MARCH 23 v 9 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

Don’t waste your breath on fools,
for they will despise the wisest advice.



STEP 12 - Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Lets be honest with ourselves fools is a harsh word . When I was out there that is what I was the King of if there were such a thing . The word fools is harsh but very true. The reality is there are some in active addiction who will not get out . They will be consumed and be succumbed by their destructive ways and know matter what we do to lead them out that is where they will stay and eventually die. Twelve stepping is an honor and a privilege but it also can be gut wrenching and heart breaking when we lose someone. Never take it personal ,when you lose one ,always remember your battling one of the most destructive forces on earth and it is GODs call on who survives and who doesn't ! God knows the countless hours you have worked the tears you have shed and God especially knows your heart and when your time comes you will receive your reward.




John 15:12 - "This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.

Maryland Considering Unlimited Free Needles For Heroin Users

Needle exchange in Baltimore City. Photo via


A new bill being pondered in the Maryland General Assembly would offer free needles to heroin users. The bill has already made it through the Maryland House of Delegates and the Maryland General Assembly, with supporters arguing that providing unlimited needles will greatly reduce HIV rates. If approved, roughly $250,000 of taxpayer money would go toward the project.

But Republican Delegate Michael Hough has found it outrageous that the bill has any support. “My constituents work very hard for their taxpayer dollars that they pay to the state, and they expect it to go to things like roads and schools, not to facilitating and subsidizing illegal drug use,” he said. "Heroin is a major epidemic. Kids are dying left and right. In fact, fatalities from heroin overdoses are up 54 percent across the state, and I just find it completely ridiculous and irresponsible that state lawmakers would vote to subsidize illegal behavior and vote to give people free needles [for] a drug that's killing people."

The harm reduction approach, which has been adopted for years in Vancouver, B.C., has shown promising results. A 15-year study published last June showed that the city’s efforts reduced illegal drug use and improved public safety. Almost 40 percent of users reported sharing needles in 1996; that number dropped to 1.7 percent in 2011. The percentage of users who accessed methadone treatment also jumped from 12 to 54 percent during that time period.

Meanwhile, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that Insite, Canada’s first legal supervised injection site, could remain open, but new federal legislation will make it much harder for similar sites to open in the future.

MARCH 22 v 24 TWELVE STEPPING WITH POWER IN THE PROVERB

Don’t befriend angry people

or associate with hot-tempered people,

STEP 4 - Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Being around angry people is like walking through a mine field . I don't know about you but I hate being in a place where I don't feel safe. Angry people can cause shame , fear , and guilt. Three triggers that can push the one with the most clean time over the edge. The Proverb is a warning trying to tell us we need to leave those people behind but that is easier said than done. Anger is a cancer and it will eat you alive especially if you find yourself on the receiving end of someones anger. Pray for the person who is angry and if you can get away from them that is a surefire way of getting peace in your life . When working step four you might discover that your the reason everyone is angry if that's the case , refer to steps five through ten to remove the anger and tension which will in effect bring forgiveness , love , and peace .

Proverbs 14:29 Whoever is slow to anger has great understanding, but he who has a hasty temper exalts folly.

The 12 Craziest NFL Drug & Alcohol Arrests in the Last Year | The Fix

The 12 Craziest NFL Drug & Alcohol Arrests in the Last Year | The Fix

How I Quit Suboxone

A doctor prescribed me suboxone to help free me of my heroin addiction. I was addicted to that cure for eight years—longer than I used heroin. Then I found a way out.

Shutterstock


By Dillon Murphy

03/17/14


Addicted to Suboxone
Trapped on Suboxone
The Truth About Suboxone
The Great Suboxone Debate
Vivitrol: A Shot in the Dark


I was on prescribed opiates longer than I used heroin. For almost four years I was a regular snorter of “china white” and smoker of “black tar” while on the West Coast. When I decided to stop the heroin in 2002, I was on methadone for two years and then moved to Suboxone for almost eight. Convinced I had an “opiate deficiency” by a doctor at Beth Israel in New York, I felt doomed to be on the drug for the rest of my life. Fortunately, I was wrong.

