Answer Addiction

Tag: substance use disorder

  • Heather Locklear Addresses Addiction On Instagram

    Heather Locklear Addresses Addiction On Instagram

    “Addiction is ferocious and will try to take you down. Recovery is the best revenge.”

    Heather Locklear, the TV star best known for role on Melrose Place has had a difficult year. She’s been making headlines for her struggles with addiction and mental health, including several trips to treatment. Locklear is also currently facing a hearing on September 27 on charges of battery on a police officer and an EMT who were called to her home.

    Recently, the actress took to Instagram to address addiction and recovery. Locklear had taken a step back from social media for several months before coming back in August, and several postings have touched on her recent troubles, with hopes for a better tomorrow.

    On September 19, she posted, “Addiction is ferocious and will try to take you down. Recovery is the best revenge. Be kind to everyone you meet, your light just might change their path.”

    She ended her post saying, “Rest in peace beautiful Josh. You touched my [heart emoji].” (It’s currently unclear who Josh is, but reports claim he was a friend of Locklear’s who lost his own battle with addiction.)

    In another, she left a message that read,  “Love yourself…enough to take the actions required for your happiness…enough to cut yourself loose from the drama-filled past…enough to set a high standard for relationships…enough to feed your mind and body in a healthy manner…enough to forgive yourself…enough to move on.”

    In another post, Locklear shared a photo of the Maria Shriver book, I’ve Been Thinking…Reflections, Prayers, and Meditations for a Meaningful Life.

    In June, Locklear was arrested on two counts of battery on emergency personnel who were called to her home, with Sgt. Eric Buschow of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department telling CNN she was “extremely intoxicated and very uncooperative” at the time of her arrest.

    After her arrest, Locklear reportedly checked into rehab for the second time this year. 

    She has reportedly gone to rehab seven times, first checking into a facility in Arizona for anxiety and depression in 2008.

    She was later arrested the same year for suspicion of driving under the influence of prescription meds (the charges were later dismissed.) Locklear also reportedly did a one-month rehab stay in March 2017.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Drew Barrymore Talks Past Drug Use: Cocaine Is My Worst Nightmare

    Drew Barrymore Talks Past Drug Use: Cocaine Is My Worst Nightmare

    The “Santa Clarita Diet” actress got candid about her past drug use on Norm Macdonald’s new Netflix talk show.

    Drew Barrymore’s past struggles with substance misuse are well-known. After she became a superstar with the success of E.T., she followed the path of many child stars, battling addiction which threatened to end her career.

    Now in a recent appearance on Norm Macdonald’s new talk show Norm Macdonald has a Show, Barrymore says she has no desire to go back to those days.

    When Macdonald asked Barrymore if she missed cocaine, she emphatically replied, “Oh, God. It’s been a very long time, but no. Nothing would make me have a panic attack and seem like a bigger nightmare.”

    Looking back in hindsight, Barrymore said her early fame was “like a recipe for disaster. You know what’s exciting? I got my s— over with at, like 14. Like, midlife crisis, institutionalized, blacklisted, no family. Got it done. And then [I] got into the cycle of being my own parent. It’s sad that there’s this weird alchemy about kids doing this line of work that f— all of them up, and I’m no different.”

    Barrymore admitted she still drinks, telling Macdonald, “I enjoy my life and get out of my own head. It’s not that I’m this militant person of clarity and presence but [cocaine] is like my worst nightmare right now.”

    Substance abuse ran in Barrymore’s family. Her father battled alcoholism and eventually wound up homeless. Her grandfather was Hollywood legend—and legendary drinker—John Barrymore. Drew had already taken a trip to rehab by the age of 12, survived a suicide attempt, and was then institutionalized for 18 months.

    She described her lowest point to The Guardian. “Just knowing that I really was alone… My mom locked me up in an institution. But it did give an amazing discipline. It was like serious recruitment training and boot camp, and it was horrible and dark and very long-lived, a year and a half, but I needed it.”

