Author: The Fix

Wendy Williams Reportedly Relapses After Sober Home Announcement

Last week, Williams announced on-air that she was in living in a sober home.

Less than a week after revealing on-air that she was living in a sober home, talk show host Wendy Williams apparently relapsed and was reportedly hospitalized because of alcohol intake.

According to The Daily Mail, Williams, 54, checked herself out of her sober living facility on Monday after finding out that her husband’s mistress had a baby.

“She was in a bad way and disappeared from the studio after her show Monday. She went back to the sober house only to check herself out and decided to start drinking,” a source told The Daily Mail.

The source continued, “It’s not clear where she went but she headed in the direction of her home in Jersey and managed to find alcohol along the way. Word got back to the studio and there was panic and concern, everyone was looking for her, no one knew whether there would be a show [Tuesday]. She was eventually found and was drunk, she was immediately taken to the hospital.”

After getting a bag of IV fluids, Williams was apparently released from the hospital. She did make it to record her show on Tuesday.

“Everyone was amazed that she made it in to the studio this morning to do the show,” the source said.

William’s husband, Kevin Hunter, reportedly had an affair with Sharina Hudson, 33. Hudson delivered a baby last week, which may have prompted Williams’ relapse.

“Wendy is considering divorcing Kevin. She’s really distraught over the situation, she knew about Sharina but didn’t think a baby would arrive, she didn’t think Kevin would go this far, she’s lost and everyone is worried for her,” the source said.

Williams was spotted without her wedding ring on Monday, although she had it on during the taping of her show on Tuesday. By Wednesday, however, TMZ reported that Williams said she was “doing wonderful” and was spotted wearing her wedding ring.

Last week when Williams announced that she had been living in a sober home, she said that her husband was the only person who she had confided in about her treatment.

“Only Kevin knows about this. Not my parents, nobody. Nobody knew because I look so glamorous out here,” she said, according to PEOPLE. “I am driven by my 24-hour sober coach back to a home that I live in the tri-state with a bunch of smelly boys who have become my family.”

Last week, Hunter said that he and his wife were working together to strengthen their family.

“We’re doing well as a family,” he said. “We are moving forward with working on her sobriety and doing the work to help others, not just ourselves.”

View the original article at thefix.com

29 March 2019
Nice to Meet You, Will You Marry Me: Life as a Newcomer in Sobriety

Relationships make us feel good. And if we haven’t done the work to grow in the areas of emotional sobriety, we will quickly find that being in a relationship has become our new fix.

One of the trickiest things to do in recovery is practicing mindfulness and awareness after putting the dope down and learning how to stay sober. Emotional sobriety is paramount when it comes to remaining sober. I believe that if I can grow in the areas of low self-esteem, codependency, anger management, and intimate relationships, then the act of not self-medicating becomes extremely easy.

Those four areas are very important to address and work on while getting sober.

I use because I am obsessed with the desired effect. When I put the drug in me I feel better. So when I’m not feeling good about my image or who I am as a person, I want to medicate. When I’m acting out in a codependent way, I want to medicate. When I’m struggling with anger, I want to medicate. I don’t feel good; I want to feel good. Drugs help me feel great.

If it weren’t for all the consequences that come along with using, I’d be high right now.

Love Is the Drug

Let’s talk about the fourth area: relationships.

A wise man once told me that relationships would be the hardest thing I’ll ever do in recovery. Those words never rang truer in my life than the day I finally got into one. It takes work, it takes patience, it takes a whole lot of faith and trust. It takes looking inward and being mindful of many things: who I am as a person, my morals, my ability to listen and show empathy, and making sure I’m living honestly with integrity. It takes courage and many other things that only come by living a holistic recovery lifestyle. When I do these things, my relationship is very rewarding for myself and for my partner. Even through conflict, we come out stronger.

So factoring in all that, imagine being someone with low self-esteem; somebody that struggles with codependency and is quick to anger. Now imagine getting into a relationship when you haven’t grown in those three areas. On top of all that you’re still figuring out how to simply stay sober. What a beautiful recipe for disaster. It would be a miracle if you didn’t use in the end.

