Addiction Blog

A lot of people like to see celebrities trip and fall. Some take pleasure out of jealously while others feel more connected to the celebrity as a human being rather than a persona. I’m not mentioning Dr. Drew’s Celebrity Rehab to promote the TV show. I’m mentioning it because it shows some of the human frailties that bind us all and make us all vulnerable to addiction.

One of the celebrities on the show, Dennis Rodman is the poster boy for denial. He was voted off Donald Trump’s The Apprentice TV Show after being confronted by TV star Jesse James, about Rodman’s problem with alcohol addiction. Rodman denied the problem.

On the first episode of Celebrity Rehab, Rodman said he was sent there because of court order and that he didn’t have an addiction problem. According to TMZ, on the same day as the premiere of Celebrity Rehab, Rodman was tossed out of an Orange County, CA restaurant for bad behavior after drinking vodka.

Ex Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss was ostracized by friends and family after her conviction and prison sentence. She now lives in the desert with only a bunch of parrots to keep her company. She uses drugs to keep the deep loneliness at bay.

And then there is child TV star turned adult Mackenzie Phillips who has recently revealed an adult incestual relationship with her father that started in childhood. Sexual abuse at any time in one’s life makes a person vulnerable to drug or alcohol abuse.

There is a page on the main website about famous addicts that was put up not to shame celebrities but to give hope to the non celebrities. Addiction crosses all races, socio-economic classes and affects all people everywhere. It can also make one feel very isolated and lonely.

Knowing that celebrities struggle with addiction like everyone else can help a little with this loneliness. And finding a peer group struggling with the same issues as oneself is also helpful in overcoming and managing one’s addictions.

In a joint effort between Mexican and U. S. law enforcement agencies a 900-foot tunnel was found connecting Tijuana, Mexico to Otay Mesa, California. Officials said that one of the Mexican drug cartels was most likely responsible and had paid upwards of $1 million USD to construct the tunnel.

The tunnel started inside a warehouse in a bathroom which had its false floor held up by a hydraulic jack. From there the tunnel went 100 feet underground and efforts were made to dampen the sound of the drilling. The tunnel was equipped with electricity, lights, landline phones and ventilation.

Law enforcement officers detected the tunnel before the rest of it was built and it emerged in Otay Mesa. Officials estimate the tunnel started three years ago and was near completion. They also estimate that it was to be used for trafficking drugs and weapons and not people.

Basic meth recipes are making it easier for addicts to continue their habits. This news comes from the Polk County Sheriff’s office in Florida. According to the report, even after the laws were tightened in 2006, putting some of the basic ingredients behind the counter, those who have a will for the drug still have a way.

According to the Sheriff’s office, those who want to use basic meth recipes can buy their supplies from Wal-Mart and Walgreens. The amounts are smaller than could be made pre-2006, but this do-it-yourself approach has many concerned.

Besides the addiction aspect of cooking the basic recipes for meth, the process itself can be quite explosive. Another aspect that is alarming is that in this Florida county more meth labs have been busted this year than any other year, albeit the labs are smaller.

This just goes to show how addictive methamphetamines can be. These addicts will go to any length possible to keep their habits going, risking their health by ingesting caustic chemicals and setting themselves up for explosions and fire, using the smallest amounts possible that they can get their hands upon.

Ever since Michael Jackson’s death, Diprivan, or Propofol as it is also known, a powerful sedative used exclusively inside a hospital setting has become a household word. Diprivan is typically used by anesthesiologists for putting a person under during a surgical procedure.

Within days of Michael Jackson’s death, two rumors were floated regarding Diprivan. The first was that he and an unnamed doctors (or doctors) were using it to treat insomnia. The second was that Diprivan was being abused as a drug.

If Diprivan drug abuse seems farfetched, it’s not. Anesthesiology News reported in its May 2007 issue, “One in five academic anesthesiology training programs reported at least one case of abuse by physicians or other healthcare workers over the past decade, new research shows. The incidence of propofol abuse has risen fivefold over the last 10 years.”

At this time Diprivan drug abuse was considered confined to medical staff inside of hospitals. But, with Michael Jackson’s death, the FDA is now considering defining the drug as a “controlled substance” which place additional restrictions on how Diprivan is prescribed and distributed.

