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  • R&B Singer Mario Addresses Mother's Addiction in New Video

    R&B Singer Mario Addresses Mother's Addiction in New Video

    Mario hopes the video and song will provide support for those that may be experiencing a similar situation with a loved one.

    Nearly two years after the death of his mother, who suffered from heroin dependency, the singer and actor Mario touches on her struggle in the music video for his latest single, “Care for You.”

    The video, which features dramatized moments from his childhood and teenage years, also depicts his mother buying what is assumed to be drugs from a dealer while the young Mario waits in the car. 

    In an interview with People magazine, Mario said that he hopes the video and song will provide support for those that may be experiencing a similar situation with a loved one. “Realize that your live is the most important thing to that person, because they don’t know how to say it,” he said. “Even in their choice, we have to love them through it.”

    Mario’s mom, Shawtia Hardaway, died in 2017, and while a cause of death was not given, her issues with heroin had been made public through the 2007 MTV documentary special I Won’t Love You to Death: The Story of Mario and His Mom, which depicted his attempts to provide help for his mother with the assistance of family and friends.

    After its airing, the singer, who most recently appeared in Fox TV”s live production of Rent, launched the Mario Do Right Foundation, which provided education and support to children of addicted parents.

    “Care for You” is the second single from Mario’s 2018 album Dancing Shadows, which peaked at No. 9 on the “Billboard” 200.  He told People that in addition to addressing the more painful aspects of his childhood, the song is “really about a man realizing that it’s okay to feel, it’s okay to be vulnerable.”

    “I think a lot of times in our lives, especially men who have gone through things and who have built this warrior shield around their heart, don’t want to admit when they feel something or don’t want to admit when they love someone,” he explained.

    With the opioid epidemic affecting nearly every demographic in the United States and claiming 115 lives every day, Mario understands that support for both the addict and the people around them is crucial.

    “Addiction doesn’t just affect the user, it affects the family,” he said. “In some ways, you also feel like you’re addicted because you’re so close to it. You’re immersed into the hope of them healing and choosing a brighter path.”

    And if a fan or even casual listener is going through the same tumult that Mario experienced, he hoped that they take the steps necessary to care for themselves as much as they care for the person with dependency in their lives. “It’s really important that you take time for yourself to heal and to un-blame yourself,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Anti-Inflammatory Meds Help With Depression?

    Can Anti-Inflammatory Meds Help With Depression?

    Previous research has shown that inflammation can increase risk of depression and make antidepressants less effective. 

    Anti-inflammatory medications designed to treat conditions like arthritis can help alleviate depression symptoms, according to recent research conducted in Denmark. 

    The research looked at 36 studies conducted around the globe, covering nearly 10,000 patients who had depression. 

    “Our study shows that a combination of anti-inflammatory medicine, which is what arthritis medicine is, and antidepressants can have an additional beneficial effect on patients with a depression,” said researcher Ole Köhler-Forsberg. “The effect was also present when anti-inflammatory medicine was compared with a placebo in patients with a physical disease and depressive symptoms.”

    Köhler-Forsberg said that the findings could help improve care for people with depression, many of whom do not experience relief by using depression medications alone. 

    “This definitely bolsters our chances of being able to provide personalized treatment for individual patients in the longer term. Of course we always have to weigh the effects against the potential side-effects of the anti-inflammatory drugs,” he said. “We still need to clarify which patients will benefit from the medicine and the size of the doses they will require. The findings are interesting, but patients should consult their doctor before initiating additional treatment.”

    Previous research has shown that inflammation can increase risk of depression and make antidepressants less effective. 

    “Crosstalk between inflammatory pathways and neurocircuits in the brain can lead to behavioural responses, such as avoidance and alarm, that are likely to have provided early humans with an evolutionary advantage in their interactions with pathogens and predators,” authors of one study wrote. “However, in modern times, such interactions between inflammation and the brain appear to drive the development of depression and may contribute to non-responsiveness to current antidepressant therapies.”

