Bill Aimed at Curbing Prescription Drug Abuse Passes in House With Bipartisan Support

/BY JOIN TOGETHER STAFF

July 30th, 2014/

A measure designed to reduce prescription drug abuse passed in the House on Tuesday with bipartisan support, according to The Hill.

The bill would amend the Controlled Substances Act, changing the definition of “imminent danger to the public health or safety” so that it would apply to drugs that pose present or foreseeable health risks, the article notes.

Under the measure, called the Ensuring Patient Access to Effective Drug Enforcement Act, prescription drug manufacturers registered with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) could submit a “corrective action plan” before a drug is suspended.

“Any legitimate business involved in distributing or dispensing prescriptions welcomes appropriate oversight and regulation,” said bill co-sponsor Tom Marino, a Pennsylvania Republican. The bill was also sponsored by Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee; Peter Welch, a Democrat from Vermont, and Judy Chu, a Democrat from California.

“Prescription drug abuse is claiming lives all across this country,” Welch said in a news release. “Painkillers are falling into the wrong hands while delivery of these same drugs is being stalled to the patients that need them, including seniors and those battling cancer. To fix this problem, drug suppliers and federal officials need to be able to work hand-in-hand to improve our drug delivery system and that’s exactly what this legislation does.”

“Simply acknowledging the epidemic of prescription drug abuse isn’t enough,” Blackburn said in a news release. “Congress has a responsibility to make sure the law is crystal clear for both DEA and legitimate businesses who want to understand what the rules are so they can do the right thing. That is why I am so pleased the House has acted today on our legislation that seeks to ensure the prescription drug supply chain is safe and secure for the patients that truly rely upon it to alleviate pain and treat illnesses.”

NAADAC Institute Call for Webinar Presentations

Development of the 2015 NAADAC Institute Webinar Series is underway, and we invite you to collaborate with us! The Webinar Series is wildly successful, with over 45,000 professionals trained so far.If you are a subject-matter expert on a topic relevant to addiction professionals, we encourage you to complete the online Call for Webinar Presentations for a chance to present on a nationally-broadcasted webinar.

All NAADAC webinars are free to participants, with optional CE credit provided to NAADAC members for free (join now!) and to non-members for a nominal fee, and are recorded as a live event to be posted on the NAADAC website for future, free, on-demand viewing. Click here for more information about what NAADAC will provide to presenters and how webinar presentations will be selected. A Selection Committee will contact chosen presenters by December 1, 2014.

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CE Feature Article Available to Both NAADAC Members and Non-Members: Read "Promising Integrated Treatment Model to Help Veterans with Co-Occurring PTSD & Substance Use Disorders" by Robb Hicks, MD, pass the online CE quiz, and get 2 CE credits for $25!