I wrote a piece for this very online magazine called “Addicted to Suboxone” that was published almost a year ago. When I wrote it I saw no way out. Neither my new doctor nor my old one at Beth Israel had given me much hope in the getting off the damn thing department. Well, I did what I had to and I got off. It wasn’t easy by any stretch of the imagination. It was a long, ugly, painful process that I did on my own in the middle of nowhere. I don’t recommend it but it worked for me.


If you are alone in a cabin in the woods and you are getting off Suboxone, do not have any loaded weapons in the place.

Before I tell you how I did it I want to be clear that as much as I recommend getting off the shit and staying sober I do not, cannot, recommend doing it my way. If you have a doctor that will work with you, do that. If you can be in a hospital, under a doctor’s supervision, do that. If you can afford a rehab, by all means, do that. Only if you have run out of options and your friend has a cabin in a remote part of Wyoming should you even consider what I had to do.

It was critical to get out of New York City. The place was going to kill me and I was allowing it to. The place I was living in in Brooklyn was about as healthy for me as living in a crack house. The heroin was long gone but the booze and finally the cocaine were going to break me like a King Cobra breaks all the bones in one’s body before it swallows you whole. I knew that death was knocking at my door and I most definitely did not want to let it in. I begged and begged until, at last, my friend gave in and allowed me to stay at his place in Wyoming. I borrowed money for a plane ticket and in July of 2013, got the hell out of Brooklyn.

I did not intend to get off the Suboxone when I got out there. I had the intention of getting off/away from the cocaine and to try that sad little game that apparently a lot of alcoholics play in which I drank only beer. Man, did I drink a lot of beer. It wasn’t until I got back and started working the program that I stopped all that entirely, but that’s another story.

My doctor in NYC loaded me up with a fresh batch of sixty strips of Suboxone to last the two months I thought I would be there. At that point I was managing on one strip a day and had no idea I would be there for six long, long months. It turns out, most of the people I care about were relieved to see me go and weren’t exactly counting the days until I got back. I had made a real mess of things in the throes of my sickness, and I was lucky that I had anybody that cared about me at all. These are the things I got to dwell on in the middle of nowhere. Good times were ahead. By good, I mean bad. Really, really bad.

The town I was in has a population of about 900 in the summer and roughly 600 in the winter. Out of respect for the six or seven people that didn’t want to shoot me, I won’t name the town. I will tell you that a lot of local folks like to call my hometown “Jew York” and it seems like all of them like to drop the n word like it's okay to drop the n word. These are the facts. This was a very, very small town in the land that Dick Cheney popped his zits on. The town is a pit-stop to the bigger towns that are eighty miles in either direction. That’s right, eighty miles to the nearest hospital, decent restaurant or anything else that we take for granted in any city. If there were any drugs, I sure as hell wasn’t looking.

I need to reiterate that the way I got off Suboxone is not something I recommend. It was out of necessity. I had no choice, plain and simple. Turns out it was one of the best things I have ever done for myself and I am glad I lived through it because during most of it I thought I wouldn’t. It is as bad as getting off any opiate. The physical withdrawal, the psychological terror … all that. Add being in the middle of nowhere and alone to the mix—well, blowing my brains out seemed like it might just be easier. That’s another thing I need to stress, if you are alone in a cabin in the woods and you are getting off Suboxone, do not have any loaded weapons in the place. Everyone has a gun in Wyoming. Everyone. No matter how liberal or peaceful or whatever you are, it is a necessity. There are wolves and bears and all sorts of very real, very wild animals that will eat your dog before they come after you. So, get the guns out of the house if you can, because you might just use one no matter how awful you think they are. And if a wolf comes to the door … stay very still.

