Category: Addiction News

"Facts Of Life" Star Charlotte Rae Dies At 92

Rae had been sober for decades, after attending her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the early 1970s.

Charlotte Rae, the actress who became famous as Mrs. Garrett on Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life, died Sunday at 92.

Rae was diagnosed with bone cancer last year and was weighing how aggressively to treat the disease, according to People. She had previously been treated for pancreatic cancer, and was declared cancer-free after chemotherapy.

“So now, at the age of 91, I have to make up my mind,” she told People in April 2017. “I’m not in any pain right now. I’m feeling so terrific and so glad to be above ground. Now I have to figure out whether I want to go have treatment again to opt for life. I love life. I’ve had a wonderful one already. I have this decision to make.”

Rae had been sober for decades, after attending her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in the early 1970s, when she was filming a short-lived appearance as the mail lady on Sesame Street. Rae was in her 40s and said that alcohol had become her drug of choice and preferred sleeping aid by the time she realized that she needed help.

“After the wrap party for Sesame Street, I went over to a meeting,” she told Fox News last year. “I was expecting to see a bunch of bums with red noses and burlap flying around. No—I saw a lot of well dressed, beautiful people. At the end of the meeting, we all held hands and said the Lord’s prayer. And I wept. That was the beginning of my sobriety. I’m now 42 years sober.”

Rae’s husband, composer John Strauss, also went to AA, and later confessed to his sponsor that he was gay.

“The sponsor said, ‘You have to tell your wife.’ So he did. When he told me, I thought I was going to faint. I couldn’t believe it. We were very, very close,” she said. However, the couple remained cordial. “It was tough, but I never, never said anything about John to my children. Never. We continued to be friends. It was very painful, but because of my support system and my admiration for him, I survived and went on.”

In addition to her well-known roles on Diff’rent Strokes and The Facts of Life, Rae made appearances on ER, Pretty Little Liars, Sisters, and The King of Queens. She also starred in movies including Don’t Mess with the Zohan and Tom and Jerry: The Movie, and was the voice of “Nanny” in the animated 101 Dalmations: The Series.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 August 2018
Police Chief Allegedly Overdosed On Drugs Stolen From Evidence Room

The 35-year-old died two months after being appointed part-time police chief.

An Ohio police chief who died in May of a fentanyl overdose allegedly swiped the drugs from his own department’s evidence room, according to local reports.

Kirkersville Police Chief James Hughes had only been on the job two months when he was found unresponsive in the bathroom of his Reynoldsburg home. Nearby, officials said, were three syringes—one empty and two filled with fentanyl. Authorities also recovered a bag that tested positive for cocaine.

The part-time police chief died a short time later, and in July the coroner officially deemed the cause of death a fentanyl overdose, according to the Newark Advocate.

The larger Reynoldsburg Police Department investigated the fatality, and last week Lt. Ron Wright revealed where he apparently got the fatal dose: the village police evidence room.

“There was packaging that indicated that he was taking controlled substances from there,” said Wright, according to the Advocate. It’s not clear if that could impact any ongoing cases.

The 35-year-old was appointed to the 500-person village’s 20-hour-per-week job as top cop on March 13, during a two-minute council meeting. Almost a year earlier, then-chief Eric DiSario was shot to death in the line of duty during an incident at a local nursing home, according to WSYX. His replacement, Jeff Finley, resigned abruptly in early March, citing disagreements with the mayor.

Though village council members didn’t offer any comment to the local media on it, Hughes had a troubled past before his appointment as chief.

During the 14 months he previously worked at the local sheriff’s office, internal affairs investigated him three times. Once, he resigned after six months, though he was later rehired working at the jail.

“I believe that Deputy Hughes needs to think before he acts,” one supervisor wrote in a 2012 performance evaluation, according to the Newark paper. “Deputy Hughes is known to make bad decisions on and off duty.”

A few months later, Hughes notched up a misdemeanor conviction for a drunken incident at a nearby fast food restaurant when he spit at a drive-through worker and called her a “bitch.”

Once Reynoldsburg police wrap up their investigation of the chief’s death, they’ll likely forward the case to state authorities, Wright said.

