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It all came crashing down one morning in April 2015, when April Lund was 32. The evening before, she had stayed out late drinking, and she woke up alone in her apartment in Bismarck, North Dakota, with no idea of how she got there. “I blacked out completely,” she told Runner’s World. “That’s when I knew I had to change my life.” At the time, Lund was overweight and had been struggling with an alcohol addiction for about eight years. She had just moved to Bismarck from St. Louis, Missouri, where she said her social life centered around drinking. While...

A follow-up to this headscratcher that only deepens the suspense. Mike Pence was on Air Force 2, ready to depart for New Hampshire on Tuesday for an event on opioids, when he was called back to the White House urgently. What was the emergency? Pence wouldn’t say. Neither would the White House. No one has leaked it to the media in the days since, which is uncharacteristic. Marc Short insisted cryptically at the time that it would be weeks before they’d be able to tell us. Now here’s the president acknowledging a “very interesting problem” that arose in New...

A BRIT teacher accidentally killed herself with a lethal overdose after she swallowed a bag of cocaine in a first-class airport lounge while waiting to fly home to Dubai. Victoria Buchanan, 42, ingested the resealable bag when she realised she still had the drug in her possession while drinking a glass of champagne after she checked in with her luggage. The mum-of-three had earlier acquired £200 worth of the Class A drug during a family visit to the UK with her husband Mark who is a shipping company boss. She had £60 worth of cocaine left when she decided to...

<p>A glimpse of student athletes in peak physical condition vaping just moments after competing in a football game led Stamford High School Principal Raymond Manka to reconsider his approach to the epidemic.</p> <p>His Connecticut school traditionally has emphasized discipline for those caught with e-cigarettes. Punishments become increasingly severe with each offense, from in-school suspensions to out-of-school suspensions and, eventually, notification of law enforcement.</p>

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah — The lunch rush at St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall is a snapshot of the changing character of American homelessness. The first thing that strikes you is the sheer number of people the soup kitchen serves. The line outside starts forming two hours before the food is ready. Diners file in, eat quickly and get up as soon as they’re finished. They know someone is waiting outside for their seat. Even more striking than the scale of need are the shifting demographics of who is eating here and why. The homeless population is getting younger,...

BALTIMORE — Heroin has ravaged this city since the early 1960s, fueling desperation and crime that remain endemic in many neighborhoods. But lately, despite heroin’s long, deep history here, users say it has become nearly impossible to find.

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. — Thirty-seven hospitals in two states have filed a lawsuit in Marshall County against numerous opioid manufacturers, distributors, and several individuals. Stephen Farmer of law firm Farmer, Cline, and Campbell announced the suit, calling it the first of its kind in the United States, Tuesday afternoon. The complaint filed in court Tuesday claims evidence of a criminal conspiracy that has devastated West Virginia and “tens of thousands of its families.” West Virginia University Hospitals, United Hospital Center, and Charleston Area Medical Center Health System are among three of the largest hospitals to attach their name to the suit...

The heartbreaking mystery of Jerika Binks, the Utah runner who disappeared over a year ago while on a trail run near her home in American Fork, may finally find some closure. On Monday afternoon, local authorities announced they had found the skeletal remains of a body in the general area that Binks was last known to have been, and with multiple personal items known to belong to Binks, according to a press release issued by the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. The remains showed evidence of an injury, though nothing at this point suggests foul play. Sergeant Spencer Cannon of the...

Mike Lindell, the founder of MyPillow, opened up about how he overcame his lifelong battle with addiction on the latest episode of Life, Liberty & Levin on Fox News Sunday night. Lindell was a crack addict who started drinking and got into hard drugs when he was just a teenager. He recalled showing up for his five-year high school reunion drunk and envying his old friends for doing things like going to college and starting families. All in all, Lindell says, he suffered through about “40 years of addiction” between alcohol, powder cocaine and crack. All that started to change...

"Paying for a tiny dose of luxury doesn’t make me an irresponsible millennial." I’m in Starbucks right now, drinking what I always get: a venti iced coffee with hazelnut, soy, and caramel drizzle. It’s a case study in dribbly brown, a drink both Elle Woods and Dr. Evil would order, but it tastes great and costs less than $5 in the Twin Cities, unless you’re at the airport. I order it every day, except when the temperature falls below zero, or if I’ve earned a free drink on Starbucks’s rewards app. With a reward, I get the latte version of...

