Each week, I get scores of letters and emails pleading for help. Usually they are framed by circumstances and conditions intended to explain or otherwise mitigate reality’s harsh truth. While there are a lot of reasons why people get in trouble when they get high, there is only one reason they keep getting high despite those consequences. They’re addicted to alcohol or other drugs.

Only infrequently do I receive a short and to-the-point inquiry from a person in trouble who already knows they need help and isn’t looking for an easier, softer way to find it. Here’s one:

Dear Mr. Moyers: I…

What better way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the end of Prohibition in America than with a cold beer. That’s exactly what some of the nation’s brewers did last week to mark the end in 1933 of our 14-year failed experiment in enforced sobriety. They had a party.

“April 7th is a day to recognize the past 75 years of beer and the beer community’s contribution to Americans’ quality of life. The explosion of creativity and innovation by those who make beer is an American success story,” said Charlie Papazian, president of the Brewers Association.

Perhaps. But the end of Prohibition…

Employers soon may have to start providing employees with equal coverage for mental and physical health care if a mental health parity bill is signed into law. And while many business groups endorse the basic concept, many say they are concerned about the legislation’s potential impact on health care cost and coverage.

Lawmakers currently are hammering out a compromise proposal on mental health parity legislation that would marry elements of House and Senate bills (S. 558, H.R. 1424). If passed, the legislation would expand the Mental Health Parity Act of 1996 and require employers to offer employees the same level of…

Greg W. is twenty-four year-old in recovery from drugs and alcohol since July 15^th, 2001. In his six years of continuous sobriety he has become a public advocate for addiction recovery. With a degree in Media Production from Quinnipiac University he has combined his interests to create compelling video documentaries of other young people in recovery. His company, 4^th Dimension Productions, has goals to create powerful and inspiring resources for other young people. Through these videos and advocacy work with Connecticut Turning to Families, Greg believes that the current youth of Connecticut will soon begin to normalize sobriety at young ages, and have…

If you’re like most people who learn that a family member has cancer or another life-threatening illness, you instinctively react with compassion, a desire to help and support. But more often than not, family members don’t know what to do when their loved one is struggling with alcoholism or drug dependence. Some of them even go so far as to feel guilty or shameful about trying to help that person.

Dear Mr. Moyers: I am throwing everything else on the line right now because I don’t know what else to do. My father, 50, is a successful attorney in Indiana. He…

On vacation with my family this week in Florida, I am reminded of the never-ending debate about drinking and young people.

It’s spring break, and this annual migration of teenagers and college students to warmer climes, mostly without a parent or teacher escort anywhere in sight, highlights the role alcohol plays in defining good times and bad on these trips.

At 2 a.m. in the hallways of a hotel near the Fort Myers airport, roving knots of young men and women with half-empty 12-packs of beer seem intent on making sure they aren’t the only ones who stay awake all night. If…

By William C. Moyers

Two events occurred recently that remind me of the stakes in getting the public to accept addiction as a disease that affects the entire family — but one that is treatable with benefits for everyone.

On March 5, the U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation to expand private insurance coverage for people seeking treatment for drug dependence or alcoholism. It’s the first time the House has ever voted to require insurance companies to treat addiction like other chronic illnesses. It follows by a few months similar action in the Senate.

“We’ve waited 12 long years for this historic day,”…

An original trailer edit to the documentary about drug addiction aired on HBO, definitely worth a look…

This is an astonishing article I found on CNN.com on how America’s drinking water holds many different types of pharmaceuticals…

(AP) — A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

Officials in Philadelphia say testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But…

Here is a clip from YouTube of a former drug addict who has overcome his addiction through determination, hard work and hard running…

By William C. Moyers

I spoke at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., the other night. It was a remarkable moment for me. There I was, in a national monument of spirituality — “America’s house of prayer for all people” — telling my story of addiction, redemption and recovery. From the floor of a crack house in Atlanta in 1994 to the sanctuary of the cathedral 14 years later … go figure.