“It’s kind of gone beyond our level. You’re talking about another agency’s property room,” he said. “We think the state should probably intervene.”

View the original article at thefix.com

6 August 2018
5 Tips For an Unplugged Summer: Stress-free, Screen Free, Holidays

5 Tips For an Unplugged Summer: Stress-free, Screen Free, Holidays

Struggling to keep the kids (and yourself) off screens already when the summer holidays have only just got going? We’re old hands at keeping everyone happy and busy offline so avail yourself of our top tips and sit back and watch peace and harmony descend on your home this summer:

#1 Agree your unplugged summer ground rules

Talk as a family about what the rules should be around screens over the holidays. Just don’t be surprised when the kids want to set rules for parents too. Checking email after work, staying on social media for longer than you intended, if you all agree the rules together you have to all stick to them. It’ll be motivating for kids to see you joining in and they’ll appreciate a bit of your undivided attention.

#2 Plan activities that can’t be done with a screen

Trip wiring, abseiling, rock climbing, even a spot of tree climbing – if you plan or suggest enough things that just can’t be done with a screen in the hand (and are challenging and exciting to do) you’ll be surprised how keen kids are to put their phones and tablets down and join in. The beauty of this is that you’re not actually asking them to quit their screens for an unplugged summer activity, they’ll work it out for themselves.

#3 Create an analogue challenge day

Make the whole business of being off-screens into a game by planning a digital detox day out where you all leave screens behind and have to manage without them. From doing without maps and GPS to not being able to check train times and bus timetables, think in advance about what might be the most challenging aspect of your day and enjoy watching all your skills of navigation and resourcefulness come flooding back. To gamify the experience further dole out points – and create a leader board – for the family member with the most analogue ingenuity in any of the situations you find yourself in.

#4 Seek out wi-fi black spots

You probably already know where these are in your local area because your kids have undoubtedly complained about them. If you’re going further afield some hotels and holidays now even promote the specific digital detox aspects of their location (ie rubbish wi-fi). They may be few and far between but seek out those places which really do struggle to provide a wi-fi signal, no teenager is going to want to waste their precious data package unnecessarily so you’ll see them automatically cutting back on their screen time and finding other things to do.

#5 Find like-minded families

Spending more time offline is never going to work if you’re spending a lot of time with a family that’s glued to their screens. Find some friends and family who agree with you that an unplugged summer is going to be a lot more fun than one glued to smartphones and social media and arrange to spend more time with them. It’s a real bonus if you can find a family who loves playing retro board games or maybe has a liking for bat and ball games in the garden or on the beach. Who knows, some of it may rub off on your kids permanently?

For more tips and tricks to keep the whole family happy off screens, our new book Stop Staring at Screens is out in the US and UK on 6th September. Pick up a copy here.

View the original article at itstimetologoff.com

6 August 2018
New York Takes Big Step Towards Legalizing Recreational Marijuana

Governor Cuomo’s big move could pave the way for New York to become the 10th US state to legalize recreational marijuana.

Governor Andrew Cuomo made a big step towards legalizing marijuana for adult use on Thursday as he pulled together a group to write the bill, Vox reports.

The proposal is based on the recommendations of New York’s Department of Health regarding the legalization and regulation of marijuana.

“As we work to implement the report’s recommendations through legislation, we must thoroughly consider all aspects of a regulated marijuana program, including its impact on public health, criminal justice and State revenue, and mitigate any potential risks associated with it,” wrote Cuomo in a statement.

Heading up the group writing the bill is Alphonso David, counsel to the governor, who is getting feedback from officials as well as a panel including public safety, public health, and economic experts. If the state’s legislature is satisfied with the resulting bill, they will sign it into law and make New York officially the tenth state to legalize recreational marijuana.

Cuomo’s proposal is a welcome one to the New York Health Department. In a 75-page report, the department concluded that legalization would be a net positive.

“Numerous [New York state] agencies and subject matter experts in the fields of public health, mental health, substance use, public safety, transportation, and economics worked in developing this assessment,” officials wrote in the report. “No insurmountable obstacles to regulation of marijuana were raised.”

