addictShuns | addictions

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Whitney Houston, another Big Pharma victim?

Celebrities Lost

America’s most famous people have been dying from prescription drugs for decades. Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe quickly come to mind. But just as the epidemic has exploded on main street America, so too has it taken its toll among the nation’s most celebrated people. Here is just a brief list, from the past and the present, and the prescription drugs that killed them.
Below from PharmacyTechs.net and Wikipedia.comMarilyn Monroe (1962) – Pentobarbital, chloral hydrate
Dorothy Dandridge (1965) – Imipramine/Tofranil
Jimi Hendrix (1970) – Secobarbital/Seconal
Bruce Lee (1973) – Equagesic
Freddie Prinze (1977) – Methaqualone/Quaaludes
Elvis Presley (1977) - 14 drugs, including codeine, methaqualone/Quaaludes
Keith Moon (The Who) (1978) – Clomethiazole/Heminevrin
Abbie Hoffman (1989) – Phenobarbital
Steve Clark (Def Leppard) (1991) - Unspecified antidepressant and painkiller
Margaux Hemingway (1996) – Phenobarbital
Rob Pilatus (Milli Vanilli) (1998) – methadone
Dana Plato (1999) – Carisoprodol/Soma, Vicodin
Ol’ Dirty Bastard (Wu-Tang Clan) (2004) – Tramadol
Chris Penn (2006) – Promethazine, codeine
Gerald Levert (2006) – 6 drugs including Vicodin, Percocet, Dextropropoxyphene/Darvocet
Anna Nicole Smith (2007) - 11 drugs including chloral hydrate, clonazepam/Klonopin, lorazepam/Ativan, oxazepam/Serax, diazepam/Valium
Pimp C (Underground Kingz) (2007) – Promethazine, codeine
Heath Ledger (2008) - 6 drugs including oxycodone, hydrocodone, temazepam, diazepam/Valium, alprazolam/Xanax and doxylamine
Michael Jackson (2009) – propofol, benzodiazepine
Brittany Murphy (2009) – multiple drugs including hydrocodone, L-methamphetamine, chlorpheniramine
Leslie Carter (Nick/Aaron) (2012) – pending toxicology results
Whitney Houston (2012) – pending toxicology results
With all due love and affection for the above, it’s a shame it takes the death of a superstar to shine an always brief spotlight on the devastating effects of prescription drugs and their over-supply in this country. More than 40 regular Americans die from the same prescription drugs everyday.

NOTE: The clip above is from WHITEOUT PRESS Independent News at its Best! - If it's blacked-out, covered-up or censored, you can find it here.
Read the entire article here: Whitney Houston, another Big Pharma victim?

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Monday, February 6, 2012

AddictShuns: Two paths of choice

TWO PATHS:
There are two paths of choice given to each soul. Good or evil, blessings or curse, life abundant or life just barely making it. Fulfillment or insatiable addictions. The ancient call from Moses in Mt. Sinai's desert lands squarely in our face in modern times:

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live: Deuteronomy 30:18-20

Potential... Do you know yours? Do unfulfilled desires, spark against the mindful frozen places in life - when we are stuck? Sometimes we are filled with hope and promise, only to be squelched by fears, static doubt and slothfulness. There is a destiny for each of us, a plan for productive lives, blossoming gardens and time to prove life's bearing of goodness or destruction. A garden bearing fruit or one filled with rocks and briers. Often we have lived in both circumstance.

Some find their way becoming exactly what they want with all things falling in place. The devote their entire being with a single focus on their art, music, talents, skills and careers, despite obstacles they always aim towards their goals. Noticed or not, the pursuit of skillful productivity and honorable craft remain the heartbeat of their existence. Nothing pulls them away from that purpose. They master their profession rather than waste or divide time to useless, self-destructive activities.

Others fall in to the sludge of nothingness, held captive to past wounds and hurts, filled with anger, bitterness and self-pity that things didn't go "my way." They become lost in self-incriminating talk, mashing all the pain with fraudulent lifestyles filled with parties, self-indulgence no matter what the cost to those around them. They learn the art of deceit using words and looking good on the outside to connive people into their intentions. They numb their pain with superficial remedies in the form of addiction from drugs, to sex, to work, to food to whatever comforts them for the time being. It's really greed in the ugliest form. It all begins so easy with just one drink, one pill or glimpse. When hooked it's the exact path of the goodness only on the dark side. Every focus is to fill the bodies need for relief. The path of addiction is actually the art of self deception leading to destruction. The substance of need becomes a wicked, relentless god.

Women Food and God
I read this book Women Food and God. It plowed through my own issues and pains, which doesn't happen very often. I understand that she writes about things that underlie any one's addictions and avoidance in overcoming obstacles in life. It's too bad it's title states Women and Food. I believe it is written for everyone. The word 'Food' can be replaced by drugs, pills, smoking, pornography or whatever other vice one faces. It's worth the read. Getting to the root of any illness or disease is the first step towards healing.

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Women Food and God

more from her journal: Chapter 7

Chapter Seven & Eight available now!

