Tag: substance use disorder

St. Louis Pushes To Expand Medication-Assisted Treatment For The Uninsured

The city’s current healthcare program for the poor and uninsured does not cover mental health or addiction services.

St. Louis officials are asking a federal agency to expand access to medication-assisted treatment under a program that provides healthcare services to uninsured individuals in the city.

The Gateway to Better Health program, which is federally funded, serves uninsured St. Louis County residents who are living below the poverty line by providing basic health services at community health centers.

Currently the program does not cover mental health or addiction services, but officials are asking the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to allow the program to cover medication-assisted treatment with Suboxone and naltrexone.

“We’re the first to admit there are major gaps, and one of our major gaps is mental health and substance abuse services,” Robert Freund, CEO of the St. Louis Regional Health Commission, which operates and monitors the program, told KBIA, Missouri’s NPR affiliate. “It’s only gotten worse as the opioid crisis has really escalated here in our region.”

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has asked the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to reroute about $2 million currently allotted to the Gateway to Better Health program in order to allow community health centers to distribute Suboxone or naltrexone to people with opioid use disorder. The program would also require $750,000 in local matching funds, which has not been secured yet.

The program is also seeking approval to offer counseling, psychological testing and medication-assisted treatment for alcohol use disorder.

Freund said that if the community health centers are better able to serve people with substance use disorders, it would cut down on demand at clinics that only treat addiction, many of which are overwhelmed.

“We can increase access and decrease the burden on our substance abuse providers,” he said.

Integrating care for substance use into a larger community center also allows people to seek help without judgement, said Kendra Holmes, the vice president of Affinia Healthcare, which operates community health centers in St. Louis.

“I think it really helps with the stigma,” Holmes said. “Because you really don’t know what the patient is coming here for. If it were a separate entity, if we called it ‘Affinia Substance Abuse Center,’ there would be a stigma.”

Affinia Healthcare currently has two providers trained to provide substance abuse treatment, who are paid for with grant money. Holmes said if the federal government approves the changes, Affinia would be able to offer addiction treatment services at more clinics.

Freund acknowledged that the requested changes “would be very limited in nature but still very helpful.”

“We’re under no illusions this would solve our access issue for substance abuse in the eastern region,” he said. “However, it’s a start and it would help.”

View the original article at thefix.com

23 August 2018
Demi Lovato's Backup Dancer Denies Rumor That She Gave Singer Drugs

Dancer Dani Vitale took to Instagram to refute claims that she provided the singer with the drugs that led to her apparent overdose.

Dancer Dani Vitale has issued an impassioned statement that pushed back against allegations that she supplied singer Demi Lovato with the drugs that caused her apparent overdose.

Vitale, who performs with Lovato and described herself as a friend of the singer, shared her thoughts on the overdose and Lovato’s condition on her Instagram page, where she stated that she has “NEVER touched nor even SEEN a drug in [her] entire life,” and added that she did not use drugs, encourage their use or supply them to “anyone I love.”

Vitale also detailed how the rumors about her alleged involvement in Lovato’s overdose have impacted her life, stating that the “circulation of an UNTRUE story on the internet yanked my life, my reputation and everything I have worked so hard to stand for, out from underneath me.”

In the post, written on August 16, 2018, Vitale wrote that she was celebrating her birthday with friends on July 23, only to wake up the next morning and discover that Lovato had suffered an overdose.

“My whole being was ridden with sadness, confusion, love and hopelessness,” she wrote.

However, Vitale was not prepared for the outpouring of criticism from social media circles, much of which placed the blame for Lovato’s overdose on her. To complicate matters, she claimed that companies with whom she had worked and individuals she considered friends began to distance themselves from her.

“I wound up not leaving my house nor my bed for three weeks,” she wrote. “Terrified to open a blind or to get out of bed, my house remained just as dark as my mind daily. I thought if I stayed asleep, that was the time I didn’t have to be conscious living in this hell that was being forced upon me. And there were nights I would honestly hope I wouldn’t wake up the next morning so I didn’t have to live through this anymore and it would all go away.”

Lovato has since recovered from the overdose, and posted a message to fans via Instagram on August 5. “I am forever grateful for all of your love and support throughout this past week and beyond,” she wrote. “I now need time to heal and focus on my sobriety and road to recovery.” Vitale’s life has also found a degree of stability; though she is again leading dance classes in Los Angeles, but the pain of the social media outburst is clearly still with her.

“I’m still scared to touch my phone and open it, and trying to resume a ‘normal’ life has been brutally unbearable,” she wrote. “This UNTRUE narrative is damaging innocent people’s lives, mine included. We are so quick to point the finger with little to ZERO facts at all.”