The report also backed up key points that marijuana legalization advocates have extolled for decades: the criminalization of marijuana has done nothing to stem its use, marijuana law disproportionately targets “low-income communities of color,” and that the state would not only be able to protect consumers with regulations but reap huge tax revenues as well. The report estimates this amount to be anywhere from $248.1 million to $677.7 million a year.

However, the report also makes sure to mention the precautions the state should take in legalizing, including remaining vigilant of the effects of usage among its citizens.

“A regulated marijuana program should monitor and document patterns of use to evaluate the impact of legalization on use,” the report outlined.

It also warned of the risks of marijuana, including addiction and driving while impaired.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 August 2018
The 1975’s Frontman Matty Healy: I Thought I Was A "Good Drug Addict"

The now-clean frontman of the band The 1975 reveals he was struggling with heroin addiction last year.

Matty Healy, frontman of rock band The 1975, revealed in an interview with Billboard that he was under the influence of drugs for a large portion of 2017 but has since cleaned up his act.

He first realized he may have a problem when he embarked on a benzodiazepine-fueled ego trip, ranting at his bandmates after they discovered he was smoking heroin again.

“Listen, everyone has to get onboard because I’m the f—ing main deal,” Healy recalled telling his fellow band members, who have known him since they were in high school. “If you want the songs, we’re just going to have to get on with it.”

He told them he planned to detox after they start recording their third album. But the next morning, he had regrets over the way he acted towards them.

“I realized that was absolutely f—ing bulls—,” he told Billboard. Finding his bandmate George [Daniel], Healy told him “I should go to rehab.”

Healy went to a Barbados rehab in November and stayed for seven weeks. While he is now clean of heroin, he recalls a time when he would be able to dump the habit for weeks at a time only to relapse when he was off on his own. Healy thought he was a “good drug addict,” but realized that the addiction could very easily cost him everything.

“People had started to lose respect for me, but not an irredeemable amount,” he said.

To hold himself accountable, he’s promised to take a drug test every week in front of his bandmates.

Healy reflects on his struggles with heroin in the song “It’s Not Living If It’s Not With You” on the band’s upcoming album, A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships, and it’s definitely not a song meant to romanticize drugs.

“I don’t want to fetishize it, because it’s really dull and it’s really dangerous,” he told Billboard. “The thought of being to a young person what people like [William S.] Burroughs were to me when I was a teenager makes me feel ill. … I still risked it.”

Since getting clean of heroin, he’s also realized that he’s wasted time chasing things he thought would make him happy, but this pursuit does nothing for your own self-esteem.

“I thought it would be like, ‘Ooh, a bit of gold, a Rolls-Royce’ — I never had a Rolls-Royce — ‘drugs with a pop star, shag that pop star’ — I didn’t shag any pop stars — all of the trappings of a music video,” he reflected. “And what you realize is the pursuit of happiness is this Sisyphean thing for most people. Thinking that the goal is to be happy is a bit mad. It’s more about fleeting moments of joy and knowing that life is hard.”

While he is clean of heroin, Healy still chooses to smoke marijuana.

View the original article at thefix.com

6 August 2018
Do Free Meals From Pharma Reps Affect Doctors' Prescribing Habits?

A new paper examined prescribing numbers and marketing efforts by two pharmaceutical companies to determine if free meals made an impact.

Cardiologists who were taken out for a meal by sales representatives from two major drug manufacturers were 73% more likely to prescribe medication from those companies, even if equivalent, lower-costing generic drugs were available.

Those are the findings suggested by a new paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), which also alleged that while an increase in prescribing certain drugs can be a positive for patients that use them, it can also take a toll on consumers by pushing more expensive drugs over cheaper alternatives; the paper’s authors estimated that the total cost was $190 million.

The paper also suggested that such marketing techniques for doctors should be eliminated altogether, as several states and health care systems have already done.

The paper looked at prescribing numbers and marketing efforts by two pharmaceutical companies, Pfizer and AstraZeneca—which make the cholesterol-lowering drugs Lipitor and Crestor, respectively—between the years 2011 and 2012. Meal payments were made the focus because they were the most popular form of courting doctors, and made for the majority of non-research payments during that time period.

As MarketWatch reporter Emma Court noted, meal payments are, “by their very nature, designed to be ‘pure persuasion,’ as opposed to payments for consulting or speaking.”