If I haven’t grown in those three areas, it’s safe to say that I still don’t feel good about myself. And if I don’t feel good about myself, my knee-jerk reaction is to find something to make me feel better. And if the lifestyle of a person in active addiction is codependent in nature, imagine how potentially deadly it would be to engage in an intimate relationship.

I mean, let’s be honest. Relationships make us feel good. We feel wanted, we feel important, depending on the situation we feel attractive, the endorphins are flowing, the dopamine is at an all-time high, not to mention the sex is probably amazing! Relationships make us feel good. And if we haven’t done the work to grow in the areas of emotional sobriety, we will quickly find that being in a relationship has become our new fix.

It’s intoxicating and obsessive. The desired effect is immediate. Almost sounds like using drugs. Now the term “drunk in love” isn’t such a stretch, is it?

And that’s why it’s recommended to stay out of a relationship your first year in sobriety. It’s not because sex is bad or being in love is wrong. It’s because relationships make you feel good too soon, too often. I need to give myself an opportunity to recover in all areas of my life before I can think about anyone else.

Essentially, I have replaced the drug with a person, most likely another person in recovery because those bonds are deep. And now there are two lives at stake. It’s dangerous.

I’m not trying to scare anyone away from pursuing a relationship, I’m simply saying to be mindful and aware. Assess where you’re at in your personal recovery before you start messing with someone else. Especially if they are in recovery as well.

That reminds me of a story.

Falling in Love at a 12-Step Meeting

I remember one of my first 12-step meetings. I was at an all-time low. I had just gotten out of jail, I looked like shit, my car had gotten repossessed, I was jobless, on probation, and coming off of painkillers, my real true love. When I got to the meeting there was a woman standing by the door greeting everyone. She made eye contact with me, smiled, gave me a hug and told me her name. She opened the door and pointed towards the coffee. I’d finally found her! The one I had been waiting for my whole life! I was in love!

I sat through that whole meeting obsessing over her. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. When it was her turn to share, I thought I heard the voice of an angel. I imagined what it would be like to date her. I imagined the highs and the lows of being in a relationship with her. I thought about our wedding and how many kids we would have. I thought about the breakup and the make-up sex. I thought about her cheating on me and imagined what it would be like to win her heart back. I saw us growing old and dying together. The perfect couple, in love until the very end. I pictured all that in 60 minutes. The entire time I was at that meeting, that’s all I thought about.

I didn’t hear about recovery that evening. I didn’t hear a solution to my drug problem. I just sat there and crazily obsessed over this woman. She was the one. Perfect for me.

I never saw her again after that. I couldn’t even tell you her name.

My first few months in early sobriety, that’s kinda how it went. I would show up at a meeting, meet a woman, live an entire life with her in my head for 60 minutes, and go home. I did that dozens of times with dozens of women. I know none of their names and they have no idea who the hell I am.

It was a miracle I never engaged or acted on the thoughts going through my sick unrecovered head. I can’t imagine the damage I would’ve caused in those meetings.

I’m blessed to have had sponsors who told me to leave the women alone; to give them a chance to recover too.

They told me two dead batteries can’t start a car.

I’m grateful for the men in my life who instilled good values in me during early sobriety. I haven’t lived a perfect life in recovery but I have been super mindful and aware of the fact that I don’t want to hurt anyone.

If I’m still creating chaos and causing as much damage in recovery that I used to cause while in active addiction, what’s the fucking point in staying sober? I might as well use if I’m going to be a sober scumbag.

How I Got Healthy Enough for an Intimate Relationship

Today I focus on myself, who I am as a person. I work on my self-esteem every day. Some days are better than others. I combat codependency whenever it rears its ugly head. I address the areas in my life where I may struggle with anger and find ways to work through them. I’m a better man for it.

And because of that, I have the ability to practice being in a healthy relationship. Because I’ve gained so many tools while on this recovery journey and I’ve found all are indispensable, interchangeable, and useful within my intimate relationship.

It’s been a long time since I’ve walked into a meeting and asked a woman to marry me in my head.

My hope for you if you’ve read up to this point, is that you find a place in your life where you have fallen in love with yourself; knowing all the good and all the bad that makes up who you are. I think when we can become our own best friend without all the false pride is when we finally become an awesome partner for someone else. I hope that happens for you (if that’s what you’re looking for).