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Lighthouse Network Welcomes Barak Rush to Team We at Lighthouse Network are extremely excited to welcome Barak Rush, MS, LPC, to our growing team. Barak brings a great balance of clinical and administrative experience and expertise to our team. Barak has a love for people, compassion for those who are struggling, and a zest for bringing the Bible and Jesus into each person’s healing and transformation process. Barak has provided clinical services for many behavioral health issues over the years while specializing in addictions. More recently, he successfully started and ran Intensive Outpatient Addiction programs for Trinity Behavioral Health and then Rehab After Work, learning the administrative and marketing side of behavioral health as well as providing clinical counseling services. To reach more people, Barak combined his keen problem-solving skills with his compassionate heart to deliver an array of case management services for Ceridian, a national EAP company. Barak fielded calls by people who were struggling, encouraged and infused hope, then used his knowledge of the system to find the best treatment option for the caller. Most recently, Barak and his wife have developed two recovery Hope Houses to disciple in a more personal way those who are struggling. Barak’s title will be Partner Network Coordinator, and his role at Lighthouse Network will be to oversee this very exciting and unique Partner Network of clinicians, pastors, ministry leaders and social service agencies. Lighthouse will share more information soon about this powerful resource and service Barak will oversee and how you can access it or become part of it. Barak is well-suited for this position, given his clinical, administrative and case management experience, as Lighthouse Network is driven to expand our case management services as well as provide better support and engagement with those of you on the front lines of this spiritual battle. Please join me in welcoming Barak to the Lighthouse Network team. To learn more about Barak, click here... Lighthouse Network's Dr. Karl Benzio: Violent Crimes Often a Result of Addiction   PHILADELPHIA -- This summer has been especially violent for the city of Chicago. In July alone, 26 people in Chicago have been murdered in the first half of the month; all but four victims were under the age of 30. Last month saw 36 homicides in Chicago; the youngest was just 15. Thus far in 2014, 1,080 people have been shot and wounded in the city, while 184 have been killed. Dr. Karl Benzio, founder, executive director and a psychiatrist at Lighthouse Network (www.844LifeChange.org), an addiction and mental health counseling helpline, estimates that many of the homicides were very likely drug-related, with drug addiction often leading to violent crimes. "We know that drug abuse and addiction have a definite correlation to violent behaviors such as rape, assault, arson, hate crimes, robberies, suicides and homicides," Benzio said. "Studies have shown that 17 percent of state prisoners and 18 percent of federal prisoners stated that drugs were somehow involved when they committed their offense. Approximately 60 percent of individuals arrested for most types of crimes test positive for illegal drugs at the time of arrest. And nearly 50 percent of jail and prison inmates are clinically addicted. Other facts tell us that about two-thirds of domestic violence offenders also struggle with substance abuse."  Click here to read more... Tune in to hear Lighthouse Network's Karl Benzio, MD, on the air! Hearing Hearts with Gloria Gay "The Holics" Listen online... Living Well "Sarcasm for Kids" Watch online...   Check out other media interviews including TV appearances, radio programs, print features and articles here... Dr. Karl Benzio in The Christian Post Jesus' Purpose: Start a Behavioral Health Revolution This article's headline might sound like I am missing the theological mark, but I challenge you to read on, then form your opinion. As a psychiatrist, I apply a BioPsychoSpiritual model to help people explore and understand how God designed them, how the design got broken and how to restore it for joyful and fulfilled living. So first, a few definitions. • Behavioral Health (BH) is a branch of medicine that focuses on the reciprocal relationship between a holistic view of human behavior and the well-being of the body as a whole entity. In other words, BH uses our external behaviors as a starting point to understand what's going on internally with the purpose of improving on the inside. • A Revolution is an overthrow of one social order in favor of a new one. • Psyche is Greek for the soul, spirit or core inner essence of a person. When Jesus came, man was struggling. The human condition was in a desperate state, and people were overwhelmed and short on answers. Jesus started healing people in amazing numbers. He even sent his disciples out and empowered them to heal as well. Read the full Christian Post article here... Truth For Women Mentor Training September 27 | Bethlehem, PA This event will train ladies who mentor other women who are struggling. They will be trained in counseling and in teaching decision-making skills using the SPEARS decision-making model. Moments of Change 2014 Addictions Conference September 29-October 2 | Palm Beach, FL Dr. Karl Benzio, MD will present on "Addiction: Sin, Disease, or Psychological Defect?" as well as his SPEARS decision-making model, which is key to real biological-psychological-spiritual treatment by integrating science and faith. He encourages people to practically apply the Bible in daily living to truly renew the mind.  Focus on the Family Physicians Resource Council October 1-5 | Colorado Springs, CO This is a meeting of Christian physicians who help guide and define Focus' position on various medical and psychiatric/psychological issues which affect individuals, families, society and public policy. All Access ARC Conference November 4-6 | Saddleback Church, Orange County, CA Dr. Benzio will equip church leaders with his insights in decision-making and using science to glean transformational truths out of the Bible for practical growth and maximum fulfillment. National Association of Christian Social Workers National Conference November 6-9 | Annapolis, MD Lighthouse Network's Dr. Karl Benzio will lead a workshop on how to be a shining light through godly decision-making skills as he teaches his unique bio-psycho-spiritual model which actually rewires your brain circuits, thus renewing your mind as Romans 12:1-2 clearly states. Click here to view all events.  Lighthouse Network Radio Feature:"Life Change with Dr. Karl” Lighthouse Network is sharing its newest, life-changing radio features with the purpose of bringing scientific expertise and Biblical principles together to examine some common daily struggles to help people successfully navigate life’s obstacles and enjoy fulfilled lives. Lighthouse Network's "Life Change with Dr. Karl" radio feature airs Monday through Friday on more than 425 radio stations nationwide. Listen to "Life Change with Dr. Karl" from July 21: Key to Being Light in this World Listen to "Life Change with Dr. Karl" from July 22: Be Strategic, Not Random Listen to "Life Change with Dr. Karl" from July 23: Bible is the Best Instruction Manual Listen to "Life Change with Dr. Karl" from July 24: Six Components to Every Decision Listen to "Life Change with Dr. Karl" from July 25: Role of the Holy Spirit    Click here to listen to “Life Change with Dr. Karl” archives or read transcripts. Resources from Lighthouse Network

Understanding Cutting Cutting can be hard for parents of teens to understand. This DVD resource shares the causes and reasons young people cut and skills to help them handle the pressures they are facing.  Addiction: Sin, Disease or Personal Defect? Theologians, clinicians, researchers and philosophers have argued for centuries whether science blends with religion, spirituality and faith. In this DVD, learn how God gave us science to validate the Bible’s accuracy. Eyes That See the Truth   How we look at our everyday situations determines our life. Learn how in this DVD.