Click on the page tab called Lovin' an Addict,
you can read these chapters and the entire story!

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Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Addictshuns....
Occasionally I find articles in Christian circles regarding addiction. It's a topic well guarded and kept in classes called Celebrate Recovery. The main difference being that you recover rather than always calling yourself an addict, I would assume. I attended one Celebrate class for al-anon. Perhaps I should have tried it more than once, however the format never gave me pause to actually come back. If you ask me I'll tell why; but only in personal email. I would never discredit a place that helps so many others get well, it did not help me.

So today I found this article written by Steve and Kellie Swisher from Kenneth Copeland Ministries.. They give 6 great daily tips for those challenged with addictions. Worth a quick read!

Here's a clip from the end of the article:

This attitude is described wonderfully in these words from Fred Bauer:

FOR QUIET--I LIKE UNSPEAKING TREES,
FOR CARES--A SPIRITED MOUNTAIN WALK,
FOR FULFILLMENT--SOMEONE TO PLEASE,
FOR LAUGHTER--HEARING CHILDREN TALK,
FOR REASSURANCE--A HAND TO HOLD
FOR STRENGTH--THE PERSEVERING SEA,
FOR UNDERSTANDING--A FRIENDSHIP OLD,
FOR HOPE, LORD, I TURN TO THEE.

Get Addicted to Something positive today and really live!

PRAYER:
Dear Lord, I am getting addicted to you, good thoughts are flooding my memory system, changes are being made, I can catch a glimpse of my fantastic future and it’s just over the rainbow. Help me reach it. In Jesus’ Name.
Amen

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Shrink with Kevin Spacey

BACK FROM UPAID SABBATICAL
It's been too long since writing here. Addictshuns is not forgotten!

Last night I watched a movie called Shrink. Here's the Netflix synopsis:

In the wake of personal tragedy, Hollywood's psychiatrist to the stars (Kevin Spacey) devolves into a slovenly pothead and worries he's become incapable of helping his patients in a sharp indie drama from the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

My interest in both addiction and psychology the core reason for this movie selection. I am not sure why I finished it. The FBomb exploded through the entire dialogue which is both annoying and offensive when overused in movies. Would that screenwriters wrote intelligent script without so many expletives.

My curiosity was about all these people entrenched in the clutch of drug & alcohol abuse, aimless parties, and sexual quirks to cover their pain and emptiness. This movie showed addiction at it's finest. The main characters all show up to the shrinks office for moral guidance and direction who is himself spiraling out of control with excessive pot smoking and alcohol. Did he really think patients and people around him couldn't smell it or notice red eyes? In spite of his smokey fog, he gave moralistic advice of of worthy note. He stood for the sanctity and commitment of marriage and didn't give permission for the sexual addicts desire for promiscuity.

Only two characters in the entire cast showed virtuous character, strong morally and without the influence of drugs. A young girl struggling with the suicide of her mother, and the wife of an addicted rock star. A third questionable one is a pregnant assistant carrying her sister's baby. Questionable due to the scene where she asks her new boyfriend to have sex with her in the car with a wanna be writer. Sort of creepy don't you think? Anyway, the boyfriend writer had enough sense to stop it and question the act of sex with a pregnant women.

While celebrity life style glamorizes wild and raucous living, the consequence of these choices were obvious through out the movie. The slice of life in Hollywood shows abuse of drugs and alcohol begets suicide, personality disorders which begets lives reeling without restraint. It's an accurate description of Hollywood, and the greatest influence on culture in America today. This movies plays it out well.

In the end the shrink gains his moral compass, deals with his hurt, guilt and pain and quits his vices. The light in his life during his devolution is a little girl whose mother committed suicide. She called him out in his addiction several times. They had the same secret wounds, as he struggled to reach her, he may have found himself. His drug vendor with neatly labeled and encased varieties of pot sold him weed called Christmas in Viet Nam. They both smoked it not knowing it was laced with embalming fluids, ending up in the ER. The woman actress found him near dead. She is another light in his life.

The one interesting scene is the failed intervention put together from friends and family who care and want relief from his addiction. He turned it all back on them, explaining his pain. What he wanted was absolution from a hidden pain and guild in his soul. That is something they didn't see. Reflective of a culture in denial and a blinding reaction to fix external problems while ignoring the real true source. As in every case of addiction, and in this movie there is no remedy. Unless the source of the wounding life episode is brought to light, with a lie exposed until the truth is applied can one find redemption in their life. In the end, the Shrink heals his wounds and rebuilds his life.

The consequence in abusive use of drugs and alcohol is a cry for help as well a slow and often sudden death. Just read the list of the 27 CLUB. Few on this path of destruction ever survive or taste anything good in this life. Finding the reason, hidden wounds and lies believed is the only way to freedom.

Those who love the addict often see just the symptoms, rarely seeing or inviting the reasons. We clip at the surface trying to fix and change when only the addict themselves can take the first step with total transparency. For me, prayer and love covers those broken hearts until at last they are free to unburden their pain.

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