If nobody told you today that they love you, fuck it, there’s always tomorrow.

View the original article at thefix.com

29 March 2019
"192aDay" Campaign Spotlights Heartbreaking Toll Of Addiction

The campaign aims to spread awareness about addiction and offer resources for recovery and treatment options.

Each day, 192 people die from a drug overdose in the United States.

“That’s like a plane crashing each day, day after day,” write the leaders of #192aday, an initiative from the Addiction Policy Forum, an organization that aims to bring awareness to drug addiction and fight for better treatment.

The friends and relatives of people killed by addiction penned an open letter, highlighting the things they wish they had known. “We hope that this knowledge, painfully earned, can help you and your family,” they write.

It’s important that family members and friends familiarize themselves with the signs of addiction. Although they can be hard to spot, follow your intuition if you feel there is something more going on, the family members write.

“We now know that we should’ve been more proactive in the very beginning,” said Barbara. Her son died of a fentanyl overdose at 46, but a teacher had first expressed concern decades earlier, when he was in 8th grade.

Even experimenting with seemingly harmless substances like cigarettes or marijuana can be cause for concern, the family members say.

And once you realize your loved one is abusing drugs, don’t wait until they hit rock bottom to offer them help. “Now with fentanyl, rock bottom was an overdose, a fatal overdose,” said Justin, who lost her son Aaron to an overdose at 20.

When your loved one is ready for help, realize that recovery takes time. “I wish I would’ve known that recovery is not about 3 months, 6 months, a year in rehab. It’s a lifetime. When they release someone from rehab, it’s not the end. It’s the very beginning,” said Karla, whose daughter Alicia overdosed at 28.

Finding quality treatment can be lifesaving, so talk with other families and organizations to identify the best treatment option for your loved one. “Resources are much easier to find these days because people are finally talking about the disease,” said Katie, whose brother died of a drug overdose.

Family members should be open to all courses of treatment, and help their loved one connect with the type of treatment that is most likely to help him or her succeed. “I’d thought medication-assisted treatment (MAT) was ludicrous, just trading one addiction for another, but I was wrong,” Katie said. “Since losing my brother, I often wonder if MAT would’ve helped Zachary succeed. When someone has cancer, we don’t choose between chemo and radiation—we layer treatments.”

Even failures can be important for recovery, or serve as warning signs for the family. Aimee D’Arpino found out after her son died that he had received Narcan at least seven times in prior overdoses. “That is seven missed opportunities to intervene and save our son’s life,” she said.

Although it’s difficult to talk about, family members need to be open about the connection between substance use and suicide, said Jim, whose son Scott died by suicide. “His relapse led to his suicide,” Jim said.

Lastly, no matter how your loved one is doing in managing their recovery, it’s important that family members seek out their own support and resources.

“It feels like you’re drowning when you’re worried about your kid and desperately trying to find help,” said Doug Griffin, whose daughter Courtney died from an overdose. “And the stigma around this disease can mean backlash and judgment from some of the people closest to you, but help does exist. Reach out. There are so many people right next door who are dealing with addiction too and so much support we can give each other.”

View the original article at thefix.com

29 March 2019
New Postpartum Depression Drug May Be Hard To Access

The new medication currently costs $34,000 per treatment.

Last week, the FDA approved the first-ever drug for postpartum depression, but critics says that access to the drug will continue to be a challenge.

Writing in a New York Times opinion piece, Elisa Albert, a doula, and Jennifer Block, a journalist who covers women’s health, point out problems with the new treatment.

“Let’s be real about who will have access to Zulresso: women with very good insurance, the ability to advocate for themselves, and the flexibility to leave home for three days for treatment,” they write.

The treatment—which provides fast postpartum depression relief by mimicking a hormone in the brain—costs $34,000 per treatment. Because it is only approved for intravenous delivery right now, women who get the treatment must spend three days in the hospital, likely away from their young infant.

These factors mean that Zulresso will likely not be a treatment for the women who need it most, said Florida midwife and childbirth advocate Jennie Joseph.