    Michael Eriksen Benros, research director at the Mental Health Centre Copenhagen, said that the new study is important because it shows significant improvements for people with depression. 

    “What’s persuasive is that we’ve found that several of the anti-inflammatory drugs have what can be characterized as a medium to a large effect on depression and depressive symptoms, in particular because the results build on almost 10,000 people who have participated in the placebo-controlled studies with anti-inflammatory treatment,” he said.

    “The results from the meta-analysis are particularly promising not only because of an effect of the anti-inflammatory medicine on its own but also due to the supplementary effect when the anti-inflammatory medicine is given simultaneously with the antidepressants that are used today.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Medical Marijuana Use For Autism Approved By Colorado Governor

    Medical Marijuana Use For Autism Approved By Colorado Governor

    The monumental new law was approved on World Autism Day.

    Autism spectrum disorder has been added to the list of disabling conditions that may be treated with medical marijuana in the state of Colorado.

    High Times reported that Governor Jared Polis signed a house bill legalizing the use of medical marijuana for the treatment of autism last Tuesday (April 2); House Bill 1028 had initially passed the Centennial State’s House and Senate in 2018, but was rejected by Polis’ predecessor, John Hickenlooper, who cited a lack of support from pediatricians and certain autism groups as the root of his decision.

    A young person may become a medical marijuana patient if they are diagnosed with a disabling medical condition by two physicians.

    The bill’s passed the House unanimously on February 7.

    Parental groups who advocated for the bill say that the outcome was worth the long wait. “This passage happened for a reason,” said Michelle Walker of Mothers Advocating Medical Marijuana for Autism. “Because with 1028, we were able to ensure that individuals with autism and autistic people would have access, whereas the previous program created would have restricted access. Now, we’ve expanded access.”

    Currently, nine states including Colorado, and Puerto Rico, include autism as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana treatment. Five other states, including California and Massachusetts, as well as Washington, D.C., are regarded as “autism friendly,” because they allow doctors to use their own discretion when recommending marijuana for debilitating conditions.

    Though opinions vary as to the effectiveness of cannabis for autism, families have reported seeing positive results in their autistic children after using medical marijuana.

    Medical professionals have often cited the lack of a large clinical trial that could determine the effectiveness and safety of using marijuana to treat children with autism.

    Trials have taken place in Israel and Chile, and the first large-scale clinical trial in the United States began in 2018. Funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Defense, the trial will examine whether a cannabis-based compound called CBDV is effective in treating aspects of autism spectrum disorder. It is expected to be completed in 2021.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • How Virginia's "Habitual Drunkard" Law Criminalizes Poverty

    How Virginia's "Habitual Drunkard" Law Criminalizes Poverty

    The Legal Aid Justice Center is taking the law to federal court, questioning its constitutionality.

    Virginia law allows the state to declare that a person is legally a “habitual drunkard,” and one infraction is all it takes to earn the title.

    While it’s unknown exactly how many Virginians carry the legal title of habitual drunkard—according to the Daily Press it could be in the thousands—it is used as a punishment for the vague crime of being someone who has “shown himself to be a habitual drunkard.”

    According to the statute, simply being in close proximity to alcohol or smelling like alcohol is grounds for arrest. A conviction under the statute can come with a year in jail and possible $2,500 fine.

    The label can also be applied to someone for their first DUI conviction, although in Virginia it is more likely to be used after a second offense. The statute arose from the 1800s and exists only in Virginia and Utah, according to the Legal Aid Justice Center in Virginia. The Justice Center is taking the law to federal court, questioning its constitutionality.

    The city of Roanoke has slapped 162 people with the label of “habitual drunkard.” This far exceeds other cities and counties in Virginia, many of which do not apply the statute at all.

    The Legal Aid Justice Center believes that the statute effectively criminalizes poverty. In 2016 it filed a class action lawsuit in Roanoke federal court. The lawsuit claimants are five homeless men who had been given the label of drunkard, who accuse the state of criminalizing addiction and homelessness. A decision is pending in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

    Mary Frances Charlton, a former Legal Aid attorney, told the Daily Press, “It treats fundamentally what is a public health problem as a criminal justice problem. What these folks need is access to affordable housing and medical care—not incarceration.”

