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Treatment Philanthropy
Richard Gere Donates
to Rehab Facility    
Gere, who was born in Philly and received the Marian Anderson Award in 2007, is no stranger to giving. "While every gift we receive is appreciated and extremely helpful, this contribution will not only help provide treatment for patients in need, but will also help focus attention on the issue of addiction in our society and remind people that help is available, and recovery is possible. More  
Conversation Cont. - Nature vs. Nurture SF WEEKLY
Addicts Are Made, Not Born: And It's Not the Drugs That Create Them

So if it's not the drugs, what makes an addict? Dr. Carl Hart did more research. Avowed crack users were given a choice: Every day, they were given a hit of crack. They were then given a choice: another hit, or $5 to use once the experiment was over. Given the choice, about half took the cash over the drugs. Nearly everyone took the cash when the reward was upped to $20. More

Sponsor in a Chip    Huffpostt
App for Recovering Alcoholics Is
Here, Again
Each year in the U.S., excessive drinking takes 88,000 lives and costs about $224 billion. And for the roughly 18 million Americans with some kind of alcohol use disorder, it can be terribly difficult to quit. The A-CHESS app was designed to empower users and connect them to other recovered addicts and counselors. More
Let's Meet this May at the WCSAD

STUDY - Warnings Work
Risk of Alcohol-Related Cancer Lowers the Intention for Binge Drinking in College Students
Binge drinking for college students has proven to be a huge problem at many universities. The risk of DUI or even death makes it a public health concern that students and administrators need to face. A recent study by researchers at the University at Buffalo, State University of New York, found that college students exposed to the risk messages of alcohol-related cancer had lower intent to engage in binge drinking. More
Celebrity Recovery
Mackenzie Phillips Spreading the Message - Recovery Rocks!

 

"Mack," as Phillips is known to her clients, looks him in the eye and urges him to avoid the "overconfidence" that can accompany early recovery. It's a role reversal the former sitcom star - who detailed her lifelong struggle with drug abuse in her blistering 2009 memoir High on Arrival - often dreamed about during her four-decade battle with addiction. More  
Slam Dunk for Recovery and AA
NBA Star Chris Herren Shares Journey
From Addiction to
Healthy Living
"No community, no town, no school is safe from what's happening right now," Herren said. "I don't know anyone who overdosed from heroin who didn't start by taking pills. We all go down that line by transitioning over to the next drug. It starts with the nights in the woods, at the beach, in the clubs or at a party. That's when this thing begins." A focus of Herren's work is on removing the stigma attached to substance use disorders. He said he feels that if shame hadn't kept him silent all those years ago, he might have addressed his problem earlier. More  
Reduce the Stigmata and Save a Life
Combining the Science of Addiction with the Art of Engagement
"The patients at the institute have the more severe forms of addiction," he states. "What a formidable enemy. Addiction is a little like cancer. Both are chronic relapsing illnesses. Some people get the monkey off their backs and never look back. But many have relapses, and we need to help them." "Help," as defined by Levounis, turned out to include fighting the stigma attached to addiction, which he says is widespread and deeply rooted. "There is a serious stigma even among physicians," he contends.  More  
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EVERY Past Issue of the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin 

 
Compassionate Public Policy
Three Lives Saved
on Staten Island
with Overdose Reversing Drug
Naloxone essentially blocks the effects of opioids like the widely abused painkiller oxyocodone, meaning that a person suffering an overdose will essentially start to breathe again, giving the person enough time to get to a hospital. In the last decade, 5,000 New Yorkers have died of an accidental opioid overdose - that includes both prescription drugs and heroin, Dr. Bassett said. More
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I Spy a Drink  
The Secret Service Has a Drinking Problem
The Secret Service has a drinking problem. It's much worse than any other cultural deficit the elite agency has. It's more widespread than sexism, certainly, and the other isms that have been attached to the agency since the prostitution scandal in Cartagena, Colombia. It's something that every journalist who covers the White House kind of knows, intuitively, if they've ever traveled with the president. More
Popular Opinion
Alcoholics Anonymous, the 12-Step Fellowship:
A Modern Miracle
AA is not "treatment," and it cannot be meaningfully compared to any treatment. When can anyone find a treatment program located in virtually every part of the world? A treatment program where someone calls you daily? A treatment program where you can call someone at 3:00 a.m.? And a "treatment" that not only is free to the suffering addict and alcoholic, but that requires no insurance, government funding or a license, and is not subject to any regulation? This group of related fellowships is a modern miracle. There are many reasons to be proud of America, but none is more important to me - or more unique - than the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 in Akron, OH. More
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Recovery Event Gains Mainstream Support     
Wells Fargo to Sponsor San Francisco's 
REEL Recovery
Film Festival  

