Answer Addiction

Tag: alcoholism

  • John Goodman Dishes on Sobriety, Roseanne Barr & Showbiz

    John Goodman Dishes on Sobriety, Roseanne Barr & Showbiz

    The 66-year old-character actor gave up alcohol in 2007 and still attends Alcoholics Anonymous meetings almost every day.

    John Goodman, 66-year-old character actor and Roseanne star, shared details about his life, including his struggles with alcohol, in an interview with The Sunday Times.

    Goodman now lives in New Orleans with his wife, Annabeth. Despite an earlier prediction that his career would have dried up by now, he has roles on HBO’s The Righteous Gemstones and BBC2’s Black Earth Rising.

    However, his life may not be as idyllic if he had not gotten his alcoholism under control, he revealed.

    “I was an alcoholic parent. If I saw a bottle of vodka I had to have it, it was a compulsion,” he told The Times. “My wife had given up on me, I sometimes wondered if she was just waiting for me to die. She’d had enough.”

    Goodman gave up alcohol in 2007 and has been sober since then. He says he still goes to Alcoholics Anonymous almost every day. “You never beat it, it’s a daily thing,” he said.

    When the interviewer suggested that beating alcoholism must have taken a lot of willpower, Goodman declined to take credit.

    “It didn’t have anything to do with will. It just grew old,” he admitted. “I was unhealthy and I was hurting people and I tired of it.”

    Giving up alcohol also gave way to healthier living for Goodman. He began to eat less and exercise more, and despite two knee replacements is feeling the best he’s felt in years.

    “I do about 40 minutes on an elliptical machine every day. And I don’t eat as much as I used to. I was eating alcoholically—with both hands,” he said, adding that he does not follow any special diet plans. “I just eat smaller portions.”

    His career, and happiness, recently took a hit with the cancellation of the Roseanne revival due to a racist tweet by the show’s titular star, Roseanne Barr.

    “I was broken-hearted, but I thought, ‘OK, it’s just show business, I’m going to let it go.’ But I went through a period, about a month, where I was very depressed,” he revealed. “I’m a depressive anyway, so any excuse that I can get to lower myself, I will. But that had a great deal to do with it, more than I wanted to admit.”

    He did not expect the network, ABC, to react the way it did.

    “I was surprised. I’ll put it this way, I was surprised at the response. And that’s probably all I should say about it,” he said, pausing. “I know, I know, for a fact that she’s not a racist.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mel B To Enter Rehab For Alcohol, Sex Addiction

    Mel B To Enter Rehab For Alcohol, Sex Addiction

    Brown says she has been using alcohol to “numb my pain,” spurred by a difficult divorce and the death of her father.

    TV personality and performer Mel B is heading to rehab for alcohol and sex addiction, according to the Guardian.

    The former Spice Girl, who has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), said she’s had an “incredibly difficult” six months in which she’s had to relive past traumas while writing her upcoming memoir Brutally Honest. 

    “It has been unbelievably traumatic reliving an emotionally abusive relationship and confronting so many massive issues in my life,” she said.

    The America’s Got Talent judge (born Melanie Brown) confessed that she has been using alcohol to “numb my pain,” spurred by a difficult divorce and the death of her father.

    “Sometimes it is too hard to cope with all the emotions I feel. But the problem has never been about sex or alcohol—it is underneath all that,” she said, according to BBC. “No one knows myself better than I do. But I am dealing with it.”

    She further clarified her decision to enter rehab on a recent Ellen appearance. “No, I’m not an alcoholic; no, I’m not a sex addict,” she told guest host Lea Michele.

    This isn’t the first time Mel B has sought professional help. She told Michele that she has been receiving therapy since her father got diagnosed with cancer nearly a decade ago.

    The current treatment she has been receiving has been “really helping me,” she said, according to The Sun. “I am fully aware I am at a crisis point.”

    The singer and songwriter is getting help to become “a better version of myself for my kids, for my family and for all the people who have supported me in my life,” she said.

    And if she can be a voice for those who silently suffer, “if I can shine a light on the issue of pain, PTSD and the things men and women do to mask it, I will,” she added.