    Attorney Andy Rosenberg handles Virginia Beach’s prosecutions relating to the statute, and told the Daily Press that only 3% of the arrests relating to the law are of homeless people.

    Between 2007 and 2018, over 1,700 people were declared a habitual drunkard in Virginia. Two-thirds of those people were arrested in Virginia Beach. Enforcement of the law was originally ramped up in 2006 as the police sought a way to reduce DUIs. They began using the statute in cases of two or more DUIs.

    That year, 10% of Virginia’s DUI arrests were made in Virginia Beach, despite the fact that the city only accounted for 6% of the population at the time, according to a story published in The Virginian-Pilot.

    Regardless of the intentions, the law failed. In 2009, DUI arrests were at a record high of 2,733, compared to 1,959 in 2007.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Former Lawyer Dedicates Life To Helping Others Into Recovery

    Former Lawyer Dedicates Life To Helping Others Into Recovery

    The man was inspired to help others after a sober mentor helped him into recovery for his addiction to meth and opioids. 

    Lewis Blanche’s rock bottom wasn’t the day in 2009 when he almost blew himself up cooking meth. That time, he ended up in the hospital being treated with opioids, but quickly returned to using street drugs. It wasn’t until a year later, on March 4, 2010, that Blanche vowed to get serious about sobriety. 

    “I was living out of my car. I was riding around making meth. It was midnight, and I had to pull over at a McDonald’s because I hadn’t slept for a month,” Blanche told The Advocate. “A Baton Rouge Sheriff’s deputy saw me, and he realized what was going on, so he made me get out of my car and take my clothes off. They were scrubbing me with a brush from a fire engine because they were worried about contamination from the meth lab. All this was happening while people were coming in and getting their coffee … it was absolutely horrible … but it was also the date I got sober.”

    At that point, Blanche’s addiction to meth and opioids had taken everything he had. Despite using drugs since his teen years, Blanche went to law school and ran a successful practice for a time. 

    “I decided to open my own firm. Things went well at first, and it was easy to get clients with my dad being a lawyer,” he said. “But the pressure to be right, to run a law practice … that made me start dabbling with opioids again. This time it was Oxycontin. I was buying prescriptions from people who were selling them.”

    In 2005 he had to give up his law license when his addiction got out of control. That, he said, sent him “off to the races.”

    However, after being scrubbed down in the McDonald’s parking lot, Blanche connected with a sober mentor who was able to help him get into recovery. 

    “He picked me up and said, ‘I need two things from you: wake up every day and find someone to do something for, without expecting anything in return, and when anyone asks you to do anything here for the first year, your response needs to be OK.’ The idea of me saying OK put an end to the most corrosive element in my life: me trying to control everything.”

    After maintaining his sobriety, Blanche didn’t start practicing law again, but decided to help others get into recovery. Today he runs three sober homes and is a partner in a detox center. He says that learning to give up control and focus on recovery has changed his life. 

    “I started floating down the stream of life instead of swimming upstream – and it’s changed everything,” he said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Veep's Tony Hale Talks Anxiety

    Veep's Tony Hale Talks Anxiety

    “I don’t think people understand managing it. It’s a daily choice. It really is,” Hale said in a recent interview.

    As both Arrested Development and Veep come to an end, actor Tony Hale’s next plans include a book (and soon-to-be Netflix show) about a chicken named Archibald, with a wider message about the importance of being present. 

    “You have to be present,” Hale recently told GQ. “Everything is a big thing. Me talking to you right now: this is my big thing. It’s not somewhere else. And this whole idea of, if you’re not practicing contentment where you are, you’re not going to be content when you get what you want.”

    The idea of being present, Hale says, is a constant work in progress for him as well, as he has long struggled with anxiety. 

