dailyheraldchicago--2019-11-20--UAW president steps down as GM sues rival over union bribery

DETROIT -- General Motors is suing Fiat Chrysler, alleging that its crosstown rival got an unfair business advantage by bribing officials of the United Auto Workers union.  The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit, alleges that FCA was involved in racketeering by paying millions in bribes to get concessions and gain advantages in three labor agreements with the union.  Details of the racketeering have been exposed in a federal probe of corruption at the union that has resulted in multiple arrests.  The lawsuit alleges that Fiat Chrysler corrupted the bargaining process with the UAW in the 2009, 2011 and 2015 union contracts to gain advantages over General Motors.  Craig Glidden, GM's chief counsel, alleged that Fiat Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne, who died last year, was a 'central figure' in the conspiracy, which was designed to put GM at a cost disadvantage to FCA.  'FCA was the clear sponsor of pervasive wrongdoing, paying millions of dollars in bribes to obtain concessions' from the union, Glidden said. 'FCA's manipulation of the collective bargaining process resulted in unfair labor costs and operational advantages for it, causing harm to GM.'  In addition to Fiat Chrysler, the lawsuit names former FCA labor relations chief Alphons Iacobelli, and former FCA officials Jerome Durden and Michael Brown as defendants. All have pleaded guilty in the federal corruption probe, which has alleged that Fiat Chrysler bribed UAW officials to keep them 'fat, dumb and happy.'  Authorities have alleged that payments were made through a training center jointly run by the company and the UAW. Durden handled the training center's finances, and Brown helped run the center.  Glidden told reporters that in the three UAW contracts, FCA was able to reduce its labor costs because the union allowed it to hire more temporary and lower-paid workers than GM.  'Many of the advantages FCA was able to obtain were denied to GM. That was part of the conspiracy,' Glidden said.  In 2007, the union agreed that new hires would be paid less than longtime workers, setting up a 'second-tier' of employees who were paid less. FCA had more second-tier workers than either of its Detroit competitors.  Glidden said GM is not suing the UAW because it believes that responsibility rests with FCA, which was the 'orchestrator' of the conspiracy. He accused FCA of mismanagement of 'stunning proportions' and should be held accountable.  'GM was chosen as a target by FCA, so that's why we're suing FCA,' he said. 'We were denied benefits that FCA received under their collective bargaining agreements and were damaged as a result.  Glidden said GM is seeking substantial damages in the case, but he could not give a specific amount.  Last week, a retired union vice president and former GM board member became the 13th person to be charged in the federal probe of the union and auto companies.  Joe Ashton is accused of receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks from a contractor who made watches for union members. The 58,000 watches, purchased through the GM-UAW joint training center, are still in storage five years later.  Ashton, a former GM board member, was charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiring to commit money laundering. The case is filed in Detroit federal court as a 'criminal information,' which means a guilty plea is expected.  Glidden said GM had no knowledge of the scheme that allegedly involved Ashton, and the lawsuit had nothing to do with that case.  'In the fullness of time, GM will address that conduct,' he said.


democracynow--2019-10-08--Will Chicago Teachers Be Next to Strike? Union Head Speaks Out as Walkout Date Approaches

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.  AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.  JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, in Chicago, union leaders and the nation’s third-largest school district are racing to reach an agreement to avert a teachers’ strike authorized to begin later this month. In late September, 25,000 educators voted overwhelmingly to authorize a work stoppage, demanding more staffing and lower class sizes. This is Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey.  JUAN GONZÁLEZ: On Monday, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot accused the union of not coming to the bargaining table with a proposal to counter the offers the district has made in recent weeks.  AMY GOODMAN: This comes as about 7,000 school support staffers with the Service Employees International Union, SEIU, have also made preparations for a strike, as have over 2,000 Chicago Park District workers with SEIU Local 73.  For more, we go to Chicago, Illinois, where we’re joined by Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. He taught social studies in Chicago Public Schools for 12 years at Senn High School and Chicago Vocational Career Academy.  Jesse Sharkey, welcome to Democracy Now! Talk about the issues, why the teachers’ union and SEIU locals have decided to strike.  JESSE SHARKEY: Thank you. Right now we’re bargaining; we’re trying to avoid a strike, if possible. We have a mayor who ran on the promise of educational equity, on providing basic educational supports in our schools. We have a contract that expired at the end of last year. And, you know, we came to the table asking for a nurse in every school every day. Most Chicago Public Schools have a nurse one day a week. We asked for supports for special education case managers, for counselors in our schools, for librarians. We have about 120 librarians in the entire city, school librarians. And so far, the district has said, “We’ll bargain with you about money and benefits, but we’re unwilling to make commitments about all those other things,” as if they’re dangling money in front of us, and when we refuse to take it, they become upset that we’re not bargaining in good faith.  Our insistence is that the working and learning conditions in schools, the things which make school high quality, provide wraparound services, all the things which students need, have to be in the collective bargaining agreement. And that’s what we’re bargaining for. That’s been our position for years.  It’s just that now we see both a mayor who ran on that platform, there’s been — the general Legislature in Illinois passed a school funding bill back in late 2017, which provided an extra billion dollars a year into the schools’ budget. So we have — the money should be there for this. There’s political will. There’s also a Red for Ed movement, a wave of teacher strikes, going on across the country, from West Virginia all the way across the country, Arizona, Los Angeles. And so, we feel like this is our best opportunity in a generation to actually deliver these improvements.  JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Well, Jesse Sharkey, I wanted to ask you what the difference is between these negotiations and what happened in 2012, when it was Mayor Rahm Emanuel in power. Some people have observed that we have — there’s a new mayor in Chicago, Lori Lightfoot, but the people you’re negotiating with are the same people that were there when Rahm Emanuel was in office. Could you comment on that and what that means in terms of a willingness to take a new approach to the bargaining situation?  JESSE SHARKEY: In 2012, Rahm Emanuel came at us guns blazing. He had prior — even prior to taking office, he was already working to get laws changed in Springfield which would take away our right to bargain or strike over how long the school day was, over crucial parts of our evaluation. He brought in an out-of-town education privatizer who was going to close schools, open charter schools, create basically a test score competition scheme, together with school privatization, and attack the union. In a lot of ways, 2012 was a defensive strike. It was us trying to hold the line in an environment in which the other side had momentum and was coming at us hard. We struck. We held the line, in some places not entirely.  This is different in that, like, this is a situation where the tide has turned in the country. People want to see high-quality education. People don’t think that the chronic underpay for educators is appropriate. They want resources going into the schools. And from West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arizona, you look across the country, and there have been big movements to that effect. We see that, and we think this is our opportunity in Chicago to like actually win improvements in writing. We need to see a contractual guarantee.  What’s happening in Chicago is that there are huge tax giveaways for the rich. Obviously, nationally, you see that with Trump’s tax giveaways. But on a local level, what that looks like is deals which give developers billions of dollars in order to provide help for development projects in part of the city that is already very developed. And so, we’re saying, if there’s money for that, there has to be money for the schools to do what schools need to be able to do in order to educate children.  JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about the SEIU local that represents other workers, some of them in the school districts, some of them in the parks department, their contract they’re conspiring to, how you are — are the unions coordinating their efforts or cooperating?  JESSE SHARKEY: Well, we’re talking. And the truth of the matter is that we share similar goals. A lot of the workers in Chicago Public Schools are low-wage workers. The Park District talked about one of its members who was homeless for a period of time while working as a bus aide. We have currently about 75% of our education support staff, who we call paraprofessionals, or PSRPs, that group, about 70% of them would qualify for free or reduced-price lunch under federal poverty guidelines, their children. So, for us, there’s a bunch of folks who work in the schools who actually need fair treatment economically. So, money and wages do matter in this fight. And we want the schools to be places where we can be proud, where there’s is a high-quality education delivered for students. So, we think the public supports us in this kind of demands.  AMY GOODMAN: We’re talking to Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. So, what do you see as the chronology leading up to next week? What’s going to happen, and what specifically needs to happen for a strike not to take place? And are you totally coordinating with SEIU? Will you agree together to strike or not to strike?  JESSE SHARKEY: If there’s no agreement reached, we’re standing together on wages, benefits and other crucial issues. In fact, the district has offered SEIU that they would get whatever wage settlement that we get. So, in a way, the district made the argument for us. So, yeah, we’re standing shoulder by shoulder with them. We’re talking. We’re going to try to maximize our unity in order to maximize our power at the bargaining table.  The district does have the ability to avoid a strike by delivering on the promises that mayor made when she was campaigning. What we say is, put it in writing. If you’re going to campaign on the idea of basic education supports, you put that in writing. That could avoid a conflict. As for now, she hasn’t been willing to do that.  And, something that Juan said earlier, it is tied to the fact that this is a mayor who has sent a negotiating team to the table that’s comprised of people who were there from Rahm’s administration — and, frankly, from Daley’s administration, before that. So, it’s really about us trying to hold the city political establishment to its promises and to overcome the inertia of the way the system has run for so long.  JUAN GONZÁLEZ: Has the mayor herself actually been to the negotiating table yet? Because often at the final hours, it’s the people in charge have to sit down directly, and not through their underlings. I’m wondering, because some people are saying Lori Lightfoot is going to have to decide whether she’s going to become a Rahm Emanuel 2.0 or Harold Washington 2.0, and that this may be the decisive moment for that. I’m wondering your thoughts.  JESSE SHARKEY: I like that. I’m going to have to steal that, that formulation. I think that — yeah, I think the mayor is going to have to get personally involved. You know, as for coming to the table, there will come a time for that.  You know, a schools contract has a lot of sort of small details in it. You know, for example, the mayor said something in a press conference yesterday criticizing the idea that we were negotiating over nap time in preschool. I wish that we didn’t have to negotiate over nap time, but the truth of the matter is that 4-year-olds, 3-year-olds need naps physically. They’re developing physically and as well as mentally. And there’s been a kind of a tendency to push down a superacademic curriculum all the way into kids that are that young. Teachers that understand that the actual what’s good for students involves the ability for them to nap, you know, have asked to protect the ability to nap for full-day preschool in our contracts. So that’s something that we have negotiated about.  And I don’t know if it’s necessarily the case that we want the mayor of a city of two-and-a-half million people, you know, negotiating that level of detail. But when we get to the big issues, the transcendent issues about whether we can have enforceable caps on class size or reduce class sizes, whether or not we can have nurses, social workers and other critical staffing needs, whether teacher time is protected, pay and benefits — if those issues the mayor wants to come in on and do the right thing, then that will be appreciated.  AMY GOODMAN: Well, we want to thank you very much for being with us, Jesse Sharkey, president of the Chicago Teachers Union. In breaking news, the State Department —  JESSE SHARKEY: Thanks. Can I say one more thing, Amy?  JESSE SHARKEY: Just solidarity with the UAW. We’re rooting for the members of the UAW and just want to express our solidarity with that struggle.  AMY GOODMAN: Jesse Sharkey, thanks so much.  This breaking news: The State Department has ordered Gordon Sondland, the key figure in the House impeachment inquiry, not to testify to lawmakers today. Sondland’s lawyer said in a statement Sondland is “profoundly disappointed” he will not testify before Congress today. We’ll have the latest on the impeachment inquiry against President Trump tomorrow.


