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  • Goo Goo Dolls Singer John Rzeznik Reflects On Getting Sober

    Goo Goo Dolls Singer John Rzeznik Reflects On Getting Sober

    The “Iris” singer has been sober since 2014. 

    The Goo Goo Dolls, the multi-platinum rock group best known for hits like “Iris” and “Name,” are still going strong both on the road and off. And lead singer John Rzeznik is living the family life he had never previously imagined before he got sober.

    Rzeznik recently reflected on his hard upbringing and journey to sobriety to Buffalo News. The singer grew up in Buffalo, New York with a “pretty serious drinker” for a father.

    “I have no idea how he survived as long as he did.” Rzeznik recalled his relationship with his father as “distant… That’s the mark of an alcoholic—the distance. It’s a very lonely disease. It’s a disease of loneliness.”

    As Rzeznik told the Press of Atlantic City in 2016, “I was wearing my father’s clothes. My father was a brutal alcoholic, just crazy. I thought that was my destiny as well. I finally got slapped in the head hard enough to go get help.”

    Rzeznik lost both his parents in the early ’80s, leaving him on his own when he was 16. He took refuge in music, but he was still trying to deal with serious mental and emotional demons.

    “I had no idea what was going on inside my head,” he recalled. “I didn’t understand it, that what I was feeling was depression, and it was very, very hard.”

    On November 16, 2014, Rzeznik had a meltdown in New York, and drank himself into a blackout. When he came to, he called his manager and said, “I’m not doing anything for the next three months. I’ve got to take care of this, because I’m going to die.”

    Rzeznik then checked into rehab for three months, and adds, “I wish I could have stayed for six months. I went to a very serious place, where they don’t do yoga and massage. They concentrate on triangulating treatment, where it’s like therapy and 12 step and some spiritual work.”

    Rzeznik now has a sobriety calendar on his phone, and as of September 10, he racked up 3.81 years, 45.79 months, 1,395 days, and 33,467 hours sober to his credit.

    Rzeznik’s wife Melina confessed that she was thinking of leaving him before he went into rehab. Once he hit his one-year sober milestone, they started a family and had a daughter, Lili, who was born in December 2016.

    Today the singer says, “I’m paraphrasing someone else, but kids turn you into the person that you should have been the whole time.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Jason Biggs Celebrates One Year Of Sobriety

    Jason Biggs Celebrates One Year Of Sobriety

    The movie star posted a photo on social media to celebrate his one-year sober milestone.

    Jason Biggs posted a photo of his one-year sober coin on Instagram to celebrate his newfound freedom from alcohol addiction. The milestone marks the Orange is the New Black star’s second attempt to get sober.

    “I first tried to get sober over 5 years ago, when the weight of my obsession with booze and drugs became too heavy for me to handle,” he wrote on the post.

    Biggs acknowledged that it’s been a struggle to keep on his path, but he is proud of the progress he’s made.

    “Turns out this shit is hard. After some fits and starts, I’ve managed to put together one year of sobriety,” he posted. “I’m as proud of it as anything in my life.”

    He also had a message for those out there who might know they need help but for some reason feel avoidant of actually getting it.

    “If you’re struggling, know there’s help. Don’t be ashamed. We can do this,” Biggs wrote.

    His wife, actress Jenny Mollen, also took to Instagram to celebrate Biggs’ achievement and posted a picture of Biggs kissing her cheek.

    “So proud of my husband today. Congrats baby. I know how hard you work,” she wrote in the caption. “I see you. I love you.”

    The couple has been married for 10 years and have two children between them, four-year-old Sid and one-year-old Lazlo. In an interview with PEOPLE Now, Mollen read a fill-in-the-blank card to her husband, Biggs:

    “‘At this point in our marriage, the sexiest thing she can do for me is…’” she started.

    “Oh, take the kids and leave for a couple hours,” Biggs quipped.