Well, this blog post is a departure from many of the others that I’ve post over the past months, in that it talks about a song from Pink called “Sober”. All I knew about the song at first is that it had a rousing melody and was sung from the heart. Then I started listening to the lyrics. And from there I had to look up the lyrics online and watch the video on Youtube.

The Sober song is a meaningful anthem for anyone trying to kick addiction in the teeth. The lyrics cut to the core of why many people choose to get high and how they try to feel as good when they are sober. The video shows the struggle with self and how addiction can be consuming, yet can also be overcome. For drug and alcohol educators this song may be one that can be used to connect with an audience young and old.

There is a basic problem now days with the Mexican drug cartels and that is one of escalated illegal drug exports and violence. Mexican drug cartels slip marijuana and cocaine through the U. S. borders to networks in all major cities.

Violence in Mexico is escalated by U. S. made assault rifles which account for 90-percent of the guns confiscated in raids. The Mexican drug cartel business is estimated to bring in $18 billion to $40 billion annually.

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman who heads up the Sinoloa cartel made the Forbes list of world’s richest men with a net worth of $1 billion. Guzman has also been accused of being responsible for 7,000 drug related deaths in 2008.

The ingredients to make homemade ecstasy often vary because “e” is an illegal and banned substance and there is no oversight in its manufacturing. Ecstasy is known as a “club drug” since it is often taken at discos, raves and nightclubs.

Those who are looking for the specific ingredients to make homemade ecstasy will be disappointed, since it is invariably made in a laboratory setting, albeit mostly those that are makeshift. The main ingredient in “e” is 3,4-Methylenedioxy-N-Methylamphetamine also known as MDMA.

A couple more ingredients similar to MDMA are MDEA and MDA. In fact, both of these illicit drugs are so similar many people cannot tell the difference. Ecstasy may also be laced with a variety of other substances including amphetamines, LSD, ephedrine, Ketamine, caffeine and even aspirin.

If one is seeking out ingredients to make homemade Ecstasy, then some form of intervention and rehab may be in order. For other curious, academic types, then hopefully this information has helped.

Because of many restrictions over the past few years on buying the chemicals in the U. S. to make methamphetamines, many meth labs have moved south of the border. Or at least in theory. But many meth labs are still to be found on U. S. soil as well.

A search on Google News for “meth labs” will confirm many articles about drug busts that are still taking place on American soil. A quick scan of today’s stories include busts in Cuyahoga Falls, New York, Trenton, Ohio, Denver, Colorado, Kalamazoo, Michigan, Biloxi, Mississippi and City of Hurricane, West Virginia and this is just on the first page of results.

Even though a significant amount of meth may have move south, there is still homegrown methamphetamines to be found in a neighborhood near you. And this problem isn’t going away anytime soon.

Apparently not only humans have a taste for cocaine, but so do honeybees. While most insects are repelled by the Coca leaves because of their chemical content, bees will seek out cocaine and even go through withdrawal systems when the drug is not available.

According to Australian and U. S. researchers who reported their findings in the Journal of Experimental Biology, honeybees actually directed each other to the source of the cocaine. They even had a special “waggle dance” when high. The bees required higher ongoing doses to keep the intoxication going and when going through withdrawal they were less able to learn new tasks.

Ways to cook crack cocaine is one of the most searched for terms on the Internet. Now, since I posted How to Make Meth a little over a year ago, the comments have come flooding in. Some of the comments have been positive regarding survivors or their family members. Other comments have been rather rough, protesting that they were tricked by this post and don’t indeed have a problem.

As with that post, I decided to cast a wide net with the ways to cook crack cocaine post in order to try to get through to the few who need to hear it. I understand that many people want to know the different ways to cook crack cocaine merely out of curiosity or for some sort of research.

I also understand that ex-addicts and family members of addicts and ex-addicts will read this post. But, whom I would like to reach out to are the addicts and soon-to-be addicts who have truly come here to find out the ways to cook crack cocaine for use by themselves or by others.

If you’re one of these people, then please seek immediate help. Don’t delay, don’t deny. Get help now. If you are angered by this confrontation, then you may want to try and figure out why you are so angry. Did you get caught? Are you one step from getting caught?

Check out a treatment center now from this resource. Your friends and family will be glad you did and ultimately, you will come to thank yourself, too.