“If you’re actually needy, in deep postpartum depression,” she said, you’re “not going to be able to get yourself to the hospital. Where are you a few days after having a baby? You’re in your house being ignored.”

Albert and Block point out that Zulresso reduced depression symptoms by two-thirds, but a placebo treatment reduced symptoms by half. This suggests that women benefit from increased care and attention in the postpartum period, something that can’t simply be substituted with medication.

“If insurers are willing to throw down tens of thousands of dollars for a mother’s mental health, we can think of some alternatives that might have a better cost-benefit ratio: Six months paid leave. A live-in doula and a private sleep-training coach. Weekly massages and pelvic-floor rehab sessions,” Albert and Block write. “In the meantime, we fear that Zulresso is just a stopgap, and yet another instance of pathologizing a very sane reaction to our very insane culture.”

Postpartum depression is the most common complication from childbirth, affecting 1 in 9 women. Women in lower socioeconomic brackets face an even higher risk, but may have trouble accessing Zulresso, especially if Medicaid delays on covering the treatment.

“Those who have the highest rates of postpartum depression and who would benefit the most, I fear it will be limited access to them,” University of Michigan professor of psychiatry and OB/GYN, Dr. Maria Muzik, told NPR.

Options like delivering the treatment in a mother-baby unit could help alleviate some of the barriers to care, she said.

“Over the next six months, I think [there] will be big developments.”

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019
Second Man Dies Of Meth Overdose In Democratic Donor Ed Buck's Apartment

A wrongful death suit brought against Buck alleges that he has a “well-documented history of isolating black men for predatory sexual encounters.”

Prominent Democratic donor and activist Ed Buck is being accused of preying on vulnerable black men and providing them drugs, after a second man was found dead in his home of a methamphetamine overdose.

Timothy Dean, 55, died in Buck’s apartment in early January. Gemmel Moore, 26, died in the apartment in July 2017. Although both deaths were determined to be caused by accidental methamphetamine overdose, Buck was initially considered a suspect in Moore’s death, according to The New York Times.

However, the charges were dropped because the prosecution could not show “beyond a reasonable doubt that suspect Buck furnished drugs to Gemmel Moore or that suspect Buck possessed drugs,” according to court documents.

Following Dean’s death, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said that it would be investigating.

“It is suspicious that this has happened twice now, so we’re going to conduct a thorough investigation to determine if it is criminal in nature,” Lt. Derrick Alfred said in January. The department would not provide an update on the investigation this week.

Buck, 64, has maintained his innocence. “Mr. Buck had nothing to do with the death,” his lawyer said.

Moore’s mother has filed a wrongful death suit against Buck, alleging that he had a “well-documented history of isolating black men for predatory sexual encounters.” These included giving the men drugs and looking on as they “cling to life,” the suit alleges.

Some in the black LGBTQ community have been outspoken about Buck’s predatory behavior. Social activist Jasmyne Cannick looked into the circumstances of Moore’s death and posted the following warning on Twitter before Dean died, according to NBC News:

“If another young, Black gay man overdoses or worse dies at Democratic donor Ed Buck’s apartment it’s going to be the fault of the sheriff’s department and LA District Attorney for not stopping him when they had the opportunity to.”

Cannick said that the deaths highlight the grim reality of a dynamic that is often overlooked.

“Our stories aren’t told and our lives are seen as expendable. It’s very easy to write off someone who dies of a drug overdose who was working as a sex worker, but Gemmel was as much a part of our community as the many other young men like him,” Cannick said. “It may not be pretty, but white gay men taking advantage of young Black men in our community is not unusual—it’s just not talked about in mainstream America.”

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019
Oklahoma Lawsuit Against Purdue Pharma Settles For $270 Million

The bulk of the settlement will go to Oklahoma State University to fund an addiction treatment center and addiction treatment medicine.

The first lawsuit of around 2,000 filed against Purdue Pharma and other drug manufacturers/distributors has settled for $270 million, Reuters reports. The money which will go toward mitigating the opioid crisis.

The lawsuit was filed by Oklahoma Attorney General Mike Hunter and would have gone to court in May.

It accused pharmaceutical companies Purdue Pharma (the maker of OxyContin), Johnson & Johnson, and Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of deceptive marketing that fueled the national opioid epidemic.