    Biggs’ big public reveal of his recovery is part of a tidal wave of celebrities and famous figures opening up on addiction and their struggles with mental health. Demi Lovato, Lady Gaga, and Ben Affleck are just a few examples over the past year, sharing their personal experiences with mental health or addiction to fight stigma and encourage those who need help to seek it. Their message is more important than ever as the opioid crisis becomes more and more prominent.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Meth Makes A Rural Comeback In The Shadow Of The Opioid Crisis

    Meth Makes A Rural Comeback In The Shadow Of The Opioid Crisis

    “They came in with much purer, much cheaper meth and just flooded this region of the country,” says one DEA agent.

    While the opioid epidemic has been at the forefront of headlines and national attention, another danger has also been growing in the background: the use of methamphetamine in small, rural areas of the country. 

    According to Rolling Stone, meth was previously prominent in the 1990s due to “new synthesizing methods,” which allowed individuals to use cold medicine and cleaning products to create the drug in their homes.

    Eventually, due to limiting over-the-counter access to certain medications via the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act (2006), domestic meth lab seizures dropped drastically. 

    However, this wasn’t because meth ceased to exist, Rolling Stone notes. Instead, the market reportedly shifted to Mexico, where “superlabs” managed by Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel can create a large quantity of the drug in pure form and at cheap rates. 

    Such superlabs can cook hundreds of pounds of meth daily and at 95 to 99% purity. And, according to CNN, an ounce of meth today goes for $250 to $450 in Oklahoma, versus the $1,100 it cost in 2012. Similar price drops have been reported in Virginia, Ohio and Florida.

    In addition to price drops, certain states are also seeing increases in meth-related deaths. In Oklahoma, fatal meth overdoses have doubled in just five years. 

    “They came in with much purer, much cheaper meth and just flooded this region of the country,” DEA Agent Richard Salter told CNN. 

    Oklahoma isn’t alone. In Alaska, Rolling Stone reports, meth overdoses quadrupled in the eight years between 2008 and 2016. Florida, according to the Department of Law Enforcement’s 2016 report, is seeing fatal overdoses four times higher than they were six years ago. And, according to a recent report, meth seizures have tripled within two years in Southwest Virginia.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection reports that meth seizures have increased tenfold in the past eight years—from 8,900 pounds in 2010 to about 82,000 pounds so far this year. Despite that fact, the drug is still making its way into U.S. states like California and Arizona, then being taken to distribution areas like Atlanta.

    From there, it makes its way into smaller, rural areas. 

    Mark Woodward, spokesman with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics, tells CNN that while attention is being directed to the opioid epidemic, meth is being left behind. 

    “There’s so much attention—not just in Oklahoma, but nationwide—on the opioid crisis,” Woodward said. “But our single most deadly individual drug is methamphetamine.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Child Brings Crack Home From Daycare, Thinking It Was A Tooth

    Child Brings Crack Home From Daycare, Thinking It Was A Tooth

    The child was brought to the hospital after telling her mother she had put the “teeth” in her mouth.

    A four-year-old in New York was taken to the hospital after inadvertently bringing cocaine home from daycare, telling her mom that she thought it was a tooth. 

    Sabrina Straker’s daughter Serenity said that another child at daycare had given her his “teeth,” Straker told WPIX. She showed her mother a small container with the item inside. 

    “Inside was something small and white, which she described as a tooth—looked like rocks or pebbles. Then I was curious,” Straker said.

    The mother thought she might know what the items were, but didn’t want to believe it, she told PIX11. “This can’t be what I think it is,” Straker recalled thinking. “How did this get in the daycare?”

    Serenity then showed her mom that she had even more “teeth.” “She comes back, ‘well Mommy, I have a lot of his teeth,’ so then I have a third capsule,” Straker said. She decided to call the police. 

    “This can’t be what I’m thinking it is, because how could that be in a preschool?” she said. 

    The daycare operator said that someone must have thrown the drugs onto the daycare’s property. “We did a thorough check. The children are fine. We called the parents,” Yvette Joseph said.

