In the season premiere of Vanguard, correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to South Florida, the "Colombia of prescription drugs", to expose a bustling pill pipeline that stretches from the beaches of Ft. Lauderdale to the rolling hills of Appalachia. "The OxyContin Express" features intimate access with pill addicts, prisoners and law enforcement as each struggles with a growing national epidemic.
***Vanguard is Current TV's original documentary series. Led by correspondents Laura Ling, Mariana van Zeller, Christof Putzel, Adam Yamaguchi and Kaj Larsen, Vanguard features enterprising reports from around the globe. It airs every Wednesday at 10pm on Current TV. And you can view all Vanguard stories by visiting current.com/vanguard.***In the season premiere of Vanguard, correspondent Mariana van Zeller travels to South... more
The What Not To Wear star Trinny Woodall, has revealed the truth about her ten year battle with drugs and booze.
She said she has been left "emotionally bankrupt" by the battle with her addiction after she managed to clean herself up at the age of 26. Now 45 she has come clean about the depths of her struggle admitting 'I drove down to the rehab centre in my hire car, shoving all these pills in my mouth, these tranquilisers, and I crashed the car on the way,'
Reading this article in the metro, it appears to me that she's blaming her addiction on her family, stating 'My grandfather was an alcoholic, my uncle was an alcoholic, so I can definitely see the physical addiction through the generations..."The What Not To Wear star Trinny Woodall, has revealed the truth about her ten year... more
Las Vegas Metro is continuing its undercover operations city wide at the swimming pool parties at casinos. The most famous party, Rehab with its own reality show a the Hard Rock is the latest to feel the sting of Metro.Las Vegas Metro is continuing its undercover operations city wide at the swimming pool... more
As with the popular internet game World of Warcraft, young people are finding it hard to part themselves from their virtual escapades. Which forces their parents to turn to intervention and seek rehab for their troubled teens.
More details on website, with audio report provided.As with the popular internet game World of Warcraft, young people are finding it hard... more
Conor takes a look at the action around Vegas pools in his round up of the week in media. Also includes the Daytime Emmys, Tyra's farting problems, Bridezillas going crazy, the confusing messages surrounding 'Dance Your Ass Off,' and the OJ-MJ connection that will blow your mind!
infoMania is a half-hour satirical news show that airs on Current TV. The show puts a comedic spin on the 24-hour chaos and information overload brought about by the constant bombardment of the media. Hosted by Conor Knighton and co-starring Brett Erlich, Sarah Haskins, Ben Hoffman, Bryan Safi and Sergio Cilli, the show airs on Thursdays at 10 pm Eastern and Pacific Times and can be found online at http://current.com/infomania/ or on Current TV. And make sure to check out our facebook profile for special features at http://infomaniafacebook.com.Conor takes a look at the action around Vegas pools in his round up of the week in... more
"In America William Faulkner and Scott Fitzgerald were the Paris and Britney of their day, caught in the funhouse mirror of fame, their careers a vivid tabloid mash-up of hospitalisations and electroshock therapies. “When I read Faulkner I can tell when he gets tired and does it on corn just as I used to be able to tell when Scott would hit it beginning with ‘Tender is the Night’,” said Hemingway, playing the Amy Winehouse role of denier-in-chief. He kept gloating track of his friends’ decline, all the while nervously checking out books on liver damage from the library; by the end, said George Plimpton, Hemingway’s liver protruded from his belly “like a long fat leech”.
In fact none of these authors would write much that was any good beyond the age of 40, Faulkner’s prose seizing up with sclerosis, Hemingway sinking into unbudgeable mawkishness. When Fitzgerald went public about his creative decline in Esquire, in a piece entitled “The Crack Up”—a prototype for all the misery memoirs we have today—Hemingway was disgusted, inviting him to cast his “balls into the sea—if you have any balls left”. Today, of course, “The Crack Up” would be shooting up the besteller lists, and Fitzgerald would be sat perched on Oprah’s couch talking about his struggle and his co-dependent relationship with Ernest, proudly wearing his 90-day sobriety chip, but in the 1930s, the recovery industry, then in its infancy, was regarded by most with the enthusiasm of a cat approaching a bathtub.