The $270 million settlement is with Purdue Pharma only, so Johnson & Johnson and Teva are still expected in court on May 28 of this year.

According to Reuters, the state of Oklahoma was seeking a total of $20 billion in damages caused by opioid addiction and overdose. The bulk of the $270 million from the settlement will be granted to Oklahoma State University to fund an addiction treatment center and addiction-fighting medications.

$12.5 million will be given to local governments to help them recover from the opioid epidemic, and $60 million will be paid in legal fees. Members of the Sackler family who own Purdue Pharma will pay an additional $75 million to the university.

This settlement has been encouraging news for critics of drug companies who believe this is a sign of more settlements to come. Purdue Pharma had been considering bankruptcy as a way to halt the roughly 2,000 lawsuits against it.

However, it appears that Purdue may instead be opting for a far-reaching settlement across the many similar lawsuits. This is how the legal battles against the tobacco industry ended in 1998—with a $246 billion settlement, Reuters noted.

University of Connecticut School of Law Professor Alexandra Lahav believes that the Purdue settlement “may be the start of the dominoes falling” for the company.

According to the White House Council of Economic Advisers, the opioid epidemic has caused over $500 billion in economic damages across the U.S. in the year 2015 alone.

That number likely rose in 2016, when the total number of deaths from opioid-related overdoses jumped from 33,091 to over 42,000.

Between deaths, the costs of treating overdose cases and addiction, missed work by those affected, and crime related to illicit opioids, the crisis has been economically devastating to communities across the nation.

Purdue Pharma and members of the Sackler family have continued to deny its alleged role in fueling the opioid epidemic, stressing that prescription opioids come with FDA warnings about addiction and overdose. This argument, however, has proved to be an ineffective deterrent.

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019
Big Sean Gets Candid About Depression, Anxiety

“I wasn’t feeling like myself and I couldn’t figure out why. I just felt lost—and I don’t know how I got there,” the rapper revealed on Instagram.

Rapper Big Sean is getting candid about mental health—and according to the BBC, it’s inspiring other men of color to do the same.

Recently the 31-year-old rapper utilized Instagram videos to discuss a period of his life that he says was difficult because of anxiety and depression. He says around his 30th birthday, he sought therapy for issues needing “special attention.”

“I wasn’t feeling like myself and I couldn’t figure out why,” he said on Instagram. “I just felt lost—and I don’t know how I got there.”

The rapper continued, “I got a good therapist. I was blessed enough to talk to some super spiritual people. They made me realize one thing I was missing in my life, and the one thing I was missing was clarity. Clarity about who was around me, what I was doing.”

Sean also mentioned that since the age of 17, he has leaned on meditation to manage depression and anxiety, but this time around he needed more. Sean says that seeking therapy brought him “clarity,” especially in relationships.

“I had a lot of toxic relationships around me,” he said in the videos. “Even the relationship with my mum was getting to a point where we weren’t talking like that. It was just weird because it had never been like that with me and her.”

Sean also touched on how his mental health affected his career, stating that he lost the enjoyment he initially had in music.

“I realized that it all started with me,” he said. “I couldn’t point the finger at anyone else, I had to point it at myself, nurture those relationships that were important to me but most importantly nurture the relationship with myself.”

Sean’s openness about mental health has had a positive impact on other men of color, including Ben Hurst, who works to promote gender equality in young men and boys.

“I’m in awe that he’s having that conversation,” Hurst told the BBC. “It just makes it OK. I started therapy recently and I remember when I started, I didn’t tell my family, there was a big reluctance inside of me to tell my friends and to have that conversation.”

Hurst tells the BBC that when he was younger, it was ingrained in him to not discuss his feelings.

“Particularly in POC (people of color) communities, there’s a big pushback on talking about emotion, especially for men,” Hurst added. “It’s almost like when you’re young, you’re taught to not air business out in public, to not talk about stuff outside of the house.”

Alex Leon, a charity worker, tells the BBC that openness from public figures such as Sean makes a difference when it comes to the dialogue around mental health.

“Sometimes we see statements where artists, musicians or activists talk about ‘difficult periods’ but they rarely give the name and say they were suffering from anxiety or depression—or, more importantly, say they saw a therapist,” said Leon.

