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Mac Davis, singer-songwriter dies at 78

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

He did it all –

Sep. 30, 2020 – Mac Davis, a singer-songwriter who parlayed a string of hits for Elvis Presley into a varied career as an actor and recording artist, blending country and pop in chart-topping songs such as “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me” and playing a quarterback in the football movie “North Dallas Forty,” died Sept. 29 in Nashville. He was 78.

His manager, Jim Morey, announced the death in a statement, after a tweetin which Mr. Davis’s family revealed that he was “critically ill following heart surgery.”

With a Texas drawl and country charm, Mr. Davis became a crossover country-pop success in the early 1970s, performing at cow palaces and casinos, writing a No. 1 song that started out as a joke with his producer, and hosting his own musical variety show for three years on NBC. His songwriting process was simple, he said: “I try to tell the truth and hope it rhymes.”

more@WashingtonPost

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India is Reopening Schools and All Public Places Despite Daily Increase in Coronavirus Cases

The Indian government has made a decision to re-open the schools, colleges, cinemas, and other public places after months-long closure. The Home Ministry of India has shared that the country is all set to re-open while the health experts believe it’s a mistake as coronavirus cases in India are among the highest in the world.

India has a population of nearly 1.3 billion people. The coronavirus cases reported in the country are nearly 6.2 million which are second to the US only. It has also reported nearly 97,000 people at least and this figure only accounts for official deaths. There are high chances that the virus is much more than the official reports as many rural areas have no healthcare facilities or official stats on the pandemic cases.

The government has somehow decided to lift the lockdown and re-open all the local businesses as the country’s economy seems to be badly hit by the pandemic. Millions of people in India have lost their earnings, while millions of others are on the verge of losing it.

Also read- Excessive Hair Growth Maybe a Symptom Of Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)

Regarding this school opening in India, some states opened their schools for 14 years old to 17 years old but this new announcement applies to all schools of the country. The statement from the ministry says that the re-opening of the schools, as well as coaching centers, will be decided after October 15^th. meanwhile, online classes and distance learning courses are highly encouraged and no institute can force its students to physically attend the classes.

On the other side, higher education institutions and universities will remain close. But some science and technology institutes have already opened to resume their research work in the laboratories as it is almost impossible for them to continue their work from home.

Shutting the cinemas in this film-loving country was probably the most difficult decision. Bollywood industry is one of the largest film producing industries of the world and shutting it all added more stress to this coronavirus-hit country. However, now the government has decided to open the cinemas in India with only 50% capacity, hoping to control the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

Most of the international commercial airlines have suspended their business or are operational with limited services to offer. India despite being one of the biggest markets has shut most of its business but with the worst economic regression, it is now slowly opening them all. Some of the airline companies are only offering services to carry the citizens back to their home countries and not offering travel to other people.

Also read- Can Coronavirus Spread Through Your Glasses or Contact Lenses?

India has already opened the local trains, domestic flights, local markets, eateries, and metro. Some of them are fully functional while others are operated under restrictions.

The coronavirus in India has mainly hit the metropolitan cities such as Mumbai which is the financial hub of the country and the capital city, New Delhi which is home to millions of people and one of the highest traveling destinations.

Now India is second on the list in the worst-hit countries by coronavirus as it has now spread to rural areas that lack basic healthcare facilities. The government is trying to control new cases and right now, it is too early to comment if this re-opening of local business is the right decision or not.

The post India is Reopening Schools and All Public Places Despite Daily Increase in Coronavirus Cases appeared first on Spark Health MD.

I Lost My Faith and Happily So

Chapter 3
Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA

By John S

It’s hard to believe, but it was twenty-six years ago when I attended my first AA meeting, and fortunately I’ve been sober ever since. The circumstances that brought me to AA are far from unique. I was a young man who’s drinking quickly spun out of control. It wasn’t an overnight thing, like one day I could drink normally and the next day I was a hopeless drunk, but looking back I can see there were warning signs.

I remember my first drink as if it were yesterday. In fact, it’s one of my clearest childhood memories. It was Thanksgiving dinner and my mother thought it would be nice to teach me to drink like a gentleman. She poured a glass of wine, which I instantly loved. It was good in every respect, but more importantly it made me feel different, and though I didn’t know it at the time, that was one of my deepest needs, to change the way I felt. I downed the stuff and asked for more. My mother, amused, told me to sip it like a gentleman, but I couldn’t do it. I could never do it.

