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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

AUDIO – DIFFERENT STROKES –                                                                                        

Dec. 18, 2024 – Once the nation’s fastest swimmer in her age group, Hilary Phelps’ life took an unexpected path at the age of 14 when she tried alcohol for the first time. That one seemingly small decision opened the door to a 15-year battle with addiction. After college, she “just became a wine drinker,” — which is a common rationale in today’s wine culture. Her journey toward recovery began at 29 when she courageously took a significant step toward healing.

In this episode of Living Well with Alison Starling, a podcast brought to you by VHC Health and WBJ, Phelps and Dr. Linda Lang, VHC Health’s medical director for the behavioral health service line, discuss the hard truths about alcohol.

“What if there’s one woman who hears my story — one woman who’s drinking, maybe too much wine … who decides not to drink today?” Phelps asked. “What that does for her family, her children, her community, her profession — that ripple effect of one woman getting sober is so powerful.”

CONTINUE@BizJournals

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

CORPORATE DRUG PUSHERS –

Dec. 2024 – The drug store chain knowingly filled prescriptions for controlled substances that lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were not valid, and/or were not issued in the usual course of professional practice. Among the large quantities of unlawful prescriptions that CVS allegedly filled were prescriptions for dangerous and excessive quantities of opioids, a benzodiazepine, and a muscle relaxant … CVS also allegedly filled large quantities of prescriptions for controlled substances written by prescribers it knew to be engaged in “pill mill practices” – that is, prescribers who issue large numbers of controlled substance prescriptions without any medical purpose. According to the complaint, CVS ignored substantial evidence from multiple sources, including its own pharmacists and internal data, indicating that its stores were dispensing unlawful prescriptions. 

The complaint alleges that CVS’s violations resulted from corporate-mandated performance metrics, incentive compensation, and staffing policies that prioritized corporate profits over patient safety.  The complaint alleges that CVS’s actions helped to fuel the prescription opioid crisis and that, in some particularly tragic instances, patients died after overdosing on opioids shortly after filling unlawful prescriptions at CVS.

CONTINUE@Justice

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

MAJOR EXPOSÉ –

Dec. 20, 2024 – The operators of PHA Healthcare had no significant experience providing drug treatment. But they built a multimillion-dollar business that appears to rely on a practice health officials described as both illegal and increasingly common in Baltimore: trading housing for treatment money.

PHA Healthcare, the company whose program Vlakos entered, collects millions of dollars a year to treat hundreds of people struggling with addiction. But many of its patients have not gotten better. Instead, placed by the company in what are effectively government-funded drug houses, they have relapsed, fallen deeper into addiction and sometimes died, an investigation by The New York Times and The Baltimore Banner has found.

CONTINUE@BaltimoreBanner

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

F**KING TRAGIC FOR EVERYONE –

Dec. 21, 2024 – A sheriff’s deputy rushed into a trailer home last summer north of Troy to find a newborn girl not breathing.  “Fentanyl caplets and buttons were throughout the entire house.” “The prevailing thought was, the fentanyl could have gotten into the formula, the fentanyl could have been on the pacifier. It could have been on the clothing,” Wood said. “Because fentanyl can come through the skin or it can be ingested.

“Ultimately, we know the parents exposed the child to the drugs, and the drugs killed the child,” Wood said.

A report by the Missouri Department of Social Services found that the number of fentanyl-related child deaths of children under the age of 5 has gone up by over 500%.

“I was shocked,” Wood said of that report’s findings. “This is entirely preventable, and so we’re moving forward with a very strong stance against people using drugs in front of their children.”

Wood said police found a pill press in the home and suspect the residents were using meth, cutting it with fentanyl and repackaging it for distribution.

CONTINUE@StLouisPostDisptach

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

VIDEO – MERRY CHRISTMAS EVE –                                                                                        

1965 – 1,465,813 views since   Jan 20, 2010 = Refusing to let his Christmas be ruined, Charlie Brown decorates the tree he chose, despite the doubt from the rest of the group. A Charlie Brown Christmas is now streaming on Apple TV+ 

CONTINUE@YouTube

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

YOU CAN DANCE BETTER SOBER –

Dec. 21, 2024 – ‘Now Betty was shaking, as if being shaken awake from those lost conversations with her daughter.’‘Mom, when I was little, and even as I grew up, I always admired you for being a dancer. I wanted to be just like you. But now, these days, you’re falling and clumsy. You’re not the same person. And I’ve talked to you about things – things that were important to me, and the next day you didn’t even remember.’

Betty, reluctantly, agreed to a four-week rehab program and, a week later, sat in Dr Joe Pursch’s office with her husband and Barrett, ready to check in. 

But first, it was important she acknowledge the full extent of her demons.

‘We all knew the drugs weren’t the only addiction Betty was battling,’ writes Barrett, ‘and perhaps not even the main one, but it had been hard enough on her and the family to confront the pain meds issue.’

Dr Pursch nudged her: ‘Well, Mrs. Ford, is there anything else you would like to tell us before going into the rehab program?’ 

Betty thought for a moment then said there wasn’t.

‘Are you sure?’ Pursch asked again. ‘There’s nothing else you need to tell me?’

‘No, no. I can’t think of anything,’ she said.

If her treatment was to be successful, it was imperative she be honest with herself and her doctors, so he pressed a third time.

CONTINUE@DailyMail

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

HUCK AND TOM? –

Dec. 13, 2024 – “I asked Mel to present this award [the 25th Annual American Cinematheque Award] to me for a reason,” Downey began. “Because when I couldn’t get sober, he told me not to give up hope, and he urged me to find my faith. “Gibson spoke kindly of the star, who he famously helped to make a comeback by paying Downey Jr.’s insurance bond so he could star in 2003’s THE SINGING DETECTIVE. “You are my friend,” Gibson said when presenting Downey with the award. “When I saw you all those years ago and got all those warnings, I just thought, ‘There’s nothing so much wrong with him.’” Gibson explained, “You’re a good dude with a good heart.”

Downey continued, “And most importantly, he said, that if I accepted responsibility for my wrongdoings and I embraced that part of my soul that was ugly — hugging the cactus he calls it. He said if I hugged the cactus long enough, I’d become a man of some humility and that my life would take on new meaning and it worked. All he asked in return was that someday I help the next guy.”

CONTINUE@MovieGuide

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

IT’S A HOLIDAY MIRACLE!

Dec, 21, 2024 – Hanukkah, Judaism’s eight-day Festival of Lights, begins at sunset this year on Christmas Day. WWJD? This only happened 10 times since we started using the Gregorian calendar in 1582.

CONTINUE@WRAL

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

VIDEO – ORIGINAL MANIFESTATION –                                                                                        

ETERNAL – One of the most popular movie musicals of all time, The Sound of Music is based on the true story of the Trapp Family Singers. Julie Andrews stars as Maria, a young nun in an Austrian convent who regularly misses her morning prayers because she enjoys going to the hills to sing the title song. Music composed by: Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II

CONTINUE@YouTube

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Addiction Recovery Bulletin

ONLY 10? –

Dec. 13, 2024 – Chronic inflammation can cause cell mutation and rapid growth—the ideal environment for the development of cancer.

“If your body is living daily off of ultra-processed foods, its ability to heal…decreases due to the inflammation and suppression of the immune system that allows the cancer to grow,

Ultra-processed foods to stay away from: 

• Ice cream
• Sausages
• Chips
• Deli meats
• Mass-produced bread
• Breakfast cereals
• Alcoholic drinks

CONTINUE@MSN

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