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  • Lawsuits Aim To Benefit Kids Born Dependent On Opioids

    Lawsuits Aim To Benefit Kids Born Dependent On Opioids

    One West Virginia law firm is reviewing up to 200 cases of children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). 

    Last year, dozens of lawsuits were filed against pharmaceutical manufacturers and distributors for the role they play in the opioid crisis.

    Many were filed by states and cities in an attempt to recoup the costs they’ve shouldered as the result of what they say were irresponsible prescribing and misleading marketing of opioid pain pills. 

    Now, a movement is at hand to try to recoup damages for the hundreds of infants born dependent on opioids, many of whom will have life-long health affects. 

    “I really think that we lose the real human toll that the opioid crisis has taken if we’re not bringing cases on behalf of actual human beings who were victimized by the flood of pills that were pumped in here,” Booth Goodwin, an attorney in Charleston, West Virginia, told The Charleston Gazette-Mail.

    Goodwin’s firm, Goodwin & Goodwin LLP, is reviewing up to 200 cases of children born with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS). 

    Goodwin has already lodged a lawsuit on behalf of Andriana Riling, an 11-year-old from West Virginia who has NAS and is being raised by her grandparents.

    “Her case is just kind of typical for what you hear from throughout Southern West Virginia,” Goodwin said. “She lost her father even before she was born in a drug-related car accident. Her birth mother is hopelessly addicted to pills and opioids in general.”

    The lawsuit alleges that Purdue Pharma, Endo Health Solutions and Pharmaceuticals, McKesson Corp., Cardinal Health, AmerisourceBergen and Mallinckrodt all bear responsibility for Riling’s condition for their role in making and distributing the opioids that Riling’s mother took during her pregnancy. 

    Although most of the lawsuits against the opioid manufacturers and distributors have been lumped together under the jurisdiction of a federal judge in Cleveland, Ohio, Goodwin argues that cases involving children with NAS should remain separate so that the unique details of each case can be shown, rather than lumping them together in a class action suit. 

    “Each one of them is affected a little bit different,” he said. “And we want to make sure that we focus on each one of these individual children.”

    He said that the individual cases will focus more on the specific ways these children have been affected by the practices of the companies that are named as defendants. The federal case in Ohio will focus more on the overarching — and perhaps illegal — practices that companies had in place. Because of that, Goodwin’s firm filed a motion to keep Riling’s case from being combined with the Cleveland cases. 

    “The complaint contains very specific allegations, unique to this case, with respect to prescribing doctors and pharmacies,” attorneys wrote when they requested that the case be heard separately. “Although there are generalized facts at issue in both [the Cleveland cases] and the Rilings’ case regarding the reprehensible conduct of the defendants, this overlap is minor.”

    They continued, “[The Cleveland cases] potentially involve comparative fault on the part of the plaintiffs, while Riling, a child born opioid dependent, is an innocent victim who is inherently and completely blameless.”

    While Goodwin waits to hear whether the case will be heard on its own, his law firm is continuing to look for children with NAS, which affected up to 5% of births in West Virginia during the peak years of the opioid epidemic. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Pot Legalization A Priority for 2019, Gov. Cuomo Says

    Pot Legalization A Priority for 2019, Gov. Cuomo Says

    Cuomo has positioned legalization as a key factor in “the most progressive agenda this state has ever seen, period.”

    The state of New York inched closer to major marijuana legalization and reform when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that recreational marijuana should be legalized “once and for all” in early 2019.

    Speaking on December 17, 2018 and again in his inaugural address on January 1, 2019, Cuomo included legalization, as well as an end to “needless and unjust criminal convictions” for possession, as part of his administration’s agenda for the first 100 days of the new year. 

    Cuomo’s latest push for legalization comes at a time when support is reaching large and diverse numbers: Half of metro-area New York residents and the New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, have expressed support for such a measure. The decision has far-ranging implications for the state – as WABC in New York noted, City Comptroller Scott Stringer estimated that the state stands to reap approximately $1.3 million in annual tax revenue from legalization.