I drank through High School to overcome my social unease yet it drove me deeper into isolation. I drank in college for fun and acceptance, but even my wild fraternity brothers realized that my drinking was somehow different. At 19, I pondered going to AA, but decided I was too young to be an alcoholic. Today, I know better, and I realize that normal drinkers don’t sit around wondering if they should go to AA. If you have reached that point, in my opinion, for what it’s worth, you may be an alcoholic.

As my drinking got worse, I became increasingly depressed and desperate. I didn’t know anything about religion, but it was the 1980s and televangelism and the Moral Majority were in their heyday. Depressed and hopeless, I watched Pat Robertson on television make incredible claims of what God would do. I read the Bible cover to cover, took a class on the New Testament as literature, and I prayed daily to Jesus for help.

I recall one particular episode of the 700 Club when Pat claimed that if I only had the faith of a mustard seed, that God would answer my prayers. In other episodes, God would cast out demons, cure disease, make people happy, but only if they really believed he would. My understanding was that he, God, would basically do as I asked, as long as I sincerely believed he would.

It was during this period when my mother committed suicide by drug overdose. I was with her, watching her run away from this life. I did my best to believe that God would answer my prayers while the paramedics frantically worked to bring her back. It was useless. I was simply incapable of making a connection with the creator of the universe, so I abandoned the God experiment and for the next five years, I was drunk much of the time. I accumulated three DUIs, and my employer, who previously offered me several avenues of help, was ultimately left with no choice but to fire me.

Alone with my fear and desperation, I was driven to my first AA meeting. It was here where I heard for the first time, “My name is so and so and I’m an alcoholic”. That stunned me when I heard it, but as people told their stories, I could see that they shared with me and I with them, the terrifying experience of losing ourselves to alcohol, losing control of our own lives.

At the end of the meeting they motioned me to the center of the room where they formed a circle, held hands and prayed, “Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name…” It was the first time I ever experienced holding hands and praying out loud with other people, and I remember feeling embarrassed like I wouldn’t want to be seen doing this. It really made me uncomfortable, but I was desperate and when they told me to “keep coming back”, I did. In no time I was praying the “Our Father” as if I were Billy Graham himself.

During the first year or two of sobriety, life was difficult but gradually getting better. I was meeting new friends from all walks of life and making amazing discoveries about myself. There seemed to be more God talk in those days than what I hear now, but it was made palatable with assurances that I could choose my own conception of a higher power. I didn’t have to believe in any religion or anyone else’s conception of God.

Yet, in meetings people would stress the importance of “the drill”, which is to start your day on your knees and ask God for a day of sobriety, go to a meeting, call your sponsor, and at night return to your knees and thank God for the day of sobriety. Often in meetings people would claim they did this drill every day, and that they never knew of a single case of anyone getting drunk, who began the day on their knees in prayer. I would sometimes wonder to myself if this were really true.

I studied our book Alcoholics Anonymous (also known as the Big Book) with my sponsor. I read passages and chapters repeatedly, many to the point of memorization and gradually progressed through the steps. I went on many “twelve step calls” to carry the message of sobriety to the suffering alcoholic. I visited detox centers, hospitals, jails, prisons, and even people’s homes. I saw it all. I experienced alcoholism up close in all its ugliness. I was as the Big Book puts it, “on the firing line”.

Shortly after I reached ten years of sobriety my father unexpectedly died. His death stunned me. He seemed bigger than life, career military, Vietnam combat veteran, fluent in German, and well versed in Shakespeare. Yet it only took three days for some microscopic virus to ultimately bring him down. I saw the fear of death in his eyes, followed by a desperate fight to live, and finally acceptance of his fate. We told one another, “I love you”, and that was it. He was gone.

After he died, I realized there was much that I had not accomplished and time was slipping away. I was thirty-six years old, and still had not graduated from college, never married, never owned a home, and never made much money. I soon went into a mad rush to change all of that. I enrolled in college, started dating, and I found myself spending less time in the AA halls than I had in the past. Within two years, I finished my college degree, bought a home, and had a steady relationship. In another couple of years, I bought my first new car, had a nice job with my own office, and proposed to my wife on the same day that I that earned my MBA degree.

A doctoral dissertation called “Experiences of Atheists and Agnostics in AA” was recently submitted and it is based entirely on the book Do Tell. For more information click on the above image.

I entered a new phase of life where AA was no longer the center of my existence. It was only one part of who I was, and I began to question everything. My wife who I married in 2006 is an atheist and the first atheist that I ever knew very well. She’s not at all like the atheists I heard described by an early sponsor. He would often say that atheists were some of the unhappiest people he ever knew.

