Fewer New Mothers Given Codeine After Warning of Overdose Risk From Breastfeeding

/BY JOIN TOGETHER STAFF

May 13th, 2015/

A health warning about the painkiller codeine being transmitted to babies through breast milk has led to a decline in the number of new mothers prescribed the drug, HealthDayreports. There is a rare but potential risk that breastfeeding babies can overdose from codeine if their mothers take the drug.

“The trend is going in the direction we want it,” said lead researcher Kate Smolina of the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada. She noted a significant number of women continue to be prescribed codeine. “Prescriptions are still too high,” she said. “We’d like to see it closer to zero.”

The findings are published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

In 2006, doctors reported an infant whose mother had been using codeine died of a morphine overdose. The body converts codeine to morphine to relieve pain, the article notes. The mother was found to have a gene variant that made her body metabolize codeine extremely quickly, which led to very high levels of morphine in her breast milk.

The gene variant is found in 1 to 10 percent of most ethnic groups. Since women are unlikely to know if they have this variant, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a health warning in 2007 advising doctors to prescribe codeine cautiously to breastfeeding women. Canadian health officials issued a similar warning a year later.

The new study looked at codeine prescriptions for all women who gave birth in British Columbia between 2002 and 2011. In the years before the FDA warning, 17 percent of new mothers filled a codeine prescription in the six months after they gave birth. By the end of 2011, that number declined to 9 percent.

Please join us “In The Rooms” on Thursday May 14 , 2015, at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time.

Thursdays Guest Expert: Matthew Ganem , Banyan Treatment Center 

Topic : "Recovery through Art Therapy"

Matthew Ganem, born May 1, 1985, has been clean for over 9 years. Born in the Greater Boston area he struggled with OxyContin and eventually progressed to IV heroin use which took him down a path of self-destruction, crime and homelessness. At the age of twenty-one he turned his life around going through the Hamilton House, a residential halfway House in the Dorchester area where he rediscovered a passion he had as a kid, poetry. Turning his struggles into poetry as strength and hope for others he published The Shadow of an Addict a collection of his poetry in 2012, winning Mass Poetry Awards Best Poetry book of 2013, as well as New Enlgand Urban Music Awards Spokenword Artist of the year in 2013. Combining his story with poetry he speaks at high schools, colleges and programs. He is The Northeast Regional Outreach Coordinator for Banyan Treatment Center.

I will be sharing my story as well as well as my poetry to offer a different perspective into the mind of an addict. I will offer hope, despair, strength, weakness and passion inside each poem the roller coaster of emotion that we deal with in active addiction and recovery and talk about how therapeutic the outlet of writing has helped in my recovery.

In The Rooms Meeting Thursday 7pm ET. Meetings cannot be accessed via phone or tablet. Must use Firefox or Google Chrome as your browser. Please join us! 

http://www.intherooms.com/livemeetings/check?meeting_id=133

Visit The Addict's Mom at: http://addictsmom.com/?xg_source=msg_mes_network

	Mon. May 18, 6:30 pm: Advocacy Meeting
	Want to make a difference?    The NCADDNJ Advocacy Team needs you!  The NCADDNJ Mercer/Hunterdon Counties Advocacy Team meets at COA once a month. Here volunteer advocates are given the resources and tools to make a difference in their respective communities about the way addiction is viewed and treated. Currently the Mercer/Hunterdon advocates are working on a video project called "Advocates Speak Out." The next meeting is Monday, May 18 at 6:30 pm. Pizza will be provided. For questions or comments, contact: cityofangelsnj@hotmail.com

	Sat. May 30: Life ReScripted Workshop
	Are painful memories holding you back?  ReScript them at this workshop! Life ReScripted is a (FREE!) experiential workshop that uncovers and clears unresolved issues that can undermine recovery. There are strong and compelling reasons why these issues persist.  A rescripting identifies and transforms the root cause of our self-sabotaging choices & behavior. Time: 2:00 to 6:00 pm, Dwier Center (392 Church Street, Groveville, NJ). For questions or comments, contact: cityofangelsnj@hotmail.com

	Support COA Baseball!
	To kick off their 2015 season in the New Jersey Amatuer Baseball League, the City of Angels baseball team, the Angels, will host a fundraising event with the Trenton Thunder at Arm & Hammer Stadium in Trenton on Friday, June 5th, 2015.   As Rich Fisher, writer for the Trentonian, put it "If the story of the newly formed City of Angels adult amateur baseball team doesn't make you feel good, then you're either the crankiest person on earth or the emotionless Dr. Spock from Star Trek. This is a story of second chances, dedication and courage." Click here to read more. City of Angels will have a 400 stadium tickets to the Thunder's Friday night 7:00pm June 5th, game against the Harrisburg Senators (a Washington National affiliate) at Thunder's Arm & Hammer Stadium. Tickets are $11 and it's "Pink-Hat" give-away night. The game will be dedicated to the memory of the Angels star pitcher, Sage Ferraro, who lost his battle with addictions on July 14, 2014. City of Angels is a non-profit, 501c.3 and proceeds will go to support COA's community outreach efforts with the Angels. To buy tickets, click here. In addition, on Saturday, June 20 at 10:00am, the Angels will play our annual Sage Ferraro Memorial Game at Thunder Stadium against the NJ Spartans in a regular season NJABL game. There will be no charge for admission, though donations will be accepted and we encourage everyone to come out for this game, too!

