Tag: News

Michael Douglas Discusses Addiction With Marc Maron

“I got sober. I was in rehab in 1991. Probably more alcohol but drugs were a part of it.”

Academy Award-winning actor Michael Douglas is no stranger to substance use disorder. The Basic Instinct star has been to rehab, his son has battled heroin addiction and he also lost a brother to an overdose.

Yet in a recent interview on the WTF with Marc Maron podcast, Douglas admitted that he’s currently “not really” sober.

“I got sober. I was in rehab in 1991. Probably more alcohol but drugs were a part of it,” he explained, according to Radar Online.

The 74-year-old actor says that today, “Everything is a question of moderation and all of that but just not the way you wake up in the morning anymore (wanting more). You have to be careful of the fact that… I have had addiction issues in my family. I have lost a brother, Eric.” (In an interview with the Daily Mail, Douglas said, “I drink in moderation, I don’t get drunk, I monitor myself pretty well.”)

Douglas then spoke about his son Cameron, who was addicted to heroin and served time in prison for selling meth and heroin possession in 2009. While he was incarcerated, four-and-a-half years were added to his sentence when he was caught smuggling in drugs for his “personal use.”

“He is fine,” Douglas says. “He is doing really well. But I think you learn about genetics amongst other things that you have to be careful.”

When Douglas went to rehab in the early ’90s, he also reportedly went in for sex addiction.

In 2015, he told the Daily Mail, “I had an alcohol issue—I’d just lost my stepfather and it was a good rehab session; it certainly helped me find out a couple of things. Basic Instinct had just come out and I don’t remember who the clever editor was in London, but they came up with ‘sex addiction.’ It became a new disease. No one had heard of that up until then, but it’s stuck with me ever since. And it still pops up now and again.”

With his son Cameron’s incarceration, Douglas realized that he followed the same path as an absentee father, much like when his own father Kirk wasn’t there for him when he was growing up.

He told Today in 2010, “I’ve taken blame about being a bad father—if being a bad father is working your butt off trying to create a career at one time.” Douglas said that Cameron’s mother, Diandra Luker, had alcoholism in her family as well.

“Then you finally end up with who you choose to hang out with,” Douglas continued. “In Cameron’s position, he took a lot of lowlifes and he was a very attractive target to hang out with, and I don’t think that helped, either… I’m willing to take the hit.”

View the original article at thefix.com

22 November 2018
Is New York City Handing Out Harsher Penalties For THC Oil Possession?

A new report reveals a major contradiction in the city’s ongoing efforts to reform marijuana enforcement.

Getting caught with a cartridge of THC oil can land you in jail in New York City—despite city officials’ promise to decriminalize marijuana offenses.

A new report by The Appeal highlights the disparity in the city’s enforcement of possession of THC oil versus marijuana in its raw form.

“Cannabis oil possession carries a harsher charge than regular marijuana possession,” The Appeal reports.

“Because the oil is classified as a controlled substance, the charge is a Class A misdemeanor, the same class used for low-level heroin and crack possession. Those convicted of the charge can be sentenced to up to a year in jail.”

The fact that police officers are still treating THC oil possession as a criminal misdemeanor contradicts the city’s ongoing efforts to reform marijuana enforcement.

On Sept. 1st, the city enacted a new policy to ticket instead of arrest people for public marijuana smoking. Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that the new policy would reduce marijuana possession arrests by 10,000. Each year, about 17,500 people are arrested in New York City for marijuana possession.

Neither the mayor’s office nor the NYPD agreed to comment on its policy regarding THC oil.

“The DA’s office has prosecuted at least 22 THC or cannabis oil cases since Sept. 1, according to public defenders in Brooklyn… In 13 of those cases, people were charged with possessing cannabis oil alone, without any other misdemeanor or felony charges,” The Appeal reports.

Oren Yaniv, a spokesperson for the Brooklyn district attorney’s office, says the DA is working to reduce marijuana convictions.

“New York law categorizes THC oil not as marijuana, but as a controlled substance… However, recognizing that THC is the active ingredient in marijuana, we believe that the two forms of marijuana should be treated similarly,” said Yaniv.