disrn--2019-12-26--Investigation reveals U.A.W. leaders spent $1 million in union money on cigars, dinners

Last Updated Dec 26th, 2019 at 11:56 am  An investigation into the United Auto Workers union has revealed that union leaders expensed roughly $1 million of union money on cigars, golf outings, four-figure dinners, and villa rentals between 2014 and 2018.  The purchases were documented in a federal complaint filed in September.  Expenses include more than $60,000 in cigars and cigar paraphernalia, monthslong stays at villas that cost around $5,000 a month, and dinners costing thousands. One bill for a meal at LG's Prime Steakhouse clocked in at $6,500 and included a $1,760 charge for four bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Champagne.  Union officials are also currently being investigated for improper use of millions of dollars from a joint Fiat Chrysler-U.A.W. training center.


theindependent--2019-11-21--Turkey 'bans cyanide' after spate of mass suicides linked to poverty

The family of four were found on the top floor of an eight-story apartment building in the Turkish resort city of Antalya. Mother, father, nine-year-old girl and five-year-old boy were all dead. The preliminary conclusion for cause of death: suicide by cyanide poisoning.  Turkish news outlets said the 36-year-old father, Selim Simsek, had left a note describing the mass suicide as an act of economic desperation. He lamented that he had not found work in nine months, was burdened with debts and had just received an eviction order.  Just days earlier, four siblings were found dead from cyanide poisoning in their home in the Istanbul district of Fatih, also purportedly over economic issues. And on 15 November, a family of three, including a child, was found dead by the same means in the city’s Bakirkoy district after the family’s despondent patriarch had gotten himself into “an excessive amount of debt”, according to media citing police.  Responding to this apparent wave of mass suicides by cyanide over alleged economic troubles, Turkey’s minister of environment and urbanisation, Murat Kurum, late this week took steps to ban sales to the public of the chemical. Under new rules, companies must send end-user declarations tracking sales and distribution of cyanide.  While cyanide has numerous industrial applications – from pest control to cleaning jewellery and plastics – it is also a well-known poison.  Cyanide tablets are often used by fictional spies facing capture. And in 1978, American cult leader Jim Jones ordered his followers living in Guyana to drink cyanide-laced Kool Aid, causing 900 deaths. Cyanide gas was used by the Nazis in extermination camps during the 1940s.  The rash of fatalities in Turkey – three families in less than two weeks – has garnered headlines in opposition newspapers and prompted harried defences by those close to the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.  In power now for nearly 16 years, Mr Erdogan oversaw an extensive and long period of growth during his first years as Turkey’s leader but is now struggling to improve the country’s economy. Turkey has struggled with the fallout of a financial crisis that lowered the value of the lira, increasing borrowing costs, pushing up unemployment and exacerbating inflation.  In recent months, there have been numerous reports throughout the country of suicides over economic woes. In September, a shopkeeper in Canakkale purportedly killed himself over his inability to pay off £65,000 debts. The death made the front page of a leftist newspaper.  That same month, a 41-year-old electrician in the Turkish town of Kocaeli took his own life after being unable to afford a school uniform for his son.  Opposition politician Gamze Akkus Ilgezdi recently prepared a report alleging that 223 Turks had taken their own lives over economic hardships in 2017, before the worst of Turkey’s economic troubles crested.  “The social trauma of feeling you have no future or security has reached an unbearable level,” Canan Kaftanloglu, a leader of the opposition People’s Republican Party (CHP), wrote on Twitter to her 600,000 followers.  Opposition lawmakers have put forth a motion to investigate whether economic woes were causing suicides. "Collective suicides have become a social problem in our country," CHP deputy chair Veli Agbaba was quoted as saying in the Cumhuriyet newspaper.  Some have sought to use the deaths to tarnish the government over broader matters, including its handling of the country’s Kurdish minority. The ethnic group has felt alienated over the nationalist outpouring ignited by Turkey’s military intervention against a Kurdish militia in northeast Syria.  "Today we see that bullets are given to the Kurds as their share and cyanide is given to the Turks as their share,” Sezai Temelli, co-chair of the Kurdish-led People’s Democratic Party (HDP), was quoted as saying. “Suicide is not the solution. Do not commit suicide. We will fight together and get rid of this power.”  Supporters of the government accuse opponents of using a tragic social phenomenon for political ends. One columnist accused media outlets, including BBC Turkish, of fanning the flames.  “Before anyone knew how the suicide took place, [BBC Turkish] published stories that four siblings died out of poverty after saying they were unable to pay their debts to the local grocery shop or pay their electricity bills,” wrote Dilek Gungor in the pro-government Sabah newspaper.  More than a few journalists and media analysts have also urged news outlets to ease their coverage of the suicides, worrying the sensational headlines could be encouraging others who are in desperation. Turkish news outlets splash names and photos of the purported victims on the front page, observing little of the conventions of sensitivity regarding suicide that have been taken up by western media outlets in recent decades.  “We shouldn’t forget what we can cause while we report on suicides,” Ebubekir Sahin, the head of Turkey’s media watchdog, wrote on Twitter.  It also remains unclear whether the killings amounted to mass suicides or homicides followed by suicides, especially as the deaths include very young children, and the perpetrators could have poisoned the others without their knowledge.  “All my siblings are dependent on my income,” one of the four siblings in Fatih told a neighbour before the deaths, according to a newspaper. “If anything happens to me they would die. I do not want to live either. If I die, they must die. Or they will be miserable.”


fortune--2019-01-25--Trump Donated His 2018 Third-Quarter Salary to an Organization That Funds Alcoholism Research

President Donald Trump has donated $100,000—his salary from the third-quarter of 2018—to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  Trump pledged to refuse the $400,000 salary that comes with being the U.S. president shortly after winning the election. Since then he’s held to his promise, with each quarterly pay going to a different organization.  In 2017, his paychecks went to the National Park Service, the Education Department, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Transportation. The first two checks from 2018 went to the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Small Business Administration, according to The Associated Press.  Now, Trump has donated his third-quarter check from 2018 to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  The president himself never drinks alcohol, but his older brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 after struggling with alcoholism. Trump said his brother always told him, “don’t drink,” and despite their sometimes rocky relationship, he heeded those words.  “I can honestly say I’ve never had a beer in my life,” Trump once told reporters. “Can you imagine, if I had, what a mess I’d be? I’d be the world’s worst.”  The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism claims to be the largest funder of alcohol research in the world. The organization both supports and conducts research on the impact of alcohol on human health and well-being.


russiainsider--2019-09-23--From Drunk Puppet Yeltsin to Sober Strongman Putin Alcoholism Down 40 in an Increasingly Healthy R

From Drunk Puppet Yeltsin to Sober Strongman Putin: Alcoholism Down 40% in an Increasingly Healthy Russia