    For his part, Cuomo has positioned legalization as a key factor in “the most progressive agenda this state has ever seen, period,” and one that includes justice reform, gun control, affordable health care and increased spending on the state’s infrastructure, and which can be viewed as rebuke of the Trump administration. 

    “When they write the history books and ask what did we do – in the face of anger and division, when people were disillusioned, let New York’s answer be that in this defining moment we brought healing and light and hope and progress and action,” said Cuomo in prepared remarks during his inaugural speech. “That New York led on legalizing recreational marijuana, bringing justice and new economic opportunity, not for rich corporations, but for the poor communities that paid too high a price for too long.”

    District Attorney Gonzalez’s actions in Brooklyn echoed Cuomo’s message of progressive reform by asking for the removal of 28 past convictions for misdemeanor possession charges. The court also vacated 1,400 open warrants for individuals who missed court appearances for marijuana possession charges. 

    “I do not believe these cases keep us safer,” Gonzalez said. “They cause a lot of distrust in our justice system. We all here know there is a tremendous racial disparity in respect to how these cases have been enforced in the past.”

    Gonzalez added that the decision to clear the convictions does not indicate a blanket response to all such past charges but instead reflects the growing legal attitude towards such cases. “It’s a little unfair to say we’re no longer prosecuting these cases, but to have these folks carry these convictions for the rest of their lives [would be unfair],” said Gonzalez. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Firefighters Open Treatment Center For Their Own

    Firefighters Open Treatment Center For Their Own

    The center provides beds for 60 firefighters to get treatment for substance use disorder, mental illness or other behavioral health conditions.

    The opioid epidemic has touched people from all walks of life, including first responders, who often find it hard to reach out for help in a work culture that involves putting others first and brushing vulnerabilities aside. That’s why a new treatment center has opened, aimed specifically at helping firefighters who need support with addiction and mental health issues. 

    The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) opened the Center of Excellence for Behavioral Health Treatment and Recovery last year just outside Washington, DC. It is set up similarly to a firehouse and provides beds for 60 firefighters to get treatment for substance use disorder, mental illness or other behavioral health conditions, whether they are associated with work or not. 

    “It’s really a state-of-the-art facility for our membership,” Ray Maione, a captain in the Phoenix Fire Department and vice president of member services for the United Phoenix Firefighters, Local 493, told Arizona Family. “To see it come to fruition is really pretty impressive; a lot of work went into this.”

    Maione said that the services are much needed for firefighters who are hesitant to seek help. 

    “We’re problem solvers, I mean we run into burning buildings when they’re on fire, so people think, and we think, we’re invincible,” he said. “And sometimes it just builds up. . . . When a firefighter reaches out I know they’ve already exhausted every option they have and they’re in crisis.”

    On-the-job injuries can expose firefighters to potent painkillers, and traumatic events can erode firefighters’ mental health, he said. 

    “We started to notice a big increase in suicides, a big increase in opioid addiction,” Maione said.

    Tyler Ramsey, a firefighter, first started using opioids for a back injury but noticed with time that he was becoming dependent on the pills. 

    “You get a prescription for an opiate or a pain medication, and at the start it’s need-based,” said Ramsey. “. . . Once it gets a hold of you, you use that as a crutch.”

    He told himself that because a doctor prescribed the pills they weren’t dangerous. 

    “I guess it gives you a false sense of security, almost, that it’s prescribed by a medical professional,” Ramsey said. “But being a fireman, I thought, ‘Oh I can control this. I don’t need to ask for help. I can manage this.’”

    However, when thoughts of opioids began taking over his day-to-day life, he realized he had a substance use problem. 

    “It’s the last thing you think about before you close your eyes at night and the first thing when you open your eyes in the morning, which is a pretty terrible place to be,” he said. When Ramsey reached out to colleagues, they got him into rehab that day, and they help him stay sober. 

    “I’m happy, upright, breathing and living a normal life again,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been afforded a second chance.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • The High Financial Cost Of Addiction & Recovery

    The High Financial Cost Of Addiction & Recovery

    A new survey highlights the financial hardships that people with addiction face.