    Mel B is finalizing her divorce with Stephen Belafonte, which ended with restraining orders and a domestic violence trial that was settled out of court.

    The singer said she was emotionally and “financially battered” by the breakup.

    “You know, I was with the same person for 10 years, and that was quite a turmoil, very intense,” she said on Ellen. “That’s all I can say about it. I’d like to say a lot more, but on this show, let’s keep it PC. But… I did kind of have to ease my pain. I suffer a lot from PTSD.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • No Amount Of Alcohol Is Safe To Drink, Game-Changing Study Reveals

    No Amount Of Alcohol Is Safe To Drink, Game-Changing Study Reveals

    Alcohol accounted for 20% of deaths in 2016, according to a new report.

    Even one drink occasionally may be one too many, researchers are now saying.

    This information came from the Global Burden of Diseases study, which is carried out at the University of Washington in Seattle, and was recently published in the Lancet medical journal. 

    According to the Guardian, the Global Burden of Diseases study is the “largest and most detailed research carried out on the effects of alcohol.”

    The researchers found that in 2016, alcohol led to 2.8 million deaths and was the leading risk factor when it came to premature mortality and disability in those ages 15 to 49, in which it accounted for 20% of deaths. 

    According to the study, current habits when it comes to alcohol “pose dire ramifications for future population health in the absence of policy action today. Alcohol use contributes to health loss from many causes and exacts its toll across the lifespan, particularly among men.”

    Researchers at the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation studied the alcohol intake from people in 195 countries using data from 694 different sources ranging from 1990 to 2016 to determine “how common drinking was.” 

    They then examined 592 worldwide studies involving 28 million people to determine the potential health risks associated with alcohol. 

    Specifically, the study found that alcohol consumption was a cause of cancer in those over age 50, especially women. According to previous research, one in 13 breast cancer diagnoses in the UK were related to alcohol.

    The study determined that across the world, 27.1% of cancer deaths in females and 18.9% in men over age 50 were connected to alcohol consumption. 

    Among those in younger age groups, causes of death linked to alcohol were tuberculosis (1.4% of deaths), road injuries (1.2%) and self-harm (1.1%).

    Additionally, about 2.4 billion people around the world drink alcohol. One-quarter of women drink, while 39% of men do.

    Senior author Emmanuela Gakidou of the University of Washington says that the results indicate that new policies on alcohol may be necessary in the future.

    “Our results indicate that alcohol use and its harmful effects on health could become a growing challenge as countries become more developed, and enacting or maintaining strong alcohol control policies will be vital,” she told the Guardian.

    Dr. Robyn Burton, of King’s College London, stated in a commentary in the Lancet that the study results were clear.

    “Alcohol is a colossal global health issue and small reductions in health-related harms at low levels of alcohol intake are outweighed by the increased risk of other health-related harms, including cancer,” she wrote. 

    Burton stated that when it comes to public policy, methods to reduce alcohol intake could include price increases, taxation and setting prices depending on the strength of the drink. She also stated that limiting alcohol marketing could help.

    Dr. Max Griswold, lead author of the study, said, “Previous studies have found a protective effect of alcohol on some conditions, but we found that the combined health risks associated with alcohol increases with any amount of alcohol.

    “The strong association between alcohol consumption and the risk of cancer, injuries, and infectious diseases offset the protective effects for heart disease in our study. Although the health risks associated with alcohol start off being small with one drink a day, they then rise rapidly as people drink more.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Steve-O Discusses Bam Margera's Recent Relapse

    Steve-O Discusses Bam Margera's Recent Relapse

    Margera was allegedly seven months sober prior to cracking open a beer following a traumatizing mugging, but Steve-O doesn’t buy it.

    Jackass alum, Steve-O, sat down for an interview with TooFab where he weighed in on a recent Instagram post by former Jackass co-star, Bam Margera.

    In a recent post, Margera shared that he had been robbed of $500 during a taxi ride from the airport to Cartagena, Colombia. He then cracks open a bottle of Club Colombia beer with one hand, though the latter part seems to have been removed.