Meanwhile, NY Governor Andrew Cuomo is working on the bigger picture. The state is currently exploring legalizing marijuana for adult use. New York already has a medical marijuana program. However, home cultivation, smokable medical marijuana, and edible products are not allowed under the program.

This month, during a recent appearance in Buffalo, Governor Cuomo said that marijuana legalization legislation is in the works.

“We now have a working group that is putting together a piece of legislation that would do it, because the devil is in the details: How do you do it, where do you do it, what are the ages, etc.? What is New Jersey doing? What has Massachusetts done? So that legislation is being crafted. I expect it to be introduced next year. The when and the how, we’re not clear,” Cuomo said.

View the original article at thefix.com

22 November 2018
The High Cost Of Alcohol Misuse In The US

A USA Today editorial explores how the US can save lives and money by reducing alcohol consumption.

Public health campaigns reduced cigarette smoking in the United States by more than half since 1964, according to the CDC. Can the same be done with alcohol?

A new report in USA Today reminds us that drinking alcohol—while it is socially acceptable and promoted widely—is no benign matter.

Alcohol is attributed to approximately 88,000 deaths every year in the U.S. About half of alcohol-related deaths involve binge drinking. According to a 2015 national survey, 15.1 million American adults were reported as having alcohol use disorder, with just about 6.7% of them receiving treatment for it.

“It’s just so socially acceptable, especially among the people who write the laws. It’s the drug of choice and incredibly normalized for upper income people in the USA,” says David Jernigan, a professor at Boston University School of Public Health.

In 2010, the public health cost of alcohol misuse in the U.S. was $249 billion—most of it involved binge drinking.

Alcohol-related deaths are reportedly on the rise. So what can be done about it?

USA Today explores several approaches to reducing alcohol consumption, and thus its public health costs:

Raising taxes

“Alcohol taxes are a win, win, win. States get more money and people drink somewhat less,” says Jernigan. According to the CDC, a 10% increase in taxes leads to a 5-8% decline in drinking. But critics of this policy say that state coffers will suffer while drinking levels remain the same. They claim that instead of giving up booze, people will opt to travel to other states where taxes aren’t as high.

Restricting sales

Municipal governments have the option of limiting the number of liquor stores per region, and the days and hours of operation. With fewer liquor stores per capita, the idea is to reduce sales and thus drinking.

Expanding access to treatment

Psychologist Ben Miller says that integrating mental health care in the practice of primary care physicians can “begin to change the culture of care to be more comprehensive.” This may improve early detection of drinking problems.

Teaching coping skills

Teaching resilience, coping skills and mental health literacy at a young age are important and can be effective in preventing kids from seeking an unhealthy relationship with mind-altering substances.

“The most important substance we should be looking at is alcohol, because it leads to so many things, including physical abuse and rape, that shouldn’t happen,” says Jernigan. “We need to stop accepting that there isn’t anything we can do about it.”

View the original article at thefix.com

22 November 2018
Herbert Fingarette, Controversial Author Of "Heavy Drinking," Dies At 97

Fingarette argued that heavy drinking was willful and that moderation is an option in his book Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease.

Herbert Fingarette, the well-known, controversial philosopher who wrote that alcoholism was an issue of willfulness and not a disease, died at age 97 in Berkeley, California on Nov. 2, according to the New York Times.

Fingarette was a prolific author of philosophy and law, well-known for his book Heavy Drinking: The Myth of Alcoholism as a Disease, which argued that despite cultural belief, there is no hard science proving that alcoholism is a disease. Fingarette believed that many people labeled “alcoholics” were actually not.

Despite this argument, Fingarette was hardly cold-blooded when it came to the suffering of people with alcoholism and those who loved them.

In Heavy Drinking, he wrote, “There is no reason to see heavy drinking as a symptom of illness, a sign of persistent evil, or the mark of a conscienceless will. Rarely do people choose a destructive or self-destructive way of life. On the contrary, we shape our lives day to day, crisis by crisis… We each share the propensity to choose opportunistically when under stress. So, on a series of occasions, a drinker chooses what seems the lesser evil, the temporarily easier compromise, without a clear appreciation of the long-run implications.