	On COARR
	Let's Talk About Recovery! With 10 original shows, COARR plays Recovery Talk 24/7/365....past shows are available online atwww.coaradio.com/pastshows.html and in each show's online archive.  Tune in thru the smartphone app (free in the iphone/droid stores) or on www.coaradio.com to hear what's playing now..... Watch for new Season 3 shows coming soon!  "Apparently I am on my path," says "Wings Over Water: Creativity in Recovery host Kathy Moser. "Yesterday I took the signed photo of Stephen Tyler that I got when I played at Recovery Unplugged out of my tour folder, propped it up in my office and reloaded my tour folder with details for this Nashville trip. Today I run into him in Nashville. Thank you universe!" Listen to past "Wings Over Water" shows anytime atwww.coaradio.com/wingsoverwater Listen to past COARR shows any time:  For "Families and Recovery" with Cathy & Bill, click here. For "Women & Addiction" with Terri Thomas, click here.  For "Wellness in Recovery" with life coach Nancy Tilelli, click here.  For "Journey Thru the 12 Steps with the Life Recovery Bible," click here.  For "Share Your Scars" with Vicki, click here. For "Wings Over Water: Creativity in Recovery" with recovery musician Kathy Moser, click here. For "Laughter & Recovery" with stand up comic Wil B. Kleen, click here.  For "Relationships in Recovery" with Alexa, click here.  For "Saving Lives" with COA Director of Interventions Tom Redneck Clark, click here.

	New Website!
	Check out the new COA website! Thanks to our new webmaster, Art Ackerman, COA's home on the web is better than ever - it's now easier to find the info you need, especially about COA's services for people in crisis, and COA's recovery support programs & activities - like Baseball! Check it out at www.cityofangelsnj.org.  You can also buy tickets online for the June 5Baseball game at Trenton Thunder stadium and share your thoughts on the new COA Blog.   ***We are looking for people to help with the new website. Training will be provided and recoverees are preferred. Interested? Contact Art at aja1256@verizon.net.

Controversial Bud Light Label Went Through Many Layers of Approval

/BY JOIN TOGETHER STAFF

April 30th, 2015/

A Bud Light label that was withdrawn this week after being criticized for encouraging date rape went through at least five layers of approval before being produced, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The label described Bud Light as “The perfect beer for removing ‘no’ from your vocabulary for the night.” The label conflicted with current efforts on college campuses to raise awareness of sexual assault. The American Association of State Colleges and Universities is sponsoring a “No Means No” campaign.

The company is not recalling the bottles because the label does not pose a health or public safety concern, a spokesman told the newspaper. Less than 1 percent of Bud Light bottles in circulation have the label, the company said. It is part of a campaign called “Up for Whatever,” which includes about 140 labels.

The company that makes Bud Light, Anheuser-Busch, said its advertising agency, BBDO, wrote the label. The company said the labels passed through the U.S. Alcohol Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, which confirms that labels provide correct information to consumers about a beer’s identity.

The labels are reviewed by Bud Light’s marketing team, members of the company’s legal team, corporate responsibility division and an advertising code committee, the company said. Bud Light Vice President Alexander Lambrecht said the label’s “message missed the mark, and we regret it. We would never condone disrespectful or irresponsible behavior.”

“I have no idea what broke down in their internal review, but certainly there was a serious breakdown,” said Scott Berkowitz of the anti-sexual-assault non-profit Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. He said while alcohol does not cause incidents of sexual assault, “it’s common that participants have been drinking and some rapes happen against incapacitated victims.”

Number of Infants Treated for Drug Withdrawal Symptoms Shot Up in Last Decade

/BY JOIN TOGETHER STAFF

April 30th, 2015/

The number of babies treated for the drug-withdrawal syndrome known as neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) has almost quadrupled in the last decade, according to a new study.

Babies born with NAS undergo withdrawal from the addictive drugs their mothers took during pregnancy, such as oxycodone, morphine or hydrocodone. NAS affected seven babies for every 1,000 admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) in 2004. That number jumped to 27 infants per 1,000 by 2013, HealthDay reports.

The percentage of days spent in a NICU because of drug withdrawal rose from 0.6 percent to 4 percent during that time, the researchers reported in The New England Journal of Medicine. Eight centers reported that more than 20 percent of NICU days were spent caring for babies with the syndrome in 2013.

Another recent study found a woman’s use of prescription opioids during pregnancy increases the risk her baby will be born small or early. Such use also raises the chance the baby will go through NAS.

The study of more than 112,000 pregnant women in Tennessee found almost 28 percent used at least one prescription opioid, such as hydrocodone or oxycodone. The risks to the baby increased if a woman also smoked or took antidepressants, the researchers reported.

Of the babies with NAS, 65 percent had mothers that legally filled prescriptions for opioid pain relievers.

The study found 42 percent of the women prescribed opioids smoked during pregnancy, compared with 26 percent of the women not prescribed opioids. The more cigarettes a woman smoked each day, the more likely she was to give birth to a baby with NAS.

The New Drugstore Cowboys

OPENING Friday, MAY 15    

ANIMALS, by director Collin Schiffli and writer David Dastmalchian. The film follows a couple, living out of their car in Chicago, who are both madly in love and madly addicted to heroin. They must confront their grim reality when of them is hospitalized.  

CONTINUED @ AnimalsTheFilm.com