Wells Fargo Bank has become the first Platinum level sponsor for the Bay Area's newest film event - The REEL Recovery Film Festival San Francisco Bay Area Edition. The four-day festival, taking place during National Alcohol Awareness Month, will present 33 select feature-length and short, fictional and factual alcohol and drug addiction themed films in twenty sessions at two locations and include two world premieres that highlight the disease as well as the hope and opportunity for recovery. "Wells Fargo Bank is proud to support the REEL Recovery Film Festival,"stated Ann-Therese O'Neill, Vice President, Wells Capital Management. "This unique and creative public health and community wellness initiative will go a long way in creating public awareness about the options available to those facing the devastating disease of alcohol and drug misuse." More 

Anonymity - A New Paradigm?
Lack of Anonymity in Digital Age Poses Challenge for Substance Abuse Recovery
Editor's note: The Times typically identifies individuals in news stories by first and last names to reinforce the credibility of the report. In this case, Executive Editor John Bodette made an exception to that requirement so the stories of people in recovery debating new standards of anonymity could be told.As of May 2012, Narcotics Anonymous was hosting 61,800 meetings a week in 129 countries. Numbers from a 2013 Alcoholics Anonymous survey show that the organization has more than 2 million members and more than 100,000 groups worldwide. More  
The Power of the Written Word   HuffPost 

My Journals
Knew I Was
an Alcoholic Before I Did     

For many years I wrote nightly in a journal, with a pen and a bound book of beautiful empty pages, which I filled fast and furiously before bed. Then one day, I stopped. As near as I can figure, this quitting occurred around the time Wifi came into my life and my apartment. Instead of bringing my journal into bed with me, I brought my laptop. And while I'm pretty sure I simply meant to shift my personal reflections to the digital writing device I was now using so often, clearly I was an analog-only journaler. It was in 2007 -- ironically, the same year I started a Facebook account -- that my 20-year journaling career came to a screeching halt. More 

The Spiritual Side of AA

Several AA Steps Can Also
Be a Spiritual Tonic     

More than once in this space have we admired the traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous - The Twelve Steps. Alcoholics come to admit they are "powerless over alcohol," the first step but, really, that's pretty much the end of The Twelve Steps' focus on drinking. The rest of the journey is about developing a core spirituality. AA is like "spirituality for dummies," and I mean that as a high compliment. More 
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Writers In Treatment
Celebrity Rehab
David Cassidy
"Committed to Sobriety" After Checking
into Rehab 
The singer's representative said he had already been enrolled in an inpatient rehab facility at the time of the sentencing and the judge will credit him the 102 days he's served. He will now make the transition into a monitored outpatient program with a sober coach, early next month. His rep added: "David is very committed to his sobriety." More  
Houston, Texas, Hosts REEL Recovery Film Festival THIS WEEKEND
13-YEAR-OLD DJ PRODIGY SPINS DISCS AT REEL RECOVERY FILM FESTIVAL PARTY

Come enjoy this groundbreaking "Film Meets Recovery" festival!!! Fabulous $5 films ... Live Music w/Big Al Bettis/DJ Elle/Shake Russell & Michael Hearne ... Festival admission and food are FREE! Volunteers needed for Friday & Sunday ... message/call/text if you are interested: (713) 240-4931

 

Health Warning    Boston Globe    
E-cigarettes' Liquid
Drug Can Kill
Evidence of the potential dangers is emerging. Toxicologists warn that e-liquids pose a significant risk to public health, particularly to children, who may be drawn to their neon-bright colors and fragrant flavorings like cherry, chocolate, and bubble gum. "It's not a matter of if a child will be seriously poisoned or killed," said Lee Cantrell, "It's a matter of when."
More  
MEDIA Book of the Week
The Thirteenth Step:
Zombie Recovery 