“If our righteous condemnation is not in order, neither is our cooperation in excusing heavy drinkers or helping them evade responsibility for change. Compassion, constructive aid, and the respect manifest in expecting a person to act responsibly—these are usually the reasonable basic attitudes to take when confronting a particular heavy drinker who is in trouble…”

Fingarette was born in Brooklyn in 1921 and wed his wife Leslie in 1945. Leslie predeceased him in 2011. They had one daughter (and eventually two grandsons). Fingarette taught philosophy at the University of California, Santa Barbara for 40 years. Some of his coworkers were angered when his book on alcoholism was published; one coworker went so far as to write an entire rebuttal which was distributed as a pamphlet.

Fingarette wrote in his book that moderate drinking was ignored as an option in the recovery community, when in fact it could be a viable option for those struggling with heavy drinking.

At the end of his life, Fingarette was writing an essay on how the dead continue to shape the lives of the living. In his book Death: Philosophical Soundings, he had written, “People hope never to know the end of consciousness. But why hope! They never will.”

View the original article at thefix.com

22 November 2018
Teen Mom’s Butch Baltierra Is One Year Sober

“I had 365 days clean yesterday but I just want to tell you it’s not all that easy, and it ain’t all that hard.”

For as long as the cameras have been rolling, fans of MTV’s Teen Mom series have watched Butch Baltierra struggle with his sobriety. Butch is the father of Tyler Baltierra, who stars on the show with his wife Catelynn.

This week, the elder Baltierra took to Instagram to share that is he one-year sober.

On Nov. 15, Baltierra posted a screenshot from a sobriety tracker, showing that he had 366 days sober with the caption #IDOSTRUGGLE. Then, he posted a video talking about his first year of sobriety.

“I had 365 days clean yesterday,” Butch shared. “I didn’t post anything because I was pretty busy, but I just want to tell you it’s not all that easy, and it ain’t all that hard. Am I struggling? Yeah. I struggle. I struggle every day. I struggle every day that I don’t work a program or I keep in communication with my sponsor or follow direction. I struggle. Do I have obsessions? Yes, I do. Yes, I think about smoking marijuana, I think about drinking every now and then. I’m not a big drinker, but I been thinking about it. But it’s not all that easy, but I know it’s easy when you work a program… That’s all I wanted to say.”

Viewers first got to know Baltierra and his family when Catelynn and Tyler appeared on a 2009 episode of 16 and Pregnant. The couple soon became fan favorites. They talked about how having unstable parents—including Butch who was living with addiction—caused them to want better for their daughter.

Since then, Butch’s sobriety continued to be a secondary storyline as Catelynn and Tyler appeared on Teen Mom and Teen Mom OG.

Butch has been in and out of prison and battling to stay sober. Last January, Tyler talked about wanting to send his dad to rehab, according to Radar Online, even though Butch claims to have been sober at that time, according to his social media posts.

In one episode, Tyler talked to Catelynn about the hurt that his father’s addiction has caused him, and about the importance of maintaining healthy boundaries.

“I think I’ve just come to the conclusion that I’m always going to feel angry about it,” he said. “When I was younger, I used to like calling him a crackhead. I used to like seeing him [get] angry about that. You can’t help it. You just get angry and you remove yourself from the situation. We know what’s going on here. We’re in control of what’s happening in our environment.”

View the original article at thefix.com

22 November 2018
Aaron Neville's Son Details Getting Sober, Helping Others

“Keith [Richards] hated that I was smoking crack,” Neville recalled. “He’d look at me like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Get it together.’”

Ivan Neville, the son of singer Aaron Neville, grew up with music in his blood in New Orleans. A prolific musician, Neville has played in Keith Richards’ band the X-Pensive Winos and The Spin Doctors. Sober for over 20 years, Neville is speaking out about his recovery as well as helping other musicians.