Free Stepping Stones Devotional Click here to receive The Stepping Stones Daily Devotional, which will encourage and challenge you while helping you grow in your daily walk with God. If you or someone you love needs help, call our FREE 24/7 Lighthouse Network addiction and counseling helpline, 1-844-LIFE-CHANGE (1-844-543-3242). Lighthouse Network is a Christian-based, non-profit organization that offers an addiction and mental health counseling helpline providing treatment options and resources to equip people and organizations with the skills necessary to shine God's glory to the world, stand strong on a solid foundation in the storms of their own lives, and provide guidance and safety to others experiencing stormy times, thus impacting their lives, their families and the world. Lighthouse Network offers help through two main service choices: Lighthouse Life Change Helpline (1-844-LIFE-CHANGE, 1-844-543-3242), a 24-hour free, national crisis call center, where specialists (Care Guides) help callers understand and access customized treatment options. Life Growth and self-help training resources for daily life, including online and DVD series and training events to help individuals achieve their potential.   unsubscribe from this list    update subscription preferences Follow Us On Facebook Follow Us On Twitter Visit Our Website

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"Each person comes into this world with a specific destiny--he has something to fulfill, some message has to be delivered, some work has to be completed. You are not here accidentally--you are here meaningfully. There is a purpose behind you. The whole intends to do something through you." - Osho

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JULY 27 Chp 108 v 13 TWELVE STEPPING WITH STRENGTH IN THE PSALMS


With Gods help we will do mighty things ,for He will trample down our foes . ( Enemies )

STEP !We admitted we were powerless over our addictions—that our lives had become unmanageable.

My number one enemy was addiction ! Healing begins at Step one ! You can not do this on your own !Your enemy and my enemy has blinded us with pride and arrogance .When we continue on in pride we began to isolate and when that happens we eventually take a fall . When I fell to my knees finally humbled broken and sad beyond words is when I became broken but in that brokenness I discovered freedom . God is not playing , He will trample down your addiction but you have got to stop arguing with Him and just LET IT GO !

Philippians 4:6-7, NLT Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

By Joseph Dickerson

Dogging Addiction

My dog Casey has been a big part of my recovery—and in the course of traveling around America together, I found four-legged sober companions have helped many others, from Nic Sheff to sober communities. An exclusive excerpt from Travels With Casey.



Casey and author Amanda Jones


By Benoit Denizet-Lewis

07/22/14
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Chris Klein Credits His Dog for His Recovery
Tweak's Nic Sheff On Life After Meth
Newcomer's Best Friend
The Best Sponsor I Ever Had
A Dog's Life

There were times during my journey across America that I felt so deliriously happy—so content, grateful, and blessed—that I considered staying on the road forever.

One of those moments happened on Malibu’s Point Dume State Beach, which is tucked away under a promontory at the northern end of Santa Monica Bay. I was walking along the sand with Nic Sheff, a young writer who chronicled his methamphetamine addiction in the book Tweak. (Nic’s father, David Sheff, wrote his own account of Nic’s addiction, titled Beautiful Boy.)


Casey stayed with me back then not because I deserved the company. He stayed with me because he’s a dog. That’s what dogs do

It was a glorious day, and Nic had brought along his goofy Blood­hound, Rhett, named after the character in Gone With the Wind. Casey and Rhett tumbled around in the sand; Rhett, on his back, pawed at Casey’s face. In the distance, Rezzy seemed to be coming alive right before our eyes: she danced along the ocean’s edge, her playful person­ality bursting forth in a joyous mixture of sand, mud, and saltwater.

“If there’s anything better than being here right now with our dogs, I’m not sure what it is,” Nic said with an easy smile, his curly brown hair falling over his eyes. Those eyes can look vacant and sad in photographs, but on this day they were bright, hopeful. Nic is slender and boyish, and his wardrobe—blue jeans with the cuffs rolled up, thin track jacket, small backpack—gave him the look of a young indie rock star on a walkabout.