Stereotypes exist for a reason. Russians do drink a lot. But they used to drink MUCH more. Russian (and Soviet) soldiers used to be notorious for drinking anything they could get their hands on. Many men drank their way into an early grave.  But the Russian government took notice. Since Putin came into office alcoholism has been declining. Russians are now healthier than ever.  The Ministry of Health warned, and it wasn't in vain. People in Russia began to drink less. This is the main news of today's Sobriety Day. It isn't a state holiday but it's celebrated quite widely. The tangible result of the all-Russian anti-alcohol campaign is expressed in specific figures, or liters to be exact.  It's 8.7 liters (2.3 gallons) per person per year. That's how much spirits Russians drink now. Deputy Minister of Health Oleg Salagay gave this data. He says that it's still a lot, but it isn't 18 liters (4.7 gallons) as before.  Other indicators related to alcohol also changed for the better, such as the dynamics of specific diseases and alcoholism is now diagnosed more rarely. Compared to 2009, the difference is almost 40%. Ten years ago, over two million people were diagnosed with alcoholism. Now, there are 1.3 million of them.  What can this anti-alcohol effect be attributed to? Vadim Zavodchenkov will try to explain.  - How will people do without vodka?  - Well, Alexey, we can advise those, who can't do without it, go to London. The statistics show that it's much easier to find a drinking buddy there.  The indicator of 9.7 liters (2.3 gallons) per person per year is a bit higher than the European one and substantially lower than in many Western countries. For comparison, according to the recent WHO data, alcohol consumption per person in the UK is 11.4 liters (2.9 gallons). Germans drink 13.9 (3.4 gallons) liters of spirits per year. Lithuanians drink 15 liters (3.9 gallons).  : “If we compare the 2000s with the recent years, we see that the consumption per capita in 1999-2008 was 15-18 liters (4-4.7 gallons), according to different estimates, the consumption is now under 10 liters (2.6 gallons) per capita. There are now fewer cases of alcohol poisoning. If we take the indicators from 2008 when there were 16.9 cases of poisoning for 100,000 people, this figure is now 7.5.”  In the last WHO report dedicated to the problem of alcoholism, Russia was mentioned over 40 times, more often than any other country. But it's mentioned only as a positive example. International experts state that since the beginning of the 21st century, the situation with alcohol abuse in our country has objectively improved. The WHO uses measures taken at the national level as an example for everyone. Russia managed to decrease alcohol accessibility.  Since the 2000s, it hasn't been sold at night, near educational institutions, or at gas stations. The minimum alcohol price was increased. The policy of zero tolerance was introduced with respect to drivers. The maximum breath alcohol concentration is 0.16 permille. This is equal to the observational error. The main achievement of the past 20 years is that we've begun to treat alcohol abuse differently.  : “It was fashionable to drink in the 90s. In the 2000s, our citizens, especially young people, began to think about a healthy lifestyle more. In 2019, it's fashionable to not drink. And it's important to talk about it. If in the early 2000s when you said that you don't drink, people looked askance at you, it's now viewed as an achievement and something to be proud of. And this is our progress as a society.”  However, experts say that even the indicator of 9.7 is a lot. The amount of 8 liters (2.1 gallons) of spirits per person per year is considered relatively harmless. At the same time, every liter drunk in excess of the norm decreases a man's life by 11 months and a woman's by 4 months.  Features of national pastime activities worsen the situation in Russia. Specialists distinguish three types of alcohol consumption. Our type is northern. Northerners drink not often, mainly on holidays, but in large amounts, and almost solely hard liquors. This is also typical of the British Isles and Scandinavia.  The southern type is the opposite. It prevails in Italy, Spain, France. They drink almost every day but in small amounts and mainly wine. The central European type is somewhere in between them. They drink beer instead of wine.  So, the northern type is the most dangerous. At the same levels of consumption, alcohol will affect northerners' health more.  Experts are sure that we shouldn't be satisfied with what has already been achieved. The short-term task is to decrease the share of counterfeit in stores and achieve lower alcohol consumption among the youth. For example, there's a suggestion that demotivating pictures showing the harm of spirits should be placed on the bottle's label. There's also a plan to prohibit the sale of hard liquors to those under 21 years old. The Ministry of Health expects the relevant bill to be adopted at the end of 2019.  - Thank you. This was Vadim Zavodchenkov on the sober mind.


sottnet--2019-03-22--Can zapping the brain with lasers cure alcoholism Scripps scientists think so

Can zapping the brain with lasers cure alcoholism? Scripps scientists think so

Anyone who has ever had first-hand experience of substance abuse will know that, however much a person might want to quit, ending this kind of dependency isn't a simple on/off mechanism. But what if it could be? While science has not yet advanced to that point with humans, researchers from Scripps Research have demonstrated that it is possible to reverse the desire to drink in alcohol-dependent rats - by targeting a part of the brain using lasers."This research identifies a specific neuronal population in a deep region of the brain that is activated during alcohol withdrawal and which controls alcohol drinking in a rodent model of alcoholism," Olivier George , an associate professor at Scripps Research, told Digital Trends. "We also identify by which downstream pathways these neurons control the rest of the brain to produce addiction-like behaviors.In the experiment, rats with a dependence on alcohol experienced their symptoms of addiction disappearing when the lasers were used to inactivate the CRF neurons. Not only did this reverse their desire to drink, but it also reduced the physical symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, such as extreme shaking.The work is promising because it suggests that it might be possible to develop novel treatments to battle addiction by focusing on brain circuitry. Identifying the right neurons could lead to the development of better drug treatments or even gene therapies for alcohol addiction. Heck, it could even be possible to create a brain implant to control addiction.Don't expect anything to happen overnight, though. "This work requires the use of cutting-edge technologies that are not approved to be used in humans yet so it may take 15 to 30 years before we see alcoholics with brain implants that help them control their craving," George continued. "However, this work may stimulate the development of small molecule targeting this population of neurons. By performing high-throughput screening of compounds that can inhibit these neurons we could develop new medications in a much shorter timeframe, possibly 10 to 15 years if we find the funding to do it."A paper describing the work was published in the journal Nature Communications


theguardianuk--2019-01-26--The smell of booze was part of the fabric of my childhood the hidden victims of alcoholism

'The smell of booze was part of the fabric of my childhood': the hidden victims of alcoholism