After a month, I got the message loud and clear that I was going to be there for a lot longer than I had hoped. I started to taper down from one strip of Suboxone to a half a strip. Upon learning that I was not going to be back by Thanksgiving I tried to take half a strip every other day. It didn’t quite work out that way and by New Year’s eve when the night sky turns a deep dark black at exactly 5:45pm, I was out. I was desperate and terrified. I tried to see a doctor out there but the closest one that prescribed the stuff was over two hundred miles away and I just could not afford either the gas, the appointment, nor (if he had prescribed it) the Suboxone itself. Plus, I did not want to get on the road while in withdrawal. Not good for me or any of the other drivers on the highway. In a panic I contacted my doctor in NYC and he very reluctantly wrote me a prescription for twenty strips. The pharmacy would ship it the eighty miles to the town post office. After five terrible days, it arrived.

I went through the hard physical part of it in those five days. Not all of it but enough to know that if I could go cold turkey, even with the promise of strips on the way, I could get off it entirely. That’s when I knew I could do it. That’s when I decided I would.

I took those twenty strips and I cut them into quarters. Then, I cut those quarters in half. Try and do all the cutting of the strips as early in the process as you can. My hands were shaking a lot of the time and I wanted to be around scissors not so much. By the time I got out of there in mid–January I had saved one last half a quarter of a strip for the plane ride back to New York. (A friend paid for the ticket.)

I just knew that I couldn’t be doing all those things one does during the physical sickness (hint—it involves all orifices) at an airport let alone in midair. Best to spread out the remainder of whatever little bit you have left and use them on days where you have to be among the public. Fortunately, in Wyoming, those days are few and far between.

I need to mention the Importance of a medication called Clonidine. It is a blood pressure pill used to help alleviate some of the symptoms of withdrawal. In particular the “Dear GOD, it feels like a Mexican drug cartel is tearing off my flesh!!!!! Make IT STOP” sensation. When my doctor could no longer call in Suboxone he took it upon himself to call in Clonidine. I am grateful he did. It does not offer a free ride by any stretch of the imagination but it will calm you down just a teeny, tiny bit. You will be happy to have it next to your very sweat stained mattress.

When I got back I immediately saw my doctor. I told him what I had done and how I had done it. Much to my surprise, he encouraged me to stay off it. “You have made it through the tough part,” he said. “Now, you are going to feel like you are jet-lagged for about a month.” Well if jet-lagged feels like trudging through the thickest molasses they make and then it’s somehow set on fire then I was jet–motherfucking–lagged alright. Lagged for at least thirty days.

Yes, it was a drag. But, I was off the stuff for the first time in almost a decade. I managed to crawl my way to meetings and start working the program. I am around people again. Sure some of them might think and act like the folks I met out there. Some of them might even want to shoot me. But there are others, with similar experiences, strength and hopes. I am not alone. I am alive. There’s bacon and eggs for breakfast lunch and dinner 24 hours a day, for crying out loud!

I was terrified of the sickness. I thought it was too overwhelming for this body to take. Yet I overwhelmed this body with drugs and alcohol for years. The things our body can take while we are abusing it are never as bad as the things it will put us through when it’s cleaning itself up. I don’t know if that’s a fact. I only know it’s true for me.

Bring on the zombie apocalypse.

Dillon Murphy is a pseudonym for a comedian in New York. He last wrote about how he would never be able to quit his suboxone addiction in May last year. Today, St. Patrick's Day, he has 65 days clean and sober.

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UnVaping: A New Ban Treats E-Cigs the Same as Tobacco. Are They?

Even though science has yet to pass judgement on e-cigarettes, states have started restricting vaping like smoking.

take it outside Shutterstock


By Sarah Peters

03/17/14



Are E-Cigarettes the Solution?
Candy-Flavored E-Cigs Highly Appealing to Teenagers
As FDA Steps Aside, Will E-Cigarettes Conquer the Market?
My Acceptable E-Cigarette Addiction


Electronic cigarette smokers will soon find themselves cast outside with the tobacco smokers when an ordinance approved by Los Angeles city council members goes into effect. Lawmakers voted February 4th to include e-cigarettes under the same set of restrictions that prohibit tobacco products from restaurants, workplaces, bars and other shared areas like parks and beaches. Vaping stores and lounges are exempt. The ordinance, which received Mayor Eric Garcetti's signature, will go into effect April 19th.

