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…

By our guest writer, blogger In Repair.

I’m not good at future planning. I don’t plan at all. I don’t know what I’m doing tomorrow. I don’t have a day planner and I don’t have a diary. I completely live in the now, not in the past, not in the future.

~Heath Ledger

I walked in the door after work on January 22, 2008, to my husband asking, “Did you hear about your *boy*?” I had no idea who he was talking about. When he told me Heath Ledger had died, I felt a bit of a knot form in my stomach.

“How?…

This reality show takes on the reality of dealing with fame and and the stresses that may lead some to addiction…

The Monitor
January 13th 2008
By Jon Caramanica
Special to The Times

HERE’S how “Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew,” which premiered on Thursday and will run on VH1 for eight weeks, ends: It didn’t work.
At least, for some.
Drugs and alcohol may not be the only demons affecting the C- and D-listers on ‘Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew.’
In the five months from when the show was filmed and now, a few participants have very publicly fallen off the wagon. TMZ has aired video of two…

An article from News 14 Carolina on mothers who used meth in order to cope with their family life. Check out the video link on this page…

January 20th 2008
By Ivanhoe Newswire
News 14 Carolina

PHOENIX, Ariz. — According to government statistics, women make up 49 percent of all patients treated for a primary addiction to meth. Long-term effects of taking meth can be devastating, and more and more mothers are turning to this dangerous drug. The results can be disastrous.
Jasmine Trujillo loves her daughter Savannah, but until recently she also loved something else. “Meth became my higher power, it was something I…

More and more Hollywood actors are heading to rehab, here is an article excerpt from The Sydney Morning Herald…

February 5, 2008

Needing support … Eva Mendes has become the latest high-profile name to check into the Cirque Lodge clinic in Utah.
Photo: AFP Eva Mendes is in Rehab.

The actress is reportedly being treated at Utah’s Cirque Lodge rehab clinic for an undisclosed addiction, after deciding herself she needed “professional support”.

Her spokesman said: “Eva has been working hard for the past year and made a positive decision to take some much needed time off to attend to some personal issues that, while not critical,…

Grammy’s Says “Yes, Yes, Yes” to Winehouse
By Nekesa Mumbi Moody
Associated Press
Trapped half a world away by the place she promised to never “go, go, go,” a vibrant, exuberant Amy Winehouse dominated the Grammys on Sunday night, winning five awards and delivering a defiant performance of her autobiographical hit “Rehab” via satellite from London.Winehouse, nominated for six awards, lost the final prize in a shocker when Herbie Hancock took album of the year for “River: The Joni Letters.””You know it’s been 43 years since the first and only time that a jazz artist got the album of the year award,” Hancock said, then…

Since the death of Heath Ledger more Hollywood stars are checking into rehab…

Marie Claire
Friday 8 February
Kirsten Dunst is reportedly ‘not doing well’ at the Cirque Lodge rehab facility, sources close to the singer claim.

The Marie Antoinette actress has checked into the Utah centre, which specialises in substance abuse issues. Eva Mendes is also currently being treated for suspected prescription drug addiction, and Lindsay Lohan spent two months there last summer.

Speaking to People magazine a source claims, ‘She’s not doing well. People were pushing her to go in there but there was no intervention… She has been partying hard for a…

An interesting excerpt from the San Diego City Beat on Methadone…

Methadone is the ‘gold standard’ for getting addicts off heroin–just not in San Diego County
By Kelly Davis
January 29th 2008

No one’s quite sure how addiction works—why among a group of friends who share a few lines of coke or a balloon of heroin at a party, one becomes an addict and the other nine never pass the point of being recreational users. Or why one person can toss out a bottle of leftover Vicodin once he’s recovered from his back sprain while another finds himself doctor shopping for prescriptions, unable to function…

It’s still too early to know yet what killed actor Heath Ledger.

But the typical media frenzy surrounding the sudden death of a young celebrity already suggests a drug overdose may be the cause.

No matter the final official determination, Ledger’s legacy now seems doomed to become part of the “Hall of Shame” that includes Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan and so many other notable people who crash and burn, and then crash again for all of us to see.

I am still waiting for the tabloids to do a story about somebody other than Eric Clapton who hit bottom and then held on…

Here is the follow up video to the first part…

Celebrities in addiction distress have been all over the news and media lately. It is heartbreaking to see anyone go through this in life. Our hearts go out to all who are in this place…

By Rowena Walsh
Monday February 04 2008What a difference a year makes…these pictures show the dramatic change in Amy Winehouse’s appearance and health over the past 12 months. At least, she’s now saying yes to rehab.

Oh no, no no: Amy, left, arrives at the Brit Awards in February last year, and , right, looking the worse for wear in recent weeks

Just when you thought Amy Winehouse couldn’t…