Answer Addiction

Tag: News

  • Woman Uses Creative Writing To Help Ex-Offenders In Recovery

    Woman Uses Creative Writing To Help Ex-Offenders In Recovery

    “I learned how to live again, how to feel comfortable in my own skin. She’s a Godsend,” says one of Rebecca Conviser’s students.

    It was a cancer diagnosis that first got Rebecca Conviser interested in the power of words. If the Morristown, New Jersey woman didn’t make it through, she wanted to leave behind words for her husband and children. 

    But Conviser did make it through, and now she is using the power of words for something else—helping those in recovery from substance use disorder. 

    According to NJ.com, for the past six years, 79-year-old Conviser as has been volunteering her time by teaching the “Creative Positive Expression Program” to ex-offenders. Rather than jail time, these individuals have been recommended to the drug court programs in Morris and Sussex counties in New Jersey. 

    Thomas Brodhecker, 27, of Sussex County, has been in the program for two years. Since he first entered the program, his opinion of the role of writing in recovery has changed drastically. He says that through writing he has been able to peel back emotional aspects of his life that played into his use of drugs. 

    “I learned how to live again, how to feel comfortable in my own skin,” Brodhecker said. “She’s a Godsend.”

    Conviser fell into her role teaching the writing course after overhearing a conversation at a local coffee shop about the obstacles ex-offenders face when trying to find employment.

    She engaged with the group, which led to her meeting Charles Johnson Jr., the drug court director of Morris County. Johnson thought the writing program would be beneficial for ex-offenders when it came to writing resumes and cover letters. 

    However, the program goes beyond writing employment materials. For Anthony Justo, 27, of Morristown, Conviser’s passion for the program led him to be more accepting of his past. 

    “She presented these assignments with a fiery passion,” Justo told NJ.com. “She was lit up about helping people become better writers and better people.”

    In addition to the writing course, Conviser has helped ex-offenders with public speaking and telling their stories. She has headed up a jail cell presentation, in which school students stand in a 4×6 area designed to resemble a jail cell for 90 seconds to get a taste of what confinement is like for inmates. 

    Conviser says that when it comes to helping people change their lives, persistence is key. “I’m not one of these people who say, ‘oh well, it didn’t work.’ My feeling is well, it didn’t work, we have to move on,” she said.

    Despite her own personal challenges, including two cancer diagnoses and a recent Parkinson’s diagnosis, Conviser says she plans to continue to volunteer, though she has had to slow down a bit. 

    “I’m a person who gives back,” Conviser said. “As long as I can help people, I’m going to continue to do this.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Tackling Addiction In The Orthodox Jewish Community

    Tackling Addiction In The Orthodox Jewish Community

    “It went from everything being hush-hush under the carpet to people finally saying, ‘This is real. Let’s get people the help that they need,’” said one rabbi.

    A few brave individuals are breaking down the taboo of substance use disorder in the famously insular Orthodox Jewish community.

    Rabbi Zvi Gluck is at the forefront of these efforts. As the founder of Amudim, a crisis support organization, the rabbi regularly meets people in the Jewish community who are struggling with substance use disorder. While the Orthodox Jewish community “likes to remain in their bubble,” Gluck says, these days, things are changing, especially among the younger generation of spiritual leaders.

    “It went from everything being hush-hush under the carpet to people finally saying, ‘This is real. Let’s get people the help that they need,’” the rabbi told NBC News.

    Amudim has helped over 5,000 people from the Jewish community, ranging in age from 13 to 71 years old. “At the end of the day, every time we lose somebody, no matter how old or young, you’re not just losing that person. If we can even just save one life, as the Talmud says, you’ve saved an entire world,” said Gluck.

    Amudim’s awareness events draw standing room-only crowds. At a recent event in Bergen County, New Jersey, the Forman family shared their story.

    Elana “Ellie” Forman was raised Orthodox Jewish in Teaneck, New Jersey, but as a young woman she said she “felt no connection” to the traditions, which “felt constricting to me.”