George Clarke asked his father not to text him when he went on holiday to Valencia in September 2015; he didn’t want his father to be charged the extra fees. When Clarke, 25, landed back in the UK a week later, he headed straight to the restaurant where he worked as a waiter. His boss told him that one of his father’s neighbours had called while he was away – she was concerned about his father. Clarke had had messages like this before, and figuring his father was on one of his regular drinking binges, ignored her message. But two weeks later, the same neighbour called again. Clarke drove to his father’s flat, two miles from where he lived in Holmfirth, Yorkshire. No lights were on, and no one answered. He looked through a window and saw a loaf of bread on the kitchen counter that had turned blue and was surrounded by flies. He called the police.  “The next thing I knew, there was this big, 6ft 8in man covered in tattoos outside the flat with one of those battering rams they use in drug raids, trying to smash the door down,” Clarke says. “I had a chuckle to myself, as the whole moment was quite slapstick, and my dad would have laughed, watching these officers trying to knock his old wooden door down.” Once inside, the police found Clarke’s father upstairs. A postmortem later revealed he had been dead for three weeks.  Clarke has been grappling with that day since. “I get a heaviness in my chest when I talk about this,” he says. His parents divorced when he was 13; as a teenager, Clarke would visit his father two or three times a week with his two younger brothers, and spend the rest of his time with his mother. He remembers a time his father drove them to school, when Clarke was 15. “Looking back, I realise he was absolutely out of it. He was in a jovial mood, singing at the top of his lungs. And as a child I didn’t realise it was abnormal. The smell of alcohol was normal to me. It became part of the fabric of my childhood.”  Clarke would find bottles of alcohol hidden around the house; in the cereal cupboard, or the washing basket. He became estranged from his father when he stopped coming to his rugby matches, and missed his graduation from Newcastle University. “Everyone was there with their family. And I bought him a ticket and offered him a drive up, and he said he’d come, and then he went silent for a week,” he says. His father’s behaviour has affected his relationships. “You put your faith in someone,” he says, “but if you’re not sure that faith is 100% well placed, you get hurt over and over again. There’s a cynic in me that thinks, well my dad lied to me, so why shouldn’t someone else?”  Many children of alcoholics now have a dead parent, whether or not alcoholism is explicitly referenced on the death certificate. Alcoholism has long been recognised as a deadly disease, but there is far less awareness of its hidden victims: the children of alcoholics. A 2017 study by the University of Sheffield found that more than 200,000 children across England live with an alcoholic parent; other research has put the number of people in the UK affected by a parent’s problem drinking at 2.6 million.  I grew up in a home affected by alcoholism. My father, whom I never knew, suffered from alcoholism all his life. My parents divorced by the time I was six, and my mother raised me and my seven siblings alone. But she also battled with depression and alcoholism, and it swallowed much of the joy from her life. She died when I was 16.  Like many children of alcoholics, I tried to reason with my mother in an effort to stop her drinking. But when you’re 13, the last thing you want to be doing is begging a parent to stop hiding bottles of wine down the side of the bed, or spending your time persuading them that their life is, in fact, worth living.  Children grow used to an alcoholic’s many contradictions. My mother was a fiercely intelligent, empathetic person, who went from nursing in a mental hospital to completing a politics degree at the age of 40. I would love to inherit her good qualities, but I also don’t want to end up like the person she was at her weakest; when she had truly fallen victim to alcohol.  Children who were raised by an alcoholic parent share a bond; we are part of a club we never signed up to. My older sister thought that if people knew about our parents’ illness, our family would appear broken or dysfunctional. This went for me and some of my other siblings, too. For decades, we hid the true extent of our childhood experiences from others, because we just wanted to be “normal”.  Instead we have tried to live the best lives we can as adults, and supported each other. I am the third youngest, and my older siblings bore the brunt of my mother’s illness, shielding the rest of us. While he was at university, my older brother spoke to my mother on the phone every night and tried to talk her out of a depressive spiral. When she died, my older sister Mary, who was 22 at the time, became legal guardian to me, my younger sister and brother, who were 13 and 15. We might otherwise have been separated and put into care.  Today, some of my siblings drink, and some of them don’t. I enjoy social drinking. Since children of alcoholics are far more likely to become alcoholics themselves, I sometimes wonder how much our parents’ illnesses were hereditary, and whether we’re ever fully in control. While I’m confident I won’t develop a problem with alcohol, I have a solid support system around me, of good friends and family. But I’m not so sure things would have turned out this way without them.  Over the past year, there has been an increased focus on helping children of alcoholics. In April last year, the Department of Health and Social Care, and the Department for Work and Pensions, jointly announced £6m of funding. The plans include fast access to children’s mental health services, and programmes to treat parents’ addiction. The funding will also speed up the identification of children who are at risk, in the hope of reducing the numbers being taken into care. Stigma and shame have prevented many children from talking about the repercussions on their own health and wellbeing, but according to the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA), psychiatric problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression and bulimia are common.  I wanted to speak to others who grew up like me; to hear their stories, their coping mechanisms, and understand how they got through it.  As one of the few people of colour in a very white area of Sunderland, Bindy Galsinh tells me she often felt isolated, forced to grapple with her father’s alcoholism alone. “It felt like my brothers and I were the only brown people in the north-east of England at the time. And there was massive stigma in our [Sikh] community. All of my aunts and uncles knew about his problem, because when they’d visit us they’d see him drunk. But all of my family, even my grandmas, would act like: ‘That’s the way it is, keep it hush-hush.’”  When Galsinh’s father was drunk, he was aggressive and unpredictable. “He’d stay up and watch television all night. I remember when I was 10, I woke up to go to the toilet and was so scared of making any noise in the bathroom that I grabbed a pint glass, weed in it, and poured it down the sink.”  Galsinh was diagnosed with PTSD in her 20s. She suffers from flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety and depression. She compares growing up with an alcoholic parent to living in “a war zone”, because you never know what is coming. “We don’t develop like other people. We didn’t grow up with safety around us.” She feared being defined by her father’s alcoholism in the eyes of friends or family. “It’s the look that says, ‘There must be something wrong with you, because he wouldn’t drink this much.’ It’s worse than shame.”  Today, if Galsinh goes out, she has a drink. She chose not to be teetotal because she wants to prove she has control over alcohol, and does so with the support of friends. “To some weird degree, I drink because I want to feel closer to what he went through. I need to understand. You want to feel power over it.”  Galsinh’s father died in 2013. She says she feels guilty for not grieving for him. “I was grieving for myself. That I could have been more if I had the support. I was grieving for the fact I didn’t deserve any of that.” She has few happy memories of her father, she says, although, “He was the cleverest person I’ve ever met. If anything was broken he could fix it.”  My earliest memories of alcoholism being discussed in public life are in relation to the Liberal Democrat leader Charles Kennedy. To me, he seemed a committed politician, and as a 13-year-old who marched in protests against the Iraq war, I admired his stance on the issue. But his alcoholism was treated as a joke by the press and many of his peers, even after he stepped down from the leadership. On the comedy panel show Have I Got News For You, Jeremy Clarkson introduced Kennedy by saying: “On Paul Merton’s team tonight is a man who, after confessing to a drinking problem, reported that four party officials cornered him in his private office – although later it transpired that there were only two of them – Charles Kennedy!” In June 2015, Kennedy died after suffering a major haemorrhage caused by ongoing alcohol abuse.  Thankfully, times have changed. When Labour MP Jon Ashworth stood up in the Commons in 2017 to talk about his alcoholic father, the video of his speech went viral, and he was widely applauded for its honesty. Ashworth described how the shame his father felt about his alcoholism seeped into all areas of his life. “One of the most heartbreaking things for me was when I got married and my father felt he couldn’t come to the wedding because he would be so drunk. He felt there would be well-known politicians there, and my dad, from a working-class background, felt if he was there, drunk, he would embarrass me.” His father died in 2011.  On a grey morning, I meet Ashworth in his office at Westminster’s Portcullis House. He is welcoming and warm, and as we sit by his desk, he speaks passionately about the need for better services to treat alcoholism, and to protect NHS services. Though his voice softens when he recalls his childhood, he doesn’t shy away from the reality of his experience. “For too long, it’s been very difficult to talk about alcoholism,” he says. “People worry about speaking out because alcohol is such a huge part of our society, and nobody wants to be a killjoy. It’s almost as if it’s the final taboo.”  Ashworth, along with a cross-bench group of MPs, is leading an effort to tackle alcoholism and to better support the children of alcoholics. Almost all local authorities have seen cuts to drug and alcohol services that specifically support children, with a total of £8.3m slashed by 70 councils in 2017. Between 2015 and 2021, 95 local authorities are reducing their alcohol treatment and prevention budgets by £6.5m. Though the £6m in funding promised last April won’t make up the shortfall, Ashworth has praised it as a “real breakthrough”. The cash will be shared with charities and child helplines.  The All-Party Group for Children of Alcoholics is chaired by another Labour MP, Liam Byrne, also the son of an alcoholic. Its research has found that more than one in three deaths or serious injuries caused by neglect or abuse of a child are linked to parental drinking. Ashworth says his father was never physically abusive, but he still feels the shame that many children of alcoholics experience, even as adults. “By talking about my father, it’s as if I’m somehow betraying the memory of him, because I’m talking about his problems. People would say to me, ‘Isn’t he a great laugh, because he’s always drunk?’ We all like people who can be the life and soul of a party. But what happens at the end of it, when the band stops playing and the curtains are drawn and everyone goes, and it’s just me and him left alone in the house?”  Alcoholism is often portrayed as a problem isolated to poorer families, but Ashworth notes that alcoholics can often be high-functioning and hold down demanding jobs. “If you’re living in a chaotic household, the system is looking out for you. But there’s a whole cohort of children who will never get spotted because, on the outside, their parents are holding down respectable, middle-class jobs. My family was a working-class one – but even from the outside, no one would necessarily know there was a problem.”  Children of alcoholics are forced to grow up quickly, he says, and his mission is to let children of alcoholics know they’re not alone. “It doesn’t mean you can’t go on to do what you want in life. I have always wanted to be an MP and I achieved it.” He pauses. “Maybe that’s because I had to grow up quickly. And I want others to know they don’t need to suffer in silence.”  Kate Jones has her own set of rules for drinking alcohol: she doesn’t drink when she’s alone, before lunchtime, or when she’s sad. And she doesn’t drink to get drunk. “But sometimes I break them,” she says, laughing.  Jones grew up in a council home in Pill, a village just outside Bristol, with her parents and two younger brothers. Her father had a job as a forklift driver that involved shift work, but when he was signed off work with depression, her mother took on multiple jobs to support the family. Jones’s parents divorced when she was 18, and her father’s alcoholism led to his death in 2012. He often attempted to stop drinking, which led to fits and hallucinations. When he died, he had been sober for around two weeks; Jones thinks his body just wasn’t used to it.  Before his alcoholism developed, Jones’s father would take her and her two brothers on family walks on Sunday afternoons. They’d take camping equipment, cook hotdogs and go fishing. “We’d walk through an abandoned railway, and he’d always say there was a ghost in the tunnel. In the middle of the tunnel, there was a big dip, and when it would rain, he’d hoick my five-year-old brother on to his shoulders and wade through the water to the other side.”  By the time Jones was 14, she would wake for school and find him drinking a can of cider at 8am in the kitchen. When he was drunk, he wouldn’t eat with the family, preferring to sit alone in the living room. The smallest thing would push him to drink, she says. “Once he shouted and swore at me for singing along to an advert, and so he went to the shop and bought beer. And I thought to myself, ‘I did that, I made him go to the shop, I should be better next time.’”  Jones says the years of managing her father’s alcoholism caused her to develop obsessive-compulsive disorder. She was petrified of receiving a call from her mother telling her that he had died. “Every time I saw an ambulance go past my school, I knew it was for my dad. And it always was. I was on constant alert.” She used to count the times he was hospitalised as a result of his alcoholism. By the 11th time she stopped.  One of Jones’s last memories of her father is when she was 21 and he was rushed into hospital on life support. “I stood at the end of his bed in intensive care and I didn’t know what to do. I just burst into tears. The nurse came and said, ‘If his heart stops, we can’t resuscitate him, because his body can’t take it.’ I didn’t feel like an adult then, I felt like a child. I thought, OK, what do I do now – do I stay or go? I sat by his bed. The hospital smell still makes me think of my dad.”  Only recently have I started to ask my siblings about our mother, wondering what it would be like if she were still alive. I wish I could have had parents at my graduation; that they could be there at Christmas, or for the birth of grandchildren.  But the truth is, I have an airbrushed version of my mother in my head. If she were alive today, her illness would still have control over her life. As much as I would like my parents to see the person I’ve become, I would still be grappling with the consequences of their addiction.  I’m 29 now, and it’s taken me more than 15 years to speak about my mother’s alcoholism. I no longer feel the intense pang of fear in my chest that I might be pitied or shamed. And I no longer believe that speaking about my mother’s alcoholism will tarnish her memory; her illness doesn’t negate the fact she was a good person and loving mother.  Children of alcoholics are more than simply survivors of our parents’ illnesses; alcoholics should not be defined by that illness, either. But alcoholism is a part of who we are, and to ignore that, as we have in this country for so long, would be a disservice to other people grappling with the illness today. In many ways, the taboo is as dangerous as the disease. It’s time to let it go.  Commenting on this piece? If you would like your comment to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email weekend@theguardian.com, including your name and address (not for publication).


theguardianuk--2019-12-29--Alcoholism doesn't confine me any longer – and it doesn't define me either | Jack Monroe