    However, Straker said it is decidedly not fine. When police arrived they tested the items in the capsules and identified that they were cocaine. “Lo and behold whatever this test kit is, it was blue and he said, ‘this is what it is. That’s what that means. This is crack cocaine.’ I said ‘What? Come again? No, I didn’t just hear that,’” Straker recalled. 

    Serenity was brought to the hospital because she told her mom that she put the “teeth” in her mouth. At the hospital, she tested positive for cocaine.

    “She couldn’t sit down. She was beyond bouncy, very loquacious, just all over the place, literally, talking to herself, looking in the mirror, saying she sees three of herself. Once they did the urine test it came back positive that she had cocaine in her system,” Straker said.

    Although Serenity was fine, her mother said that the incident could have had a very different ending. “Had my daughter ingested the capsule and not spit it out, I would be planning a funeral,” she said. “Luckily, because she spit it out, she’s still here.”

    Straker said that she wants the daycare to be shut down, since staff did not notice the children passing around the drugs. 

    “No one was watching the children,” she said. “There are 15 kids in the room with two teachers and two aides, where were they when this was going on?”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Counterfeit Pill Ring Ran Out Of Vacant Apartment Busted By Police

    Counterfeit Pill Ring Ran Out Of Vacant Apartment Busted By Police

    The building’s super allegedly used a vacant apartment and boiler room to manufacture and package the illicit pills. 

    Three men were arrested and charged in the Bronx with alleged production and distribution of black market pills. Lab tests determined that pills said to be oxycodone were actually a dangerous mixture of heroin and fentanyl, while the 50 purported ecstasy pills contained pure methamphetamine.

    ABC 7 News reported that the men involved, Agustin Vasquez Chavez, Yefri Hernandez-Ozoria, and Roberto Castillo, are facing multiple drug charges after two separate arrests.

    The first arrest occurred in July when undercover cops on 201st Street and Grand Concourse purchased two bags of pills for $5,000. Chavez and Ozoria allegedly sold 860 pills as oxycodone and another bag of 50 pills as ecstasy (or MDMA).

    On September 11 police executed a second sting operation and arrested Chavez and Ozoria. Police confiscated approximately 3,000 purported oxycodone pills that looked to match the pills purchased on July 31.

    Law enforcement is awaiting the results of DEA laboratory analysis.

    Roberto Castillo is the superintendent of a five-story apartment building in the Bronx. Castillo allegedly used a vacant apartment and boiler room in this building to package and manufacture pills. Castillo worked with Chavez and Ozoria, who allegedly sold the manufactured and falsely labeled drugs in a large-scale black market pill distribution ring.

    All three men were arrested and charged on September 11 in connection with an alleged conspiracy to produce and distribute black market pills containing heroin, fentanyl, and meth, officials said. Chavez and Ozoria were arrested first, after which police were granted permission to search the boiler room and vacant apartment in Castillo’s building. There, in the boiler room, police found a pill press machine. 

    The boiler room and apartment were being used as a pill manufacturing operation, which included a pill press machine, pill press imprints designed to create oxycodone markings, multiple surgical masks and a vacuum sealer. The apartment contained a refrigerator filled with yet-unknown substances in assorted colors, as well as drug paraphernalia such as cutting agents, grinders and containers.

    According to an official, 420 grams of a heroin/fentanyl mixture were found in a suitcase, in addition to nearly 180 grams of methamphetamine and approximately 1,000 counterfeit oxycodone pills.

    “Narcotics traffickers have long exploited the nation’s high demand for pain pills, a powerful gateway to addiction, but this investigation reveals an even more deviant scheme—an organization creating and distributing counterfeit pills with highly potent and lethal compounds, manufactured in an apartment right next to the boiler room,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan in a statement.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • WHO Launches "Safer" Alcohol Campaign

    WHO Launches "Safer" Alcohol Campaign

    The campaign outlines steps that governments can take to reduce problem drinking.

    The World Health Organization has launched a campaign outlining high-impact strategies that can help governments address alcohol abuse, in order to work toward the organization’s goal of reducing harmful drinking by 10% worldwide by 2025. 