“What Big Sean has done is a good step in the right direction for us to be able to tell men of color in the media that they should be speaking more openly because we need that representation,” he added.

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019
White House Says Fentanyl Is Turning Up In Marijuana, Experts Say It's Fake News

“This is part of a wider fentanyl panic that goes beyond having alternative facts [and] leads to bad decisions,” says one drug policy expert.

The White House and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) are leading Americans to believe that there is a real risk of marijuana users accidentally consuming fentanyl, say drug policy experts.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway used a news briefing last week to announce that illicit fentanyl is turning up in many drugs—including marijuana.

“People are unwittingly ingesting it,” Conway said. “It’s laced into heroin, marijuana, meth, cocaine, and it’s also just being distributed by itself.”

Drug policy and public health experts disagreed. “This is part of a wider fentanyl panic that goes beyond having alternative facts [and] leads to bad decisions,” Northeastern University drug policy expert Leo Beletsky told BuzzFeed News.

“It’s crazy that this story is coming out from our leaders,” epidemiologist Dan Ciccarone of the University of California, San Francisco, told BuzzFeed News. “It shows that concerns about fentanyl have reached the level of moral panic. Fear outweighs rational evidence. There is scant evidence for cannabis laced with fentanyl.”

Jill Head, a senior chemist at the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), stated at a National Drug Early Warning System briefing that no marijuana laced with fentanyl has been found.

What has been called “fentanyl hysteria” is based on the fact that fentanyl is deadly in small amounts, and when it is added to other drugs the user often does not know they are ingesting it, or how much.

As illicit fentanyl is mixed with other drugs in non-clinical settings, it is near impossible to evenly distribute. People using the same supply might get wildly different doses of the same drug.

Incorrect information on fentanyl and marijuana has come partly from police reports that show data from ultra-sensitive test strips that can detect fentanyl at concentrations as low as one-billionth of a gram. As BuzzFeed notes, it’s not a stretch for trace amounts of fentanyl to be detected in marijuana handled by people who sell or use many kinds of illicit drugs.

And synthetic cannabinoids (known as K2 or spice), which are chemicals sprayed onto plant matter, can be incorrectly reported as marijuana. This occurred in Connecticut where 71 people overdosed in one day. News outlets speculated that the synthetic marijuana was laced with fentanyl.

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019
Zero Coping Skills: How Jackie Monahan Found Peace of Mind for the First Time

Contrast in life is inevitable, but I’m learning that I don’t have to have conflict. I don’t have to flip out because I got in the wrong line; I don’t need to make my poor planning everyone else’s emergency.

I grew up being told over and over, “We are only given what we can handle.” I took that to mean, “If I flip out about the little things, nothing really bad can ever happen to me.”

It has been said that if you have an alcoholic parent, the odds are good you will become an alcoholic. I had two. They say if you start drinking at 21, you might be okay. I did the inverse and started drinking at 12. I had a long run. I was surrounded by enablers. My mom still wants me to drink; she and my ex say things like “You weren’t this temperamental when you drank.”

I want to be the best example of the program anyone has ever seen, but I am far from there yet. I have always been easily frustrated, and have always had zero coping skills, other than alcohol.

My soul wanted to solve problems without alcohol, but I didn’t even know where to begin. If I got anxious for a second, everyone rushed to put a drink in my hand. It worked. I remember the one day in college that I didn’t drink. I was mad and yelling at all my roommates, wanting them to be as quiet as a mouse because I wasn’t drinking. Meanwhile, every other night I came home either with a party or from one, loudly.

I entered parties saying, “You can start now, I am here.” I would black out and then yell at everyone the next day for letting me drink so much. They would say they had no idea I was blacked out; I was so funny and fun, they didn’t see what the problem was. I did. My life was getting really busy with stuff I wanted to do, and when I did have free time I wanted to enjoy the moment and remember it.

My parents were functioning alcoholics. I say “were” because they are no longer functioning very well. My dad was far worse than my mother, but both are shells of what they could have been. They couldn’t get rigorously honest if someone paid them all the money in the world. I had to accept that at a very young age.