View the original article at thefix.com

22 August 2018
Addiction Medicine Coming To San Francisco's Homeless Community

The outreach program is a response to the “striking increase” in the number of people who inject drugs in public spaces.

The city of San Francisco is rolling out a program that will bring buprenorphine, a medication used to treat opioid use disorder, to its homeless community. City officials say it’s time to start meeting this community where they’re at.

Back in May when the outreach program was introduced, Mayor Mark Farrell told the San Francisco Chronicle, “The consequences of standing still on this issue are unacceptable. Drug abuse is rampant on our streets, and the recipe of waiting for addicts to come into a clinic voluntarily is not working. Plain and simple. So we’re going to take a different approach.”

Dr. Barry Zevin, medical director for Street Medicine and Shelter Health, who has provided medical care to the city’s homeless community since 1991, echoed the mayor’s sentiment.

In a new interview with the New York Times, Zevin explained that meeting the homeless where they’re at may expedite the healing process, rather than waiting for them to seek help. He noted that this population, in particular, has a dire need for mental health and substance abuse services, as well as medical care.

“On the street there are no appointments, and no penalties or judgments for missing appointments,” said Zevin.

Following a yearlong pilot program, 20 out of the 95 participants were still using buprenorphine under the care of the city’s Street Medicine Team, the NYT noted.

With a two-year budget of $6 million, the program is setting out with a goal of providing buprenorphine to 250 more people—just a fraction of the estimated 22,500 injection drug users in San Francisco, but a start.

Zevin noted that there is a concern that the same-day buprenorphine prescriptions may end up being abused, but said that the city is prepared to deal with it on a case by case basis.

“I do have to worry about diversion, but I want to individualize care for each person and not say that the worry is more important than my patient in front of me, whose life is at stake,” he told the NYT.

The outreach program is a response to the “striking increase” in the number of people who inject drugs in public spaces.

“Ultimately, this is about helping these individuals, but it’s also about improving the conditions of our streets,” said Mayor Farrell.

View the original article at thefix.com

21 August 2018
Friend Who Found Bobbi Kristina Brown in Tub Dies from Apparent Overdose

Prior to his death, Max Lomas had successfully completed three months in a rehab facility and had recently found a job.

Max Lomas, who gained notoriety after finding the late Bobbi Kristina Brown unconscious in a bathtub in 2015, has died from what has been described as a “probable” drug overdose.

The 28-year-old, who lived with Whitney Houston and Bobby Brown’s daughter before her drug-related death in 2015, was found unresponsive, with a syringe by his side in the bathroom of a home in Saltillo, Mississippi on August 15, 2018. Lomas was rushed to a hospital where he was pronounced dead.

According to People, a cause of death has not been determined, but death investigation papers obtained by the publication list heroin overdose as the probable cause of death.

People noted that prior to his death, Lomas had successfully completed three months in a rehabilitation facility and had recently found a job.

“He really worked the program,” said a source close to Lomas, who reportedly spoke to him on a weekly basis while he was in treatment. “He had come so far. There was so much he wanted to do.”

Lomas had been taken in by Whitney Houston as a teenager, and was briefly linked to Bobbi Kristina Brown before the relationship came to a halt when he was incarcerated in 2011 for violating his probation.

Upon his release, he found that Brown was dating Nick Gordon, and the trio soon began living together as roommates in Roswell, Georgia. By Lomas’ account, he and the couple were “pretty bad into drugs,” and Gordon and Brown fought on a regular basis, “mostly about jealousy.”

Lomas also claimed that Gordon was abusive towards Brown, a statement that has been decried by Gordon’s lawyers.

On January 31, 2015, Lomas found Brown floating face down in a bathtub in the trio’s townhouse. “I saw the color of her face and that she wasn’t breathing. I called for Nick and called 911,” he stated.

Gordon was subsequently blamed for Brown’s death by her family, who served him with a $40 million civil lawsuit over the alleged abuse. In 2016, he was found liable for Brown’s death and ordered to pay $36 million to her estate.

As People noted, no charges were filed against Lomas, who told the publication in 2016 that he was sober and no longer friends with Gordon.

“I’m in utter disbelief because I knew he had gone and gotten help in Mississippi,” said Garry Grace, a friend of both Lomas and Gordon, to People on August 17. “I didn’t have to worry about him because I knew he was safe.”

View the original article at thefix.com

21 August 2018
Jenna Jameson Talks Struggle To Lose Weight In Sobriety

“I kept telling myself if I could beat addiction and stay sober, I can easily lose the weight… and I did. The healthy way.”