Meal payments were valued at less than $150.

As for the nature of the discussion, the paper’s authors opined that it was “very likely that statins”—drugs used to reduce fat levels in blood—”were the focus of any drug-related discussions,” since Lipitor and Crestor comprised the majority of both companies’ sales to cardiologists.

The researchers found that when the two companies’ sales representatives paid for meals when meeting with cardiologists, those doctors were 73% more likely to prescribe Lipitor or Crestor to their patients. It did not appear to matter what sort of meal it was; as the report’s authors noted, “it appears that the effect is driven by the receipt of any meal, regardless of its value.”

The information disseminated by the companies’ sales representatives also did not impact the doctors’ decisions; as Court wrote, both drugs had been available for nearly a decade (15 years, in the case of Lipitor), which meant that new information about either medication was unlikely to be provided at these lunch meetings, and lower-priced generic equivalents for both drugs were widely available.

Plying medical professionals with gifts, which ranged from simple meals to lucrative speaking engagements and consulting work, has been a regular sales and marketing practice for pharmaceutical companies.

But with studies like the NBER report suggesting that prescription rates rise and clinical treatment can be influenced after such treatment—which in turn can have a negative impact on health care costs and patient health—health industry observers and policymakers have turned to legislation that requires pharmaceutical companies to report all payments made to doctors, or ban such gestures altogether.

View the original article at thefix.com

4 August 2018
Dr. Drew and Dave Discuss Overdose Death of "Dopey Podcast" Host

Chris from Dopey Podcast had been clean for almost five years before his fatal relapse.

Dopey Podcast co-host, Chris, 33, passed away from an overdose on July 24.

The Fix spoke with Dave, his friend and Dopey co-host, about the sudden loss. The two met eight years ago at Chris’s 14th rehab. They stayed in touch and became close friends.

Chris had a year and a half sober and Dave was three months sober when they started the Dopey Podcast.

“I loved Chris and I will always miss him,” Dave told The Fix, his voice cracking with emotion. Dave is unsure of the exact date that Chris’s relapse began.

Board-certified internist and addiction specialist “Dr. Drew” Pinsky is a big fan of Dopey. Back in March, he sat down with the guys to discuss addiction, rehab and romance for their 124th episode.

The Fix spoke with Dr. Drew about Dopey after his appearance on the show. “If you’re an addict,” he said, “and you listen to Dopey, you will find your people, and your story here. Listen to it and you’ll see what I mean.”

During the episode, it was revealed that Pinsky had treated Chris years ago after one of his relapses. Dr. Drew joked with Chris about what a difficult case he’d been.

After finding out about Chris’s death, Pinsky offered his condolences to Dave, “Chris’s death is such a huge loss. His was a great success story—especially after so many years of chronic relapses. This is a real tragedy.”

“Chris loved being sober and he loved Dopey,” Dave said. “He drove to New York every week—10 to 12 hours roundtrip—just to record each episode of Dopey with me. But the last month he became really unreliable.”

Annie Giron, Chris’s girlfriend, told The Fix that she was the one who found his body in the bedroom of their Boston apartment. Giron has extensive training in the medical field of addiction.

“Chris had just finished his MA and was working towards a PhD in Clinical Psychology,” said Giron, fighting back tears. “I’m studying to be a psychiatrist. I know his death was not intentional. He was not suicidal at all. We were very much in love and excited about the future.”

“I’ve never been an addict and there are no addicts in my family but I have always been passionate about the field of addiction,” she said. “Over the years, I have administered Narcan to so many patients in the ER. I treated one patient 17 times and Narcan saved his life. That’s why the minute I saw Chris, I knew that he was dead. I tried to revive him with Narcan anyway even though I knew it was too late.”

Dave said, “Over the past month Chris had started acting really weird. I asked him what was going on. He blamed it on exhaustion. I believed him. He was really busy as a manager in a sober living facility and always studying.

Chris had a long history of drug abuse but had been clean for almost five years before his final relapse. Dave, Annie and friends were concerned that Chris was close to relapsing. Annie said he wasn’t depressed but had been anxious and agitated. He’d spent a week helping a patient and he may have confiscated medication.