There was never a way to know what I did to set my parents off. When either of them went into a rage, it was brutal. They were cheerful, cheerful, cheerful… then rage! They mostly raged when they were sober and it would come out of nowhere. I watched their tantrums work for them: with one another, with me, and with the unfortunate people who got my mother on the phone. You would think Colleen from Time Warner had stabbed her in the face. My mom unloaded all her marriage frustrations, alternately screaming at and belittling the customer service rep. And it worked every time — instead of getting overcharged, she got money off and reduced rates. She flew off the handle at everyone and got her way, then bragged about it.

My parents would always say, “God made whiskey so the Irish could not rule the world.” Then they would laugh and laugh like they had something over on the rest of us. Meanwhile, I remember thinking, “Rule the world? How about trying to get through the week without throwing a plate?”

With all this and more, it never even occurred to me not to drink. Of course I would drink, but I vowed to never be an alcoholic like you see on TV, or even a semi-functioning one like my parents. I could clearly see how their thinking was backwards, so backwards that my messed-up perception went undetected. They may have been successful financially, but their morals and values were out in space.

In 2011 I made an independent movie and was too busy to drink. My wife at the time pointed out that I didn’t drink for two weeks. She was impressed with my work ethic. I was working 12-hour days because it took so long to put on and take off a bald cap for my role as an an alien. I couldn’t be hungover, so I wasn’t.

A few years later I thought, “I wish another 12-hour a day project would come along to quit drinking for.” Now I know this should have been a red flag. But nope, instead I had an idea: “Wait, why don’t I make me the project. I will be sober for a while for me.” I was just going to do 11 days, until the Independent Spirit Awards. I would have to drink then. There would be free expensive wine and celebrity parties.

The awards show came and went and I still didn’t want to drink. I felt almost addicted to being clear-headed. It felt euphoric. Then I was determined to tape Last Comic Standing sober. I was 33 days sober and I did great, but I just wasn’t myself. I wasn’t loose. I told a comic backstage who had five years sober that I didn’t feel comfortable. He said I was crazy, that he didn’t feel normal on stage until he had a year sober, and that I should have just had a drink. Looking back, he was right and I knew it. But I couldn’t drink. I liked being in my body so much. I hated blacking out.

And I refused to do AA: I 100 percent thought it was run by the Catholic Church and I couldn’t go back there. I was a member of the CIA: Catholic Irish Alcoholic. I survived 12 years of Catholic school: priests living in a mansion with gorgeous antique furniture and driving fancy sports cars while the nuns lived in poverty, in what were basically jail cells. One nun siphoned gas—so she could sell the 20-year-old station wagon she had just filled—and accidently swallowed some of the gas. That same day, Father Zino threw a lit cigarette out of his brand-new Porsche and it hit me. It got caught in my coat.

I had no intention of going back to the Catholic Church and saying yes to things I knew to be wrong. They told us not to lie, then made us lie.

I had friends in AA, but they all seemed miserable and unhappy. I would rather drink than be miserable. And I had quit drinking on my own before: once for 90 days (I was proud because I hadn’t intended to go that long), and then for 200 days (I was disappointed I hadn’t made it to a year). Both times, when I finally drank, it was because of things happening that I couldn’t bear to feel. I called my friends and said, “I don’t want to drink but I can’t bear the pain anymore.” They said, “Just drink. Drink and don’t beat yourself up about it.” So I drank. I didn’t have a choice.

Then I made a new friend who was in AA and thriving. She seemed genuinely happy. When I told her I could quit on my own but couldn’t stay quit, she said that happens to a lot of alcoholics. That was the first time I thought “Hey, maybe I am an alcoholic.” She also said “You don’t have coping skills.” Coping skills!?! I must have said those two words a million times since then. Coping skills sounded like exactly what I needed. I didn’t have coping skills. I’d never even heard of them.

I said I wanted to give it a try. I really wanted to make it to a year without drinking, and I was willing to do anything. Once I made that commitment to myself, I gave myself over to the program and my higher power. That was a critical tipping point, and my life changed. I got a sponsor who I knew would kick my butt: she knew when I was lying. I wanted what she had—not the dream car, home, partner, killer style, and beauty (all impressive, considering she had been living on the street). I didn’t need any of those things. I did not have the same goals at all.