“I’m so glad we’re here, doing this!” he continued. “Your dogs are awesome!”

“Yours, too!” I said.

We had all the giddiness of starstruck lovers, but we were far from that. Nic isn’t gay, and I wasn’t interested in him in that way. But our bond was instantaneous and undeniable, perhaps because we have so much in common: We were both raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. We both have divorced parents. We both have writer fathers. We both wrote publicly about our struggles with addictive behavior. And we both have dogs who helped us get better.

In a 2011 article for The Fix, Nic wrote about the importance of dogs to his sobriety. At the height of Nic’s addiction, he wrote, he was homeless “and letting guys blow me for $50 a pop, so I could afford another gram of speed.” When his half-brother suggested that the solution to his addiction might be to get a dog, Nic angrily dismissed the advice.

“It just seemed so condescending,” Nic wrote. “Like he was totally minimizing my problem.”

But several years later, while Nic was drinking “a quart of vodka every day” and “lying to everyone” about being sober after the release of Tweak, he came upon an emaciated hound dog running through traffic in Savannah, Georgia, where he was living at the time. Nic brought her to the Humane Society, where she promptly attacked the vet. The vet told Nic the dog would have to be euthanized.

“I could really relate to this crazed, homeless dog, and I felt like she deserved another chance—maybe the same way I still believed I might deserve another chance,” Nic wrote in The Fix. He didn’t let the Humane Society put her down. Instead, he took her home, named her Ramona, “and began the long, slow process of trying to rehab this psycho dog—while, at the same time, I guess, trying to rehab myself.”

Before he knew it, Nic had stopped drinking. And though he con­cedes that therapy and medication helped in that endeavor, he believes his half-brother was right. “I needed to be responsible and accountable for a living creature that literally could not survive if I was off getting fucked up,” Nic told me.

Ramona wasn’t at the beach with us on the day of my visit; she’s still “a handful,” Nic said, and occasionally can get aggressive toward people and dogs. “I’d never heard her make a sound until she started growling at me. It sucks when you can barely pet your dog, and she doesn’t want to sleep in bed with you. She’s even bitten me a few times when she gets anxious.”

Though my problems with Casey paled in comparison to the chal­lenge of living with Ramona, Nic was eager to talk about them. Before embarking on my journey, I’d briefly mentioned to him my Casey­related insecurities. “How are things going with you both?” he asked me, sounding genuinely interested.

It was a good question, one I realized I hadn’t considered in the two weeks since adopting Rezzy. Though I’d tried not to neglect Casey, Rezzy had commanded practically all of my energy and atten­tion. And, boy, did Rezzy love attention. Even when she was tired (as she was for much of those first two weeks), she preferred to be tired with her head in my lap. She was physical and loving in a way that Casey was only rarely; Rezzy wanted to be as close to me as possible. Nic noticed.

“She’s so bonded to you already,” he said.

As we sat in the sand watching our dogs, I realized that I hadn’t felt any frustration or insecurities around Casey in weeks. “It’s almost like rescuing Rezzy made me realize that dogs are different, and that I don’t need to expect Casey to be everything,” I told him. I was talking out loud, figuring out my thoughts and feelings as they came to me.“And I know I’ve been paying more attention to Rezzy than Casey, but that’s because Rezzy is so new, and she needs me right now. I know Casey is okay.”

“Casey seems so easygoing about things,” Nic said.

“Exactly. And I love that about him.” I paused and let that sink in. “I don’t think I’ve ever realized how much I love that about him. He doesn’t even seem to mind the RV anymore. He’s happy, he’s content. And he doesn’t get jealous if I have to pay a lot of attention to Rezzy.”

“It seems like Rezzy is the perfect complement to Casey, even down to their colors—black and white,” Nic said. We laughed as we watched Rezzy dig a hole in the sand and stuff her nose in it, then run to us through a stiff wind and gently nudge her face in my lap. “She’s the most awesome dog.You really lucked out.”

“You did, too, with Rhett,” I told him, as the dog chased Casey in a circle, Rhett’s droopy ears flapping against his head as he bounded through the sand.

“You should have seen Rhett when he was little,” Nic said. “He was like this super runt of the litter. Nobody wanted him. So I took him, but he was always sick the first year. I spent so much time looking after him that a few months before my wedding my fiancée was like, ‘Why don’t you marry the dog?’ She felt like I was giving him more attention than her. But I was like, ‘He’s like this sick little puppy, and I have to take care of him.’ I had a sick puppy and a psycho rescue. They both needed me.”

“And you needed them,” I said.