    She turned to drugs and alcohol to cope. “I was looking for whatever else there was in this life that would fill that hole that I felt,” she said.

    Eliie went from her insular upbringing in Teaneck to ending up in Palm Beach, Florida, where she hit “rock bottom.”

    More than a year-and-a-half later, Ellie has become a vocal advocate within the orthodox community, helping raise awareness of substance use disorder with the help of her parents.

    “I think inadvertently we’ve become the face of parents dealing with somebody suffering from addiction,” said Lianne Forman, Ellie’s mother. The family says the community has had a positive reaction to their message, which has encouraged more people to feel less ashamed of their own situations.

    Drugs are “not something that really coincides at all with the picture of what a Jewish Orthodox person should look like,” says Ellie. “So it’s not something that’s talked about in the community because people shouldn’t be struggling with it.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "The Conners" Producer Discusses Roseanne's Overdose Death

    "The Conners" Producer Discusses Roseanne's Overdose Death

    “We could’ve gone down other avenues, but we felt it was the right thing for the character. As you know, it’s a crisis in this country.”

    The return of Roseanne was one of the biggest comeback stories of the year—until Roseanne Barr got fired for posting inflammatory tweets this May.

    The show has since been rebooted without her as The Conners, and as rumored, her character dies of an opioid overdose.

    Before Barr was fired, her character was keeping “secret bottles” of Vicodin stashed in her home because the family couldn’t afford an operation and she was trying to deal with chronic pain in her knee.

    Like many who suffer from chronic pain, Roseanne Conner got her meds illegally, buying them through her neighbor Marcy (played by Mary Steenburgen).

    Through Steenburgen, Dan Conner (John Goodman) realizes that many in the neighborhood are getting their meds this way.

    “We thought we’d include issues such as a lack of proper healthcare and the prohibitive costs of medications that many face,” said executive producer Tom Werner to Forbes. “I think the conversation between Marcy and Dan made the story quite affecting because, obviously it was an accident, but an accident that seems to be happening frequently. Their conversation became part of a larger issue of people in a community passing along drugs either not being prescribed them by a doctor, or drugs being too expensive and unaffordable. This is part of a bigger issue in this country.”

    In making the decision to kill off Roseanne, Werner added, “Obviously, it is important for us to do the show respectfully. We could’ve gone down other avenues, but we felt it was the right thing for the character. As you know, it’s a crisis in this country.”

    Bruce Helford, who is the showrunner of The Conners, told The Hollywood Reporter, “There was a lot of chatter in the ether about how we should explain Roseanne’s absence: Should she have a heart attack, a mental breakdown or go off into the sunset on a boat with her son? But we firmly decided against anything cowardly or far-fetched, anything that would make the fierce matriarch of the Conners seem pathetic or debased.

    “I wanted a respectful sendoff for her,” Helford continued. “One that was relevant and could inspire discussion for the greater good about the American working class, whose authentic problems are often ignored by broadcast television.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "Fox & Friends" Pundit Blames Legal Pot For Teen Drug Use, Homelessness

    "Fox & Friends" Pundit Blames Legal Pot For Teen Drug Use, Homelessness

    Studies regarding marijuana’s impact on social concerns do not appear to support all of Joe Peters’ claims.

    A guest on the popular Fox & Friends morning news and opinion program appeared to lay the blame for a host of social ills, from increased drug use among teens to emergency room visits and even homelessness, on marijuana legalization during a recent appearance.

    Joe Peters, a former Pennsylvania police officer, federal prosecutor and White House Drug Czar official, suggested that efforts to legalize marijuana in the United States like the recent legislation in Canada would send numbers for the aforementioned issues, as well as impaired driving, to stratospheric levels.

    However, as High Times reported, studies regarding marijuana’s impact on these and other concerns did not appear to support all of Peters’ claims.