While the vote by councilmembers was unanimous, the arguments for and against the ban were less clear-cut.

Science has yet to endorse a definitive winner in the debate over whether or not vaping is a safe health practice—and has less information still on whether or not second-hand vaping poses significant health risks. Both sides agree that no one has all the information yet, not even the Federal Food and Drug Administration, which has been investigating e-cigarettes for about two years without issuing a set of regulations.


The right thing to do in the absence of certainty is to protect the public’s health, because many thousands of lives could be lost while you’re trying to figure something out.

“The problem with e-cigarettes is that the rise in these cigarettes has been so rapid and the popularity has spread like wildfire, that there has not been enough time for all the scientific evidence to be available at the level that usually, at a scientific perspective, is required,” said Lourdes Baezconde-Garbanati, an associate professor at the USC Keck School of Medicine.

Due to lack of regulation, there is no one set standard for e-cigarette production. As such, e-cigarettes vary widely in what ingredients they contain, the potency of those ingredients and their effectiveness. All this variation has lead to some scientific studies contradicting other scientific studies.

“It’s not that we don’t have scientific evidence, it’s that we don’t have the level of certainty that is usually required from a scientific perspective,” Baezconde-Garbanati continued. “However, we do have very sound scientific studies that are linking these cigarettes and the aerosol emissions, that contain a variety of harmful chemicals, to [health risks].”

The liquid cartridges and vapor contain chemicals that are shown to cause eye and throat irritation and damage to the respiratory track, among other potential issues, she said.

In the last few years, there have also been emergency room reports of nicotine poisoning in children as a result of contact with the e-liquid or vapor, she added.

“This is not the same vapor that comes from your teakettle,” Baezconde-Garbanati said.

NOT JUST WATER VAPOR

E-cigarettes have risen in popularity due much in part to the claims of manufacturers that they are a healthy alternative to combustible cigarettes, featuring no tar or tobacco, less nicotine and don’t emit smoke.

“Safer does not mean safe,” said Director of Los Angeles County Department of Public HealthJonathan Fielding at the council meeting. “Although they are less harmful than cigarettes, some e-cigarettes may present health risks.”

Studies of the e-liquid and the vapor produced through the atomizing process show that some e-cigarettes contain not just nicotine, but also chemicals, heavy metals and food additives, he said.

Toxins such as formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, and acrolein; metals such as tin, silver, iron, nickel aluminum, sodium, chromium, copper, magnesium, manganese, lead, potassium and silicate nanoparticles; and carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco and tobacco smoke have all been found in e-cigarettes, according to information provided by Baezconde-Garbanati.

The propylene glycol and glycerin found standard in e-cigarettes and used to create the vapor have both been approved by the FDA for ingestion, but little is known about the effects of repeat or long-term inhaling, Fielding said.

“Since many of these chemicals are efficiently absorbed into the bloodstream from the lungs, they present health risks to the users as well as the nonusers exposed to the vapor,” Fielding said. “Second-hand vapor contains particulate matter that may trigger asthma and make the eyes, nose and respiratory track irritated. People in enclosed spaces simply should not be subjected to these risks.”

VAPING'S POTENTIAL WIDESPREAD EFFECTS

The discussion around e-cigarettes and their impact on public health doesn’t revolve solely around their chemical composition. Proponents of the ban on e-cigarettes point to use among adolescents, which has risen significantly over the last several years.

In a survey of middle school and high school students, use of e-cigarettes doubled from 4.7 percent in 2011 to 10.0 percent in 2012, according to information collected by the National Youth and Tobacco Survey and published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Additionally, the survey found that more than 75 percent of those who reported having used an e-cigarette had also smoked a traditional cigarette, prompting concern from health officials that e-cigarettes can act as an introduction to combustible cigarettes and result in dual use of both products.