What I did want was her close relationship with her higher power, her program, and her unquestioning belief in both. These qualities make her absolutely, positively unflappable and a force to be reckoned with. She gets annoyed by things, but as soon as she feels an ounce of anger, she takes a breath and realigns with her higher power and the solution.

My sponsor knows I had major resentments, and that I had a lot to be resentful about, but she showed me how to let go of them, for myself. I am now two years sober and I have peace in my mind for the first time in my life. I wouldn’t trade this gift of sobriety and serenity for anything in the world. I treat it like a gem that I hold safe. I guard that gem with my life.

Contrast in life is inevitable, but I’m learning that I do not have to have conflict. I don’t have to flip out because I got in the wrong line somewhere; I don’t need to make my poor planning everyone else’s emergency. I didn’t even know how anxiety-riddled I was. I thought I had ADD, and doctors were treating it as such, with Adderall. What I actually have is PTSD and chronic anxiety. That medication combined with those diagnoses was like treating schizophrenia with acid.

All my life, I never wanted to be like other people. Even though my life was messed-up, I loved being me. I always wanted to live, but I really didn’t know how. I felt like I was improvising constantly, while everyone else had a script. It made me a great improviser, but I now have the ability to turn that side of me off. I feel like I am getting a new, revised version of my script every day. If something happens, I no longer go into fight or flight mode. I get upset, of course, but now I respond instead of react. I am proactive instead of reactive. I can have contrast without conflict. I can go into solution mode and stop focusing on and feeding the problem.

I made a decision to be the change I want to see in the world—which is peace. To see peace, I first must be peace. Alcoholics do not have the luxury of a negative thought. A resentment can kill us. If someone hates me, that is on them. I cannot control how someone feels about me, but I can control how I feel about them.

I feel safe for the first time. For a long time I hid my fear from everyone, even myself. Feeling safe, in the moment, in control, is better than any feeling in this world. I wouldn’t trade the solution for anything.

Jackie Monahan appears in Wild Nights with Emily, in theatres on April 12th. Her album “These Lips” is streaming everywhere and on Sirius.

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019
CVS Stores Will Offer CBD Products In 800 Locations

A line of topical cannabis-derived products will be available in 800 CVS locations across eight states.

CVS announced that it will now offer CBD topical products to customers in eight states across the United States.

The pharmacy chain, which is the largest in the country with more than 9,900 retail locations, has entered into a deal with cannabis retailer Curaleaf Holdings to carry its line of cannabis-derived products in 800 stores located across eight states.

Curaleaf CEO Joseph Lusardi told investors that he hopes to see an increase in the number of CVS locations carrying his products soon.

CBD, or cannabidiol, is a naturally occurring cannabis compound that does not have a euphoric effect on the user.

While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regards CBD as a drug, and has banned its use in foods and beverages that are pending regulation, proponents consider it therapeutic for a variety of health conditions. CBD is included in numerous and widely available products, including the creams, sprays, roll-ons, lotions and salves sold by Curaleaf that will be available to consumers at CVS.

As MarketWatch noted, CVS stores in Alabama, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland and Tennessee will sell Curaleaf products. Recreational marijuana is legal in California and Colorado, and medical marijuana is legal in Illinois and Maryland, but both are prohibited in the other four states on the list. None of the locations will sell food products or health supplements containing CBD.

Lusardi also said that Curaleaf—which operates 40 cannabis dispensaries in 12 states—is in the process of striking similar deals with other large consumer chains.

“We’ve been having dialogue with national retailers for many months now,” he said. “We’ve got a number of potentially exciting partnerships in the pipeline.”

MarketWatch also noted that the announcement of the distribution deal sent stock prices up for both companies on March 21st. It was good news for Curaleaf, which had reported net losses of $16.5 million for the fourth quarter just one day prior, but the news of the deal sent shares up 20% to more than $8 per share the following day.

Revenue for the quarter was also up by a significant amount—$32 million, up from $6.3 million in 2018. In all, Curaleaf stock has risen more than 50% in the last three months, while shares in CVS rose more than 2% in Thursday’s trading.

View the original article at thefix.com

28 March 2019