    Peters, who is a current Congressional candidate for Pennsylvania’s 11th District, was a guest on an October 19, 2018 broadcast of Fox & Friends which examined possible outcomes for marijuana legalization in the U.S. Co-host Steve Doocy put forward the question about whether such a move would be beneficial for the country, which prompted Peters to point to alleged troubles in the state of Colorado as evidence for the dangers of legalization.

    “By every metric, it was a failure, in my view,” said Peters. “Teen drug use is the highest in the country. Drug driving is off the charts, doubled with marijuana impaired driving. Homelessness is up. Emergency room admissions. And the black market is flourishing. Black market arrests – remember the whole notion was we legalize it, we can control it. Black market arrests are up almost 400%.”

    Some of Peters’ assessments are, in part, correct. Federal and local law enforcement have both noted an increase in instances of trafficking in the Centennial State, but the majority of these cases involve the distribution of marijuana to other states like Florida and Texas, where legalization efforts have not taken root.

    Trafficking on the local level has also continued due to dispensary prices – taxes, which range from municipality, can reach 23.15% – which local dealers can easily undercut.

    Statistics have also shown an increase in Colorado traffic fatalities involving marijuana, but again, these results are conflicting: while the number of fatal vehicular accidents who tested positive for marijuana has risen from 75 in 2014 to 139 in 2017, the number of those fatalities in which the active THC level in the driver’s system could be considered at the level of legal impairment dropped from 52 in 2016 to 35 in 2017. 

    But as High Times pointed out, Peters’ other allegations lack concrete evidence. Studies have shown that while cannabis consumption among teenagers inched up 1.3% between 2016 and 2017, the increase in marijuana dispensaries in states like Colorado has had no impact on teenagers’ use.

    Legal marijuana also appears to have had no effect on rates of homelessness in Colorado; a 2016 study of residents in the city of Pueblo, Colorado found that disconnected utilities, not legal marijuana, was the leading cause of homelessness there.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "The Connors" Producer Discusses Roseanne's Overdose Death

    "The Connors" Producer Discusses Roseanne's Overdose Death

    “We could’ve gone down other avenues, but we felt it was the right thing for the character. As you know, it’s a crisis in this country.”

    The return of Roseanne was one of the biggest comeback stories of the year until Roseanne Barr got fired for posting inflammatory tweets this May.

    The show has since been rebooted without her as The Conners, and as rumored, her character dies of an opioid overdose.

    Before Barr was fired, her character was keeping “secret bottles” of Vicodin stashed in her home because the family couldn’t afford an operation and she was trying to deal with chronic pain in her knee.

    Like many who suffer from chronic pain, Roseanne Conner got her meds on the black market, buying them through her neighbor Marcy, played by Mary Steenburgen.

    Through Steenburgen, Dan Conner (John Goodman) realizes that many in the neighborhood are getting their meds this way.

    The show’s executive producer, Tom Werner, told Forbes, “We thought we’d include issues such as a lack of proper healthcare and the prohibitive costs of medications that many face. I think the conversation between Marcy and Dan made the story quite affecting because, obviously it was an accident, but an accident that seems to be happening frequently. Their conversation became part of a larger issue of people in a community passing along drugs either not being prescribed them by a doctor, or drugs being too expensive and unaffordable. This is part of a bigger issue in this country.”

    In making the decision to kill off Roseanne, Werner added, “Obviously, it is important for us to do the show respectfully. We could’ve gone down other avenues, but we felt it was the right thing for the character. As you know, it’s a crisis in this country.”

    Bruce Helford, who is the showrunner of The Conners, told The Hollywood Reporter, “There was a lot of chatter in the ether about how we should explain Roseanne’s absence: Should she have a heart attack, a mental breakdown or go off into the sunset on a boat with her son? But we firmly decided against anything cowardly or far-fetched, anything that would make the fierce matriarch of the Conners seem pathetic or debased.