“[Tobacco companies] glamorize the use of e-cigarettes with celebrity spokespeople and other marketing strategies,” Fielding said. “This enhances the use of these cigarettes as a gateway to traditional cigarette use, particularly among the most impressionable [populations] which are our youth.”

While marketed as a smoking cessation device, research shows that most people use e-cigarettes and combustible cigarettes in tandem, oft times leading to an even longer period of traditional cigarette use before the person quits, Fielding said.

E-cigarette manufacturers have marketed dual use of the products as an acceptable practice, he said.

“This threatens to undermine decades of work to protect the public by re-normalizing smoking,” Fielding said. “This societal norm has helped keep children from beginning smoking and helped adults make quit attempts.”

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES

Opponents of restrictions on e-cigarettes reject the idea that the electronic devices will somehow revive combustible cigarette culture.

“E-cigarettes do not re-normalize smoking; they normalize not smoking,” said Jeff Stier, a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research, at the council meeting.

Many smokers have seen success quitting with help from e-cigarettes and putting vapers in with the smoking crowd could threaten those successes, he said.

“[As an example], you have a smoker who has quit smoking,” Stier said. “They’re at a bar and they want to use their vapor product and that is good news for public health. Without an amendment that would exempt bars, this law would require former smokers, which to me are champions, to go outside with the smokers—that’s nonsense.”

Stier asked that the city council move slowly in its actions because there may be unintended consequences of overly broad regulations.

“The precautionary principal applies to regulations as well,” Stier said. “Regulations should be narrowly tailored to achieve a public health goal and they shouldn’t do more harm than good.”

Former Surgeon General Richard Carmona is among those who are concerned that banning e-cigarettes could do more harm than good.

"A well-intentioned but scientifically unsupported effort like the current proposal could greatly impede the effort to defeat tobacco smoking," said Carmona in a letter he penned for the Los Angeles Daily News. "This regulation, if passed, would disincentivize smokers from switching to e-cigarettes, since many initially switch for reasons of convenience. It would also send the unintended message to smokers that e-cigarettes are as dangerous as tobacco smoking, with the result that many will simply continue to smoke their current toxic products."

Carmona disclosed that he recently joined the board of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based e-cigarette maker NJOY in the letter.

PRECAUTION IN THE ABSENCE OF CERTAINTY

More than 40 cities within California already have varying ordinances that prohibit vaping in places such as restaurants, bars, parks, and at public events, according to the American Lung Association.

Culver City, Hawthorne, Baldwin Park, South Pasadena and Inglewood are a just a few of the cities in addition to Los Angeles which already bar vaping from some indoor and outdoor areas, as shown in agraph created by the California chapter of the association.

Once the ordinance goes into effect, Los Angeles joins New York and Chicago as a growing group of major cities that are placing regulations on e-cigarettes, an industry with sales that exceeded $1.5 billion last year, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.

Those sales are only expected to grow as the continued popularity of e-cigarettes rise.

That rising popularity is the reason why lawmakers need to act now, even though the FDA has not yet issued a set of regulations, Baezconde-Garbanati said.

“The problem is that although there may be potential for harm reduction in the sense that many people may quit [smoking by] using an e-cigarette, at the same time, the potential exposure of the aerosol is harmful enough that it is a major concern to the public health community,” Baezconde-Garbanati said.

Although scientist have yet to conclusively determine just how dangerous e-cigarettes are, enough studies have shown that some level of danger does indeed exist and thus warrants caution on the side of health officials, she explained.

“Therefore, the right thing to do in the absence of certainty is to protect the public’s health, because many thousands of lives could be lost while you’re trying to figure something out,” Baezconde-Garbanati said.

While the long-term effects of e-cigarettes remain unknown, about 500,000 tobacco-related deaths occur in the U.S. each year, according to the American Lung Association.

Sarah Peters is a regular contributor to The Fix. She last wrote about apps for recovery.

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Sarah Peters