Well my wife is one of the happiest people that I’ve ever known. She has a good sense of humor, she loves people, animals, and good books, and she enjoys life to the fullest. Though others around her seem to go through much drama, myself included, she remains amazingly even keeled. And she’s an atheist!

Perhaps influenced by my wife’s example, I read the book God is Not Great, by Christopher Hitchens. I was quite secretive about reading it, and I certainly wouldn’t dream of talking about it with my AA friends. However, that book changed the way I thought about religion, spirituality and AA. I next read Richard Dawkin’s The God Delusion, and I became interested in evolution and the workings of the universe. I found that reality as explained by science was far more beautiful than the best story concocted by any religion.

I had gone past the point of no return and I didn’t want anything to do with spirituality or God. But how was I to work the AA program? Would I ever come clean with my AA friends? Would they still like me? Although AA was no longer the center of my life, it was the cornerstone, it was the bedrock upon which I had built a new life, and I no longer believed or wanted to believe much of what I had been talking about, thinking about, and doing for so many years.

There’s a chapter in the Big Book titled “We Agnostics” where an effort is made to convince agnostics and atheists that belief in a higher power is practical, and that recovery from alcoholism is possible only through a spiritual experience. I used to swallow this chapter hook, line and sinker, but I now see it as totally absurd, and it’s completely against my world view.

When I learned that there are AA groups consisting primarily of atheists, agnostics and freethinkers, I found it strange that they would name their groups after this chapter, but it makes sense to me now. I see it as the atheist alcoholic’s declaration of independence, announcing to the AA community that this chapter leaves us unconvinced. We are still agnostic and still sober.

I started exploring the Internet for more information and my search led me to some people who formed an online community for atheists in AA. I would later meet one of these people, R.J., in Omaha and we had a great time talking about atheism, AA, the Big Book, the future of AA, you name it. I became energized and excited about the program and I still look forward to my weekly meetings with R.J.

Today, I find AA more meaningful when I am free to think about the steps without feeling compelled to conform to the party line. Recovery is real when removing the supernatural aspect. I still find some good in the Big Book and though the language is more than dated, I do think it speaks to the experience of alcoholics, and I believe the AA program works. It’s just that I now find the religious language divisive and unnecessary.

Inspired by R.J. and sites such as AA Agnostica, I helped to start a We Agnostics AA meeting in Kansas City with Jim C., the only other atheist I knew in Kansas City AA. Our group is off to a nice start. We have a comfortable meeting place and a core group of people committed to its success.

I’ve seen people come to our group who were avoiding AA because of the religious nature of other meetings, or who left years ago but returned after learning about our meeting. We support one another and we’re genuinely excited about helping others.

Our experience reminds me of a passage from the Big Book taken from the chapter “A Vision for You” that describes AA as a place where “…you will find release from care, boredom and worry. Your imagination will be fired. Life will mean something at last. The most satisfactory years of your existence lie ahead. Thus we find the fellowship, and so will you”.

Thanks to other agnostics, atheists and freethinkers in AA, this is how I feel about the program today.

This is a chapter from the book: Do Tell! Stories by Atheists and Agnostics in AA.

The paperback version of Do Tell! is available at Amazon. It is also available via Amazon in Canada and the United Kingdom.

It can be purchased online in all eBook formats, including Kindle, Kobo and Nook and as an iBook for Macs and iPads.

John S, from Kansas City, Missouri, launched the AA Beyond Belief website in 2015 – exactly five years ago – and since then he has hosted close to two hundred podcasts, which features conversations with recovering people who have found a secular path to sobriety in AA. Do Tell! was published on May 12, 2015, a few months before AA Beyond Belief was started.

The post I Lost My Faith and Happily So first appeared on AA Agnostica.

Living Without Water- Woman Claims “Dry Fasting” Relieved Her Joint Pain and Skin problems

Recently a woman has claimed that she has stopped drinking water for over a year and this “dry fasting” has helped her to get amazing health benefits.

Sophie Partik frim Bali, Indonesia is 35, years old woman who says that living without water has healed many health problems of her including joint pains, food allergy, skin problems, puffy eyes, and even digestive problems.

She is a nutrition specialist and a yoga teacher by profession and she continues these dry fast for 13-14 hours per day. After that, she only takes liquids that are naturally present inside food sources such as fruit juice which she calls “living water”.

Sophie says that she can get all the vital nutrients that her body requires from natural sources such as fruit juices, vegetable juices, and coconut water and she doesn’t really need to consume water separately.