by Michele W. Miller       

"Michele Miller has had more lives than a cat, and they've made her a writer of passion and substance."
- Lawrence Block, Edgar Award winner & bestselling author
"As an author, fan of the genre ... I have nothing but envy for the premise of this book. Addicts, and those who have the genetic makeup of an addict, are immune to the Zombie infection. Zombies don't smell them and seek them out the way they do with other humans.  So what is left wandering the post-apocalyptic zombie wasteland is either recovering addicts, or those who continue to get high on the scraps left behind. Why can't I think of something cool like that? - Mark Matthews, author of On The Lips of children
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Do You Call a Diabetic a "Sugar Abuser?"    
Why 'Substance Abuse' Is a Label We Should
All Reject  
 "Abuse" is an ugly word. "Child abuse," "sexual abuse," "physical abuse," "emotional abuse," "domestic abuse." And then, of course, there's "substance abuse." Despite their training, the practicing clinicians favored a more punitive approach when the patient-who was described as having relapsed during court-ordered treatment-was labeled as being an abuser as opposed to having a disorder. More
Teen in Trouble?
Communities Unite     
A Good Approach to Fix Challenge of Sober Houses     
Boca Raton, for example, fought to limit the locations of sober homes in 2007. The city lost the case in court - an effort that cost taxpayers about $1.2 million in legal fees. Delray Beach, which has a reputation as a recovery-friendly community, similarly has been stymied in its effort to create boundaries for sober homes. In 2012, city officials refused to allow a Pennsylvania-based firm to turn a $3-million beachfront mansion into a sober home. However, a federal judge issued an injunction against the city's ruling.  More
We Proudly Endose...

 A New Way to Get Roasted   TIME
'Bean Heads': Inside the World
of Kids Who
Smoke Coffee
What are these crazy kids up to now? Not much, as far as we can tell In the midst of a lazy Friday news cycle, a Las Vegas ABC affiliate ran a story about a crazy, dangerous, (crazy dangerous, even) new "drug" the kids can't stop talking about. To get a caffeine fix, teenage scoundrels have reportedly started smoking coffee beans, known as "caffeine sticks" on the street. More
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WIT gets treatment for individuals who suffer from alcoholism, drug addiction or other self-destructive behaviors.


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Meditation-Center for Healthy Sex - RENEWAL
"And on her lover's arm she leant, And round her waist she felt it fold, And far across the hills they went In that new world which is the old." ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson

We've all fallen down the rabbit hole of stubbornly foul moods that make the whole outside world seems similarly savage, disconnected and disharmonious. Whenever you're stuck in such an internal split, you can bet that's how you're going to perceive the world. More

2013 Highlight Reel from RRFF    VIDEO
REEL Recovery Film Festival HIGHLIGHT
Reel 2013
See clips from last year's Award Winning REEL Recovery Film Festivalwith Paul Williams, Russell Brand, Robert Blake, Barbara Eden and Phillip Seymour Hoffman. See VIDEO
Positive Government Actions     
Governor Declares Opiate Addiction a Public Health Emergency

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick on Thursday declared a public health emergency in response to what has been considered to be a growing opioid addiction epidemic. Patrick directed the Massachusetts Department of Public Health to take several steps to combat overdoses and stop the matter from getting worse. More 

Opinion from New England
There Is No Shame
In Addiction,
AA Can Help
The incredible beauty of the program of Alcoholics Anonymous is that it creates and maintains a sense of community for the alcohol addict and has blossomed into many other anonymous organizations, including Narcotics Anonymous. These voluntary organizations are miraculous in the lives of many and carry on the work we may have thought belonged to the medical establishment of which I have been a member for over 45 years. As a pharmacist, I believe the medical establishment may be more a part of the problem, rather than part of the solution to prescription drug abuse. More
Celebrity Sobriety
'Growing Pains' Actor Jeremy Miller Opens Up About Battle With Alcoholism   
Jeremy says that it was later in life when his alcohol problem developed. "I definitely had to grow up faster, being a child star," he tells In Touch. Jeremy, a recovering alcoholic who's been sober more than two years now, says, "You don't really have a choice." I'm not your classic child star gone bad. My problems didn't begin until well after the show, when I was dealing with family stuff and alcohol became a way to suppress painful emotions," Jeremy says. More
Law Enforcement

Mother Arrested for Breastfeeding  After Drinking    

Experts said drinking is not good for baby. Those women who want to enjoy drink and at the same time do not want to compromise their child's health generally opts one of these ways. They pump milk in advance and store it. If they had drinks then they do not breast feed their babies for the next six hours, and give them baby formula. But there are women who rely on breast milk and formula as well, so that the child gets everything he or she needs. More 
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