According to the Miami Herald, Neville recently shared his journey to sobriety at Imagine Recovery, a treatment center in New Orleans. The event was sponsored by Send Me a Friend, an organization launched by guitarist Anders Obsorne to help other musicians in recovery.

Neville said he first smoked a joint was when he was 11 and by the time he turned 18, he was regularly drinking and using drugs. Neville ended up playing on the Rolling Stones album Voodoo Lounge and even had a shot at joining the band. The Winos opened for the Stones at Giants Stadium, and if Neville played well, he could have landed a lucrative gig playing with Mick and Keith.

Instead, he passed out backstage from drinking and abusing cocaine, and missed the gig.

“It was a big blunder,” he confessed. “I blew it.” At the Imagine Recovery event, Neville shared a photograph that was taken backstage before he passed out. “I look green. So out of it.”

Neville’s drug use even worried Keith Richards.

“Keith hated that I was smoking crack,” Neville recalled. “He’d look at me like, ‘What’s wrong with you? Get it together.’”

It took several rehab stints before Neville finally got clean at a program in Pasadena, CA. He checked in on August 14, 1998, did 28 days, and has been sober ever since.

“I’ve never had nothing stronger than a Tylenol or Advil,” he says today. “It was what they call the Big Surrender.”

Neville was afraid to re-enter the music business when he got sober, and it’s an issue that Send Me a Friend helps other artists with as well. (Send Me a Friend is a network of sober people that watch over musicians to keep them away from temptation when they play gigs.) Initially, Neville was scared he wouldn’t be creative without drugs and alcohol, a common fear for musicians in recovery.

“After first getting sober, I was like, ‘How am I going to play? How am I going to be able to write songs?’ Then I got a clear mind and I’m like, ‘Oh, that’s how you do it. I can think and feel (stuff). It’s all there. It’s always been there.’”

And when Neville went on the road with The Spin Doctors, he mapped out where the 12-step meetings were on the tour itinerary.

“I was prepared,” he says. “I knew the kind of situations I might be walking into.”

Neville was helped in his sobriety by Harold Owens, the senior director of MusiCares. Owens and Neville then helped guide Anders Osborne when he was ready to get sober himself.

As Osborne confessed, “In the last year or so of my use, I kept reaching out to people. When you’re coming down or you’re feeling really depressed, you isolate a lot, but you also throw out these little calls for help. Ivan was one of my calls pretty regularly….He took a couple of my calls while he was standing onstage. That shows you the dedication to helping each other that the program has.”

View the original article at thefix.com

20 November 2018
"Sex And The City" Star Kristin Davis Credits Acting For Sobriety

“I don’t think I would be alive. I’m an addict. I’m a recovering alcoholic. If I hadn’t found acting…acting is the only thing that made me want to ever get sober.”

Kristin Davis, best known for her role as Charlotte York on the hit HBO series Sex and the City, revealed in a recent interview that she credits her acting career with helping her beat alcoholism.

Davis discussed her sober journey on the Origins With James Andrew Miller podcast, Entertainment Weekly reports.

“I don’t think I would be alive,” without her career. “I’m an addict. I’m a recovering alcoholic. If I hadn’t found acting…acting is the only thing that made me want to ever get sober. I didn’t have anything that was that important to me other than trying to dull my senses.”

Davis said she started drinking when she was young.

“I didn’t think I would live to be 30,” she said. “Luckily I quit very young, before any success happened, thank goodness.”

With her acting career, Davis realized she had “something that was more important to me than just drinking.”

As a teen growing up in Southern California, Davis drank to help calm her insecurities.

“I’m kind of shy normally, so I felt like I needed help,” she explained. “One thing led to another, and I was drinking.”

Davis then turned to acting, but then she started showing up to her classes hung over, and she knew she had to make a choice. She told The Week, “I thought, It’s going to be one or the other. I can’t really have both.”