    “This therapist I worked with talked about how you have to wake yourself up 100 times a day to where you are,” Hale told GQ. “And in creating stories for Archibald it’s been good practice, and it’s an absolute joy.”

    Working on being present, like Archibald, is one of the strongest tools for Hale personally when it comes to managing anxiety.

    “My default is to be checked out somewhere,” he tells GQ. “My default is to be living in some reality that hasn’t even happened.”

    He has to remember that being an actor also comes into play when it comes to his anxiety, Hale says.

    “As an actor you are a very emotional being,” he said. “And because of that, you kind of give a lot of power to emotions or thoughts, and you sometimes become a victim to that. I try to be like, ‘Oh, there’s that thought. There’s that emotion.’ As if I’m watching cars on a highway.”

    Like many people who battle anxiety, Hale has also had experience with panic attacks. He discusses one instance in particular that stands out: early in his career, he was about to be on a talk show and says he had yet to feel like he belonged there. So, to manage his anxiety, he shifted his focus to someone other than himself. 

    “There were these two guys who were pulling the curtain. I just started asking them questions…and then they pulled the curtain and I went out. It might only have been a few seconds, but it saved everything.,” Hale recalled. 

    Now, Hale just focuses on the day-to-day and acknowledges that anxiety is something that has to be managed. He says he talks about it so often because of the role it plays in his life daily. 

    “I don’t think people understand managing it,” he said. “It’s a daily choice. It really is.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dwyane Wade's Mom Pays Tribute To Son For Loyalty During Addiction Battle

    Dwyane Wade's Mom Pays Tribute To Son For Loyalty During Addiction Battle

    In a commercial marking his career achievements, Wade’s mother thanks her son for never giving up on her when she was in active addiction.  

    Dwyane Wade played his final game in Brooklyn, New York on Wednesday. The NBA star, who led the Miami Heat to their first NBA Championship in franchise history, is retiring at 37.

    But behind Wade’s success is his mother Jolinda. In a new Budweiser commercial marking Wade’s retirement, she thanks Wade for the impact he’s had on her life. Jolinda, an ordained Baptist minister, came a long way from her life as a chronic drug-using, struggling mother on the south side of Chicago.

    “When you bought your mother that church, you don’t even understand the lives that you changed,” she said. “You were the joy of my life. But I was dropping the ball.”

     

    Wade gave his mother her own church in 2008, symbolizing her redemption from her past. “I respect my mother so much, from the life that she used to live and to see her today in the life that she lives. I’m so proud of her,” Wade said at the time. “Everybody thinks I’m the miraculous story in the family. I think she is. I think what I’ve done means I’ve been very blessed, but she’s been more than blessed. She’s been anointed.”

    Growing up, Wade and his siblings witnessed their mother use and sell drugs, abuse alcohol, and disappear for “long periods.”

    “We would sit on the porch some nights, hoping she would just walk around that corner,” Wade said in a past interview with Oprah Winfrey. “I kept my ear to the window, hoping I heard her voice or I’d walk myself, hoping to see her.”

    Tragil Wade, Dwyane’s older sister, helped raise her brother in their mother’s absence. She recalled fearing the worst whenever she’d hear about someone dying in nearby abandoned buildings. “I can’t even tell you what it was like,” she said in 2008 at the opening of her mother’s church. “It’s beyond words.”

    Jolinda’s addictions landed her in jails, halfway houses and foreclosed homes, according to the Washington Post. She once nearly died from shooting up an unknown substance.

    In 1994, she was arrested for possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell. She recalled the flurry of emotions she felt when her son came to visit her in jail. “I seen the look on his face, like ‘Why is my Momma behind there? What’s going on?’ He did not understand why I was behind that glass, and I was so mad.”

    Jolinda continued on this path until 2001, when she finally had a change of heart during a church service with her daughter Tragil. At the time, she was on the run after vacating her jail sentence during a work-release program. Wade was a sophomore playing basketball at Marquette University. Jolinda turned herself in, and was released after serving nine months in prison.