On 27 December 2018, at 4 o’clock in the morning, I shifted uncomfortably on my small sofa in the freezing cold living room of my messy rented bungalow. I’d passed out mid-bingeing on Richard Curtis films and whisky an hour or so before. My shoulders screamed in agony, my mouth was dry and gasping, my head was pounding. I put my feet on the floor and faceplanted the carpet, so shuffled to the bathroom on my stomach, falling asleep again on the linoleum floor, clutching the toilet bowl.  Alcoholism had crept up on me, disguised as a friend to ease the social anxieties of newfound minor fame, a lubricant for awkward situations and parties where people I recognised from television peered over my shoulder while making small talk, looking for someone more noteworthy to flit off to chat to. I filled in trauma wounds with ethanol, I became louder, bolder, wearing my booze-soaked persona like armour against impostor syndrome and rooms full of thinner, more beautiful people.  I found myself pinned to walls by household-name male journalists, who forced their hands inside my shirt and tongues in my mouth, while telling myself I had asked for it, getting in that state. I lost count of the number of boozy lunches with people I considered peers and colleagues that ended with disquieting gropes in the back of taxis and the niggling feeling that I should really stop allowing myself to be so vulnerable.  That morning I lifted my head from the floor and threw up half a dozen times, guilt and grief and self-loathing wracking every trembling, retching pore of my body. I think I have a problem, I slurred to myself as I sank back to the ground, covered in vomit and sweat.  I decided, then, that I would go sober. I’d tried before, in secret, tipping all of the household booze down the sink and counting the days on one hand until I slipped up again. So, this time, I decided to let everyone else in on it. Not for glory, but for accountability. If everyone knew, there would be nowhere to hide. Nowhere to hole up and order a sneaky glass of wine or two. No excuses, no yellow cards.  I walked into my local shop on 6 January 2019, and the owner called me by my name. “You’re famous!” he laughed, not unkindly, wielding a copy of that day’s Observer at me. There I was, on the front page, declaring myself an alcoholic, for all the world to see. I took a deep breath. “Yes, that’s me. And I don’t want you to serve me alcohol ever again. It doesn’t matter what I say, how much I ask, if I say it’s for someone else, just don’t serve me.”  He nodded, understanding. I bought my paper and fled, embarrassed and ashamed. I hadn’t expected it to be so prominent, but it was done now, and there was no going back.  I slotted a piece of paper into my passport, with the words “Do not serve me – I am an alcoholic” in block capitals, and carried it everywhere. I used it twice. Both times, I burned with shame as the cashier read it, scanned my face for the moment of realisation and handed it back, sweeping the bottles of booze out of my basket and placing them out of reach behind the counter. “Just go to the meetings, you don’t need to tell everyone you meet that you’re an alcoholic,” my then sponsor sighed at me.  I found a new sponsor; one with less interest in squeezing my thigh and referring to our meetings as “dates”. I found online meetings, plugged in to women-only groups with recovering alcoholics from around the world from the comfort of my garden chair or burrowed beneath my duvet. The convenience of being dialled into group chats with strangers, avoiding the glances or trying to place where we may have run into each other before, worked for me.  And I did need to tell people. Because in my line of work there are always invitations, open bars, long nights and swanky clubs you can slip into if you know the right B-lister and are considered worthy of their company. Coming out publicly was difficult, and damaged some of my friendships and strained some family relationships, but I did it to be held accountable. And for the most part, it worked.  When I launched my book Tin Can Cook at a pop-up kitchen in Hackney in the spring, my agent and longtime friend Rosemary brought me a bottle of rose lemonade. My friend and publicist, Jess, turned up with a blend of herbal tea and lemonade she had seen me post about on Instagram.  For a friend’s book launch later in the year, her publisher reassured me in the invitation that all of the drinks would be non-alcoholic. At my favourite private hideaway in Soho, the bar staff no longer took my order, but presented me with a double espresso and a large glass of kombucha as soon as I sat down.  I owe the greatest debt of gratitude to my partner, Louisa. It’s been a very difficult year in some respects; and there have been times where I have sat beside her at a dinner or out with friends, hissing out of the corner of my mouth that I am an adult and if I want a fucking drink I will have one. She has cut short many of her own nights out to come home and hold me, and on the occasions where I have fallen off the wagon, she has picked me up and set me back on my feet, without anger or judgment, just love and concern.  I have gained literally hundreds of hours of time over the last year; where before I would spend my evenings drunk and my mornings in a fog of headache and nausea, now I go to bed early with crime novels or lengthy world war tomes about double-crossing agents, cold cases, or other similar genres.  I made it my mission to “grow up and show up”, having previously had a reputation for being flaky, late and unreliable. I am a better mother for my sobriety – making all of my son’s school plays, assemblies and meetings in the last year. We spend far more quality time together now, and the little boy who was at times anxious, awkward and painfully shy is flourishing under the warmth of genuine maternal attention and time spent doing not much at all. I always feared motherhood; growing up in a household where foster children came and went in a revolving door of trauma and disarray, I was continually petrified that I would never be able to be a proper mother to my son.  Not a day goes by, yet, where I am not gripped by the desire to drink. Sometimes it is a fleeting temptation, batted away like a pesky mosquito; sometimes it is a mania that lasts for hours, hissing and whispering from the darkest parts of myself that oblivion is the safest place to be.  I am contacted every day by strangers who want to ask me how I’ve “done it”. People examining their own relationship with alcohol, or finding a spark of recognition in my story. My reply is always the same. First, that in reaching out to someone for help you have made the first step to admitting that you may have a problem and that you are actively considering resolving it, or at least seeking help.  Second, alcohol is an absolute demon. It is almost impossible to get through it alone: no matter how resilient or resourceful you may be, find a community and lean on them as much as you need to.  And, finally, find something to use as a distraction. For me, I keep a dumbbell in both of the bathrooms in my house. When the demon comes hissing, I take myself off and do 12 biceps curls on each arm. If that doesn’t work, I do 12 more. On the occasions where that doesn’t work either, I text a friend, my partner, or my sponsor, and ask for a quick chat.  Much of my alcoholism was rooted in extreme loneliness; and I have found that since choosing to be more present, I have made new friendships and nurtured old ones.  It’s not easy, going sober. But it is simple. You just don’t pick up a drink, no matter how you justify it to yourself or how bad your day has been. Alcoholism doesn’t confine me any longer, and it doesn’t define me either. You can have the gift of more time, more money, better health and healthier relationships, because a life beyond your wildest dreams and expectations awaits you outside of that bottle, not at the bottom of it.


windowoneurasiablog--2019-10-18--Fewer Russians Dying from Alcoholism but Far More from ‘Alcohol’ Poisoning,  Moscow Admits

Staunton, October 15 – The Russian health ministry reports that the number of Russians from alcoholism has declined while the number of Russians dying from alcohol poisoning has gone up, an apparent impossibility that is nonetheless real and that highlights something Moscow generally is at pains to deny.  Over the last decade, the telegram channel notes, Russians really have begun to drink less as the ministry is all too pleased to report and “as a result, they die less often from illnesses connected with alcohol. However, while that is true, citizens have begun to drink ‘synthetics’ and ‘fake’ alcohol more often, the sue of which leads not to illnesses but to quick deaths.”  In the first eight months of 2019, the ministry acknowledges, some 6,000 Russians died from “alcohol” poisoning, a 14 percent jump compared to the same period a year earlier. This is a trend that reflects the shift from registered alcohol products that might lead to alcoholism to surrogates like perfumes or house cleaners that often lead to death.  The Russian health authorities have the right to be proud of the declining consumption of alcohol, but they are now being forced to admit that at least some of that reflects the fact that Russians can’t afford to become long-term alcoholics and instead are consuming things that often lead to their even more premature deaths.


foxnews--2019-07-01--Will Hunter Bidens alleged alcohol and drug addiction hurt his fathers presidential chances in 202

Will Hunter Biden's alleged alcohol and drug addiction hurt his father's presidential chances in 2020?

The New Yorker published a piece Monday dissecting the checkered past of Joe Biden's son Hunter and asked if his indiscretions will affect his father's chances of winning the White House in 2020.  The article highlighted many of Hunter's personal struggles but focused heavily on his reported substance abuse problems and romantic relationships.  "The gossip pages have seized on Hunter’s tumultuous private life. He has struggled for decades with alcohol addiction and drug abuse; he went through an acrimonious divorce from his first wife, Kathleen Buhle Biden; and he had a subsequent relationship with Beau’s widow, Hallie," the story reads.  "He was recently sued for child support by an Arkansas woman, Lunden Alexis Roberts, who claims that he is the father of her child. (Hunter has denied having sexual relations with Roberts)," the story continued.  He was also the center of a Breitbart news piece in May claiming Biden was being sought by Arizona authorities in connection with a narcotics offense in 2016.  “Everybody has trauma," he told the New Yorker. "There’s addiction in every family," Hunter said. "I was in that darkness. I was in that tunnel—it’s a never-ending tunnel. You don’t get rid of it. You figure out how to deal with it.”  Hunter began drinking in his teenage years, and graduated to smoking cigarettes and using cocaine during his college years at Georgetown in the early 90s, the magazine said.  "Once, hoping to buy cocaine, he was sold a piece of crack," New Yorker author Adam Entous wrote. "But he wasn’t sure how to take the drug. 'I didn’t have a stem,' Hunter said. 'I didn’t have a pipe.' Improvising, he stuffed the crack into a cigarette and smoked it. 'It didn’t have much of an effect,' he said."  Hunter said he hit a wall in the early 2000s when his wife, Kathleen, told him to get sober by abstaining from alcohol for at least thirty days. He was able to sustain the sobriety for one month but went right back to hitting the bottle on the thirty-first day, the article said.  “When I found myself making the decision to have another drink or get on a train, I knew I had a problem,” he told Entous.  "That September, on a business trip, he looked up rehabilitation centers, and soon admitted himself to Crossroads Centre Antigua for a month. The day after his return, Beau accompanied him to his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, in Dupont Circle," Entous wrote.  After being sober for seven years, Hunter experienced his first relapse in November 2010, and "drank three Bloody Marys" during a flight home from a business trip to Spain. He then continued feeding his habit in secret, until he finally shared it with Beau and checked back into treatment, the magazine said. He experienced another relapse in 2013, after falling ill and being prescribed opioids. After his prescription ran dry, he reportedly went back to drinking.  In 2013 he was assigned to a Naval reserve unit in Norfolk with the goal of obtaining a position in naval intelligence. The urine sample he gave on his first day however, tested positive for cocaine and when it was reviewed several months later he was discharged, according to the article. He wrote an appeals letter to the Naval Reserve claiming he may have unknowingly smoked cigarettes laced with cocaine.  "Hunter called Beau, who contacted Tom Gallagher, a former Navy lawyer who had worked with Beau at the U.S. Attorney’s office in Philadelphia. Gallagher agreed to represent Hunter pro bono, but it became clear that, given Hunter’s history with drugs, an appeals panel was unlikely to believe the story that he had ingested cocaine involuntarily, and that appealing the decision would require closed-door hearings and the testimony of witnesses, increasing the likelihood of leaks to the press," the story said. "Hunter decided not to appeal. Navy records show that Hunter’s discharge took effect on February 18, 2014."  DONNA BRAZILE: BIDEN'S ADVISERS SHOULD HAVE BETTER PREPARED HIM FOR KAMALA HARRIS DEBATE CHALLENGE  Hunter and Kathleen later attended couples therapy and came to an understanding regarding his drinking, according to Entous. If he drank again, she'd move out.  "A day after their twenty-second anniversary, Hunter left a therapy session, drank a bottle of vodka, and moved out," Entous wrote. "Later that month, Zlochevsky, the Burisma co-founder, invited him to Norway on a fishing trip. Hunter brought along Maisy and Beau’s nine-year-old son, Robert. Hunter said that, every night, he and his colleagues on the trip drank a single shot of liquor before going to bed. Kathleen found out and was angry. Hunter began to confide in Hallie [Beau's widow], whom he was growing closer to."  In the summer of 2015 Hunter signed up as an outpatient in the Charles O’Brien Center for Addiction Treatment, at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was given medication to lessen his cravings and make him nauseous if he drank. He then became an inpatient at Caron Treatment Centers, where he used a pseudonym. When he returned to D.C. he was required to carry a Breathalyzer with a built-in camera, the magazine said.  An Arizona Hertz rental car worker told Entous he found a crack pipe in the car Hunter rented and a "line of white-powder residue" along with his brother Beau's attorney-general badge. The Prescott police were called, spawning the Breitbart story about Hunter's connection to a "narcotics offense."  "Later, according to a police report, Secret Service agents informed Prescott police that Hunter was 'secure/well.' Subsequent test results indicated that the glass pipe contained cocaine residue, but investigators didn’t find any fingerprints on it," Entous wrote.  "Public prosecutors in the county and the city declined to bring a case against Hunter, citing a lack of evidence that the pipe had been used by him. Jon Paladini, Prescott’s city attorney, told me that he was not aware of any requests by officials in Washington to drop the investigation into Hunter. 'It’s a very Republican area,' he said. 'I don’t think political favors, necessarily, would even work, had they been requested.'"  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP  On December 9, 2016, Kathleen filed for divorce. Hunter recently married South African divorcee Melissa Cohen in a secret ceremony. The two now live in Los Angeles.