After attending rehab, Davis confessed she would miss drinking on occasion. “Every once in a while, I’ll be with friends and they’ll be drinking red wine, and I’ll think, in a really innocent way, ‘Oh wow, that’s such a wonderful glass of red wine. Wouldn’t it be fun to drink it?’ Maybe it would be fine, but it’s really not worth the risk.”

At the same time, Sex and the City made the Cosmo a very popular drink, and as Davis told Health in 2011, “It’s caused a lot of confusion out in the world. I get sent many a Cosmo! I never drink them. I believe [alcoholism] is a disease. I don’t think you can mess with it. There was a time when people who didn’t know me well would say, ‘Couldn’t you just have one glass of champagne?’ And I would say, ‘No.’ I’m doing well. I still have occasional bad days. Why risk it?”

View the original article at thefix.com

20 November 2018
Mexico May Become Third Nation To Legalize Marijuana

A new bill submitted by Mexico’s president-elect would allow individuals to grow up to 20 plants and produce up to 17 ounces of marijuana each year.

Mexico has a good chance of becoming the third nation in the world to legalize marijuana for adult use—after Uruguay and Canada.

President-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who will take office on Dec. 1, has submitted legislation this month seeking to legalize marijuana for adult use.

The country legalized marijuana for medical use in June 2017—but the law limits medical marijuana products to “cannabis derivatives” that contain less than 1% THC.

The bill submitted by Lopez Obrador would allow individuals to grow up to 20 plants and produce up to 17 ounces of marijuana each year. The law would allow public smoking and growing cooperatives, but not edible products.

This comes after Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled in October that a ban on marijuana for adult use is unconstitutional, declaring, “The effects caused by marijuana do not justify an absolute prohibition on its consumption.”

According to political analysts, the bill has a good shot at passing, possibly in 2019. Lopez-Obrador has been a vocal critic of the “war on drugs” approach, and promised to cut down violent crimes in the country.

According to the LA Times, there were 31,174 recorded homicide victims in 2017—the highest number in 20 years when this data was first collected. This year is on track to surpass that number.

Lopez Obrador’s political party, Morena, has control of both houses of Congress. And the president-elect’s interior minister and former Supreme Court justice, Olga Sanchez Cordero, has criticized Mexico’s “prohibitionist” drug policy and co-wrote the proposed marijuana bill.

According to the legislation, 62% of Mexico’s prison population in 2012 were there on drug charges, a majority of them marijuana-related.

The recent high-profile trial of one of Mexico’s most notorious drug kingpins exemplifies the extent of the drug trade there.

The trial of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera began in Brooklyn, New York on Nov. 13. The former Sinaloa cartel boss was extradited to the United States after escaping from maximum-security prison twice in Mexico.

The trial is unveiling the inner workings of the Sinaloa cartel. Jesus Zambada Garcia, its official accountant, testified that in an average year, the drug trafficking organization would transact “billions” of dollars in shipments.

View the original article at thefix.com

20 November 2018
How To Help Those With Eating Disorders During The Holidays

Experts offer a variety of useful tips on how to help those living with eating disorders navigate the triggering holiday season.

The holiday season isn’t fun for everyone. Spending time with family members, paired with indulgent meals, can be overwhelming in and of itself. For some—including people living with eating disorders—it can be a triggering time.

An estimated 30 million Americans struggle with an eating disorder, defined as “serious and often fatal illnesses that cause severe disturbances to a person’s eating behaviors,” according to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). If your loved one is among them, you can support them this holiday season.

Bustle asked a few experts on how best to approach this issue.

“The holiday season usually means three things: Lots and lots of… food, lots of time with extended family, and lots of unstructured time. Those three things can be incredibly rewarding, but for someone who is struggling with an eating disorder, they can also be incredibly difficult,” says clinical psychologist Dr. Stephanie Zerwas.

Help them prioritize their recovery

Their recovery comes first. Let them know it’s okay to sacrifice some holiday traditions in the name of feeling well. “Your loved one likely has a difficult time putting themselves first. They may need you to do it,” says Alex Gonçalves, PhD, Assistant Vice President and Clinical Director of The Renfrew Center for Eating Disorders in Philadelphia.