“Chris tore a ligament in his leg that was extremely painful. He couldn’t sleep and I’d hear him moaning in agony. A doctor said it would take 4-6 months before Chris would feel any better. He needed to do physical therapy which the doctor warned would be painful. He hadn’t wanted to take painkillers but the injury was excruciating.”

Dave said he’d talked with Dr. Drew and Annie about how far Chris had come in his life and how shocked and heartbroken they are at this unexpected loss.

Dr. Drew’s next Dopey episode will go live on Saturday, August 11. He and Dave will discuss addiction, recovery, and the frightening reality of America’s spike in fatal relapses.

View the original article at thefix.com

4 August 2018
Is Alcohol Consumption Among Women On The Rise?

A number of studies over the past few years have noted an eye-opening change in the drinking habits of women.

It was an incident in which she put her daughter in danger that made Laura McKowen of North Shore, Massachusetts realize she needed to stop drinking.

“I put her in danger at the wedding. I left her unattended for a long period of time. She was 4,” McKowen told WebMD. “I knew eventually, I would lose custody of my daughter if I kept drinking. It was inevitable. I knew I would lose pretty much everything.”

And McKowen isn’t alone. Research from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) shows that alcohol use disorder in women in the U.S. doubled from 2002 to 2013.

Today, McKowen is a prominent voice in the recovery sphere and has nearly 30,000 followers on Instagram, where she often posts about life in recovery as a mother. She uses her story to reach out to women who may be part of the rising number battling alcohol.

According to WebMD, historically, males have been heavier and more frequent drinkers than women. However, new research from a number of organizations is pointing to a changing trend.

For example, high-risk drinking (3 or more drinks in one day or 7 or more in one week for women) grew about 58% from 2001-2002 to 2012-2013.

Another study, from 2018, found that from 2014 to 2016, alcohol-related ER visits increased more steeply for women than men. Female fatalities as a result of liver cirrhosis also increased from 2000 to 2013.

In addition to drinking more, studies have also found that women are starting to drink earlier, WebMD notes.

A 2017 study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) discovered that gender gaps in drinking as early as high school and middle school were narrowing, whereas males used to far outweigh females when it came to starting drinking early.

“Now, by eighth grade, more females than males are drinking. Females are now, for the first time in history, more likely to drink in 10th grade than males; and by 12th grade, where there used to be a big gap 10 or 15 years ago, it’s now dead even,” Aaron White, PhD, senior scientific advisor to the director of the NIAAA.

One aspect of higher female drinking rates that is especially concerning is that females are more prone to certain drinking-related health issues, like liver inflammation, cardiovascular disease, neurotoxicity, and cancer, according to Deidra Roach, MD, medical project officer of the NIAAA Division of Treatment and Recovery Research. She adds that women are also more likely to experience blackouts.

“This is a very serious issue for women,” she says. “We need to do more in terms of getting this message out to young women and medical providers who work with young people. Because once you end up on the slippery slope of harmful drinking, it becomes difficult to reverse.”

According to WebMd, the reasons for the increase could have to do with a change in cultural norms, as well as an increase in depression and anxiety and possibly violence towards women.

As the issue continues to grow, McKowen plans to continue using her voice to let others know that sobriety is not the end.

“I thought sobriety was going to be a terrible death sentence, and it is by far the best thing that has ever happened in my life,” she told WebMD. “Now I have honest relationships. I am a far better mother, and I am doing work I actually love because I had the presence of mind to move to that. I am just living a more honest, joyful, and free life.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 August 2018
Drinking While Breastfeeding Study Gets Pushback From Critics

One critic says the study “is so deeply misleading and irresponsible that it falls only a wood shaving short of Pinocchio’s nose.”

A study released this week suggests that drinking alcohol while breastfeeding can contribute to temporary cognitive delays in children, but critics say that the study is flawed and overreaching.

The study, published in the journal Pediatrics, looked at data from about 5,000 Australian children. It found that children who were breastfed and whose mothers drank while they were breastfeeding, had lower cognitive abilities at ages 6 and 7, although the difference disappeared by ages 10 and 11.