    While she was in prison, she became a devout Christian and dreamed of being a pastor.

    In the commercial, Jolinda thanks her son for never giving up on her.

    “That day that I just couldn’t do it no more was the day that I was going to have to turn myself in. And I seen the tears just fall from your eyes. Your momma went down a road, Dwyane, that I didn’t ever think I’d come back from. But on that road, I noticed you kept showing up. And you’d come and see about me. And because you believed in me, when I got out of prison I was a different woman.”

    In his interview with Oprah, Wade expressed the respect that he had for his mother, no matter what she was going through. “I never gave up on her. Never blamed her. Because that was her life, her journey, her path. Without that path, I’m not who I am today.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The Opioid Epidemic Is A "Very American Crisis"

    The Opioid Epidemic Is A "Very American Crisis"

    One of the hosts of the NPR podcast Throughline, broke down America’s history with opioids and how it evolved into the crisis it has become. 

    Opioid use disorder has its roots in the powerful biological processes that opioids tap into, but there are also cultural factors that make Americans particularly susceptible to opioid addiction, both now and in the past, according to one journalist. 

    “Our culture has gotten so good at marketing and that marriage of capitalism and marketing and medicine has been perfected here in America, for good or bad,” Ramtin Arablouei, one of the hosts of the NPR podcast Throughline, told Rolling Stone. “That has made it a very American crisis.”

    Arablouei and his cohost, Rund Abdelfatah, followed American’s use of opioids starting with morphine in the 1800s. 

    “There was a recurring question of whose pain is taken as ‘real pain’ and how do we address it?” Abdelfatah said. “There was definitely a gender bias in the 19th Century around treating pain; there was a racial bias, and a lot of these biases remain in different forms today.”

    Morphine was prescribed to Civil War soldiers, and later used to treat ailments ranging from cramps to cough. 

    “When the war ended, not only do you have a lot of soldiers addicted, but you have this new drug introduced into American life,” Abdelfatah said, pointing out that doctors often prescribed morphine to women, who were thought to be weaker and thus have a lower pain tolerance. 

    When doctors began to realize that morphine was addictive, they turned to heroin as a “safer” alternative. It was even advertised as a medication that was safe for children, Arablouei said.

    “It’s fascinating how in-your-face it is, and it shows the evolving attitude we and the advertising community have had toward opiates in our culture,” he said.

    When heroin was criminalized in 1924, opioids became a law enforcement issue, particularly in communities of color. This reflects the way that racist policies have affected the war on drugs in modern America. 

    “There tends to be a more aggressive response to drug epidemics—as in, more criminalization—when it happens in communities that are urban, black or brown. That tends to be the historical pattern,” said Arablouei.

    “You see that play out with heroin, when the problem plays out underground. And you can see that today: a lot of attention is paid to the opioid crisis, and there’s a lot more empathy from politicians than you saw from them toward, say, the heroin epidemic [in urban communities], or the crack epidemic in the Nineties.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Alcohol Affect Your Brain Even After You Become Sober?

    Can Alcohol Affect Your Brain Even After You Become Sober?

    Researchers set out to discover if prior heavy alcohol use continued to affect the brain’s white matter in sobriety.

    Brain damage caused by excessive alcohol use continues for at least six weeks after someone stops drinking, a new study has found. This reverses previous thinking that the brain-changing effects of alcohol stop as soon as a person sobers up. 

    “Until now, nobody could believe that in the absence of alcohol, the damage in the brain would progress,” Dr. Santiago Canals, co-author of the study, told Medical News Today. 

    The study, published in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, examined the brains of 91 men with alcohol use disorder and 36 men without alcohol use disorder, who were used as a control group. The drinkers were hospitalized and in a detox program so that their alcohol intake could be carefully monitored. 

    “An important aspect of the work is that the group of patients participating in our research [is] hospitalized in a detoxification program, and their consumption of addictive substances is controlled, which guarantees that they are not drinking any alcohol. Therefore, the abstinence phase can be followed closely,” Canals said. 