    Bam’s act was significant as it marked the end of seven months of sobriety, which came hard won after being charged with a DUI in January and being sent to rehab by the courts.

    However, Steve-O seems to believe that Margera had already broken his sobriety prior to the robbery. “I guess. I don’t know that that’s the case, but perhaps,” Steve-O said in regards to the alleged seven-month timeframe.

    Steve-O was at first hesitant to expand on what he meant by the statement, but ended up explaining himself.

    “I mean, I don’t know. And I don’t want him to [feel like] I’m attacking him or calling him out, I just think that there were signs that, if he hadn’t already drank, it was evident that he was going to,” Steve-O explained. “The signs were there. I think if you’re a sober alcoholic that you kind of can tell.”

    Steve-O seemed to believe Margera wasn’t ready for sobriety.

    “When people are on the path, sort of doing the things that sober people do, it’s evident,” he exanded. “It’s evident that he’s not been ready or willing to do the simple things that sober people do that make our lives really great. It’s sad, and I wish that I could somehow force him to want to do these things and get healthy and have a great life, but it doesn’t work that way. You can’t push people into it.”

    Speaking with 10 years of sobriety, Steve-O said that even if Margera resorted to drinking because of the robbery, it’s still a poor decision.

    “Let’s say he did get drunk because of being robbed—we call that the philosophy of a man who having a headache hits himself in the head with a hammer so that he cannot feel the ache,” Steve-O explained. “Way to go. Now you got two problems.”

    Margera has long struggled with alcoholism. He recently tried to get healthy by taking a long trip and isolating himself, but ended up falling off the wagon.

    “I think the catalyst was when I stepped on a scale after a fucking drinking bender and I was 230 pounds. So I flew myself to Estonia, to the middle of the fucking woods in a log cabin for six months. I was on a full-blown Rocky Balboa mission to hike and bike and get myself in shape just to be able to skate,” Margera said.

    However, in January Margera got the DUI that landed him in rehab.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Ben Affleck Heads Back To Rehab

    Ben Affleck Heads Back To Rehab

    Days after Affleck entered rehab, news broke that he and actress Jennifer Garner reached a settlement in their divorce.

    Justice League star Ben Affleck headed back to rehab last week in his ongoing battle with alcoholism, as he continues “working incredibly hard” to stay sober.

    “Addiction is not something that goes away,” a source close the actor told People. “Every day is a battle for recovering addicts, they are fighting for their sobriety and to lead healthy, balanced lives every day.”

    Over the past year, the Los Angeles-based actor had been in and out of rehab and spotted visiting various outpatient treatment centers. 

    “He has been attending countless meetings, has continued to work with sober coaches and does his best to follow through with the things that will help him maintain his health,” the source told People.

    It’s been a rough time for the Argo director; just days after he entered rehab, news broke that Affleck and his ex-wife Jennifer Garner reached a settlement in their divorce.

    The couple separated three years ago, and Garner filed for divorce last spring, according to Us Weekly. On Wednesday, she stepped in and drove Affleck to treatment, according to reports.

    Earlier this month, Affleck and Saturday Night Live producer Lindsay Shookus broke off their relationship, a move one source close to the couple attributed to Affleck’s downward spiral. 

    “It was very hard for her to break up with Ben, but she knew he wasn’t getting better and that it was time for her to step aside,” a source told People. “She was trying to stay as close to him as possible so that he would stay on the right path, but ultimately it just wasn’t possible. She knew she had to let him hit bottom.” 

    Affleck’s path to sobriety started in 2001, when Charlie Sheen drove him to a 30-day rehab program. Last spring, he went to treatment again, and later posted about it on Facebook.

    “I want to live life to the fullest and be the best father I can be,” he wrote. “I want my kids to know there is no shame in getting help when you need it, and to be a source of strength for anyone out there who needs help but is afraid to take the first step.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino Celebrates Another Sober Milestone

    Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino Celebrates Another Sober Milestone

    Sorrentino announced his new sober milestone on Instagram and was showered with praise by his “Jersey Shore” castmates. 

    Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino has come a long way from his booze-fueled days on MTV’s Jersey Shore. The 36-year-old TV personality celebrated 33 months of sobriety on Saturday, announcing the milestone with a post on his Instagram account. “33 Months Clean & Sober #cleanchallenge,” he wrote. “Went from running into a wall to down on one knee. We do recover.”

    Sorrentino also tagged the Discovery Institute in his post, which he’s previously credited for helping him beat his addiction to alcohol and prescription painkillers.

    And despite having gone through a full year of treatment at Discovery (including both inpatient and outpatient counseling), he wasn’t initially sold on the idea.

    “I’ll be honest, I hated everything about [addiction treatment],” Sorrentino said. “But … I wanted better for myself and I was going to do whatever it takes to get there.” He noted that Discovery made him “humble” and that treatment forced him to understand that he didn’t have all the answers. “It costs zero dollars to be a kind person,” he added.

    Sorrentino’s Instagram post was applauded by several of his fellow Jersey Shore castmates, too. Former co-star Angelina Pivarnick commented “resilience,” while Snooki said “I am legit crying I’m so proud of you.” Sorrentino recently told E! News that he hopes to be a “good example” for the “recovery world” and demonstrate to others that it’s “possible to have fun and dance in the club without drinking.”

    That said, he admitted to People that shooting Jersey Shore Family Vacation in Miami Beach wasn’t without its problems. 

    “I had a very strong foundation for my recovery with over two years when I entered the house,” he said of the new show. “But I did have to challenge myself to go out and film a whole season of Jersey Shore and have fun without alcohol—to show the youth out there that it is possible.”

    He claimed that “it took a lot of hard work just to get there” as well as having to “challenge myself to do my job and be funny and be myself.”

    Following Jersey Shore’s cancellation in 2012, Sorrentino took to drugs and alcohol, eventually spending 60 days in rehab. “I had a year to settle down and find out who I was, and I wasn’t in the best shape,” Sorrentino told People. “I had to rebuild myself inside and out.”

    Unfortunately, after two years of sobriety, Sorrentino was indicted (along with his brother) with tax fraud on nearly $9 million of income. He was also prescribed painkillers (Sorrentino’s personal “drug of choice”) after cracking his ribs at the gym, which caused him to relapse.

    Now, with nearly three years of sobriety under his belt, Sorrentino appears to finally have his life in order: “I live my life today at peace. I try not to have any arguments,” he told E! News. “I mean, everything in my life has changed. I don’t speed. I don’t get into fights. I don’t get into arguments. I really feel awesome today.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Former Amazon Employee Quit Job To Chronicle Journey To Sobriety

    Former Amazon Employee Quit Job To Chronicle Journey To Sobriety

    Kristi Coulter decided to focus on her sobriety more than her life as a person with alcoholism as she wrote Nothing Good Can Come From This.

    For 12 years, Kristi Coulter, who graduated with an MFA from the University of Michigan, worked at Amazon in a variety of executive roles. She also had a big drinking problem and would drink at least one bottle of wine a night.

    Now she’s written an acclaimed series of essays about her drinking and recovery called Nothing Good Can Come From This.

    In an interview with Seattle Magazine, Coulter helped shed light on addiction in “tech culture,” which she says has been overlooked for some time. “Tech culture is drinking culture.” 

    People in the tech sector not only drink from the high levels of stress, but also to deal with the rampant sexism that has infected that world for years.

    Coulter discovered she had a gift for writing when she penned an essay for Medium called Enjoli, which received wide acclaim and led to her book deal.

    Coulter told The Woolfer that her book is “a raw, frank, feminist look at what happens when a high-achieving, deeply unhappy forty-something woman give us the ‘one’ thing she really thinks she can’t live without—wine—and has to remake her entire sense of self from the ground up.”

    In writing Nothing Good, Coulter focused on her sobriety more than her life as a person with alcoholism. “My drinking life was so monotonous,” she explains. “I really wanted to spend some time on ‘here’s what it’s actually like to live in a world like that.’”

    Coulter says she’s now five years sober, and she found writing about it to be a great catharsis. “I never expected to make it to this side of the pool. I never thought I’d get to be here.”