prepareforchange--2019-07-22--Alcohol Rehab Clinics Addiction Treatment Detox Therapy Aftercare

Alcohol Rehab Clinics – Addiction Treatment, Detox, Therapy & Aftercare

Are you concerned either your own or your loved one’s drinking has crossed the line into so-called problem drinking? Do you wish to learn more about alcohol rehab clinics in your local area?  Alcoholism can pounce when you least expect it and seeking help quickly is essential in mitigating the damage alcohol abuse is capable of inflicting on your family, career, social life and personal health.  Alcohol is, in essence, a poison which can lead to life-threatening illnesses including alcohol-related liver disease, dementia and heart disease.  Alcoholism is also capable of leaving lasting psychological and emotional damage on those it touches. It has been estimated it takes an entire year of abstinence to reverse the negative effects which alcoholism inflicts on the brain.  There are more than 2.5 million deaths across the entire globe every year due to alcoholism. And it is estimated over 140 million people suffer from alcoholism worldwide.  Attending an alcohol rehab clinic is perhaps the most effective way of ensuring you or your loved one do not fall victim to this fate.  Rehab 4 Addiction is a specialist healthcare service dedicated to the treatment of addictive illness. It is important that the treatment is tailored to the individual – addiction is different for each person; there is no “one-size-fits-all solution”. To find out the treatment that represents the best chance of success for all concerned, call one of our experienced advisors.  Our advice is completely free and confidential. You can telephone to speak with us straight away in confidence on 0800 140 4690 or contact us through this website.  If you are ready to enter alcohol rehab treatment then give Rehab 4 Addiction a call today. Alcohol rehab treatment could save your life and the cost of the treatment is usually minuscule in comparison to the cost associated with the continuation of addiction. Call Rehab 4 Addiction today on 0800 140 4690 or complete the enquiry form.  Disclaimer: We at Prepare for Change (PFC) bring you information that is not offered by the mainstream news, and therefore may seem controversial. The opinions, views, statements, and/or information we present are not necessarily promoted, endorsed, espoused, or agreed to by Prepare for Change, its leadership Council, members, those who work with PFC, or those who read its content. However, they are hopefully provocative. Please use discernment! Use logical thinking, your own intuition and your own connection with Source, Spirit and Natural Laws to help you determine what is true and what is not. By sharing information and seeding dialogue, it is our goal to raise consciousness and awareness of higher truths to free us from enslavement of the matrix in this material realm.


theindependent--2019-02-11--UK facing aposaddiction crisisapos as councils cut funding for treatment services while alcohol-

UK facing 'addiction crisis' as councils cut funding for treatment services while alcohol-related deaths soar

Councils are making “deep cuts” to addiction services despite soaring alcohol-related hospital admissions and deaths, with further cuts projected.  Nearly 60 per cent of local authorities have slashed budgets for these services over the last year, amid government cuts to public health grants.  Some councils axed as much as a third of the money set aside to help addicts, and Birmingham reported the biggest reduction after wiping nearly £4m from its budget.  Experts are concerned the lack of specialist services means underlying addiction problems are not being addressed, leading to additional strain on the NHS.  A&E cases involving alcohol surged by 13 per cent over the past decade, and NHS data revealed last week showed deaths related to drinking reached record levels of nearly 6,000 last year.  Shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth said fatalities had reached “shamefully high” levels as austerity created a “breeding ground” for drug and alcohol abuse.  “I think we are facing an addiction crisis in our society,” he told The Independent.  In the coming year, local authorities expect a further 2 per cent average drop in drug and alcohol treatment services, with over 90 per cent expecting budgets to stand still or fall.  There are thought to be more than 600,000 alcohol-dependent adults in need of support across England, but the number of people receiving treatment has dropped steadily in recent years since the government transferred public health responsibility to cash-strapped councils.  Multimillion pound cuts have hit particularly hard in areas of high depravation, and among elderly people who increasingly bear the burden of addiction problems.  While alcohol-related admissions are actually falling among the under-50s, this has been matched by a relentless rise in baby boomers with substance abuse problems.  Dr Tony Rao, an addiction specialist at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, said the combination of council cuts and elderly people in need of services was “a recipe for disaster”.  He warned these people are falling through the cracks in the absence of services that can deal with substance disorders as well as the complex array of medical problems seen in older people.  “They might say to someone ‘come to see us at our base’ – but a lot of older people can’t get out – or ‘come to group therapy’, and older people don’t like that kind of thing,” said Dr Rao.  The data on council cuts and A&E admissions were compiled following a nationwide Freedom of Information request by Labour MP Liam Byrne to mark Children of Alcoholics Week. He said the figures revealed the “false economy” of budget cuts.  “We’re spending money dealing with A&E admissions when we should be trying to tackle the addiction that lands people in hospital in the first place,” he said.  The findings came as the National Association for Children of Alcoholics revealed there are 2.6 million children in the UK living with an alcohol-dependent parent.  Mr Byrne’s campaign to raise awareness about alcohol misuse was backed by Mr Ashworth, who has spoken out in the past about growing up with an alcoholic father.  “As I know from my own personal circumstances, alcohol abuse can have a devastating impact on families, especially children,” said the Leicester South MP.  “We are seeing more admissions to hospital where alcohol is a primary cause, deaths from substance misuse at high levels and yet rather than expanding specialist treatments services, deep cuts will be imposed on them again.  “This fails some of the most vulnerable in society. Government ministers must reverse these cuts as a matter of urgency.”  Public health grants are made to councils to cover public health programmes including drug and alcohol services, initiatives to tackle obesity, sexual health and children's services.  The core public health grant has fallen by 25 per cent per person since 2014/15, amounting to a £900m real terms reduction over five years, according to analysis by the Health Foundation.  A Local Government Association spokesperson said councils are committed to ensuring people across the nation can access the right support and treatment.  “We have long argued that reductions by central government to the public health grant in local government is a short-term approach and one that will only compound acute pressures for the NHS and other services further down the line,” they said.  In response to the findings, a spokesperson from the Department of Health and Social Care referenced the “heartbreaking” numbers of children growing up in the UK with alcohol-addicted parents.  “In December we committed to fund the National Association for the Children of Alcoholics’ helpline expansion, so that more children in this difficult position have rapid access to support and advice,” they said.  “Robust government action has led to a fall in alcohol consumption in recent years – but we remain committed to tackling alcohol-related harms and protecting the innocent victims of addiction such as children of alcoholics.”


thetelegraph--2019-06-28--British army officers wrongly believed alcohol made WW1 troops better fighters claims addiction spe

British army officers wrongly believed alcohol made WW1 troops better fighters, claims addiction specialist

British army officers wrongly believed WW1 troops fought better if they were drunk in battle, an addiction specialist has claimed.  Senior commanders encouraged drinking among soldiers as they were following medical advice that claimed alcohol made them more effective fighters.  Health experts believed that rum would “warm and dry out chilled troops” who were suffering from dysentery caught in the trenches, according to Dr Tim Leighton, Director of Professional Education and Research at Action on Addiction.  But troops were unhappy with their 'rum rations' of 1/16th pint per day and wanted the “more generous” levels given to soldiers who fought in the army from the early 18th century.  Many colonels agreed that the recommended level was too low and would give nervous fighters extra helpings to improve their confidence before infiltrating enemy lines.  Lt Colonel J.S.Y. Rogers, a medical officer to the 4th Black Watch, said in the Report of Enquiry into Shell Shock in 1922: “Had it not been for the rum ration I do not think we should have won the war. Before the men went over the top they had a good meal and a double ration of rum and coffee.”


thetelegraph--2019-08-19--Ecstasy could be used safely to treat alcohol addiction - and work better than standard treatment