    “I wanted a respectful sendoff for her,” Helford continued. “One that was relevant and could inspire discussion for the greater good about the American working class, whose authentic problems are often ignored by broadcast television.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr Take Stage At Recovery Gala

    Joe Walsh, Ringo Starr Take Stage At Recovery Gala

    “My higher power became vodka and cocaine. Nobody wanted to work with me…I turned into this godless, hateful thing,” Walsh said in his speech.

    Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh and his wife Marjorie were honored this month for their work in advancing the cause of addiction recovery.

    The rock ’n’ roll couple, whose recovery advocacy spans more than 20 years, were presented with the Adele C. Smithers Humanitarian Award by friend and former Beatle Ringo Starr at the 74th annual gala for Facing Addiction with NCADD on Oct. 8.

    “I was one of those really nice pass out/black-out drunks,” Ringo Starr said before presenting the award, next to his wife Barbara Bach Starkey. “I came to one night, out of a black-out the next day, and I’d done a lot of damage. I was about to lose the love of my life, Barbara, and everything else.” That’s when Starr finally got help.

    While receiving the award, Marjorie Bach Walsh, who is Barbara’s sister, addressed her own recovery. “My son who is here this evening, and who does incredible work for addiction, had suffered for a long time before this woman got sober. And for that, Christian, I am beyond sorry. My life is a living amends to you,” she said.

    Joe Walsh has been sober for 25 years. As a kid growing up in the 1950s, he felt different, and thus isolated, from other children. “In my late teenage years I tried to play guitar in front of some people and I couldn’t do it. I hyperventilated. I started shaking. I started crying.”

    But after a “couple of beers” he was able to play. “That planted the seed. I thought alcohol was a winner.” This gave him the courage to make music, and early on he attributed his success to alcohol.

    “My higher power became vodka and cocaine.” But his substance use reached a tipping point. “I burned all the bridges. Nobody wanted to work with me. I was angry… I turned into this godless, hateful thing.”

    He turned to Alcoholics Anonymous, where he met some old-timers. “Gradually they showed me that I’m not a unique individual, one-of-a-kind person. I’m just an alcoholic, and for the first time in my life I felt like I was somewhere where I belonged.”

    “I don’t know why I’m alive. I should not be alive. I hadn’t planned on living this long, I don’t know what to do,” Walsh said to laughter.

    “I decided to drop my anonymity because most of the world knew I was a mess anyway, and go public, and speak out and try and help other alcoholics because that’s what we do.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Are Diabetics More Likely To Die From Alcoholism?

    Are Diabetics More Likely To Die From Alcoholism?

    Alcohol-related deaths, specifically cirrhosis of the liver, were as much as 10 times higher for those with diabetes, according to a new study.

    A Finnish study concluded that diabetes sufferers are at significantly higher risk than the non-diabetic population of death from alcohol-related issues or suicide, due to the strain on their mental health while managing the disease.

    However, once the numbers of the study are parsed, it’s clear that the risk in the diabetic community is relatively small overall.

    Studies have already proven that diabetes—especially diabetes that is not well-controlled—puts a person at higher risk for various serious health issues such as certain cancers and heart disease.

    However, the new Finnish research, published in the European Journal of Endocrinology, shows that because of the strain of managing diabetes, those with the disease are at higher risk of psychological issues and resulting death.

    Specifically, The Independent reported that the study showed that alcohol-related deaths, particularly caused by cirrhosis of the liver, were as much as 10 times higher in the diabetic community versus those without the disease. Death by suicide was increased by a staggering 110%. The more severe the disease (requiring more insulin injections and medical interventions) the bigger the risk of death.

    The lead researcher on the study, Professor Leo Niskanen of the University of Helsinki, said, “We know that living with diabetes can lead to a mental health strain.”

    A diagnosis of diabetes is either Type 1 or Type 2. Both variations disrupt the way your body regulates blood sugar, also known as glucose. Insulin allows glucose to enter the body’s cells. In Type 1 diabetes, the body is not producing insulin, while in Type 2, the cells are not responding as well as they should be to insulin.