Go over what to expect

Having a conversation with your loved one may help suss out their fears, and how you can help. “Ask what your loved one is anticipating the holiday will be like, both the joys and the challenges. Ask what might be helpful. The discussion can provide some relief from the intense feeling of isolation that often accompanies an eating disorder. And you just might gain an idea or two about how to help,” says Gonçalves.

Come up with a plan

It may help to have a relapse prevention plan ahead of time, so your loved one is not caught off guard in the middle of a gathering. This may involve checking in with his/her treatment provider before and after the holidays.

Sticking to a routine, like an eating schedule, can provide structure and keep your loved one from getting off track.

Know the symptoms

Does your loved one seem anxious or emotional? Intense mood swings, depression, anxiety and feelings of isolation are all symptoms of eating disorders.

“They may experience intense self-judgment for not feeling so happy when everyone else appears to be,” says Goncalves.

At their worst, eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa can cause thinning of the bones, damage to vital organs, infertility and death. Anorexia nervosa has the highest mortality rate of any mental health disorder.

It’s not your place to minimize your loved one’s eating disorder

Even if you are being nice, it won’t help to downplay an eating disorder. “Eating disorders don’t respond to logic and argument. They do respond to love, empathy and compassion. Instead of trying to fix your family member by showing them the error of their eating disorder thoughts, let them know that you have empathy for how they are feeling, and ask them what kind of help they would like,” says Zerwas.

For eating disorder help, call the National Eating Disorder Association helpline: 800-931-2237

View the original article at thefix.com

20 November 2018
Prison Chaplain Accused Of Taking Bribes To Smuggle Drugs To Inmates

Officials say they found a cache of contraband along with more than $5,000 in proceeds in the chaplain’s office.

A prison chaplain was arrested for allegedly taking bribes to smuggle drugs and cell phones to inmates in a federal lock-up in New England, authorities said Friday.

Joseph Buenviaje was working at the Federal Correctional Institution in Berlin, New Hampshire, when officials say he started sneaking in contraband—including phones, tobacco, pot and Suboxone—to prisoners at the medium-security facility.

It’s not clear how many inmates were involved or whether any other workers or outside co-conspirators participated in the alleged scheme, and authorities did not outline in court documents when the smuggling is believed to have begun. But, during a search of the 53-year-old’s FCI Berlin office, officials said they found a cache of contraband along with more than $5,000 in proceeds.

“Public employees are expected to act with integrity,” U.S. Attorney Scott Murray said in a statement. “We will always be alert to instances of criminal misconduct by federal employees. In order to ensure that the public has confidence in its public servants, federal employees who violate the public trust by breaking the law will be investigated and prosecuted.”

The Justice Department’s Office of the Inspector General took the lead in investigating the case, with help from the prison’s special investigative supervisor.

Earlier this year, a former prison employee at the same facility was sentenced to 15 months behind bars after she pleaded guilty to similar charges when she was caught accepting bribes to smuggle in phones, drugs and tobacco.

Feds were tipped off to the illicit operation and started monitoring Latoya Sebree’s communications to learn that she agreed to drop off a cell phone and tobacco in exchange for $2,000. The goods were shipped to the 37-year-old’s post office box, where she picked them up and drove them to her home.

When investigators showed up there with a warrant, Sebree handed over the $2,000 and cell phone. A search turned up Suboxone strips, a heat sealer and tobacco, according to a federal press release.

Under questioning, Sebree admitted to sneaking in drugs, phones and other banned items over a several-week period. After pleading guilty in fall 2017, Sebree was sentenced in January. When she gets out of prison, she’ll be on supervised release for a year.

“The public deserves honest service from its civil servants,” acting U.S. Attorney John Farley said at the time. “This officer betrayed the public trust and undermined the safety and integrity of a federal prison facility by taking bribes to smuggle contraband into a prison. This type of conduct cannot be tolerated.”

FCI Berlin holds just over 1,000 inmates between the main facility and the adjacent 88-man minimum-security camp.

View the original article at thefix.com

20 November 2018