    Addiction and recovery come with huge emotional costs, for the person with substance use disorder and for their family members. Yet, there is also a very real financial cost to both active addiction and recovery — one that can affect family members and people with substance use disorder in the short and long term.

    According to a recent survey by True Link Financial, 82% of family members said their loved one’s finances have been affected by their addiction. People who are addicted need a constant stream of cash to fund their drug purchases.

    Survey respondents also said their loved ones had made irresponsible financial decisions to fund their addiction: 48% said their family member had used savings or retirement money to purchase drugs; 42% had family members who sold assets to fund their addiction; and 11% had family members who had declared bankruptcy in part because of their addiction.

    However, the challenge doesn’t stop when people get sober.

    “Treatment is extraordinarily expensive, and it often takes a couple of tries,” Kai Stinchcombe, True Link’s co-founder and CEO, told Forbes.

    Eighty percent of respondents said that getting on track financially is one of the biggest challenges of recovery for their family members.

    “Being able to make typical day-to-day purchases, like putting gas in your car to get to work, or taking a new friend out for coffee, is critical,” Stinchcombe said. “Having no safe, dignified way to pay for basic items makes it harder to build yourself a new life. Recovery is not just tough physically, mentally, and spiritually. There are financial barriers in place that make it harder to build yourself a new life.”

    True Link is known for making debit cards that have limitations, like only working at certain locations, helping family members guide purchases for adults. Although it’s usually used for adults with disabilities, Stinchcombe said that the cards can be a tool for people in recovery.

    Eric Dresdale, who is in recovery, said he was used to borrowing money when he was addicted, but when he got sober and had access to more money, he began spending recklessly.

    “I realized I could take out money and in about a week I spent $500 on silly things to fill an emotional void,” he said, adding that he was about $7,000 in debt by the time he left a half-way house program. After regaining control of his own finances, Dresdale went on to help develop a prepaid debit card for people with substance use disorder and mental illnesses. He says that cards like this can help family members provide support, without enabling.

    “I’ve worked with families and there’s a fine line between helping and hurting,” he said. “You might think you are saving or protecting someone by giving financial support, but you could be making the problem worse. I believe in providing financial help with boundaries.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Parents Of Opioid Epidemic Named Citizens Of The Year

    Parents Of Opioid Epidemic Named Citizens Of The Year

    A New Hampshire paper has named the “parents of the addiction crisis” as the citizens of the year for 2018.

    In New Hampshire last year, 437 people died of drug overdoses, a significant number in the small state. Many of them were young adults who left behind parents who were unable to save them, despite their best intentions.

    Now, a New Hampshire paper has named the “parents of the addiction crisis” as the citizens of the year for 2018.

    “The selection honors parents who have lost children to overdoses — and others whose loved ones have found recovery — but who are striving to help other families find hope and healing,” Shawne K. Wickham wrote in a piece for The New Hampshire Union Leader explaining the selection. “Most do that work quietly, out of public view. They run support groups and volunteer at recovery centers. They raise their grandchildren, postponing retirement in favor of parenting a second time around. Others have shared their stories publicly, reaching out in hopes of sparing other families their grief.”

    After Susan Messinger’s son died of a fentanyl overdose in 2014, Messinger and her husband John (who passed away suddenly last fall) threw themselves into advocacy and awareness in hopes that other parents would never need to experience a loss like theirs.

    “It may look like we’re OK; you see us in the grocery store, Walmart, wherever. We’re there, we’re putting one foot in front of the other; we may have a smile on our face that day or we may look sad,” Messinger said. “But our heart is broken inside and it’s never, ever, ever going to be together again.”

    Jim and Anne Marie Zanfagna lost their daughter to an opioid overdose in the fall. Anne Marie has since painted 180 pictures of people who have died from drug overdoses.

    She calls the series “Angels of Addictions.” It has now been displayed around the state and led the Zanfagnas to found a nonprofit by the same name to raise awareness and cut stigma. They want to encourage other people to be open about addiction. 

    “Speak about this,” said Jim Zanfagna. “Let people know what’s going on. Maybe we can save some lives.”

    Charles “Chucky” Rosa has been speaking out since his two sons died of drug overdoses more than 10 years ago. Recently he has seen more and more parents doing the same. 