“Yes! There’s no doubt in my mind—my dogs keep me sober. They do that by getting me out of myself, by forcing me to think about someone else before me. They make me less self-centered.”

Ween Man Becomes Freeman
Aaron Freeman, half of Ween, sobers up, grows up, and strikes out on his own.



Franco Vogt


By Jessica Willis

07/24/14

He was forced to make a choice. Either stay put as one half of a successful and beloved alternative rock duo and continue to blast himself with cocaine, benzos, and vodka just so he could be numb and function. Or he could sober the fuck up and leave Ween, a band he had been in since puberty. Years of active addiction and isolation had turned Aaron Freeman, aka Gene Ween, into another boy who would never grow old; he was going to die first.

Freeman chose to leave. “End it man...your money or your life,” he sings on FREEMAN, his first solo album of all original material, released on Partisan Records this week.

The decision to leave Ween, as Freeman said in a recent interview, was spurred by a progression that mirrored “the typical rock thing.” Meaning you start with the silly drugs, and then … well, you know. In the early days of the band “there was always drugs and alcohol but it graduated from my early 20s to a lot of weed and some psychedelics,” he said. “I think all those were fine but then it really started into the alcohol. As Ween was getting bigger and bigger there were less responsibilities for anything and you’re sort of a Peter Pan. You’re not accountable for anything except getting on stage.”

It fell apart in 2011 at a notorious show in Vancouver when a barely coherent Freeman was blacked out onstage in front of a huge crowd. At the end of the show his disgusted bandmates left him onstage alone.

“That was my career bottom,” he said. “I had been on a really dark bender and Vancouver was a huge show. The last thing I remember was I was onstage and the band had walked off [during a version of "Reggaejunkiejew"] and I was on my back screaming ‘Jew’ or something like that.”

The meltdown was part of a sad end of a creative, prolific, and wickedly irreverent band that had captivated everyone from Beavis & Butthead to, more recently, The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon’s house band. Music fans who appreciate silliness and prodigious chops flock to Ween’s albums and shows like ants on a caramel.

Despite the love, by 2011 Ween hadn’t written any new material in years and the shows had become stale for Freeman. “We did 11 records that were amazing,” Freeman said. “But the only part of Ween that was left was these touring shows. We were playing the same songs night after night. It had turned into a showcase thing. For me, Ween had been over since the last record we did [La Cucaracha, in 2007]. It wasn’t okay for me. I started having a real crisis. Like, I know Ween is over, and all I’m doing now are these shows so I can make money … it was spiraling and spiraling and I was fucked up all the time.”

Dropping the Gene Ween moniker, Freeman recorded an album of Rod McKuen covers under his own name. He was doing whatever he could to escape the “Ween fold” and the music was good, but he was wrecked.

“It was really mellow music, it was sweet and pretty, but it’s the most drugged out record I’ve ever put out. That was a benzo record,” he laughed. “I love benzos. All benzos. I was in this beautiful studio recording in front of a five thousand dollar mic doing all this music and then I’d go back to my hotel room and eat jerk chicken and drink a bottle of vodka and throw up all over myself.”

He likens it to Martin Sheen’s warrior overdoing it at the beginning of Apocalypse Now. “That’s a heavy scene.” Freeman was out of control and he knew it. Sort of. Was he Aaron or was he Gene, the stoner rock icon? “I was having an identity crisis and I didn’t know who I was,” he said. “Everybody called me ‘Gene Ween’ and ‘dude’ and I was this Ween guy and I was always fucked up, and I could always find whatever I wanted.”

After a few more West Coast shows and a continued rampage back home he went into rehab for the third time - but not before playing two more high-paying Ween shows in Denver. “Every cent I made went into the rehab I was going to,” he said. “Insurance didn’t cover my third rehab.”

Freeman got on a plane and headed straight to Cottonwood in Arizona, where the withdrawal process began.

“I felt like Gollum for a while,” he said. “I couldn’t even look into the light. I was on a lot of benzos, which was really difficult to come off of.”

He surrendered to the disease at Cottonwood. “There was a pinnacle moment there,” he said. “When you get there they give you a three page booklet and it just wants you to describe what the fuck happened. What are you here for? What do you want? I remember for the first time in my life I was so desperate I just answered every question as honestly as I could. For someone like me that was a tough thing. I was like, ‘I’ll give you everything, I don’t care anymore, I’m not gonna try to hide anything.’”

From Cottonwood, Freeman went to Clean Adventures, a men’s halfway house that combined outdoor activities with counseling and work therapy.