    Barrymore told Howard Stern in a past interview, “It was a very severe, locked down, no-Hollywood-rehab-30-day-Malibu-beachside-bullshit [place]… They saved my life.”

    After getting back into civilization, Barrymore lived with David Crosby, who was also in recovery, for two months, then worked a number of jobs before she rebuilt her acting career. She’s currently starring in the Netflix series Santa Clarita Diet.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Dealers Remain An Issue On Instagram Despite Crackdown Efforts

    Dealers Remain An Issue On Instagram Despite Crackdown Efforts

    The company is now working to make treatment options more readily visible as well with their new “Can we help?” pop-up.

    After repeatedly fielding allegations that their platforms helped fuel the opioid crisis, Facebook and Instagram are now taking extra steps to combat social media drug-selling and help divert users into treatment. 

    Last month Facebook announced plans to redirect drug-seeking social media users to a help box offering support suggestions and, months after blocking targeted hashtags, Instagram recently decided to take a similar approach. 

    “As part of Instagram’s commitment to be the kindest, safest social network, we’re launching a new pop-up within the app that offers to connect people with information about free and confidential treatment options, as well as information about substance use, prevention and recovery,” a spokesperson for the photo-sharing platform told TechCrunch in a statement.

    Social media community guidelines generally ban selling drugs online, but dealers have brazenly skirted those guidelines and the law, listing their goods online with relevant hashtags to attract would-be buyers.

    The growing trend sparked condemnation from Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb earlier this year. 

    “Internet firms simply aren’t taking practical steps to find and remove these illegal opioid listings,” Gottlieb said in a speech at the National Rx Drug Abuse and Heroin Summit in April, according to Engadget. “There’s ample evidence of narcotics being advertised and sold online. I know that internet firms are reluctant to cross a threshold, where they could find themselves taking on a broader policing role. But these are insidious threats being propagated on these web platforms.”

    Instagram initially responded by shutting down potentially problematic search phrases like #fentanyl and #oxycontin—but dealers just shifted to unblocked hashtags instead.

    Then in August, Facebook took action by adding a “Can we help?” pop-up offering links for treatment referrals to anyone searching certain drug-related phrases like “buy OxyContin” or “buy Xanax.” At the same time, the company blocked words like “OxyContin” and “Xanax” from turning up any search results for Pages and Groups. (However, it’s still possible to find profile accounts with drugs included in the user name—such as the many users who simply list “Oxy Contin” as their names.) 

    Then in recent weeks, Instagram reevaluated its blocking-only approach.

    “Blocking hashtags has its drawbacks,” Instagram told TechCrunch. “In some cases, we are removing the communities of support that help people struggling with opioid or substance misuse.” 

    Although those blocked hashtags will stay blocked, now the company is working to make treatment options more readily visible as well with their new “Can we help?” pop-up.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Christopher Kennedy Lawford Dies At 63

    Christopher Kennedy Lawford Dies At 63

    “He was the absolute cornerstone to my sobriety,” said his cousin, Patrick Kennedy.

    Actor Christopher Kennedy Lawford has died, according to his family. The nephew of John F. Kennedy succumbed to a heart attack on Tuesday, according to his cousin, former U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy. He was 63.

    Lawford was living in Vancouver, Canada with his girlfriend and working to open a recovery facility, according to the AP.

    Lawford used his own drug issues to author several books about addiction and recovery—including Moments of Clarity (2008), Recover to Live (2013), What Addicts Know (2014), and When Your Partner Has an Addiction (2016).

    Lawford—the son of English “Rat Pack” actor Peter Lawford and Patricia Kennedy—was candid about his recovery, and guided others on the same path.

    “He was the absolute cornerstone to my sobriety, along with my wife. He was the one who walked me through all the difficult days of that early period,” said Patrick Kennedy, who battled his own drug issues and is now a vocal advocate for mental health and addiction recovery.