Jenna Jameson has made some major lifestyle changes — again.

According to People, the 44-year-old former adult film actress, who has been outspoken about her sobriety, struggled to lose weight after giving birth to her daughter in April 2017. But on Monday, Aug. 13, she shared a before and after photo on Instagram.

“Let’s talk about the mental aspect of losing weight and getting healthy,” she wrote. “I’m going to be honest with you, when I was heavy I hated leaving the house. I felt judged. I felt eyes on me everywhere. I could hear others internal monologue saying ‘damn, Jenna Jameson let herself go’ ugh…All of us do this, we worry so very much how we are perceived. But beyond that shallow thinking there was deeper shame. I was disappointed in myself.”

Jameson also referenced her history of substance use disorder, stating that she wasn’t sure how she could lose weight while sober.

“I was worried I couldn’t lose the weight Sober,” she wrote. “I’m being real with you. When I was in my addiction it was easy to stay thin. Sobriety and being overweight was new to me. I kept telling myself if I could beat addiction and stay sober, I can easily lose the weight… and I did. The healthy way.”

Prior to her recent post, Jameson also shared on Instagram that she has been on the ketogenic diet, which, according to Women’s Health, is a diet that involves decreased intake of carbohydrates and increasing fats.

“On the right I weight 187,” Jameson wrote on Instagram. “On the left I’m a strong 130. I was lethargic and struggled with the easiest of tasks like walking in the beach sand with Batelli. I felt slow mentally and physically. I took the pic on the right for a body positive post I was going to do and decided against it because I felt anything but fucking positive. I’m now a little under 4 months on the #ketodiet and it’s not only given me physical results, I feel happier, smarter, and much more confident.”

Now, Jameson says, she feels better not only physically, but mentally as well.

“And as of today I can say my mental game is STRONG,” she added on Instagram. “I feel I can do anything, I conquered abuse, addiction, PTSD and depression. Thank you for listening and please tell me your stories below, I read every comment.”

View the original article at thefix.com

17 August 2018
Norway Announces Free Heroin Program For People With Addiction

The program is intended to give a “better quality of life” to those battling heroin addiction, according to the country’s health minister.

In an effort to curb a rising drug overdose mortality rate, Norway will test a program that will prescribe free heroin to individuals with serious dependency issues.

The country’s health minister, Bente Hoie, said that the program is intended to give a “better quality of life” to those for whom current programs do not provide enough relief.

The Norwegian program echoes similar initiatives in neighboring Denmark and the Netherlands, which supporters said has helped to reduce overdose and crime rates, as well as the costs associated with both.

In 2014, Norway’s Country Drug report revealed that 266 residents succumbed to drug-related deaths that year. Rather than adopting punitive measures to curb drug use, it became the first Scandinavian country to decriminalize drugs in 2017.

The current initiative appears to extend to what Sveinung Stensland, deputy chairman of the Storting Health Committee, said in 2014 was a “changed vision—those who have a substance abuse problem should be treated as ill, and not as criminals with classical sanctions such as fines and imprisonment.”

The Norwegian government tasked its Directorate for Health and Social Affairs to develop the initiative, which is slated to begin in 2020. “We want to help those who are difficult to reach, those who are not part of drug-assisted rehabilitation and who are difficult to treat,” said Hoie.

The pilot program will prescribe heroin for up to 400 patients; how the patients will be selected and how much of the drug they will receive has not been announced.

According to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Norway has one of the highest rates of death from drug-related overdoses in Europe, with 81 deaths per million as of 2015. Neighboring Estonia has 132 deaths per million, and Sweden has 22 deaths per million.

Programs like the proposed initiative in Norway have shown promise in reducing overdose rates and improving the quality of life for those with heroin dependency.

The Netherlands established its program in 1998 and treats patients who have used heroin on a regular basis for five or more years and found no relief from other forms of treatment, including methadone-maintenance therapy.

In 2016, the country reported just 235 opioid overdose deaths, a substantially lower number than the rates reported by the state of Ohio, which saw 4,050 deaths that same year.

View the original article at thefix.com

15 August 2018
Kelly Osbourne Discusses Relapse, Celebrating One Year Sober

“To cut a long story short things got really dark. I gave up on everything in my life but most of all I gave up on myself.”

When Demi Lovato ended up hospitalized last month for an apparent overdose, one celebrity to speak out and support her was Kelly Osbourne.

Osbourne has been public in the past about her own battles with substance use, but she only recently spoke out about her own relapse and celebrating one year of sobriety in a post on Instagram.