    During the timeframe of the Finnish study, there were 2,832 deaths related to alcohol and 853 deaths by suicide. Patients taking insulin saw a 6.9% increase in deaths from alcohol-related conditions for diabetic men, and 10.6 times higher for women. Patients taking oral medication—who were able to control their condition with diet and exercise—saw an increased risk of death but at a much lower percentile.

    Professor Niskanen says, “The low absolute suicidal rates make the risk ratios look very high—even small increase in risk may thus have higher risk ratios… However, they are highly [statistically] significant anyway. This study has highlighted that there is a need for effective psychological support for people with diabetes. If [diabetes patients] feel like they are under a heavy mental burden or consider that their use of alcohol is excessive, they should not hesitate to discuss these issues with their primary care physician.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Can Social Media Predict Depression?

    Can Social Media Predict Depression?

    A new study examined whether social media data could be used to find markers for depression.

    Social media could be an accurate predictor of depression, new research has found.

    According to Medical News Today, researchers utilized an algorithm to examine data from social media that could pick out “linguistic cues that might predict depression.” 

    “We’re increasingly understanding that what people do online is a form of behavior we can read with machine learning algorithms, the same way we can read any other kind of data in the world,” lead author Johannes Eichstaedt, founding research scientist at the World Well-Being Project (WWBP) in Philadelphia, told Wired. 

    Eichstaedt’s team, co-led by H. Andrew Schwartz, a principal investigator of the WWBP, studied data from nearly 1,200 social media users who agreed to grant access to both their posts and their electronic medical records (EMR). Of those who participated, only 114 had dealt with depression in the past. 

    “For each of these 114 patients, we identified 5 random control patients without a diagnosis of depression in the EMR, examining only the Facebook data they created before the corresponding depressed patient’s first date of a recorded diagnosis of depression,” study authors wrote. “This allowed us to compare depressed and control patients’ data across the same time span and to model the prevalence of depression in the larger population.”

    Researchers were then able to determine whether what they refer to as “depression-associated language markers” depicted “emotional and cognitive cues.” These included sadness, loneliness, hostility, rumination and increased self-reference. 

    The linguistic markers, according to researchers, could predict depression fairly accurately as soon as three months before the individual received a diagnosis.

    Still, Eichstaedt says, there is a different method before turning to social media as a reliable tool to diagnose depression. “It would be irresponsible to take this tool and use it to say: You’re depressed, you’re not depressed,” he told Wired. 

    Eichstaedt also stated that the social media algorithm is comparable to a DNA analysis. 

    “Social media data contain markers akin to the genome,” Eichstaedt said, according to Medical News Today. “With surprisingly similar methods to those used in genomics, we can comb social media data to find these markers. Depression appears to be something quite detectable in this way; it really changes people’s use of social media in a way that something like skin disease or diabetes doesn’t.”

    Eichstaedt says he is hopeful one day that this type of information could prove helpful in making diagnoses and treatments. 

    “The hope is that one day, these screening systems can be integrated into systems of care,” he said. “This tool raises yellow flags; eventually the hope is that you could directly funnel people it identifies into scalable treatment modalities.”

    The report was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Sheriffs Ban Alcohol After Hurricane Michael

    Sheriffs Ban Alcohol After Hurricane Michael

    Unsurprisingly, the move was met with a wave of criticism. 

    In the aftermath of Hurricane Michael, two Florida counties briefly banned alcohol sales as part of an emergency disaster declaration.

    The Category 4 storm walloped southeastern seaboard states earlier this month, leaving at least 30 people dead in the U.S. and wreaking particular havoc on Florida and Georgia. Five days after the hurricane made landfall on Oct. 10, sheriffs in two Panhandle counties on the Gulf cut off booze-buying.

    As the ban set in, a spokesman for the Gulf County sheriff said the top cop “feels like people need to not focus on drinking.” State statute allows local sheriffs the authority to pause alcohol sales during riots, states of emergency and other crises, officials told the local paper.