    “I used to be the only member of the club that nobody wants to be part of,” he said. “Now there’s so many people that have lost children.”

    Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) said that New Hampshire parents have shown resiliency in the face of crisis.

    “So many families have courageously shared their experience of losing a loved one, which has been instrumental in destigmatizing substance use disorders and raising awareness of the magnitude of this crisis,” she said. “I deeply appreciate their advocacy and will continue to work with them to end this scourge on our state and our country.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Actress Lily Collins Details Bulimia Battle In New Memoir

    Actress Lily Collins Details Bulimia Battle In New Memoir

    Collins reveals in her new autobiography how divorce played in a role in her eating disorder.

    British actress Lily Collins has published a new memoir in which she addresses a long and debilitating struggle with an eating disorder during her teenaged years.

    Collins, who is the daughter of rock veteran Phil Collins and the star of such films as Mirror Mirror, wrote in Unfiltered: No Shame, No Regrets, Just Me that her desire to control her weight began with an addiction to exercise and laxatives and progressed to bingeing and purging.

    Collins also addressed her father’s alcoholism, which took hold as she was battling her eating disorder. Support from their family members helped both Lily and her father gain perspective on their respective diseases and as a result, grow closer. “It doesn’t define how I live my life daily any more,” she said.

    By Collins’ account, her childhood was marked by upheaval: Her father split from her mother, Jill Tavelman, in a costly divorce when she was five, and married his third wife, Orianne Cevey. Collins said that she “couldn’t handle the pain and confusion surrounding [her] dad’s divorce” and longed for his presence and approval. His absence left Collins feeling that she “wasn’t enough,” and she plunged into a punishing regime of extreme exercise and diet moderation through chewing gum and drinking coffee.

    By her mid-teens, Collins had turned to diet pills and laxatives to keep her weight down, and she began bingeing and purging on junk food. “I’d be in tears on the floor, jamming my hand down my throat and trying desperately to gag,” she wrote. Her menstrual cycle stopped for a period of two years, leaving her feeling like “a young woman in a little kid’s body.”

    As Collins continued to battle her disease into her early 20s, she saw that her father had spiraled into alcoholism, a condition he also fought for years. “Once I was aware, it was all I could see,” she wrote. “I was convinced that one day, I would wake up to a phone call from halfway across the world, saying that it had finally gone too far.”

    During this period, Lily also found herself in a revolving door of relationships with men consumed by their own dependency issues. The toxicity of these interactions reached its lowest point when a boyfriend pressured her to isolate herself from her friends and family and even threatened her with verbal and physical violence. That incident provided Collins with the impetus to make crucial changes to not only improve her health but also her relationship with her father, who also took control of his life and dependencies.

    With her newfound health and happiness also came stardom as an actress in such films as The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and an upcoming BBC television adaptation of Les Miserables; Collins also tackled the issue of eating disorders head-on in the 2017 Netflix film To the Bone, in which she played a young woman struggling with anorexia. 

    Collins is keenly aware of her past struggles but also acknowledges how far she’s come since that time. “It’s never going to be erased because it’s a part of who you are,” she said. “But it doesn’t define how I live my life daily any more.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Program Gives Colombian Farmers An Alternative to Cocaine Crops

    Program Gives Colombian Farmers An Alternative to Cocaine Crops

    A former government official has spent seven years helping the farmers of the coastal town of Chocó – where he grew up – transition their efforts from cocaine to cacao.

    A new feature on NPR profiles Joel Palacios, a former member of Colombia’s Ministry of the Interior who is working with  farmers in his country to replace their financial dependence on growing coca – a primary ingredient in the manufacture of cocaine – with a safer, legal alternative: cacao, which is used to make chocolate.

    Palacios has spent seven years helping the farmers of the coastal town of Chocó – where he grew up – transition their efforts to cacao, and pays them for their efforts through sales of chocolate from his artisanal chocolate company, Late Chocó.

    But, as NPR noted, Palacios’ efforts face steep competition from cocaine production, which increased significantly in 2017, and lack of government support for farmers who give up their coca crops.