“To cut a long story short things got really dark,” she wrote. “I gave up on everything in my life but most of all I gave up on myself. Life on life’s terms became too much for me to handle. The only way I knew how to function was to self-medicate and go from project to project so I never had to focus on what was really going on with me.”

Osbourne thanked her family for the role they have played in the past year of her sobriety.

“I want to take this time to thank my brother @jackosbourne who answered the phone to me one year ago today and picked me up from where I had fallen yet again without judgment,” she wrote. “He has held my hand throughout this whole process. Thank you to my Mum and Dad for never giving up on me.”

In 2009, Osbourne spoke to People about her battles, beginning at the age of 13.

“I had my tonsils taken out, and they gave me liquid Vicodin,” she told People. “I found, when I take this, people like me. I’m having fun, I’m not getting picked on. It became a confidence thing.”

In the next few years, Osbourne says she started seeking out pills from friends and doctors. In 2002, during filming of The Osbournes, she says she was self-medicating every day to manage her anxiety and “not be me.”

In 2004, People reports, Osbourne’s parents sent her to Promises Treatment Center in Malibu. Then, in 2005, she went to treatment again. For the following three years she lived in London, with what she tells People were high and low points.

When she returned to Los Angeles in 2008, Osbourne says she hit an ultimate low and an intense relapse. When her friends and family stepped in and demanded she get help, she says she was relieved.

“I knew if I didn’t go, I would die,” she told People. “I thought, ‘Thank God someone’s going to make this pain go away.’”

While it isn’t clear how long of a stretch of sobriety Osbourne had previous to this relapse, she says she is now content with where she is and where her sobriety stands.

“I still don’t know who the fuck I am or what the fuck I want but I can wholeheartedly confess that I’m finally at peace with myself and truly starting to understand what true happiness is,” she concluded in her Instagram post.

View the original article at thefix.com

13 August 2018
How Racism Brought About Acupuncture For Addiction Treatment In The US

Community leaders in the Bronx in the ’70s were wary of using methadone to treat addiction so they opted to take a holistic approach.

A distrust in the profit-driven pharmaceutical establishment formed the roots of acupuncture for addiction treatment in the United States, according to a report in The Atlantic.

According to writer Olga Khazan, it all began with community activists in the Bronx. During the 1970s, the northernmost New York City borough faced a daunting drug problem with few resources to fight it.

Community activists the Young Lords and the Black Panthers, and their supporters, rallied for the creation of an in-patient drug treatment program at Lincoln Hospital, and won.

About 200 people were in line at the opening of Lincoln Detox, but according to Khazan, the community, including detox staffers, were not convinced that methadone was the answer to the Bronx’s drug problem.

As Samuel Roberts, professor of history and sociomedical sciences at Columbia University, explained, this sentiment was rooted in a distrust for the establishment disseminating the pharmaceutical drug. “Methadone was highly regulated—it’s run by white doctors, in white coats, in white hospitals,” Roberts told Khazan.

This fueled a growing interest in acupuncture—a staple of Traditional Chinese Medicine that involves inserting thin needles at strategic points to balance the body’s flow of energy—because it did not require medication and facilitated the idea of community members treating one another.

Some traveled to Montreal to receive training in practicing acupuncture, which they would bring back to Lincoln Detox. (Tupac’s stepfather Mutulu Shakur was among these people. He’d later found his own organization, the Black Acupuncture Advisory Association of North America.)

Lincoln Detox would later drop methadone altogether, opting instead to offer acupuncture treatment and other holistic treatment instead.

Bob Duggan, who founded Penn North, a recovery center in Baltimore, learned about acupuncture for addiction recovery from Lincoln Detox, and brought it to Baltimore. Daily acupuncture is a mandatory part of the center’s recovery program.

There are currently more than 600 recovery programs in the United States that use acupuncture, according to the National Acupuncture Detoxification Association (NADA).

While there’s no clear consensus among the research community in the efficacy of acupuncture for addiction recovery, Sara Bursac, executive director of NADA, says the practice is effective as part of a multi-faceted program that includes counseling and 12-step meetings.

View the original article at thefix.com

10 August 2018
"Vikings" Actor Alexander Ludwig Opens Up About Addiction Struggle

“I’ve struggled with addiction for a long part of my life and I went to rehab at one point, came out, and it was the greatest thing I ever did in my life.”

While promoting the History Channel series Vikings at Comic-Con 2018, Canadian actor Alexander Ludwig addressed his recovery in a candid interview.