    Lawford described using LSD in his youth while in boarding school. He stayed away at first, but began experimenting to cope with the trauma of his parents’ bitter divorce and the assassinations of his uncles John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy.

    “I had friends trying to get me to use LSD in seventh grade. I grew up with an ethic of trying to do good in the world, and I said no. Then my Uncle Bobby was shot. Next fall they asked me again and I said sure,” Lawford told the Chicago Sun-Times in 2016.

    Things only got worse from there, as Lawford “graduated” to heroin and other opioids, according to the AP. In his memoir Symptoms of Withdrawal: A Memoir of Snapshots and Redemption (2005), Lawford described mugging women for money, panhandling in Grand Central Station, and getting arrested for drug possession.

    Lawford finally went to rehab at the age of 30. And while his life was far from perfect, he said he has no regrets.

    “There are many days when I wish I could take back and use my youth more appropriately. But all of that got me here,” he told the AP in 2005. “I can’t ask for some of my life to be changed and still extract the understanding and the life that I have today.”

    After the death of his cousin David Kennedy (son of RFK) who fatally overdosed at the age of 28, Lawford said in 1991, “I never expected to make it to 30. I shouldn’t have. I just have to stay out of my own way, because I’ve got this capacity to screw things up.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • North Dakota's First Lady Shares Her Addiction Story At Recovery Event

    North Dakota's First Lady Shares Her Addiction Story At Recovery Event

    The First Lady says she became a recovery advocate because of the stigma around addiction.

    Education, advocacy and empowerment were among the key topics of discussion at Recovery Reinvented 2018, a daylong event devoted to drug and alcohol dependency in Fargo, North Dakota.

    A host of speakers were featured at the event, including news anchor and recovery advocate Laurie Dhue and Addiction Policy Forum founder/CEO Jessica Hulsey Nickel, as well as a figure known to many North Dakotans, both in and out of the recovery community: Kathryn Helgaas Burgum, the state’s First Lady, who with her husband, Governor Doug Burgum, is a key sponsor of Recovery Reinvented.

    Burgum is also in recovery from alcoholism and fully understands the importance of such events. “I’m very passionate about addiction because it affects me personally,” she told the Fargo-based Forum. 

    Prior to her marriage to Governor Burgum in 2016, Burgum was a successful human resources and marketing professional for various companies. But her alcohol dependency required even greater time and attention than her employment; a self-described “high-functioning” alcoholic, Burgum told the Forum that she was “going to work hung-over almost every day and trying to conceal that.”

    Burgum sought recovery from the Mayo Clinic, but it took a relapse that lasted eight years for her to devote herself fully to gaining sobriety. “That’s really the miracle that happened for me,” she recalled.

    When her husband was elected governor in a landslide victory in 2016, Burgum decided to focus on advocacy for dependency and recovery. Chief among these was Recovery Reinvented, part of an ongoing series of initiatives that operates as a non-profit in association with the Dakota Medical Foundation; the event itself is produced in partnership with the state’s Behavioral Health Division.

    Its goal, as the website states, is to “eliminate the shame and stigma of addiction in North Dakota” through “proven prevention, treatment and recovery approaches.

    Among the issues that Burgum supports: increased access to the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone, which will be provided, along with training in its use, to attendees at the event. Burgum also supports public-private partnerships to assist individuals in returning to society after treatment through providing them with places to live.

    “There are people that are willing to spend money sober houses,” she told the Forum. “Because at some point when people start getting sober, they start paying rent. They start becoming members of the community.”

    Most importantly, Burgum said that she wants to change North Dakotans’ perspective of people with dependency issues from, as the Forum noted, flawed or damaged individuals to ones with a chronic disease that needs treatment. 

