven, told Rolling Stone that she does feel guilt but doesn’t think her son would want her to struggle in that way.

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

LISTEN – Shooting up…  –  

August 7, 2020 – He had gone well past the ability of blending in and he exits the car, pretends to be a hotel patron and fails at scoring a cup of free coffee. Dedicated in his mission, he knows exactly where to go for a free cup of coffee-AA. 

No money, no license, no income, a list of potential felonies and a bunch of debts to some dangerous people, it’s 2010 and Brandon was at rock bottom. His younger brother Ryan had already graduated college and landed his first adult job. The big moment had happened, Brandon told himself “do something different today, let’s try to stay sober for just one day.” 

HOMECOMING

By only worrying about each day singularly, Brandon was able to start making healthier choices, consuming healthier foods, started to regain his relationships and developed a strong respect for purity. What one puts in their body is very important and nothing would be allowed to jeopardize his progress. 

Once sober, Brandon turned the addictive habits into a passion for restored health. Upon his return to Ohio, a visit that was going to illustrate his progress to the ones he loves most turned out to be just that, but also a catalyst to his next achievement. Many of his friends were also badly addicted to drugs, he brought two of them back to California with him and together he helped them to turn things around, to achieve their own wellness. All hailing from Ohio, people began to call his home…

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Stick with the Winners! –

August 12, 2020 – 

Courtney Friel has been a news anchor at KTLA-TV, the number one news station in Los Angeles, since 2013. She also hosts the highly successful podcast “Keepin’ It Friel: Conversations on Recovery.” In 2007, at the age of 26, Friel was hired by Fox News Channel as a national news correspondent and fill-in host for “Fox & Friends,” where she worked for six years. She remains to this day the youngest on-air talent ever hired by the cable network. Previously she reported for CBS, ABC and Fox affiliate stations as well as shows including “America’s Most Wanted,” “Extra,” and “E! News.” Friel has more than a decade sober and speaks around the country on the topic of sobriety. Friel was born and raised in a suburb of Philadelphia and currently resides in Los Angeles with her fiancé and two children.

Q. If you are in recovery, what was your Drug of Choice? When did you stop using?
A. Alcohol, Cocaine, Xanax, Adderall, Ambien. 09/09/09

Q. Have you ever been arrested and if so, for what?
A. No, thankfully.

Q. Do you think addiction is an illness, disease, a choice or a wicked twist of fate?
A. I believe some people’s brains are just wired differently and can’t just have one drink, we want to keep going and turn into not our best selves. If that’s an illness or disease then so be it.

Full profile @AREB

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

It works if you work it  –  

August 8, 2020 – The night of drinking would start respectably enough, but casual getting-to-know-you moments and conversations about schoolwork would devolve as it wore on. Like many people, I used alcohol as a social lubricant, filling awkward pauses with sips. A drink or two and I’d relax. Three drinks in, I’d lose all inhibitions. I call it ‘trauma bonding’ aka “Let me tell you the worst thing that’s ever happened to me! Now, it’s your turn…” — it’s typical of people when they’re drinking. Drunken oversharing may feel like a shortcut to intimacy, but you’re likely to forget half of what was said, so you’re not really building any kind of long-lasting friendship, and it seriously alienates anyone with a healthier sense of self.  The next day, I’d wake up — alone, if I was lucky — my head pounding, heart racing as memories of the night before flashed back to mind. Assuming I hadn’t lost it, I’d look down at my phone to find dozens of worried texts and missed calls. At some point I’d call the bar looking for my bank card and discover I’d racked up a hundred dollar tab. 

more@BusinessInsider

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