    The campaign, called SAFER, outlines steps that governments can take to reduce problem drinking. Alcohol contributes to 3 million deaths around the world each year, and is the 7th leading cause of premature death and disability according to WHO. 

    “The harmful use of alcohol is a major—yet often unaddressed—public health threat,” Dr. Adam Karpati, senior vice president of Public Health Programs at Vital Strategies, a global public health organization, said in a news release. “SAFER provides clear guidance to governments on how to save lives on a large scale. The greatest impact will be achieved by implementing all the SAFER interventions in full.”

    Each letter in the acronym stands for a strategy that governments can implement:

    S: Strengthen restrictions on alcohol availability

    The first step in the plan is to reduce the availability of alcohol. The idea is to establish restrictions to keep alcohol out of the hands of youth and other high-risk groups; this has been proven to cut back on alcohol-related issues. For example, in Brazil the decision to close bars at 11 p.m. led to a 40% reduction in homicide rates. 

    A: Advance and enforce drink driving counter measures

    One of the most dangerous aspects of alcohol use is driving while intoxicated, so SAFER urges governments to take a stricter approach to combat drunk driving. This includes reducing the legal limit. Lowering the legal limit from 0.08% to 0.05% blood alcohol content could eliminate 18% of crashes caused by drunk driving that result in injury or death. 

    F: Facilitate access to screening, brief interventions and treatment

    In order to reduce the negative health impacts of alcohol, healthcare providers need to screen people who may be at risk, and help people who have alcohol use disorder access treatment. Offering screenings in a primary care setting can increase access to treatment, and is especially important for pregnant women. 

    E: Enforce bans or comprehensive restrictions on alcohol advertising, sponsorship, and promotion

    People around the globe are constantly exposed to marketing from alcohol companies, which often downplays the negative effects of alcohol. Governments should restrict what advertising is allowed, particularly in places where it reaches young people who should not be drinking.  

    R: Raise prices on alcohol through excise taxes and pricing policies

    Raising taxes on alcohol and setting minimum prices can make alcohol less affordable to people, thus in theory, reducing the amount that they drink. 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Exploring The New Opioids Package: What Does The Legislation Cover?

    Exploring The New Opioids Package: What Does The Legislation Cover?

    The wide-ranging bipartisan legislation addresses overprescribing, overdose prevention, medication-assisted treatment and more.

    New legislation intended to aid in the fight against the opioid epidemic was approved by both the House and Senate in early October, and is currently headed for signature by President Donald Trump.

    The bill, known as the Substance Use Disorder Prevention That Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act (or SUPPORT), is a rare bipartisan effort, authored primarily by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and offers $8 billion in wide-ranging programs that intend to boost access to substance treatment, as well as methods of intervention to reduce the influx and availability of opioids.

    Policymakers have expressed their support for the bill, though treatment advocates have voiced reservation about the scope and effectiveness of the legislation. Here’s what is proposed by the SUPPORT Act:

    – Expansion of provisions for Medicaid programs, including expanded access to opioid addiction treatment, including secured flexibility for alternative services not permitted under a state Medicaid plan, improved data sharing between state databases, and increased screening for opioid dependency during doctor’s visits;

    – Increased Medicaid coverage for opioid treatment programs that prescribe medication-assisted treatment (MAT), which is currently not recognized by Medicaid, and an increase in the number of health care specialists that are allowed to prescribe and dispense such treatment;

    – A provision to expand a grant program that allows first responders to administer naloxone for opioid overdoses;

    – Creation of a grant program from the Substance and Mental Health Services Administration to establish comprehensive opioid recovery centers, which will provide dependency and recovery programs for communities;

    – A provision to allow the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to establish “high impact, cutting-edge research” for combating the opioid epidemic and development of non-addictive pain management medication, which will be funded through reauthorization of the Common Fund from the 21st Century Cures Act;

    – Authorization for the Drug Enforcement Agency to reduce manufacturing quotas for controlled substances, including prescription opioids, when the agency suspects diversion; 

    – Authorization for the Department of Health and Human Services to allow doctors to remotely prescribe medication-assistant treatments to assist needy individuals in remote or rural areas;

    – The “STOP Act,” which will assist the U.S. Postal System in preventing the import of fentanyl through international mail by improved digital tracking; 

    – Improved coordination between the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol to allow greater means of detecting and halting the import of drugs at borders;

    – Increased penalties for manufacturers and distributors in regard to overprescription of opioid medication.