    “Part of the reason I [got into recovery advocacy] was that there was so much stigma aroud the chronic disease of addiction, which affected me as well because I didn’t talk about it for 16 years,” she told Fargo Monthly. “I just decided that if I could help other people reach out for treatment and seek help and find recovery by talking about my experience, then I felt like it would be worthwhile and to be grateful for that opportunity.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Kristen Bell Writes Message To Dax Shepard On Sober Anniversary

    Kristen Bell Writes Message To Dax Shepard On Sober Anniversary

    “I know how much you loved using. I know how much it got in your way. And I know, because I saw, how hard you worked to live without it.”

    Actress Kristen Bell took to Instagram to write a message to her husband, Parenthood star Dax Shepard, to celebrate his 14 years of sobriety. 

    “I know how much you loved using. I know how much it got in your way. And I know, because I saw, how hard you worked to live without it,” Bell wrote on Instagram. 

    Shepard has been open about his addiction and how it could have led to more severe consequences. 

    “I just loved to get fucked up—drinking, cocaine, opiates, marijuana, diet pills, pain pills, everything. Mostly my love was Jack Daniel’s and cocaine,” he told Playboy in 2012. “I was famous for going out on Thursday night to have a couple of beers and that just led all the way to Saturday night… Of course, come Monday I would be tallying up all the different situations, and each one was progressively more dangerous. I got lucky in that I didn’t go to jail.”

    In her post, Bell talked about the ongoing, daily work that it takes Shepard to stay sober. “I will forever be in awe of your dedication, and the level of fierce moral inventory you perform on yourself, like an emotional surgery, every single night,” she wrote. 

    She pointed out how Shepard puts the tenants of recovery into action, as a husband and as a father to their daughters, who are 2 and 5. 

    “You never fail to make amends, or say sorry when it’s needed. You are always available to guide me, and all of our friends, with open ears and tough love when it’s needed most,” Bell wrote. “You have become the fertilizer in the garden of our life, encouraging everyone to grow.”

    In addition, Bell said that she has learned from how open Shepard is about his recovery.

    “I’m so proud that you have never been ashamed of your story, but instead shared it widely, with the hope it might inspire someone else to become the best version of themselves,” she wrote. “You have certainly inspired me to do so.”

    Bell has spoken in the past about how Shepard’s experience has changed her perception of addiction and people who abuse drugs, making her more empathetic toward those who need help.

    “Seeing the world through his eyes has really opened mine to knowing that it is a disease and nobody is choosing to drink more than others,” she told The New York Daily News in 2016. “They are doing it because of a variety of reasons and they deserve the attention of a mental health professional, and not the county jail or however else we’re choosing to pretend we’re fixing the problem.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Lady Gaga Reflects On Drugs, "Loneliness" Behind Stardom

    Lady Gaga Reflects On Drugs, "Loneliness" Behind Stardom

    “There was a buffet of options. When I first started to perform around the country doing nightclubs, there was stuff everywhere.”

    Six-time Grammy-winning singer Lady Gaga makes her feature film debut as an aspiring performer who falls for a rocker (Bradley Cooper) with dependency problems in the upcoming A Star is Born.

    The confluence of substance abuse and fame is an issue with which Gaga (born Stefani Germanotta is familiar, having battled cocaine dependency early in her career. And in an interview about the film with the Los Angeles Times, Germanotta recalled how she traveled a path similar to that of her screen character, where drugs were frequently offered as a panacea to the emotional turmoil of striving to achieve your dreams.

    In the film—which is the third remake of the 1937 film, with previous iterations starring Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand in Germanotta’s role— Cooper is musician Jackson Maine, whose career is in crisis due to his drug and alcohol dependency. He finds what appears to be creative and emotional salvation in Germanotta’s Ally, a gifted singer. But as her star ascends, his substance issues threaten to upend their happiness. 

    In her interview with the Times, Germanotta said she fully understood the emotional turbulence that was part and parcel of the pursuit of a career in front of an audience. “It’s very lonely being a performer,” she said. “There’s a certain loneliness that I feel, anyway—that I’m the only one that does what I do. So it feels like no one understands.”