The drug MDMA, better known as party drug Ecstasy, could be used successfullyto treat alcohol addiction, research suggests.  Early findings from the trial - the first study to use the drug for such purposes - indicates that it could prove better than standard treatment.  Psychiatrists are testing a programme which combines a few doses of MDMA in conjunction with psychotherapy,  After nine months follow up, around half of those in the small study remained "completely dry" with just one suffering a full relapse. By comparison, eight in 10 of those given standard treatment to tackle alcohol addiction return to drinking within three years.  The results also found the drug was safe to use as part of therapy, with no physical or psychological problems identified.  Dr Ben Sessa, an addiction psychiatrist and senior research fellow at Imperial College London, who led the trial, said: “With the very best that medical science can work with, 80 per cent of people are drinking within three years post alcohol detox.”  Eleven people have so far completed the safety and tolerability study, which involves nine months of follow-ups.  “We’ve got one person who has completely relapsed, back to previous drinking levels, we have five people who are completely dry and we have four or five who have had one or two drinks but wouldn’t reach the diagnosis of alcohol use disorder,” he told The Guardian.


wakingtimes--2019-07-24--MDMA Shown to Help Alcoholics Shake Addiction in New Study

Over the last ten years, there has been a new surge of scientific research into psychedelics.  Scientists are now finally getting a chance to gather information about how psychedelics affect our bodies and minds after many decades of finding themselves limited and restricted by the conditions of the drug war.  In a recent study conducted by researchers at Imperial College London, four alcoholics were given MDMA to assist in therapy sessions, and all four of them stopped drinking after the 8-week trial.  In the study, the participants underwent therapy sessions every single week, but during one of those sessions each month, the patients would take a pure dose of MDMA.  The test subjects varied in age and background, and included a 54-year-old mother of three, a 34-year-old father of two, a former heroin addict, and a retired man who had been drinking for 30 years.The participants in the study were very serious drinkers, and three of the four had attempted and failed to quit on numerous occasions. One of the participants had never even bothered trying to quit.  However, after the MDMA assisted therapy program, they were all able to stay sober for over nine months, which was a personal record for each of them. They even reported that they didn’t have cravings, which is typically unheard of for people in their situation.  According to the United States’ National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, approximately 90% of alcoholics will have at least one relapse in the years following treatment.  Psychiatrist Dr. Ben Sessa, the study’s lead author, says that substances like MDMA can radically change how psychotherapy works by allowing patients to strike at the root of their addiction problems and traumas without the need for long term prescriptions.  Sessa believes that this is a major threat to drug companies who depend on keeping people medicated, which is why it is difficult to get funding for research and development of MDMA treatments.  “The idea of taking MDMA just twice and then not having to be on SSRIs for the rest of your life is not in the interest of the pharmaceutical industry. They’re not going to put money into a drug like MDMA, which then cures the patient and gets them off all their drugs,” Sessa said.  Before it became a popular club drug with the street name of ecstasy, MDMA was first used as a therapy aid for couples counselors, and now therapists are finally starting to use this powerful tool in a variety of therapy settings once again.  Other studies have found that MDMA assisted therapy could become a breakthrough treatment for PTSD as well.  John Vibes is an author and journalist who takes a special interest in the counter culture, and focuses solutions-oriented approaches to social problems. He is also a host of The Free Your Mind Conference and The Free Thought Project Podcast. Read More stories by John Vibes.  **This article (MDMA Shown to Help Alcoholics Shake Addiction in New Study) was originally published at Truth Theory and is re-posted here with permission.**


drudgereport--2019-12-11--Psychedelic 'wonder drug' can 'reset brain' and 'turn off' addictions...

A psychedelic drug with the potential to cure addiction is set to undergo human trials in America next year.  Psychedelics have long been known to inhibit cravings and help fight addiction, but a litany of ethical, health and legal issues have made them unsuitable as a treatment.  18-MC is made from an intense African shrub called ibogaine which can induce intense trips - including hallucinations and visions - lasting several days.  But the version being used in labs has been adapted to not produce hallucinations or comedowns, offering the tantalising possibility of a treatment without side-effects.  Micro-dosing is a growing phenomenon that sees people use tiny amounts of drugs such as LSD to keep their addictions at bay during day-to-day life.  This is illegal and can often lead to inadvertent trips.  But the developers of 18-MC claim the modified drug has the ability to manipulate a person's brain into hitting the reset button and turning off the sections responsible for cravings without these side-effects.  Private funding and animal testing has revealed it has the potential to offer hope for people battling with addiction to opiates, alcohol and nicotine.  MindMed, a US-based startup, has bought the rights to 18-MC after the previous developer ran out of funding, and is bankrolling next year's tests.  Advocates of micro-dosing, the practice of taking small amounts of drugs throughout the day, believe psychedelics help manage addiction.  It has become a borderline epidemic in Silicon Valley, with many addicts propagating the stereotype of tech people taking LSD or MDMA to recover from an Adderall or Ritalin addiction.  Addiction, particularly to prescribed opioids, costs the US an estimated $78.5 billion annually.  People keen to try ibogaine have travelled to Western Africa in pursuit of the elusive root to take part in the sacred ancient ritual of the Bwiti people in Gabon and Cameroon.  Online users self-report intense hallucinations and visions as well as eureka moments, allowing them to overcome their cravings.  When it was tested by Stan Glick, a retired professor at Albany Medical Center, on rats, it was found that after a day of twitching due to hallucinations, their morphine dependency was alleviated.  'I was the first one, for better or worse, whose curiosity was piqued enough,' Professor Glick told FastCompany as part of an in-depth feature.  'I thought we'd give it to a few rats, they'd do something weird, I'd satisfy my curiosity, and that would be the end of the story.'  The major flaw with ibogaine was the side effects, including a slowed heart rate which, in extreme cases, led to death and vomiting.  After promising early results, Professor Glick partnered with Martin Kuehne, a medicinal chemist from the University of Vermont, and refined the active compounds to negate these adverse side-effects.  This led to the creation of 18-MC, and the first piece of formal research on the chemical was published in 1996.  But bureaucratic, funding and logistical issues saw further research and development stall.  Earlier this year, MindMed bought the rights, the chemical , and the research team in a comprehensive takeover bid and is now pushing for the next stage of trials.  The firm outlined plans to begin safety trials in 2020, and see how effective it is in humans by the end of next year.  Researchers believe there is no hallucinogenic impact of 18-MC, and therefore no nasty comedown.  Although this remains, for now, unproved in humans.  Some steadfast advocates of the benefits of micro-dosing believe the drug will not work, as it is the high itself and the visions that help overcome addiction.  Roland Griffiths, lead researcher on a study at Johns Hopkins Center on Psychedelic and Consciousness Research, said: 'They come to a profound shift of worldview, essentially a shift in a sense of self.  'Their worldview changes and they are less identified with this self narrative—people might use the term ego—and that creates a sense of freedom.'  The research faces significant scientific hurdles before a potential treatment for addiction is found in the world of psychedelics but there are considerable legal barriers in place, too.  The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has recently labelled psilocybin (from mushrooms) and MDMA (known on club dance floors as molly) as 'breakthrough' drugs for research.  These are increasingly being used to treat drug-resistant depression and PTSD.  But despite the FDA's enthusiasm, the drugs themselves are still illegal.  But 18-MC is not yet classified by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and may be able to circumvent the laws restricting its use.  Its developers are hopeful the FDA and DEA will grant a favourable label, but if it does not, it could leave the entire project dead in the water.  Shark Tank host Kevin O'Leary, who was part of a a $6 million round investment in MindMed, told FastCompany: 'This is one of these binary investments.


naturalnews--2019-01-29--Vitamin C A safer way to recover from drug addiction

Vitamin C: A safer way to recover from drug addiction

(Natural News) Addiction to drugs and other substance will cause your overall health and well-being to deteriorate. Addiction to heroin in particular is often difficult to overcome. People who were previously addicted to heroin may still feel the symptoms of withdrawal weeks, months, or even years after abstaining from it. There are many ways to recover from drug addiction, but so far vitamin C appears to be one of the safest and most effective methods of overcoming substance abuse.  A deficiency in vitamin C or ascorbic acid tends to have a correlation with drug addiction. As such, supplementation of vitamin C can provide profound healing effects on people with addiction problems. What’s more, unlike toxic conventional therapies, vitamin C comes with none of the negative side effects that often accompany medathone treatment and other therapies. That’s not even considering the withdrawal symptoms that often come with quitting drug abuse. These symptoms may include abdominal pain, nausea, sweating, anxiety, trembling, agitation, depression, mood swings, muscle spasms, and cravings. A person with an addiction problem while also having a deficiency in vitamin C can significantly improve their recovery time by tackling their nutrient deficiency.  When taken in high doses, vitamin C can alleviate pain and help reverse drug addiction to heroin, opiates or other substances. This treatment can be even more effective when taken along with other vital nutrients. According to studies, vitamin C therapy helps return your normal appetite. It can reduce food cravings caused by withdrawal, helping you to get the proper nutrition your body needs. This is important for addiction recovery since malnutrition is a major component in drug addiction.  100% organic essential oil sets now available for your home and personal care, including Rosemary, Oregano, Eucalyptus, Tea Tree, Clary Sage and more, all 100% organic and laboratory tested for safety. A multitude of uses, from stress reduction to topical first aid. See the complete listing here, and help support this news site.  Vitamin C supplementation can also promote restful sleep and improve your overall sleeping patterns. This can allow you to start feeling better, even after only a short amount of time. The effects of vitamin C therapy can be felt in as little as 12 hours of taking your first doses of vitamin C. A recommended oral dose of 25 to 85 g of sodium ascorbate (vitamin C) over the course of each day can immediately improve your mental alertness, visual acuity, appetite, bowel tolerance, and general recovery. Over time, the dosage of vitamin C can be lowered to about 10 to 30 g per day. On average, most patients who use vitamin C to recover from heroin addiction tend to stop experiencing cravings after only three months.  Vitamin C is a potent analgesic, which allows it to relieve pain. The reason why vitamin C is so effective at reversing opiate addiction is because it can mimic morphine and fit into the opiate receptor cites of your cells. By mimicking the effects of morphine, it tricks your body into no longer having a desire for drugs. Additionally, vitamin C has powerful detoxifying properties.  You can also make use of other therapies alongside vitamin C supplementation to help you recover from addiction. Here are some of the best supplemental therapies for coping with addiction:  Learn more ways to overcome addiction by going to Addiction.news.