    Response from health care and dependency officials to the bill was mixed. Some, like Kelly J. Clark, the president of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, called it “an important step in ensuring that individuals with substance use disorder are able to get the help they need.”

    But Keith Humphreys, a drug policy expert at Stanford University who worked with White House staff on the bill, viewed the scope of the bill as limited.

    “This reflects a fundamental disagreement between the parties over whether the government should appropriate the large sums a massive response would require. Lacking that, Congress did the next best thing – which is to find agreement on all the second-tier issues as they could.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Verne Troyer's Cause Of Death Revealed

    Verne Troyer's Cause Of Death Revealed

    The Austin Powers actor had been battling alcohol addiction in the limelight for over a decade. 

    Months after his passing in April, Verne Troyer’s cause of death has been determined.

    On Wednesday (Oct. 10) the Los Angeles County coroner’s office ruled the actor’s death a suicide by “sequelae of alcohol intoxication.” (Sequelae is defined as a condition that is a result of previous disease or injury.) Troyer died of multiple organ failure on April 21, 2018. He was 49.

    “Based on the history and circumstances as currently known, the manner of death is suicide,” said Deputy Medical Examiner Martina Kennedy in the coroner’s report.

    The Austin Powers actor had been battling alcohol addiction in the limelight for over a decade. He had been in treatment twice by 2016, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

    Troyer also appeared in the films Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone and The Love Guru.

    In 2016, he said that he had cut down on his drinking. “[I’m] sober… I mean, I drink occasionally, but not to the extreme that I did.” 

    In April 2017, the actor released a statement after being hospitalized for alcohol addiction. “As you know, I’ve battled alcohol addiction in the past and while it’s not always been an easy fight, I’m willing to continue my fight day by day,” he posted on social media.

    He said at the time that he had been receiving treatment and will “continue to get the help that I need.”

    But a year later, he ended up in the hospital again with a blood alcohol content more than three times the legal limit.

    “The actor called 911 himself, repeatedly saying on the call and when he arrived to the emergency room that he wanted to die,” according to the Washington Post. Again, he announced that he would enter a treatment program. Troyer died just weeks later.

    “Anybody in need, he would help to any extent possible,” read a statement on his social media accounts on the day of his passing. “Verne hoped he made a positive change with the platform he had and worked towards spreading that message everyday.”

    The post continued: “Verne was also a fighter when it came to his own battles. Over the years he’s struggled and won, struggled and won, struggled and fought some more, but unfortunately this time was too much.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Demand For Mental Health Resources Not Being Met On College Campuses

    Demand For Mental Health Resources Not Being Met On College Campuses

    One mental health professional estimates that almost half of colleges students who need services are not receiving them.

    College is a stressful transition for many—that’s apparent from recent mental health numbers. 

    According to Deseret News, greater numbers of college students are facing mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety, and as such, the number of students seeking help on campuses has increased.   

    Ben Locke, executive director of the Center for Collegiate Mental Health at Pennsylvania State University, tells Deseret News that the demand for mental health services is growing rapidly—about five to six times faster than enrollment. He says that since enrollment numbers help fund such services, it’s difficult for some colleges to fulfill the demand.

    The Center for Collegiate Mental Health has found that of the students seeking help, 70% have anxiety. Of those, 25% consider anxiety their main concern. These numbers, according to Deseret News, are based on 2017 data covering 160,014 students at 160 colleges.

    Additionally, a 2017 American College Health Association Survey of 63,000 students discovered that 2 in 5 students would say they are so depressed that they “struggled to function,” and 3 in 5 had felt “overwhelming anxiety” in the previous year.