Earlier, she reported having extreme swelling her joints and puffiness which made her face look so swollen. She says’

“I had extreme swelling in my face and joints, as well as puffiness – I was so swollen, I looked sick. The doctors were telling me there is nothing wrong with me and if I’d like to get rid off the puffy eyes I could undergo surgery.”

Sophie says that a friend of her recommended dry fasting to her and that’s how this all started. The first thing that she noticed was a reduction in puffiness. Due to which she decided to prolong this dry fasting.

Sophie says;

“I have been looking for answers all my life and I thought that the universe’s way of sending them to me. Drinking bottled water and water from the faucet actually makes your kidneys overwork and flushes all the nutrients out of your body. You don’t need water to stay hydrated, it really just makes you feel bloated. When you start dry fasting, you soon realize your body doesn’t need water.”

Dry fasting, also called “absolute fasting” is a regime where a person stops eating food and liquid even in the form of water, tea or broth. This is very different from various fasts popular around the world which only restrict food but allow consuming water and other liquids.

People who endorse dry fasting say that it has helped them in many ways. Some of their “proclaimed” benefits include the following.

Rapid weight loss
Immunity boost
Cellular regeneration
Reduction in inflammation
Skin healing
Spiritual reasons (purity)

There is no research on dry fasting to analyze these benefits. A short term dry fasting may help but a prolonged dry fast is dangerous for health and it might result in an extreme complication.

The problems start with “de-hydration” which is a situation where the body is low on water. This dehydration can cause electrolyte imbalance, leading to lowering blood pressure that can take a person’s life.

Further complications include kidney disease, nutritional deficiency, eating disorders, metabolic diseases, and fainting.

But Sophie shares her experience as;

“I feel better than ever, very energized and it’s so good for your kidneys- once they take a break for a few hours, they work much better after. At first, it’s tricky because your mouth gets dry and then your brain is telling you that you need a drink. It’s in our mind that we need water, I know I am not dehydrated but it takes patience to overcome our desires.”

Upon asking if she recommends other people to follow the same, she says;

“It’s not for everyone, it has to come from within.”

While sharing her personal story, Sophie tells that her family didn’t understand this and thought that she was in a cult. She says it is confusing for many people because that’s not what we have been told traditionally. However, she is getting a lot of support through her social media fans from all parts of the world.

Sophie dreams to prolong her fast to ten days continuously but so far she has only made it to 52 hours.

The post Living Without Water- Woman Claims “Dry Fasting” Relieved Her Joint Pain and Skin problems appeared first on Spark Health MD.

Lady Gaga and her mother offer advice for opening up about mental health to parents

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Family Values –

Sep. 22, 2020 – Gaga thanked her mother for her honesty and gave her own advice, noting that not everyone has parents who are receptive to conversations about mental health.

“I think that it’s actually interesting to subvert that question a little bit,” she said, adding that “some people can’t tell their parents.”

“I feel the need to say this, because it’s real, and it’s true, and some people don’t have parents that can hear what you’re saying,” she continued. “They don’t have parents that are willing to listen, and some people don’t have parents at all.”

For those who, for whatever reason, cannot talk to their parents about mental health, Gaga recommends starting a conversation with people in their community.

“I encourage them to celebrate their stories by sharing it with each other and creating a community, creating a culture around you, where you can say, ‘Hey, this is what I’m going through. What have you been through?’” she said. “Role-modeling can actually happen between us. I don’t believe that it’s only our parents that role-model for us. I believe it’s also our friends.”

more@Yahoo

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Courage, Creativity, & Celebration with: Dr. James Flowers and Dr. Louise Stanger

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Listen to the Lions –

Sep. 10, 2020 – Introducing Dr. Louis Stanger Topic: Courage, Creativity, Communication & Celebration

Host: Dr. James Flowers, PhD, LPC-S, Founder, J. Flowers Health Institute Facilitator: Robin French, VP of Concierge Relations, J. Flowers Health Institute, About Dr. Louise Stanger, LCSW, CSAT-1, CDWF, CIP

Dr. Louise Stanger focuses on strength-based solutions and invitational change. Dr. Stanger is an Ivy League Award winner (2019 Interventionist of the Year from DB Resources in London and McLean Hospital – an affiliate of Harvard), educated social worker, popular author, internationally renowned clinician, interventionist and speaker and an expert on mental health, addiction, process disorders and chronic pain.

She gets to the heart of the matter in helping families because she’s passionate about bringing hope and healing to loved ones. When you call, you won’t have to go through any intermediaries. She will pick up the phone and talk directly with you.