Ludwig, who opened up about his struggle with addiction in a new awareness campaign, shared with ET Canada that he’s learned a lot while working through is recovery.

“I’ve struggled with addiction for a long part of my life and I went to rehab at one point, came out, and it was the greatest thing I ever did in my life,” he said. “One thing that comes with addiction is realizing that it really doesn’t just start with you. Even though I’m fighting it, my whole family, my loved ones, are living with it too.”

Ludwig’s story is featured on the Instagram account @BiteTheBulletStories, a collection of stories of hardship, determination, and survival.

Ludwig chose to share his experience with addiction. “With the help of family, friends and my love [girlfriend Kristy Dawn Dinsmore] I was able to see I had an addiction,” Ludwig said in the Instagram post. “I chose to fight it and I went to rehab. I bite the bullet for the addict who still suffers, I bite the bullet for the loved ones who try to help to no avail.”

Ludwig’s girlfriend, actress Kristy Dawn Dinsmore, was there with him through it all, he said.

Dinsmore also had a story to tell, about seeing her mother sick for three years before she passed away when she was 9 years old. Dinsmore said at the time she was at a crossroads, but the selfless love of her surrounding community compelled her to go down a “path of gratitude instead of the seductive path of self-loathing.”

She said in her Instagram post, ”I could have succumbed to being a victim, or I could choose to accept that some things are out of my control. When I finally accepted the things I couldn’t change, I was able to take the appropriate steps towards changing what I could.”

“With [Alexander’s] struggle with addiction I’ve undergone some of the toughest times since my mother died and I’ve had to be as resilient as ever to help him through this. Our willingness to be vulnerable and open gives birth to a space within where we ultimately grow,” said Dinsmore, who has appeared on Supernatural and recently the TV series Loudermilk.

Ludwig said that by sharing with Dinsmore, he wants to let people know that they’re not alone and it’s important to talk about what’s within.

“A lot of people live in toxic shame,” he said. “There’s no shame in getting help for things that you need.”

View the original article at thefix.com

24 July 2018
Political Ad Takes Shot At Lawyer's Past Addiction, Criminal History

“To be pulled in to a heated political race based on my own story of redemption is really painful,” said Tarra Simmons.

Tarra Simmons never wanted to be the stuff of campaign fodder.

But months after winning her year-long battle to become a lawyer, the former prisoner was surprised to see her name dragged into a state senate race – as a political smear.

The mailers supporting Republican Marty McClendon, which started showing up on Washington doorsteps this month according to KING-TV, denounced his Democratic opponent for supporting the “drug-addicted ex-con” in her hard-fought efforts to gain admission to the state bar.

“Emily Randall has consistently failed to back our law enforcement,” the flyers reportedly said, “yet Randall has supported Tarra Simmons, a drug-addicted ex-con who was denied admission to the Washington State Bar Association due to multiple felony convictions.”

Simmons, who served time for gun, drug and theft charges, made national headlines last year after the Washington State Bar refused to let her sit for the bar exam, the test needed to become a lawyer. She’d already won a prestigious law fellowship, was a dean’s medal recipient at her law school, launched a non-profit and racked up years of clean time under her belt. But still, the bar said, that wasn’t enough.

“Her acquired fame has nurtured not integrity and honesty, but a sense of entitlement to privileges and recognition beyond the reach of others,” the Character and Fitness board wrote in 2017.

But the Bremerton mom took her case to court, and won, scoring accolades and compliments from the state’s jurists.

“Simmons has proved by clear and convincing evidence that she is currently of good moral character and fit to practice law,” the Washington Supreme Court wrote in its 33-page opinion. “We affirm this court’s long history of recognizing that one’s past does not dictate one’s future. We therefore unanimously grant her application to sit for the bar exam.”

But despite the state court’s support, it seems, some political groups still aren’t on board with Simmons’ impressive turnaround – and Simmons took them to task for it in a neatly-worded Facebook post.

“Hey 26th District Republicans You left out the part about how the Washington State Supreme Court UNANIMOUSLY put the bar in its place,” she wrote. “I thought the right wingers believed in things like ‘redemption’. You know what? Part of me is happy over this nonsense. Because people only talk about leaders. I’ll take it as a compliment that you thought about me, and I’ll keep leading with truth while y’all sit up here and throw stones at people who’ve done their time and have fought through pain that would make you crumble. I’m proud of Emily Randall because she gets it.”

The ad in question wasn’t actually paid for by Randall’s opponent. Instead, an outside group, the Washington Forward, The Leadership Council, reportedly funded the flyer.

View the original article at thefix.com

19 July 2018