Of the several hundred people in the audience were a group of women from N Street Village. It’s an organization dedicated to preventing and eliminating homeless, and it starts by…

February 26, 2008
Missing Our Old Habits

Whenever we make the effort to free ourselves of an addiction or a habit we no longer need, we are often surprised to find ourselves missing the old pattern as we would a familiar friend. This sounds counterintuitive, because we think we should instinctively gravitate toward what is good for us. Yet, it makes a lot of sense when you consider that we humans are creatures of habit. This is why we gravitate to people and places—and patterns of behavior—that make us feel comfortable. Therefore, many of the habits we form are not conscious and…

Sam Sullivan is the mayor of Vancouver and a long time supporter of drug policy reform and harm reduction in Canada. This video shows him adressing the closing ceremony of the International Drug Policy Reform Conference in New Orleans, December 2007. He pointed out that drug addiction is neither a moral nor a medical issue, but a management issue like other disabilites. He said drug addicts needs substitution treatment to manage their lives just as he needed a wheelchair to get elected as a mayor.

A hilarious character from the British television show, The Fast Show (aired in the late 1990’s), Rowley Birkin, Q.C. (Queen’s Council) strikes again from his cozy leather chair…

This article is from Newsweek’s cover story on Science. Very interesting…

Addiction isn’t a weakness; it’s an illness. Now vaccines and other new drugs may change the way we treat it.

Photographs by Gerald Forster for Newsweek

Faces of Recovery: (Clockwise from top left) Alvin O. Taylor, Megan Pudliner, Brandal Mitchell (with his mother, Chase), Christine Kelly, Sam Stanford and Annie Fuller each tell their stories

By Jeneen Interlandi | NEWSWEEK

Mar 3, 2008 Issue

 

Annie Fuller knew she was in trouble a year ago, when in the space of a few hours she managed to drink a male co-worker more than twice her size under the table.…

Here’s a little info on the interesting VH1 series, “Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew“…

“Celebrity Rehab” is the first television series to chronicle the dramatic, unscripted real life experiences of a group of actual celebrities as they make the life-changing decision to enter themselves into a drug, alcohol and addiction treatment program with the sincere desire to achieve true rehabilitation and recovery.

This compelling true account of addiction, healing, and redemption is being supervised with great compassion and insight by renowned addiction and recovery expert Dr. Drew Pinsky, Medical Director of the Department of Chemical Dependency Services at Southern California’s Las Encinas…

By William C. Moyers

Each week, I get scores of letters and emails from parents who, more often than not, share their heartbreaking stories of addicted children unable to break free from the grip of alcohol or other drugs.

At times, it seems like nobody under the age of 21 has a tale with a happy ending. Dropping out of school, teenage pregnancy, gang violence, jail and even death are the final chapter that too many parents share about their kids.

But young people can and do recover. Perhaps more than any generation before them, today’s teenagers are finding and holding onto sobriety…

This excerpt on alcoholism and drug addictions comes from the online Ezine, Opinion Editorials, a project from Frontiers of Freedom. Check it out…

By Lou Peters

February 01, 2008

“It’ll never happen to me.” That’s the line you hear everyone say about becoming addicted when it comes to alcohol and substance abuse. To the user, that first drink…that first experience on any given drug is “amazing”…especially if you’re in your teens. What’s really amazing is the percentage of the people who don’t get addicted from the first use. Even more amazing are the reasons for the initial use. Back in the 1980s, the…

Here is an interesting article we found on Methadone treatment and the number of deaths connected to the drug. Definitely worth a look…

By Joanna Kiernan
Sunday January 27 2008
The drug substitute methadone is leading to the deaths of more addicts than heroin, disturbing figures have revealed.A report by the Dublin City Coroner has shown that of the 87 inquests heard in his court last year, pure heroin was found to have caused the deaths of 14 people and contributed to a further 12. However, methadone, the legal substitute used to treat those with a heroin addiction, was found to have caused…

By William C. Moyers
There’s been plenty of media buzz lately about President Bush’s recollections of being buzzed in days long ago. The president, whose drunk driving arrest and other run-ins with alcohol growing up is well known, has not talked much over the years about how or why he stopped drinking in 1986.

But last week, he offered perhaps his most pointed and candid assessment of his struggles, referring to an “addiction” and even citing the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and the power of faith to overcome the problem. Bush made his remarks during a visit with newly sober clients…