    Coulter also runs her own blog called Off Dry, and each blog entry marks her sober days. (The latest entry, where you can win a copy of Nothing Good, is marked “Day 1,879.”) On the front page of her blog, Coulter writes, “I got sober. Life got big.”

    When asked what advice she would give her younger self, Coulter jokes, “I thought, given where I ended up, was ‘Don’t start drinking!’ But that’s an oversimplification. Instead, I’d say, ‘Be aware that you can’t drink away your pain. You can’t drink away the things you don’t want to face.

    “Reality is reality whether you like it or not, and it will still be waiting for you when the alcohol wears off, along with whatever you did to make things even worse while you were drunk—and by the way, people don’t generally make their problems ‘better’ while they’re drunk. Okay! Glad we had this chat, kiddo. Proceed.’” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • AA Meetings Are Thriving In A Country Where Alcohol Is Illegal

    AA Meetings Are Thriving In A Country Where Alcohol Is Illegal

    A new episode of PBS’s “Frontline” offers a glimpse inside Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in Iran. 

    Alcohol is banned in the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous is alive and well in a country where the consequences for drinking are severe.

    Many Iranians are starting to believe the true cost of alcohol—everything from brutal lashings to the death penalty—is worth it. At least, that’s the message suggested in an eye-opening new episode of the PBS documentary series Frontline.

    “I was arrested [with alcohol] and got 77 lashes,” an AA member said in the episode. “They use leather whips, just like with a horse. That’ll hurt, yeah. My skin was all torn apart.” He’s not alone, Frontline reveals, as the episode explores how AA has increasingly taken root in the country.

    The country’s Ministry of Information has allowed the AA Big Book (in which co-founder Bill Wilson outlined the 12-step program) to be printed and shared, with meeting groups rising all over Tehran, Iran’s capital. The results are telling, as one AA group member says he’s celebrated eight years of sobriety while another has another four under his belt. 

    Alcohol may be highly illegal, but it’s clearly not impossible to find. “You call someone who sells it and they come and deliver it to you,” an AA member explained to Frontline. “They bring it in a paper bag, you pay them, and they’re off again.”

    The simplicity of that transaction belies many other stories about Iran’s hidden drinking subculture, which is almost as hidden as the country’s burgeoning AA fellowship.

    Despite Iran’s alcohol ban and frequent police raids, “drinking in Iran is widespread, especially among the wealthy,” the Independent reported.

    There aren’t any nightclubs, so all of the illegal imbibing occurs behind closed doors. Some of the booze is smuggled in, but much of the wine and beer is made right under the noses of Iranian law enforcement, who are all too eager to mete out punishment.

    And while AA meetings reveal that some Iranians are seeking help they desperately need, Iran itself remains a country in denial about its larger alcohol problem.

    The Daily Beast published a feature that considered why “cruel penalties [have] not managed to reduce the popularity of drinking alcohol, particularly among young people, or its dramatic abuse by a stunning number of alcoholics.”

    Put into context, Iran ranks 166 in alcohol consumption per capita, but that statistic isn’t telling the whole story. If you look at World Health Organization estimates for people who consume 35 liters or more of alcohol over a year, the country actually ranks 19th in the entire world.

    “In other words, the number of alcoholics per capita puts Iran ahead of Russia (ranked 30), Germany (83), Britain (95), the United States (104) and Saudi Arabia (184),” The Daily Beast reported.

    Still, the Islamic Republic refuses to address its problem, beyond some scattered public ad campaigns that depict the dangers of drinking and driving. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Alcoholism Can Affect Communication Even After Sobriety

    How Alcoholism Can Affect Communication Even After Sobriety

    The voices of people with alcoholism were perceived as “less expressive,” “rougher,” and “more flat” in a new study.

    It’s no secret that alcoholism and other substance use disorders can take a huge toll on communication. People who are addicted have the reputation of being unreliable, forgetful or unorganized in their communication.

    However, a new study suggests that alcoholism may physically change a person’s ability to communicate via speech, and that those changes last even after a person gets sober.