    Palacios grew up in the region of Chocó, which is comprised predominately of Afro-Colombians; more than half live below the poverty line, which makes the cultivation of coca difficult to turn down for basic sustenance.

    After his tenure with the government, he returned to the region in 2010 to implement the cacao-for-coca project – or as Palacios described it, “Mas cacao, menos coca” (more cacao, less coca) – and in the past seven years, has persuaded enough Chocó farmers to grow cacao for his chocolate company. As the NPR feature detailed, his campaign faced a host of challenges during that period.

    The region is extremely poor and remote, with no roads and virtually no cellphone reception. Palacios said that his operation also lacked practical know-how about managing and harvesting cacao crops. “We didn’t have technical knowledge – how to manage the harvest, how to make it more productive or how to control diseases,” he said. “We’d only collected what nature, in its generosity, would leave for us.” 

    With the help of the National Cacao Producers Federation and cacao growers in the western region of the country, Palacios learned about cultivation and purchased a plot of land outside of the area’s capital, Quibdó. There, he established a training center for local farmers and, more recently, Late Chocó, which uses nearly 1,000 pounds of cacao per month to make its chocolate bars. The profits from sales of its bars are used to fund the training center and pay farmers a better rate per pound for their crops.

    Despite these efforts, Palacios still faces an uphill battle in converting coca crops to cacao.

    As the NPR piece explained, farmers in the region felt abandoned by a similar federal program, which was established as part of a 2016 peace treaty between the Colombian government and FARC, a revolutionary group that controlled much of the country’s cocaine industry. More than 83,000 families joined the program, but lack of support by current president Iván Duque has left available funding limited.

    Farmers like Francisco Ramírez want to participate in the program.

    “We don’t want to grow more coca,” he said. But the government and outside organizations needed to give them a replacement crop, and aside from efforts like the one established by Palacios, that has yet to happen.

    Support from the sales of Late Chocó has made a small but significant impact in filling that gap, one that Palacios hopes to keep active. “Projects in Chocó fail because the [nongovernmental organizations] go and donate money and leave. I went and got them in this cacao project – it’s all of our project.”  

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • New Year's Baby Highlights Mom’s Sober Year

    New Year's Baby Highlights Mom’s Sober Year

    The mother of the child, who is in early recovery, said that her daughter’s birth was the final step in what had been “a life-changing year.”

    Babies born on January 1 are always heralded as symbols of new beginnings, but one New Year’s baby’s arrival was especially powerful, signifying the year that her mom got sober. 

    Ayla Rodriguez, the first baby born in Portage County, Ohio, arrived on Jan. 1 at 12:56AM to Nicole Mansell, according to The Record-Courier.

    Mansell had gone to the hospital because she thought she had the flu, and was surprised when her daughter arrived four weeks early. She said that her daughter’s birth was the final step in what had been “a life-changing year.”

    The mother found out that she was pregnant earlier in 2018, when she was in jail. She said that learning she was expecting prompted her to take her sobriety seriously, although she already had plans to stop using drugs. 

    “The way I looked at it, she was inside me, and I wasn’t going to destroy her,” Mansell told The Record Courier. “Finding out that I was pregnant with her helped me stay on the right track.”

    It was a meaningful challenge in a state that has been hard-hit by the opioid epidemic, although Mansell didn’t elaborate on the specifics of her history of substance abuse. She completed one rehab program after learning about her pregnancy and is now in an after-care program.

    Although she had the option to participate in the county’s drug-court program, she chose not to, saying that the program’s requirements were too much to handle during her pregnancy. Instead, she is on probation from the charges that had her in jail early in the year. 

    Mansell had been getting extra care during her pregnancy in order to prevent pre-term labor, although she didn’t say if the complication stemmed from her drug abuse. On New Year’s Day, she was ready to start 2019 with her new daughter, in recovery, hoping that the newborn’s quiet streak would continue.  

    “Seriously, she doesn’t cry,” she told the Courier.

    Ayla was born weighing 5 pounds, 1 ounce, and was 18 and three quarters inches long. She was too small to fit in special New Year’s garb that a nurse at the hospital had prepared for the first baby of the year. 