“AA can only help weak people because their ego is strengthened by the group,” said Fitzgerald. “I was never a joiner.” Certainly, if what you’re used to is rolling champagne bottles down Fifth Avenue beneath the light of a wanton moon or getting into the kind of barfights that make a man feel alive, truly alive, the basic facts of recovered life—the endless meetings, the rote ingestion of the sort of clichés the writer has spent his entire life avoiding—are below prosaic. Richard Yates professed to find AA meetings impossibly maudlin: “Is just functioning living at all?” he moped, claiming he could not write a single sentence sober. His fall was even more vertiginous, and emblematic of the 1950s; like Kerouac, he was to write one masterpiece - then nothing.
Only the advent of rehab, in the 1960s, interrupted this fall—enforced incarceration flattering the writer’s sense of drama, the Kafkaesque me-versus-the-system fable playing out in his head. John Berryman sat in rehab looking like a “dishevelled Moses”, his shins black and blue, his liver palpitating, reciting Japanese and Greek poets and quoting Immanuel Kant. When he found out the doctors around him were serious he buckled under, declaring himself “a new man in 50 ways!” and affecting an ostentatious “religious conversion” which he proceeded to pour into a series of poems to his Higher Power (“Under new governance your majesty”). Ten days after leaving he found he needed a quick stiff one to get the creative juices flowing again and downed a quart of whisky. “Christ,” was all he could say the next morning.
From which we can conclude that the writer who can be most grateful he never has to get sober is Salman Rushdie. Minimalists tend to do better than maximalists. Flinty and workmanlike seem to win the day. It is the self-proclaimed geniuses who suffer. Writers of long sentences seem to do worse than the writers of short ones—Faulkner’s and Hemingway’s endless clauses being the epitome of the drunken style. Comparing yourself to Tolstoy is a bad sign. (If it has to be a Russian, Chekhov is a much better bet.) Americans do much better than Brits (a recent biography of Kingsley Amis lists drinking under “Activities and Interests”). Americans from the north seem to do better than Americans from the South. Prose-writers fare better than poets. If you are an American poet from the South, you might as well walk into a bar right now. And don’t, whatever you do, write a novel about recovery.""In America William Faulkner and Scott Fitzgerald were the Paris and Britney of their... more
A Chinese teenager sent to an internet addiction rehabilitation camp has allegedly been beaten to death by its counsellors, according to reports.
A number of employees of the Qihang Salvation Training Camp in Nanning have been arrested over the death, his father Deng Fei told the Global Times.
The camp had promised to put Deng Senshan, 15, under 24-hour supervision.
China is increasingly taking action against what it sees as a pandemic of web addiction.
Some estimates suggest up to 10% of the country's 100 million teenage web users could be addicted, and a growing number of rehabilitation services exist.
However, there is little consensus on how to treat the addiction. In July, China's Ministry of Health formally banned the use of electroshock therapy as a treatment option.
According to the China Daily newspaper, an agreement the teenagers' parents signed with the camp said: "The centre can take necessary approaches including punishment to educate the teenager, as long as the approaches will not abuse the child or impair his health."
Camp staff are alleged to have put the teenager in solitary confinement on Saturday and then beaten him that evening
How do you guys feel about this one? I wasn't even aware that there were internet addiction rehabs. Also, I hope that some sort of police report comes out as to the exact circumstances of the death.A Chinese teenager sent to an internet addiction rehabilitation camp has allegedly... more
At $5 to $10 a tablet, methamphetamines are pricey in Cambodia, but the Kingdom's most prevalent illicit drug is luring in a new group of middle-class addicts -- and the private rehab centres to treat them.
Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.), 44, has checked himself into the Betty Ford clinic in California for help with what he calls “my addiction to alcohol.”