    A new study, published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, found that people who were alcoholics have trouble using pitch to communicate the emotion behind their statements.

    For the study, people in recovery were recorded saying a sentence, as were people in a control group who did not have a history of alcoholism. The recordings were then played for a group of volunteers. The listeners had more trouble distinguishing the intended emotion in the recordings by people with alcoholism.

    In addition, the voices of people with alcoholism were perceived as “less expressive,” “rougher,” and “more flat.”

    This can lead to trouble communicating, since the same words can have vastly different meanings depending on the tone and pitch that they are spoken with. 

    “These results suggest that emotional communication difficulties can persist long after alcoholics have quit drinking,” the study authors wrote.

    In speaking with Healthline, Silke Paulmann, a cognitive sciences professor at the University of Essex and leader of the study, said that there is a physical reason for at least some of the communication difficulties that many people with alcoholism and their loved ones experience. 

    “Our data clearly indicate that they can modulate pitch, but do so less effectively,” she said to Healthline. 

    The study did not examine why the changes occur, but Paulmann said that it is likely due to changes either in the vocal chords or in the brain caused by alcoholism. The right side of the brain controls pitch and can be damaged by drinking too much alcohol. 

    “Heavy drinking has been linked to brain atrophy in the right hemisphere,” she said to Healthline. “We don’t have scans of our participants, but if their brain has been affected by their drinking history, this may explain the differences as well.”

    Speech therapy could potentially help people with alcoholism who are in recovery overcome this communication issue. However, Paulmann said that just being aware of the issue, and talking about it with friends and family, can also make a big difference. 

    “On the receiver’s end, some of the communication problems in families might be less severe if the parties involved understand that it is not indifference that leads to ‘less expressive’ reactions,” she told Healthline.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Bam Margera Discusses DUI, Rehab

    Bam Margera Discusses DUI, Rehab

    After attending a Jackass reunion earlier this year, Margera says he had “the pleasure of getting a DUI” which led to him entering treatment for a month.

    Back in January, pro-skating star and Jackass alumni Bam Margera was arrested for driving under the influence. TMZ reported that Margera was sentenced for his DUI in April, where in lieu of jail time he was given three years of probation, and had to attend mandatory alcohol programs and AA meetings. 

    Margera subsequently checked into rehab about a week after his DUI arrest. He recently opened up to Revolver about his DUI, rehab, and smoking weed with Snoop Dogg.

    “Last fall, I attended a surprise Jackass reunion at the Rainbow Bar and Grill in Hollywood where, as you can imagine, the beers flowed all night,” he says. “Long story short, as I drove away from the party, not knowing where I was headed, I pulled over to try and figure it out. That’s when I noticed the police lights behind me. I was like, ‘Fuck, I’m pulled over.’ As it turned out, the police had actually pulled someone else over right behind me, and then came to my car to see why I was just sitting there. So yeah, I had the pleasure of getting a DUI that night that led to my being in a treatment center for a month.”

    Before he got busted, Margera spent time in Estonia and Spain to get back in shape and stay away from the temptation to party.

    “I think the catalyst was when I stepped on a scale after a fucking drinking bender and I was 230 pounds. So I flew myself to Estonia, to the middle of the fucking woods in a log cabin for six months. I was on a full-blown Rocky Balboa mission to hike and bike and get myself in shape just to be able to skate.”

    Still, opportunity knocked and Margera was caught by the paparazzi peeing on a tree after getting loaded at a bar. After that incident, “I actually went the longest time without drinking until I went to the surprise Jackass reunion party.”

    After being charged with a DUI, Margera spent time at a treatment center in Venice, California where he “did the family therapy thing with my mom.” 

    Margera was asked by Revolver if he indulged in any legal California weed post-rehab. “I don’t do well with weed ever since I smoked some with Snoop Dogg,” he laughed.

    After one puff of Snoop’s “Purple Bin Laden” weed, Margera said he was “instantly transformed into a zombie… I ended up climbing into a fucking bush outside the tour bus, missed the entire show, and just laid there, staring at the moon all night. So yeah, no more weed for me.”

    View the original article at thefix.com