“You stay in these houses with a bunch of other guys and you’re expected to go find a job during the day and be back at a certain time,” said the singer. “If you didn’t obey every single rule you got thrown out.”

He officially left Ween in May 2012. “There was no way I was going back into that world,” he said. In another major change, he moved away from his hometown of New Hope, Pennsylvania. “[New Hope] was one of those persons, places, and things,” he said. “I had to get out of there. No matter how many times I would get sober or recover I had too much history there. Everybody in that town had seen me at one point or another just blasted.”

Freeman moved to Woodstock, New York, where he lives with his wife Leah, their son, and his daughter from a previous marriage. For Freeman, Woodstock is a peaceful place to raise a family and stay out of trouble. “It’s not really a party town, which is important,” he said.

Great, but what was he going to do with himself? Was he going to wear a blue smock and punch a time clock? “After I left Ween I was a fucking mess,” he said. “I didn’t know what I was going to do. I was resigned to the fact that I could work at Wal-Mart if I had to in order to stay sober. But [Freeman’s manager and collaborator Dave Godowsky] said from the beginning, ‘you’re gonna make a record.’”

Freeman said he couldn’t. Or wouldn’t, and he was petulant about it. But songs started to come together. “FREEMAN is where I was at last July, which was on my back porch, sober for a year and a half, sitting there with my acoustic guitar and suddenly writing songs again while I looked at chipmunks.” He maintains that he was unable to write as his disease progressed and the block remained through his earliest recovery.

The first few months were a nightmare and Freeman came face to face with one of the reasons why he used: a profound depression. “I was literally seeing black sludge coming off of things,” he recalled. “I wasn’t hallucinating but my brain was so fucked I would just go in my room and sit there and suffer and feel the dark knot in my stomach. That was always the point where I would go out and get completely trashed to alleviate it.” Eventually, Freeman learned to sit with the misery and let it pass, noting that the teachings of the Tibetan Bhuddist nun Pema Chodron helped him. He had to reach in, not out. “[Chodron’s] whole thing is to experience it, feel it, let it make you go insane, and then let it go.”

As for the 12 step school of recovery, Freeman says he believes in the power of group conscience, one of the program’s traditions, and always feels better after a meeting. However, he also “believes in the school of treating addiction with medication, absolutely. If abstaining means that you don’t sleep for a year what kind of chance will you have to keep going?”

Sleep or no sleep, joy or misery, eventually the creativity came back, and he attributes it more to biology than to spirituality. “I really believe my synapses got fried,” he said. “My pathways got fried. But I could tell in a year and a half something grew back. Some sort of stem connected to itself again. Boom, I was there.” The result was a new collection of tuneful, twisted pop songs that describe Freeman’s liberation. It could’ve stayed on the porch but Godowsky took a trip to North Carolina and brought recordings of the songs with him. “I trusted him to get musicians for the record,” Freeman said.

Godowsky returned with a drummer, bassist, and a second guitar player, and they recorded the album in nine days.

“They nailed it in a ridiculously short amount of time,” Freeman said, adding that the album had to be banged out quickly because money was tight.

“When I left Ween my income went down to like five percent of what I was making before,” he said. “We scrimped and scraped. We didn’t have any time to add any overdubs, that’s why the album sounds very bare bones, which I love.”

Songs like the celebratory “El Shaddai” narrate Freeman’s interest in Kabbalah, and although he says he’s not a Kabbalist, he read the Old Testament and the Torah when he was in rehab.The song was based on James A. Michener’s The Source, he said. “Covert Discretion,” which leads off the album, starts as a sweetly chilling acoustic ballad about the disease; at one point in the narrative he’s gratefully sharing drugs with fans in a bathroom when things suddenly turn ugly. “Get the fuck out my face,” he croons.

“Black Bush,” meanwhile, is a pastoral tune in the spirit of Donovan. That is, if Donovan inhaled Scotchgard. Very Ween-like.

Freeman said he will perform Ween songs on the upcoming tour, both the ones he’s always had the most fun doing live as well as songs that have never been performed live before.

With ex-bandmate Mickey Melchiondo, aka Dean Ween, he says he currently has “no relationship, outside mutual business approvals.” This seems bittersweet, considering the duo had been working together since 8th grade.

Freeman, who will have three years clean in December, chooses to focus on what he gets in return for his departure. “One of the benefits of recovery is you get your kids back,” he said. “The best part of the last couple of years is every night we give each other a hug and a kiss and say goodnight. When I was at my worst all I wanted was to say goodnight to my kids. That’s the shit. I have a group of friends [in Woodstock] who just know me as Aaron and they’ve never seen me fucked up.” He laughs. “It’s a wonderful thing.”