    The researchers found that changes to the brain’s white matter—which affects communication between different regions of he brain—continued even after the participants got sober. 

    “[T]here is a generalized change in the white matter, that is, in the set of fibers that communicate [with] different parts of the brain. The alterations are more intense in the corpus callosum and the fimbria,” Canals explained. 

    He went on, “The corpus callosum is related to the communication between both hemispheres. The fimbria contains the nerve fibers that [enable the communication between] the hippocampus, a fundamental structure for the formation of memories, the nucleus accumbens, and the prefrontal cortex.”

    These areas of the brain control reward-seeking, decision making, and understanding of socially-acceptable behavior. 

    In addition to monitoring humans, the research team looked at how rats’ brains changed in early abstinence. The team was able “to monitor the transition from normal to alcohol dependence in the brain, a process that is not possible to see in humans,” said Silvia De Santis, lead study author. The animal research confirmed what researchers say in humans. 

    Researchers are beginning to understand how excessive drinking can have long-term effects on the brain.

    Another study published recently found that alcohol use by teens was linked to smaller brain volume, something that can have effects on cognition. This may also be associated with heavier drinking in adulthood. 

    “Thus, developmental brain volume changes in the span of late adolescence to young adulthood in macaques is altered by excessive alcohol, an insult (the cause of some kind of physical or mental injury) that may be linked to the continuation of heavy drinking throughout later adult life,” study authors wrote. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Rejected Depression Drug Could Provide Relief For Opioid Withdrawal

    Rejected Depression Drug Could Provide Relief For Opioid Withdrawal

    A rejected depression drug is being reexamined as a potential non-addictive treatment for opioid withdrawal symptoms. 

    A drug that was developed to treat depression but was ultimately shown in clinical trials to be ineffective could have a new purpose: helping people overcome withdrawal symptoms when they stop using opioids. 

    The drug, rapastinel, binds to the same receptors as ketamine, NMDA receptors, and was being explored as a treatment for depression, similar to the newly-approved esketamine. However, in March, clinical trials showed that rapastinel was not effective in alleviating depression symptoms. 

    Yet, researchers found that in rats, rapastinel provided relief from opioid withdrawal symptoms, according to a press release. The findings were presented at the 2019 Experimental Biology Meeting of the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics, held April 6-9 in Orlando. 

    Researchers Julia Ferrante, an undergraduate at Villanova University, and Cynthia M. Kuhn, a professor of pharmacology and cancer biology at Duke University, say that rapastinel could serve as a non-addictive medication to treat opioid withdrawal symptoms. 

    “We have found that rapastinel has potential as a new treatment for opioid dependence, as it is effective in reducing withdrawal signs and has not been shown to produce any negative side effects,” Ferrante said. “By reducing withdrawal symptoms, the patient feels less discomfort during treatment, and we hypothesize this would lead to a decreased risk of relapse.”

    Currently, buprenorphine and methadone are used to manage symptoms of opioid withdrawal, but since both are opioids they are problematic for people with opioid use disorder. Ketamine has been explored as a possible way to manage withdrawal symptoms, but it also has the possibility for abuse, and can cause hallucinations that are particularly problematic for people with underlying mental health issues. 

    During the research, rats with opioid dependence were given saline, ketamine, or rapastinel. Those given rapastinel showed the fewest withdrawal symptoms. With that data in mind, Ferrante said that in humans rapastinel could potentially be delivered intravenously in an outpatient setting, in order to help people through the painful opioid withdrawal process. 

    “Our research suggests that new alternatives to standard treatments for opioid dependence have potential to be safer and more effective,” Ferrante said. 

    Unfortunately, that goal may be a long way off, since additional research is needed before rapastinel could even begin human trials. 

    “Rapastinel research for opioid dependency is currently only being done in rodents, but if the drug continues to have successful trials, it may enter clinical trials for use in humans,” Ferrante said. 

    View the original article at thefix.com