    According to experts, college students may be particularly prone to such mental health struggles because of the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

    And it isn’t just the volume of students that’s an issue. According to Daniel Eisenberg, professor of health management and policy at the University of Michigan and director of the Healthy Minds Network, students’ symptoms are growing more severe.

    According to Eisenberg’s data, almost half of students who need services are not receiving them.

    Randy P. Auerbach of Columbia University and lead author of a study about mental health in college students worldwide, says the problem needs to be addressed. 

    “We are seeing debilitating levels of anxiety that are more and more common—where, by the time they get to college, students are so worried about different aspects of their lives it can be a real problem. Students struggling with very severe symptoms who don’t get treatment are likely to have consequences.”

    On some campuses, students are taking the matter into their own hands. At the University of Michigan, student body president Bobby Dishell and some of his peers had begun a program called the Wolverine Support Network. The idea was that students could form small groups and offer one another support. 

    Sam Orley, whose brother George took his own life when he was a student at the university, served as the executive director of the program. Orley said that rather than being a program for mental illness, the Wolverine Support Network is a “holistic mental health and well-being effort.”

    In some cases, the struggles college students are facing may be downplayed, according to Kelly Davis, director of peer advocacy, supports and services for Mental Health America.

    “There’s a lot of condescension—dismissal of how hard that period of life is,” Davis told Deseret News. 

    Last spring, Deseret News sat down with students to discuss their fears and worries. Topping the list were fear of missing out, fear of failure and job competition.

    “The bar is just so high for everything,” one student said in conclusion.  

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Alleged Drug Dealer Indicted For Fentanyl Overdose Death

    Alleged Drug Dealer Indicted For Fentanyl Overdose Death

    Calvin Warren Jr. is the first person to be arrested and charged under a new Florida law.

    A new Florida law regarding the prosecution of drug dealers, signed by Gov. Rick Scott in 2017, has gone into effect. The law expanded the state’s first-degree murder code to include adults who sell a lethal dose of fentanyl.

    The Palm Beach Post reported that Calvin Warren Jr., 35, was arrested on first-degree murder charges in the overdose death of 36-year-old Thomas Matuseski. Warren is the first person to be arrested and charged under the new law.

    Thomas Matuseski died on January 28 after ingesting fentanyl; Warren is accused of providing the deadly drug. Warren remains in the Palm Beach County Jail without the possibility of parole. The indictment against him states that he caused Matuseski’s death “unlawfully from a premeditated design.”

    The Palm Beach County State Attorney’s Office announced that Warren distributed heroin, cocaine, and fentanyl. On January 28, Matuseski’s roommate found him collapsed on his bedroom floor in Boynton Beach, according to city police records. Matuseski’s friend called 911 but the Boynton rescue crews were unable to resuscitate him.

    Police reported no sign of drugs or paraphernalia in Matuseski’s home on Citrus Park Lane, and it was not announced how Warren was suspected to be linked to Matuseski’s death. Police records do show that Warren was arrested in February on a case that remains open and includes multiple drug-related charges.

    Greg Newburn, Florida’s state policy director for Families Against Mandatory Minimums, told The Daily Beast, “Most deaths we’ve seen since the rise of fentanyl in Florida have been a mixture of heroin and fentanyl.”

    Florida’s new law does not account for the mixture of drugs or if the dealer claims to have known they were using fentanyl. If a drug mixture containing any amount of fentanyl is involved in the drug user’s death, the dealer can be charged with first-degree murder, a charge for which “the only two sentences available are life without parole and the death penalty,” Newburn said.

    “We will aggressively charge drug dealers who spread fentanyl-laced heroin into our community,” Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said in a statement, as reported in The Palm Beach Post. “We will use all tools provided us by the Florida Legislature to hold drug dealers accountable for causing the deaths of others.” 

    Thomas Matuseski was a New York native, and according to his obituary was remembered as a loving father and son who loved sports.

    View the original article at thefix.com