In a message to constituents obtained by the Tulsa World, Sullivan said he would be taking a leave of absence from Congress. He did not say how long he expected to be gone but said he looked forward “to returning to serve and work for you in the House of Representatives as soon as possible.”Rep. John Sullivan (R-Okla.), 44, has checked himself into the Betty Ford clinic in... more
Amy Winehouse has been taken to hospital in St. Lucia for the second time this month after partying with friends. Her last visit was May 2nd. She is currently staying in St Lucia while she writes her third album.Amy Winehouse has been taken to hospital in St. Lucia for the second time this month... more
In Vancouver, Canada's Downtown Eastside, drug use and drug-related overdoses are nothing short of an epidemic. Insite is a safe-injection site; a place where addicts can legally inject heroin and other drugs with clean needles and under the supervision of doctors. Despite the fact that Insite is significantly reducing the number of overdoses in the area and preventing the spread of disease, the city is debating the ethics of allowing and even facilitating the use of illegal substances.In Vancouver, Canada's Downtown Eastside, drug use and drug-related overdoses are... more
After getting the boot on The Celebrity Apprentice, it looks like Dennis Rodman's next venture will be a familiar one: rehab.
The former NBA star, who has battled addiction for years, has agreed to enter an outpatient program where he'll regularly see a counselor.After getting the boot on The Celebrity Apprentice, it looks like Dennis Rodman's next... more
Em leaked a picture via his twitter page where he is purportedly checking into the Popsomp Hills (Pop Some Pills) Rehabilitation Center.Em leaked a picture via his twitter page where he is purportedly checking into the... more
THIS WAS A COMPANY TRIP FOR RELENTLESS BEATS ON JULY 4TH- IT WAS LITERALLY HOT- LIKE 120 F - BUT IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! I LOVE MY JOB!!!! SCOOTER AND LAVELLE ARE PLAYING - SO IF YOU LIKE THE TUNES LOOK EM UP :) BLUE MOON PRODUCTIONS. IM A DJ PHOTOGRAPHER ESTEEARIE.COM THNX FOR LOOKING :)THIS WAS A COMPANY TRIP FOR RELENTLESS BEATS ON JULY 4TH- IT WAS LITERALLY HOT- LIKE... more
Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
"The failure of the drug war has led a few of its braver generals, especially from Europe and Latin America, to suggest shifting the focus from locking up people to public health and “harm reduction” (such as encouraging addicts to use clean needles). This approach would put more emphasis on public education and the treatment of addicts, and less on the harassment of peasants who grow coca and the punishment of consumers of “soft” drugs for personal use. That would be a step in the right direction. But it is unlikely to be adequately funded, and it does nothing to take organised crime out of the picture."Prohibition has failed; legalisation is the least bad solution
"The failure of the... more
Disc jockey Norman Cook, better known as "Fatboy Slim," has entered rehab to fight alcoholism.
"He is voluntarily getting treatment for an alcohol problem," his manager Gary Blackburn told Reuters, adding that the 45-year-old's treatment would not affect any planned gigs.
"We expect to see him back in action real soon," he added.Disc jockey Norman Cook, better known as "Fatboy Slim," has entered rehab to fight... more
Wang Hongxia, 45, placed her 12-year-old son in a Beijing internet rehab centre after he began to hit and bite her when she kept him away from the computer. More than 3,000 people have been treated at the country's first internet-addiction-treatment facility, the Cina Youth Mental Health Center, since 2004. The length of treatment is typically 3 months and comes to a bill of about $3,000.
Patients get up every morning at 6.30 for a day of military drills, therapy, sports, and reading. They're in bed at 9.30.Wang Hongxia, 45, placed her 12-year-old son in a Beijing internet rehab centre after... more
After they shut down Bush's prisons where are all the bad kids gonna go? This article talks about a religious re-education program for arab extremists in Saudi Arabia that sounds mostly successful: "We have reduced the threat but cannot say we have eliminated it," said interior ministry spokesman Gen. Mansoor al Turki.
So is this the nurturing way to make a bad person good or a ticket home for retraining?
In a bizarre macabre account of divine intervention, Erik Larson amazingly encounters the All Mighty through a death proof hearse. Empowered to guide the lost, the Minister of Death mobs down the streets in his bequeathed vehicle of demise to enlighten the impressionable, the drug addicts, and the criminal element of the mortality that challenges them. Being scared straight may be the answer toward a future of sobriety.In a bizarre macabre account of divine intervention, Erik Larson amazingly encounters... more
No word on what Reid is being treated for or the length of her stay. Typically the minimum stay is 28 days, which would mean that the American Pie actress would be in treatment through the holiday’s, often a difficult time for those who are challenged by addiction issues.No word on what Reid is being treated for or the length of her stay. Typically the... more