Jessica Willis is the former music editor of Time Out New York. She last interviewed Legs McNeil.

Pins and Needles—How to Insert Acupuncture into Recovery

The Fix Q&A with William Morris, practitioner of Oriental medicine and acupuncturist with a view towards aiding your sobriety and recovery.



Shutterstock


By Cathy Cassata

07/25/14

William Morris is the president of the AOMA Graduate School of Integrative Medicine in Austin, Texas, and practices at various clinics throughout Texas. He writes a column in Acupuncture Today, articles for American Acupuncturist, and is the author of Path of the Pulse, Chinese Medicine and Transformation, and Li Shi-zhen Pulse Studies, an Illustrated Guide. He focuses his studies on Chinese medicine (specifically Ding, Gu and Yang), and for eight years was mentored by Drs Shen and Hammer in the Menghe through the Ding family lineage of internal medicine. For five years, he also studied under Neiqiang Gu in the Gu family external medicine lineage. For thirty years, Morris has focused on pulse diagnosis, and his current work involves a synthesis of standard, family, and classical systems of pulse diagnosis. He gives seminars on pulse diagnosis, acupuncture, Chinese herbs, personal transformation and leadership. Morris spoke with the Fix about the role acupuncture and eastern medicine in general can play in aiding recovery and healing trauma.

Have you used acupuncture to treat substance and behavioral addictions?

Yes, both. Having said that though, I’m referencing using acupuncture within a healthcare context, where it’s not just the procedure of acupuncture being used, but rather the people who are working on these problems have a multi-disciplinary approach to the problem.

What would this multi-disciplinary approach involve?

There’s a new model that is happening in rehab facilities, which deals with physical, emotional and spiritual aspects of life and establishes a multi-disciplinary plan specific to each person. That plan may include meditation, yoga, acupuncture, body work, as well as various practitioners, such as a psychiatrist.

How does acupuncture fit into this approach?

Many treatment facilities will include acupuncture as part of their program for both detox and recovery. They may have a food regimen, exercise regimen, therapy, journaling time, down time and acupuncture may be scheduled into the plan a few times a week. Many times the addict will exit the program with familiarity of acupuncture and will also have set up acupuncture as part of their plan outside the treatment facility.

How does acupuncture work?

There are a number of theories about how acupuncture works. One involves modulating neurotransmitters. Most substances are operating in a lock and key fashion along the pathway of various neurotransmitters, so acupuncture may stimulate the body to create a substance which fits into the same spot on various cells, especially in the nervous system.

Another thought is that acupuncture stimulates the endocrine system, so there can be down modulating of adrenaline, and various stress hormones, resulting in relaxation. It also operates to either tighten or relax the vascular system, stimulating circulation and affecting circulation in varies areas of the body. In fact, stimulation of circulation is one of acupuncture’s primary functions. It also tends to reduce inflammation.

In the context of each of these mechanisms, acupuncture stimulates the body to correct itself. It gives the person resources to be able to process material that may be difficult. Particularly in addiction, often times there is suppression of a great deal of psychosocial material over the years. Part of the healing process is working through that material. Acupuncture creates a calm and equanimity with respect to working through that material within a cognitive therapeutic arena.

Does this apply to someone who is dependent on a substance because of a childhood trauma or something of that nature?

Yes. Let’s classify those types of events into the area of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Acupuncture is gaining a very large traction in the military for PTSD, and this is actually one of the areas that I specialize in. I published a paper looking at nitric oxide. In it I discuss studies showing that acupuncture and moxibustion, a traditional Chinese medicine technique that involves the burning of the herb mugwort, and placing it on points of the body, can promote healing. Both these tools would stimulate nitric oxide pathways between the hippocampus and the neocortex. The hippocampus is the place where long-term traumatic experiences are stored. This is entirely hypothetical, but I presume that this might be one of the pathways along which acupuncture is down-modulating, partly because acupuncture works at a trans-systemic level, in other words the immune, endocrine, vascular, and neuro systems are systems that we surmise are affected by acupuncture. These systems become disharmonic during the moment of a flashback or recall of a traumatic incident, so acupuncture communicates to all these systems, and in a way harmonizes them, resulting in down regulating intense responses.

Are there types of addiction that acupuncture seems to work more effectively with?