There are not that many Never Trumpers anymore, though the media (and the remnant Never Trumpers) try to fool you into thinking so. The honest Never Trumpers, the ones who thought that this orange New York real estate developer with the succession of hot wives was not a real conservative and would betray us the first chance he got, have evolved. It turns out that Donald Trump is the most consistently and effectively conservative president since Reagan. The Never Trumpers who weren’t in on the scam noticed his track record of conservative success and morphed.Some became actively pro-Trump. I fit...

I was never falling-down drunk. I was never belligerent. I always got my work done. I was never unkempt. I was always clean, I was always shaved, I always performed at work. I was always kind and gracious in the dining room. But I lived in hell. When we opened Joe Beef in 2005, we were inspired by Martin Picard at Au Pied de Cochon, by these grandiose bistros of Paris, by seafood towers, by excess. We were two portly men who ate and drank well. I was and still am very insecure about anybody coming to the restaurant and...

CDC researchers found less addictive over-the-counter drugs, like Advil and Tylenol, are three times more effective than some of their opioid counterparts. No more opiates for chronic pain I guess.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism received a $100,000 donation from President Trump. The money, which came from Trump’s third quarter salary in 2018, will assist the NIAAA with its mission to conduct research on alcoholism and alcohol-related problems. The NIAAA falls under the National Institutes of Health. The donation, reportedly announced by the White House, also carries personal significance for Trump, who does not drink. His older brother, Fred Trump, died of alcoholism in 1981. "To this day, I've never had a drink," Trump said in 2017, discussing the impact his brother had on his life. "And...

Gets paid to hook them, then paid again to UNhook them..?! Richard Sackler, whose family owns Purdue Pharma, the company behind the notorious painkiller OxyContin, was granted a patent earlier this year for a reformulation of a drug used to wean addicts off opioids. The invention is a novel form of buprenorphine, a mild opiate that controls drug cravings, which is often given as a substitute to people hooked on heroin or opioid painkillers such as OxyContin. (more at link)

Older people are the fastest-growing group of cannabis users, as stigma fades and some seek an alternative to prescription drugs As attitudes towards cannabis shift, the fastest-growing group of users is over 50 – and marijuana’s popularity among seniors is beginning to change the American experience of old age. Why are more seniors getting high? It might make more sense to ask: “Why not?” As adults reach retirement, they age out of drug tests and have far more time on their hands. Some feel liberated to abandon long-held proprieties. Elegant vape pens and other attractive, discreet products have helped de...

... The most obvious way that cannabis fuels violence in psychotic people is through its tendency to cause paranoia. Even marijuana advocates acknowledge that the drug can cause paranoia; the risk is so obvious that users joke about it, and dispensaries advertise certain strains as less likely to do so. But for people with psychotic disorders, paranoia can fuel extreme violence. A 2007 paper in the Medical Journal of Australia looked at 88 defendants who had committed homicide during psychotic episodes. It found that most of the killers believed they were in danger from the victim, and almost two-thirds reported...

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BELLEVUE, Wash. (AP) — The young men sit in chairs in a circle in a small meeting room in suburban Seattle and introduce themselves before they speak. It is much like any other 12-step meeting — but with a twist. “Hi, my name is,” each begins. Then something like, “and I’m an internet and tech addict.” The eight who’ve gathered here are beset by a level of tech obsession that’s different than it is for those of us who like to say we’re addicted to our phones or an app or some new show on a streaming video service. For...

LAS VEGAS (KUTV) — It only took 960 spins, but it paid off for one women at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. The hotel tweeted that one lucky guest won $1,023,743 on her 960th spin playing on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine. LAS VEGAS (KUTV) — It only took 960 spins, but it paid off for one women at the Cosmopolitan Hotel in Las Vegas. The hotel tweeted that one lucky guest won $1,023,743 on her 960th spin playing on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine. The woman won the jackpot on Christmas Eve. The hotel did not...