    “He just wants to give people time to adjust and cope and the businesses time to get open and their feet back on the ground,” Gulf County sheriff’s spokesman Corey Dobridnia said.

    But even as word of the modern-day Prohibition spread, Panama City—the Bay County seat—voted to dial back the ban there four days after it began. Elsewhere, officials promised to re-open booze sales once power was restored. 

    Both counties were open for a full bar by Saturday, according to local reports.

    While it was in place, the short-lived restrictions—predictably—drew some backlash. And after Hurricane Katrina, there were no such bans in Mississippi and Louisiana, according to the Sun Herald.

    But this time around it was not so much thirsty would-be customers who objected as it was devastated business owners already dealing with losses from the storm, now coupled with the dip in income from a lack of booze sales.

    “This alcohol ban puts them in a bind,” Laguna Beach resident Nancy Estes told the Northwest Florida Daily News. “I don’t see where the business owners should be penalized for something they had to get a license to do. They paid to get a license to sell beer, wine or spirits, they should not be penalized.”

    Some took to social media to air their concerns. 

    “Banning all sales of alcohol only rubs salt in the wounds of those already affected financially by this disaster,” wrote Jonathan Hampel, “especially all of those in the restaurant business.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • DEA's "Operation Goodfellas" Busts $19 Million Drug-Trafficking Ring

    DEA's "Operation Goodfellas" Busts $19 Million Drug-Trafficking Ring

    Federal prosecutors estimate that the group moved 11.5 kilos of crack, 436 kilos of coke, 54 kilos of heroin and more than 20 pounds of pot.

    More than 150 cops and federal agents teamed up to catch five Virginia men who allegedly masterminded a $19 million drug-trafficking plot. 

    Dubbed “Operation Goodfellas,” the sting netted four arrests last week, on top of two collars earlier this year at a Virginia hotel. One of the suspected drug slingers is still at large. 

    “For years, members of this organization have allegedly distributed significant quantities of narcotics throughout Hampton Roads,” the DEA’s Washington-based special agent in charge Scott W. Hoernke, said in a statement. “These indictments and arrests represent the dismantling of an allegedly prominent drug trafficking organization responsible for the smuggling, transportation and distribution of substantial quantities of narcotics from Los Angeles to Norfolk.”

    A “conservative estimate” by federal prosecutors suggested that the group had moved 11.5 kilos of crack, 436 kilos of cocaine, 54 kilos of heroin, an ounce of fentanyl and more than 20 pounds of pot. 

    The investigation kicked off in 2016, when undercover officers allegedly started buying cocaine, heroin and crack from 38-year-old Reginald Sam Beale, of Norfolk.

    The lawmen eventually started buying from Beale’s alleged co-conspirators, 36-year-old Maurice Antonio Barnes, 37-year-old Brandon Jaami Williams, 39-year-old Breon Lashawn Dixon and 34-year-old Johnell Deshawn Stepney. By the start of summer 2018, undercover officers had made nearly 30 controlled buys—and they’d also nailed down the source of the hard drugs. 

    Coming in from Los Angeles, the coke was being trucked to Virginia in 10- and 20-key hauls, then unloaded at a public storage facility in Virginia Beach, investigators said. In June, authorities arrested Williams with 13 kilograms of coke he was allegedly moving from one luxury Norfolk apartment to another. 

    The following month, feds arrested a pair of accused drug traffickers—one from Mexico and one from Los Angeles—after they flew to Virginia to try to get back some cocaine and pick up more than $500,000 in cash. 

    “These defendants allegedly distributed approximately $19 million of illegal narcotics in Hampton Roads,” said federal prosecutor G. Zachary Terwilliger. “The resources and collaborative efforts used to investigate this alleged drug trafficking organization is a prime example of the positive impact of federal, state, and local cooperation. My sincere thanks to our law enforcement partners for their outstanding efforts on this case.”

    View the original article at thefix.com