newyorker--2019-10-14--My Years in the Florida Shuffle of Drug Addiction

In February, 2017, I stepped off a plane in Tampa, drunk and dope-sick. I was twenty-four, and for the past eight years I had been shooting up heroin, cocaine, and all manner of pills: Dilaudid, Opana, OxyContin, Desoxyn, Ritalin. Now I was on my way to River Oaks, an addiction-treatment center, where I wouldA.M., the pain of withdrawal not yet mediated by the day’s first dose of Suboxone or Librium. I promised anyone who met me that I would die, simply die, of withdrawal; when, on day twenty-three, I had a seizure, I thought, Yes, I am really dying, but then I lived.  You've read your last complimentary article this month. To read the full article, subscribe now.  If you're already a subscriber please sign in or link your subscription


slate--2019-09-18--Prominent Democratic Donor Accused of Drugging Men Suffering From Addiction and Homelessness for Sex

Prominent Democratic Donor Accused of Drugging Men Suffering From Addiction and Homelessness for Sex Fetish

Prominent Democratic donor Ed Buck was arrested and charged on Tuesday with operating a drug house, administering methamphetamine, and battery after a man suffered an overdose at Buck’s Los Angeles home last week. The 37-year-old man survived the overdose after Buck injected him with large amount of methamphetamine. This was the third methamphetamine overdose at the 65-year-old’s home since 2017. Two of the overdose victims—both black men—died, the most recent in January.  Prosecutors said there wasn’t enough evidence in either of the two deaths to file charges, though Buck, an LGBTQ political activist, is the subject of a wrongful-death suit in the January death at his West Hollywood apartment. In authorizing the charges, prosecutors accused Buck, the Los Angeles Times notes, of being a “violent sexual predator who preys on men struggling with addiction and homelessness.” “From his home, in a position of power, Buck manipulates his victims into participating in his sexual fetishes,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “These fetishes include supplying and personally administering dangerously large doses of narcotics to his victims.”  The latest victim, identified in court papers as Joe Doe, went to Buck’s apartment on Sept. 4, where Buck “personally and deliberately” administered a large dose of methamphetamine, prosecutors said. Concerned he was suffering an overdose, the man left the apartment to get medical help. He returned to Buck’s apartment on Sept. 11, when Buck again injected him with “two dangerously large” doses of methamphetamine, prosecutors said. Prosecutors say Buck thwarted the man’s attempts to get help. The man eventually fled the apartment and called 911 from a gas station. He was taken to a hospital for treatment. Sheriff’s investigators found hundreds of photographs in Buck’s home of men in compromising positions.  Buck faces up to five-plus years in prison, if convicted.


thedailyrecord--2019-07-24--Legalise drugs to save lives Dumbarton addiction group boss calls for action to stop rising death

"Legalise drugs to save lives:" Dumbarton addiction group boss calls for action to stop rising deaths

The “tragedy” of increasing drug-related deaths across West Dunbartonshire could be stopped by legalising substances, according to the boss of a lifeline service for addicts.  Donnie McGilveray, manager at Dumbarton drugs recovery project Alternatives, described recently-released figures showing there have been 20 drug deaths in the area over the last 12 months as “painful” reading but said the area does appear to be improving on others in the nation.  He has backed national calls to decriminalise drugs which, he says, should be at the top of the agenda in tackling the country’s drugs shame.  Donnie told us: “Decriminalisaton needs to be looked at.  “I would look at tax being put on the sale of low-level drugs, with that money being ploughed into services which desperately need it.”  He added: “Physician Sir Humphry Rolleston wrote a report in 1926 which recommended not going down the route of the Americans and criminalising everything.  “The typical drug user in Britain in 1966 was female, aged 33 and in employment. The drugs she took were pure and unadulterated. She had little drug-related illnesses.  “At the same time in America, the typical drug user was adolescent, got his drugs through crime and had significant health issues.  “That was the case right up until 1967 until we followed that and then made the mistake of using the American model.  “When we took on the American model, we took on on the American problem.”  The stats which laid bare a widespread drugs scourge across Scotland confirmed 20 people in West Dunbartonshire died last year due to drugs – an increase of five on the previous year.  Tragically, the area tops the list for having the highest rate of drug deaths per 1000 of the population among the youngest people, who are aged between just 15 and 24.  The local figure has steadily increased from 2015 with lethal cocktails of different drugs playing a huge part in deaths.  The country’s biggest challenge is tackling the habits that see many long-term addicts mix heroin and methadone with alcohol, prescription pills and street drugs that are often manufactured by criminal gangs.  Despite the steady increase of local drug deaths since 2015, the figure has reduced from what it was 10 years ago when there were 23 deaths.  The same cannot be said for many other regions in Scotland, some of which are seeing rises of more than 100 percent on what it was a decade ago.  Donnie went on: “If you look at the statistics across Scotland, many of the areas have seen their figures double or more over the past 10 years but we are seeing something different in West Dunbartonshire.  “The figure has actually reduced from 23 in 2008 so I do think we are heading in the right direction.  “Alternatives is doing a lot of great work, including our Safe as Houses residential project, which I believe is having a significant impact.  “That is not to minimise the absolute scandal and tragedy of the deaths.  “Services right across the area are facing an epidemic with high demand for them and reduced funding.”  According to the figures, 15 of the deaths involved heroin and methadone.  Cocaine was also prevalent in seven overdoses. Meanwhile, more than half of the deaths in West Dunbartonshire involved “street benzos”, often made in the millions by factories set up by Scottish gangsters and sold for 50p each.  Following the release of the shock nationwide statistics, NHS Health Scotland spoke out to say the current approach is not working.  Chiefs say pursuing a public health approach focused on quality of life and harm reduction is needed, rather    than focusing on the substances themselves.  Donnie quoted a famous study carried out in 1979 called the Rat Park experiment where a researcher separated rats into two cages, a stimulating one and an isolated one, and gave them morphine to measure the effect of environment on addiction rates.  The rats quickly became addicted in the isolated cage but something different happened in the other one, where there were plenty of food, toys and playmates.  Donnie said: “The rats drank the plain water rather than the morphine-infused water because they were satisfied with their environment and had a purpose.  “There’s three drivers which send people into addiction. One is trauma, the other is isolation and the last one is boredom. If somebody has not got a purpose in life, they may go down the road of anaethesing themselves with drugs. It’s hopeless and very    sad.  “What we do at Safe as Houses is take people through a continuum. It’s about looking at meaningful activity and giving people a sense of belonging, a sense of involvement and a sense of being safe.”


thedcclothesline--2019-09-20--Democrat-Run Sacramento is collapsing into chaos feces drug addiction and homelessness

Democrat-Run Sacramento is collapsing into chaos, feces, drug addiction and homelessness

(Natural News) Even though places like San Francisco and Los Angeles typically get the most attention, out-of-control homelessness is also a major problem in Sacramento, California’s capital, where human feces, urine, trash, and drug needles are reportedly piling up all across the city at an exponential rate.  The Democrat stronghold, and the locale from which Governor Gavin Newsom rules California, is said to currently have about 5,570 homeless people living on its streets – a figure that’s 19 percent higher than just two years ago, illustrating how quickly homelessness is spreading across the Golden State.  With about 130,000 homeless people in total, California leads the pack in societal failure and economic collapse. And Sacramento is quickly becoming one of California’s many ground zeros for rampant homelessness, which is starting to drive away local businesses that can no longer operate successfully due to all the blight.  “I just want to tell you what happens when I get to work,” stated Liz Novak, a local salon owner, to the media about what she’s had to deal with trying to conduct business in Sacramento.  “I have to clean up the poop and the pee off of my doorstep. I have to clean-up the syringes. I have to politely ask the people who I care for – I care for these people that are homeless – to move their tents out of the way of the door to my business.”  Things became so bad for Novak that she finally decided to close up shop and move somewhere else in the hopes that things might improve. But with the way things are going, the homeless problem in California is likely to continue growing and spreading to other cities and towns, as well as into more rural areas.  Support our mission to keep you informed: Discover the extraordinary benefits of turmeric gummy bears and organic “turmeric gold” liquid extract, both laboratory tested for heavy metals, microbiology and safety. Naturally high in potent curcuminoids. Delicious formulations. All purchases support this website (as well as your good health). See availability here.  “I am angry about it,” Novak added about having to move her business. “I wouldn’t be relocating if it wasn’t for this issue.”  For more related news about the impending collapse of California and America at large, be sure to check out Collapse.news.  As it turns out, the vast majority of Sacramento’s homeless population, around 93 percent, are natives who grew up in Sacramento and used to live in real houses. But because of skyrocketing housing prices and a decrease in economic opportunities, many of these folks decided to just hit the streets and make a “living” there instead.  For people like Cali Carlisle, a local homeless person in Sacramento, this means shooting up heroin all day long and lounging around wherever she can find a place to sit or lie down.  “All we do is lie around, eat ice cream, have sex, and take drugs,” Cali told the media during an interview. “Man, I love ice cream,” she added.  Other local homeless like Brian Workman relocated to San Francisco from nearby San Jose due to the extremely high housing prices in the Bay Area. He had originally come there with a friend who worked for Netflix, and was given money from the IPO to get settled. But after a falling out, Workman ended up on his own, and eventually homeless, as things went south.  “We had a falling out and I moved here because it was cheaper,” Workman said. “I got married in 2005 and had a couple of kids. I was married for nine years. But then my father-in-law came to stay and there wasn’t room and I was paying rent for an apartment but couldn’t live there.”  “I needed a hearing aid that cost $3,000 but I couldn’t afford it,” he added. “It’s really difficult to keep work if you can’t hear. So I ended up on the streets.”  You can read a more in-depth report about the homeless crisis in Sacramento at this link.