    Feelings of isolation and insecurity can spur some aspiring performers to seek comfort in the substances that can proliferate behind the scenes. “There was a buffet of options,” recalled Germanotta. “When I first started to perform around the country doing nightclubs, there was stuff everywhere, but I had already partied when I was younger so I didn’t dabble. I was able to avoid it because I did it when I was a kid.”

    As Us Weekly noted, Germanotta has spoken often about her struggles with cocaine in the past. The publication quoted her 2011 interview on The Howard Stern Show, where she said, “I think that I was lonely and there was something about the drugs that made me feel like I had a friend. 

    “I did it all alone in my apartment while I wrote music. And you know what? I regret every line I ever did.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Inside California's Massive Addiction Treatment Overhaul

    Inside California's Massive Addiction Treatment Overhaul

    Medi-Cal recipients will now have expanded access to addiction treatment.

    The California Health Care Foundation released a report on August 3 this year outlining the state’s new approach for residents using Medi-Cal and seeking substance abuse treatment options.

    California is the first state in the United States to use the new health care system structure, in a five-year pilot program authorized by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

    Medi-Cal is California’s low-income health insurance, and previously covered very few addiction treatment services. In addition, patients had no database to explore what treatment plan would be best for their needs.

    A new system, called Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery, ensures that counties who participate can offer many more services to people struggling with addiction, as well as coordinate, manage and evaluate quality of care in those services.

    A huge leap forward is the increase in payment to treatment providers, allowing more access to various types of treatment. In California there are over 10 million people using Medi-Cal health insurance.

    “It’s been an enormous change,” William Harris, assistant regional manager of Riverside County’s substance abuse treatment program, told California Health Report. “We’re operating under an entirely new paradigm and are able to expand services and be more inclusive and better meet the needs of the population of our county.”

    Nineteen California counties have adopted the program with 21 more scheduled to do so in upcoming months. These counties represent 97% of the state’s Medi-Cal population.

    The California Health Care Foundation study looked at the four 2017 adopters of the new Medi-Cal system, including Riverside, Los Angeles, Marin and Santa Clara counties. Co-author Molly Brassil told California Health Report that the Medi-Cal program report was a way to access the strengths and weaknesses of the system.

    “This report sort of tells the story to other counties that, yes, (the implementation) is not without challenges and it isn’t easy, but it’s doable,” she affirmed. “I was taken aback by how positive all the counties were given the tremendous lift it is for all of them.”

    The newly offered services have induced a flood of user demand. In Riverside there was a large volume of calls after launching a hotline to screen members for substance use disorders and refer them for possible treatment. Since the inception of the program in 2017, Riverside has had to triple its staff to meet growing demand.

    The new system takes current research and implements it into their model, by treating substance use disorder like any other medical illness.

    Brassil noted to California Health Report that the goal is for substance abuse screening and treatment to become a mainstream part of all health care.

    The Medi-Cal program is working, and Brassil would like to see it put in place for good. “We’ve heard from folks overall that this is the right thing to do. It’s hard, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Iceland May Be On The Verge Of Opioid Epidemic Similar To The US

    Iceland May Be On The Verge Of Opioid Epidemic Similar To The US

    In 2017, there was about one drug-related death per 10,000 people in Iceland, compared to one per 4,500 in the US. 

    During the first half of this year, Iceland has already seen 29 likely drug overdose deaths—nearly as many as the 32 total that the country had in 2017. 

    The alarming increase, according to Reykjavík Grapevine magazine, could be due to a developing crisis in the country. 

    Ólafur B. Einarsson of the Directorate Of Health—a government agency under Iceland’s Ministry of Welfare—tells the Grapevine that substances like amphetamine and cocaine have been discovered in various samples from those who have died, though those substances have not been determined to be the cause of death. 