Dr. Stanger developed and refined her invitational method of mental health and substance abuse interventions using the well-established research methodology of portraiture. She has performed thousands of family interventions throughout the United States and abroad. She has received numerous awards for her years of dedication to the fields of intervention & recovery.

In addition to her years of experience, Dr. Louise is a published author whose work covers a range of topics including mental health, substance abuse, well-being, the opioid epidemic, marijuana and other drugs, parenting, high-wealth clients, finding happiness, spirituality, failure to launch, chronic pain and pain management, family and many more. Her books Falling Up: A Memoir of Renewal is available on Amazon, Learn To Thrive: An Intervention Guidebook on her website, and The Definitive Guide to Addiction Intervention: A Collective Strategy through Routledge Press and Addiction in The Family (in press, Nov 2020)

more@YouTube

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Courage, Creativity & Celebration: Dr. Flowers & Robin French with Dr. Louise Stanger

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

WATCH – Listen to the Lions –

Sep. 10, 2020 – Introducing Dr. Louis Stanger Topic: Courage, Creativity, Communication & Celebration

more@YouTube

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Mexico’s drug war leaves 39,000 unidentified bodies in its morgues

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

But if drugs were legal…? –

Sep. 22, 2020 – Mexico’s militarised crackdown on organised crime has left nearly 39,000 unidentified bodies in the country’s morgues, which are often unable to handle the volume of corpses brought in for autopsies.

A new investigation by the investigative NGO Quinto Elemento Labs found that an alarming number of people were simply buried in common graves without proper postmortems. Some were left in funeral homes and more than 2,500 bodies were given to medical schools.

“It’s possible that [medical] students are learning with bodies of persons being searched for by their families,” said an article accompanying the report, published on Tuesday. “The forensic crisis has transformed the Mexican state into a burying machine: 27,271 unidentified bodies went from the morgue to common graves – 70% of the total.” The investigation found that the number of unidentified corpses in Mexican morgues was 178 in 2006 – the year president Felipe Calderón first deployed the country’s armed forces against drug cartels.

That figure soared by 1,032% over the next 13 years to 38,891 , as the murder rate mushroomed.

Mexican morgues have routinely run out of space to store unidentified bodies, prompting some local authorities to seek makeshift solutions such as storing bodies in refrigerated trailers. In 2018, a scandal erupted in Guadalajara when the stench of decomposition led to the discovery of a trailer containing 273 corpses which had been parked in a suburban neighbourhood.

more@TheGuardian

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Delilah Montagu on Sobriety and Writing ‘Savage’ Songs About Her Girlfriend

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

Rising sober star –

Sep. 23, 2020 – After finding her rhythm during lockdown with her mum and girlfriend – “I took up dancing, not very well, but I realised how happy it made me” – 22-year-old Delilah returns with new single ‘Loud,’ about turning up the volume on your inner and outer confidence.

In a catch-up with Attitude, the London-based artist opens up about the confessional quality of her music, addressing her issues with addiction and writing about her relationship, the good, the bad and the ugly. Delilah assures us that her girlfriend is totally fine with it, hopefully not in a Ross-from-Friends-”I’m fine” way… Who are your biggest music influences?

Carole King and Leonard Cohen. All the classics – my parents have very good music taste. I love her melodies and his lyrics. I am also very in love with Nina Simone.

Can you remember the first single you bought?

It was McFly, ‘All About You.’ Still to this day one of my faves.

Tell us about your latest song, ‘Loud.’ What was the inspiration behind it?

Confidence. I wrote ‘Loud’ about being confident in myself and in all of my relationships – not just the romantic ones. It definitely symbolises a time of my life that I am in now of acceptance.

more@Attitude

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FDA requires stronger warning for Xanax, Valium and other benzodiazepines

Addiction Recovery Bulletin

What a downer –

Sep. 24, 2020 – “Although benzodiazepines are very helpful for short term treatment, providers need to consider the risks and benefits of prescribing longer courses of these medications,” she said.

Stopping these drugs abruptly or reducing the dosage too quickly after a long period of time can result in withdrawal reactions such as seizures, which the FDA says can be life-threatening. Patients should speak with their health care provider to develop a plan for slowly tapering medication before stopping, the agency said.

In addition to the warning label, the FDA is also requiring changes to prescribing information on all products and existing patient Medication Guides.

“The FDA is hoping that by adding verbiage to the current warning that providers will be extra careful in not only prescribing these medications, but also to be mindful of the duration,” Amato said.

more@MSN

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