    Mansell has another daughter, Ariana, who is 11. She says that Ariana was a small baby and was born early, just like Ayla. Ayla’s father, Joe Rodriguez, has three other children: brothers Cayden, Kilynn and Carson Rodriguez, ages 6, 5 and 2.

    “I’ve made it known that my children are going to know this child,” Rodriguez said. “She’s their sister.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demi Lovato's Sober New Year's Celebration

    Demi Lovato's Sober New Year's Celebration

    The “Sober” singer took to Instagram to share her celebration with fans. 

    For Demi Lovato, 2018 was a rough year but she made it through and is now sober.

    After singing about relapse and suffering a nearly-fatal overdose in July the singer spent 90 days in rehab, getting out just in time to spend the holidays sober. Despite the ups and downs of the year, the singer took to Instagram to say that she’s looking at 2018 in a positive light. 

    “So grateful for the lessons I’ve learned this year,” Lovato wrote on her Instagram story on New Year’s Eve, according to USA Today. “I will never take another day in life for granted, even the bad ones.”

    Later in the evening, she posted a picture of herself ringing in 2019 with a virgin drink: Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider. Beneath the photo she put the caption #sober. 

    Lovato, who has expressed gratitude for her supportive fans throughout the year, once again thanked everyone who has been by her side through her relapse and recovery. 

    “Thankful for my fans, friends, family and everyone who supported me through this year,” she wrote. “God bless.”

    Lovato stayed away from social media during the time she was in rehab, but during the past month she has again been posting. Before Christmas she expressed frustration with the endless news cycle around her recovery.  

    “People will literally make up stuff to sell a story,” she wrote on Twitter. “Sickening. If I feel like the world needs to know something, I will tell them MYSELF. Otherwise people stop writing about my recovery, because it’s no one’s business but mine.”

    Lovato said that despite the fact that she is famous, she needs space to work through her relapse and recovery on her own. 

    “I still need space and time to heal… someday I’ll tell the world what exactly happened, why it happened and what my life is like today.. but until I’m ready to share that with people please stop prying and making up shit that you know nothing about,” she wrote. “I am sober and grateful to be alive and taking care of ME…All my fans need to know is I’m working hard on myself, I’m happy and clean and I’m SO grateful for their support.”

    Lovato has been very open about her addiction and mental health issues in the past, and in July she promised she would share again in the future — once she knew her health was secure. 

    “I have always been transparent about my journey with addiction,” she wrote. “What I’ve learned is that this illness is not something that disappears or fades with time. It is something I must continue to overcome and have not done yet.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Bam Margera Enters Rehab For The Third Time

    Bam Margera Enters Rehab For The Third Time

    Margaret’s last went to rehab in early 2018 after a DUI arrest in California.

    Former Jackass star Bam Margera is going to rehab for alcoholism again, just as he did this time last year after being arrested for a DUI. 

    “Off to alcohol rehab for the 3rd time. I am hoping the term 3rd time is a charm is true,” Margera wrote on his Instagram account on Tuesday (Jan. 1).

    Last year, Margera also went to rehab in January after he was arrested for DUI in California. He received three months of probation for the charge. In August, Margera explained what happened when he was arrested. 

    “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 said. “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.”

    After completing rehab Margera was reportedly sober for seven months until he was robbed in a taxi in Colombia. Margera recounted the incident in a video. 

    “I just arrived in Cartagena alone and I took a taxi, a random one, from the airport to here and I wouldn’t speak Spanish, they couldn’t speak English, and they translated on their phone to read ‘empty your wallet’ as they put a gun on their lap to show it to me. So I did and I had 500 bucks. They let me go. Welcome to Colombia.”

    At the end he’s seen cracking a beer. However, former colleague Steve-O said that he’s skeptical that Margera was sober until the robbery. 

    “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 said. “The signs were there. I think if you’re a sober alcoholic that you kind of can tell.”

    Steve-O said there were signs that Margera wasn’t committed to a sober lifestyle. 

    “When people are on the path, sort of doing the things that sober people do, it’s evident,” he said. “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.”

    View the original article at thefix.com