    “There have been 29 deaths that are probably related to drugs from January to the middle of June this year,” Einarsson said. “But it remains to be confirmed whether they are all directly linked to drugs.” 

    Einarsson added that cocaine has been discovered in five of the deaths, which is “a lot.” However, he says, a bigger concern is the abuse of prescription drugs in the country. 

    “Compared to other Nordic countries, Iceland has a 30% higher consumption rate of nervous system medication like oxycodone,” Einarsson says. 

    Because of this statistic, the Grapevine notes, the Directorate Of Health in Iceland began an online prescription database in 2016 with the hope that it would prevent physicians from prescribing numerous medications to the same patient. 

    According to Einarsson, another alarming trend lies in the ages of those abusing drugs. “This year, we discovered that more young people consumed a mix of strong opioid analgesics and cannabis or alcohol,” Einarsson told the Grapevine. 

    According to Einarsson, the group most at risk is young men. In fact, 79% of those dead in 2018 were males. 

    While the specific numbers don’t touch the United States in terms of quantity, the per capita ratio does. Iceland is home to only 338,000 people, while the U.S. has a population of more than 326,000,000.

    According to the Grapevine, there was about one drug-related death per 10,000 people in Iceland last year, compared to one per 4,500 in the U.S. 

    “In my opinion, the current situation is a crisis and if the numbers will continue to rise this year, we will in fact be very close to the figures of the United States, proportionally speaking,” Einarsson said. 

    The drug-related deaths reflect a larger problem in Iceland.  

    “Overall, there’s a lot more going on than drug-related deaths,” Einarsson told the Grapevine. “This is the darkest part of the whole picture and there are hundreds of people who are admitted to the hospitals every year due to drug overuse. There have been questions about the healthcare system and how to improve it for several years now.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Colleges Improve Efforts To Accommodate Students In Recovery

    Colleges Improve Efforts To Accommodate Students In Recovery

    Around 300 schools offer recovery support services in the US.

    As the demand rises for student recovery services, some colleges are making a real effort to provide a sober-friendly environment for students who choose to abstain from drugs and alcohol.

    “Students shouldn’t have to choose between their recovery and their education,” said Alexandre Laudet, a researcher at the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc.

    Roughly 20% of college students meet the criteria for alcohol use disorder, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Illicit drug use is rising as well, according to 2016 data.

    According to the Association of Recovery in Higher Education, some 300 schools offer recovery support services in the US.

    Some features of college recovery programs include addiction counseling, support groups, community check-ins, on-campus 12-step meetings, and service work opportunities, Yes Magazine reports.

    Substance-free social activities are a popular feature of these programs; ensuring that sober students don’t miss out on the fun.

    Some colleges offer sober bowling, canoeing, laser tag, hiking, movies. The University of Houston’s recovery program includes a mountain climbing trip, and the University of Oregon organizes sober watch parties for sports fans.

    These programs will often have applicants sign a code of conduct, promising to “abstain from all substances, adhere to safe behaviors, and hold other members of the community accountable,” according to Yes.

    The results of a survey published in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment showed the many positive outcomes of college recovery programs—including low relapse rates, higher-than-average GPAs, and a higher likelihood that students will stay in school and graduate.

    According to the survey, up to 95% of participating students were able to sustain their sobriety while attending school.

    “It was the life preserver I needed when I was drowning. I feel like I’m supported there,” said one engineering student at the University of Michigan. “There are people who would do anything to help me and know how to help me. It’s a safe space for us no matter what’s happening in our lives.”

    One college recovery program of note is the one at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Its recovery housing program was established in 1988, one of the first of its kind. It is among the more established college recovery programs in the country, alongside Texas Tech and Augsburg University.

    The state of New Jersey has gone farther to promote recovery support in higher education; in 2015 the state legislature passed a law requiring four-year public colleges and universities to provide recovery housing.

    View the original article at thefix.com