Acupuncture is stimulating the body’s own internal pharmacy. A drug can do what it does because the body already has a tool for having that experience to some degree. So acupuncture is rather robust in that respect, but I haven’t seen any studies that show its efficacy in terms of one addiction over another.

Can acupuncture help with relapse?

Stress and pain are both potential triggers for relapse, and acupuncture can help with both of these.

Why do you think people are hesitant to believe acupuncture works?

Evidence surrounding acupuncture’s effectiveness may be one reason. In studies, the notion of a placebo is extremely difficult to get when looking at a procedure like acupuncture. Most of the studies that I’ve seen that claim to have achieved placebo have used some sort of instrument for achieving it, and it’s questionable whether they’ve actually been able to establish that a real placebo was achieved.

For instance, in Europe there was a large study of over 3,000 patients on the use of acupuncture for lower back pain, which is a large problem and tied to addiction to pain medications. You really can’t separate the problem of pain and addiction, particularly, if one of the primary models of pain control is the use of chemicals. So if conventional care turns to a chemical, then the social system is almost encouraging the advent of addiction. This is a large piece of the problem. When results of this study were published here in the West, the news reported that there was no difference between acupuncture and the placebo. In reality, the issue may have been that they had a problem achieving placebo. In fact, I’m pretty certain that is most likely the case in many studies involving acupuncture. What this study did show was strong evidence that acupuncture reduced cost of care. This determination led the government to include acupuncture in its national healthcare packages.

What might change western society’s skepticism of acupuncture?

We are still in the process of discovering how to understand how acupuncture works probably because it’s part of a whole system of care that is conducted in the context of lifestyle recommendations, including herbs, nutrition, exercise, etcetera. As I mentioned earlier, there needs to be a whole host of concomitant healthcare strategies employed along with acupuncture so the real tools for understanding the degree to which acupuncture could be useful for a society is the more important question over does acupuncture work for a particular problem. It’s a larger systemic problem which requires a systemic view on the inquiry. Whole system forms of research or what are called “practice-based research models” that involves practitioners pooling their data, is what could likely demonstrate efficacy for acupuncture’s place in the western healthcare system in respect to which conditions it best treats, and may even uncover when it can be used for prevention of certain conditions.

The World Health Organization convened an expert panel to identify a host of conditions for which acupuncture was appropriate, such as allergies and various psychosocial problems associated with pain, and treatment of pain. That was one tool of evidence gathering, but we need more like it.

On a side note, there’s a good amount of conventional medicine that is practiced without evidence so the criticism should be placed on them as well.

Has there been any governmental support for acupuncture in the U.S.?

Acupuncturists have been providing services in the worker’s comp system in California for years since Jerry Brown’s first term in office. Recently, California has determined to include acupuncture in the Affordable Healthcare Act provisions. This means that every citizen in the state of California can now gain access to acupuncture. That’s a significant statement.

You mentioned moxibustion earlier. How do you incorporate healing plants into your practices?

Remember, humanity has relied on plants for healing purposes much longer than it's relied on isolated chemicals. It’s only been since the 1910s that the American public was convinced that a chemical and surgical basis of healthcare was the best. I think they both have their place for treatment of certain things, but there is a whole host of things being treated using those tools for which they are not appropriate.

Shock and trauma have a tendency to affect both the heart and circulation. When that takes place, fluid circulation (or lymph) in general can be affected as well as blood circulation. What happens is the vascular system can become contrasted, so we use herbs that have a mild diuretic and mildly dilate the vessels so the sweat pours open slightly, and the muscular system becomes more relaxed. We use plants that enhance the circulatory status and herbs that Chinese province says transform damp. In other words, they leech out fluids from places where they’re stagnant. Chinese sage is commonly used as well as kris ginseng, which is paradoxical because it has an action of both stopping bleeding and activating blood. Yarrow is a common western botanical that is used.

Can people use both conventional and non-conventional forms of treatment?

I think people should use the right tools for the job. Each of these approaches has a place. It might be a little myopic to use one or the other at the exclusion of possibly using the other, especially without having had explored it. That would not be congruent with the value of science. A neutral inquiry would be the scientific approach. Neutral questioning of the problems. Do herbs have a place here? Does acupuncture have a place here? Do pharmaceuticals or other conventions have a place here? As a society, we kind of have ourselves in a corner about beliefs about what good medical care is constructed of. It will take some undoing to get there.

If you’re interested in finding an acupuncturist in your area, Morris suggests visiting the website of the American Association of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine.

Cathy Cassata is a regular contributor to The Fix. She last wrote about sugar addiction.