“Exposing infants to alcohol through breastmilk may cause dose-dependent reductions in their cognitive abilities,” researchers concluded. “Although the relationship is small, it may be clinically significant when mothers consume alcohol regularly or binge drink.”

The study did not examine when these mothers were drinking—whether it was during a time when more alcohol was likely to be transferred to their child via breast milk, or not.

However, some healthcare providers said that the small but significant finding should cause people to take a second look at the risk of drinking while breastfeeding, which have so far been found to be minimal.

“Previous recommendations that reveal limited alcohol consumption to be compatible with breastfeeding during critical periods of development, such as the first months of life, may need to be reconsidered in light of this combined evidence,” Dr. Lauren M. Jansson, director of pediatrics at the Center for Addiction and Pregnancy and an associate professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, wrote in a commentary published with the study.

Dr. Melissa Bartick, an assistant professor of medicine at Cambridge Health Alliance and Harvard Medical School, told CNN that the safest option is for nursing mothers to forego all alcohol. However, there is not much concrete information on the safety—or lack thereof—of drinking and nursing.

“I think the study is helpful, but it doesn’t definitely answer the question. The question is, how much, if any, alcohol is safe during lactation?” Bartick said. “I would advise mothers to avoid alcohol and not to use alcohol, not to use beer to try to increase their milk supply. I think that’s safe to advise.”

Writing for Forbes, healthcare reporter Tara Haelle says the study “is so deeply misleading and irresponsible that it falls only a wood shaving short of Pinocchio’s nose.”

She also pointed out that the study had many flaws.

“Here’s what the new Pediatrics study actually found: Children who have ever been breastfed and whose mothers have ‘risky drinking habits’ in general are more likely to have slightly lower cognitive scores on one reasoning test at 6-7 years old,” she wrote. “But their scores aren’t any different on a vocabulary or an early literacy/math skills test, and there’s no difference in their scores at all when they’re 10-11 years old.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 August 2018
Nurse Pleads Guilty To Stealing Fentanyl from Hospital

According to police, the nurse admitted that she had initially stolen the fentanyl for her husband before she started using it herself.

A North Carolina nurse has admitted that she stole fentanyl from the hospital where she worked, first for her husband and later for personal use.

Hayley Lammon Brown, 29, was working at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston-Salem, North Carolina when the theft occurred, according to The Winston-Salem Journal.

This week, Brown entered a guilty plea in Forsyth Superior Court to one count of embezzlement of a controlled substance by an employee, and was given a suspended sentence of eight to 19 months and placed on three years of supervised probation. She was also charged with assault of a police officer after an officer was exposed to the drug, and she is appealing her guilty plea in that case.

During sentencing, Judge Ed Wilson said that Brown needs to get treatment, although it was not court-ordered. “You’re either going to spend the rest of your life in prison or you’re going to die if you don’t do something about this,” he said.

Authorities first came into contact with Brown in April 2017 when they responded to an overdose at Brown’s home. At the time she told police that her husband had bought the medication online.

However, officers found two vials of hospital-grade fentanyl at the home. At that point, the local police department asked for assistance from the FBI.

John Keane, special agent in charge with the State Bureau of Investigation, interviewed Brown, and she admitted that she had been stealing fentanyl from the hospital beginning in 2016. She said that she first took the drugs for her husband, before she started using them herself.

When the hospital learned of Brown’s alleged theft, it did a three-month audit of her use of medications and found discrepancies in how she handled fentanyl. The hospital fired her and the North Carolina Board of Nursing suspended her nursing license. Brown later voluntarily gave up her license for a year, but after that she will be eligible to have her license reinstated.

Although fentanyl is at the center of the opioid epidemic and has become a popular street drug, it does have legitimate medical use.

However, because of its potential for abuse it is carefully regulated in hospitals. Novant Health, which owns the hospital where Brown worked, has policies in place to avoid abuse, the company said.

“Novant Health has detailed policies that demand strict adherence to all federal, state and local regulatory requirements as well as the organization’s ethical standards and policies,” the health care network said in a written statement.

“We take very seriously any allegation that the organization or any individual team member has not fully complied with or in some way violated regulatory requirements, including the mishandling of controlled substances.”

View the original article at thefix.com

3 August 2018