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At the tender age of 16, Amber Luke developed an addiction to tattoos. Fast forward seven years, the now 23-year-old looks unrecognisable after she got more than 50 inkings on her body, including her blue tattooed eyeballs. The body piercer, from the Central Coast in NSW, has splashed out more than $10,000 transforming her look - even undergoing an extreme body modification where she got her tongue split and earlobes stretched. Speaking to Daily Mail Australia, the young woman - dubbed 'Blue Eyes White Dragon' - said she has 'no regrets whatsoever'.

Johns Hopkins studies effects of DMT, including encounters with ‘autonomous beings’ WASHINGTON – It’s one of the most popular new hallucinogenic drugs being smoked by young people around the world, with many users reporting “spiritual encounters” with entities that sound a lot like demons. And now, Johns Hopkins University is studying the alarming effects of DMT, or Dimethyltryptamine, asking volunteers who have taken the drug about encounters they may have had with “seemingly autonomous beings or entities.” One researcher characterized DMT as a “spirit molecule.” So bizarre are the effects that users have described crossing into another world and seeing...

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland filed one lawsuit there, while the Human Rights Campaign and other organizations filed a separate challenge in Washington state. The organizations say they’re representing trans persons either looking to enlist or already serving in the military.

Sex with a car, eating cat food, and living life as an adult baby (diapers and all) are just some of the strange addictions shown on TLC's program. Viewer beware!

How about forcing the manufacturers of alcoholic beverages to include graphic images of victims of alcohol-related fatal auto accidents on every purchase of a six-pack of beer, bottle of wine, or liquor? Or horrible graphic images of alcohol-related diseased kidneys or livers?Graphic images of victims of alcohol-related violence, disease, and auto accidents included along with every television advertisement?Including such horrible graphic images would tell the "other side" of the effects of the consumption of alcoholic beverages that Budweiser, and other well known sponsors of sporting events, deliberately do not address in their advertising. But that would sure make the booze lobby upset.The federal anti-smoking campaign wants to...

Wednesday, October 20, 2010 Stopping Pornography from Destroying Lives   There's a great piece in the National Catholic Register on the fight against pornography. The story focuses on Matthew Fradd. Fradd himself was addicted to porn before being freed from his addiction by the grace of God. He is now helping others. . . OTTAWA, Ontario — After successfully battling an addiction to pornography, Matthew Fradd has dedicated himself to helping others. “Porn is not just naughty — it’s evil,” said Fradd, a 27-year-old Australian living in Ottawa, Ontario. “It emasculates men, degrades women and destroys marriages.” Fradd has begun...

Months later, the problem of Internet addiction in China became a personal problem for me when my apartment was robbed. The police determined that the camera I lost (with 500 photos from a recent trip to Chengdu), as well as a computer and a Gerber knife had probably been pawned by local schoolboys to fund their Internet game addictions. Two weeks later, I caught two of them climbing over a wall and sneaking into my apartment building. I chased them halfway down the street in dress shoes before I finally gave up...

  Unbridled Affections - Imitation of Christ WHEN a man desires a thing too much, he at once becomes ill at ease. A proud and avaricious man never rests, whereas he who is poor and humble of heart lives in a world of peace. An unmortified man is quickly tempted and overcome in small, trifling evils; his spirit is weak, in a measure carnal and inclined to sensual things; he can hardly abstain from earthly desires. Hence it makes him sad to forego them; he is quick to anger if reproved. Yet if he satisfies his desires, remorse of...

A biography of late Alice In Chains frontman Layne Staley might be turned into a movie, reports Blabbermouth.net. A press release from Arts Publications indicated that Argentinean journalist Adriana Rubio has been contacted by Philadelphia-based filmmaker Eric Moyer about making a film version of her book, Layne Staley: Get Born Again. Moyer said in a statement, "I am determined to make this film about Layne Staley, not only to celebrate his life and talent, but to warn others through his compelling story that heroin will kill you...no matter who you are." Staley died in April of 2002 after struggling with...

WASHINGTON - Alcoholics Anonymous, the worldwide group that helps addicts stop drinking, may also help drive down the number of murders in a community, Canadian researchers reported Sunday. As membership in the group in Ontario, Canada, increased between 1968 and 1991, murders there dropped off, said Robert Mann from the University of Toronto and Mark Asbridge from Dalhousie University. Research has shown there is a significant relationship between drinking and homicide in Europe, the United States and Canada, they wrote in their report, published in the October issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research. SNIP But they found an increase...

A Canadian survey this month warns that the Internet can cause antisocial behavior. The survey dovetails with a decade of horror stories about people who can't stop spending too much time in front of their computer, even as their lives fall apart. An entire cohort of experts has sprung up to diagnose and treat what they call Internet Addiction Disorder, or IAD. Other experts, so far unwilling to elevate the behavior to addiction level, instead refer to PIU--Pathologic Internet Use, or simply, "internetomania." Whatever it's called, it must be serious, because there are so many professionals and facilities now offering...

1. If you owe someone money, always pay them back in a bar. Preferably during happy hour. 2. Always toast before doing a shot. 3. Whoever buys the shot gets the first chance to offer a toast. 4. Change your toast at least once a month. 5. Buying someone a drink is five times better than a handshake. 6. Buying a strange woman a drink is still cool. Buying all her drinks is dumb. 7. Never borrow more than one cigarette from the same person in one night. 8. When the bartender is slammed, resist the powerful urge to order...

HOLLYWOOD, Calif. -- No one saw it coming. Not his agent or his bosses; the shoot he had just wrapped had been long, strange and physically difficult but not out of control. Certainly the friends with whom he spent his last scandal-free afternoon had no idea that Mel Gibson was about to go on a life-changing bender. If they had, they would have done everything to stop it, because while conventional wisdom has it that Mel Gibson has been sober since the early 1990s, some of those close to him acknowledge that he has been on and off the wagon...

For some, the Internet it has become an addiction, adversely affecting their lives and their family's lives. While not yet defined as a true addiction, many people are suffering the consequences of obsession with the online world, warns Dr. Diane M. Wieland, who treats patients with computer addiction in her practice in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. For some people, the Internet may promote addictive behaviors and pseudo-intimate interpersonal relationships, reports Wieland in the journal, Perspectives in Psychiatric Care. "Such cyberspace contacts may result in cyber disorders such as virtual relationships that evolve into online marital infidelity (cybersex) or online sexually compulsive behaviors,"...

Investigators suspect that at least six New Jersey state troopers were recorded on wiretaps, calling in bets to a bookmaking ring allegedly run by a National Hockey League coach and another trooper, a source familiar with the probe said Friday. The state police also suspended a trooper for allegedly failing to report the illegal betting ring to his superiors, a law enforcement official said. Michael Kaiser, a sergeant assigned to the Garden State Parkway, was suspended late Thursday for violating the agency's rules. He was not charged with any crimes, officials said. State police investigators are now trying to determine...

Torie graciously is letting me use his computer. I want to know why you can't eat just one potato chip, or as Dan Quayle once asked, is it "potatoe?" The Other Harry

The medical field of treating chronic pain is still in its infancy. It was only in the late 1980s that leading physicians trained in treating the chronic pain of terminally ill cancer patients began to recommend that the "opioid therapy"(treatment involving narcotics related to opium) used on their patients also be used for patients suffering from non terminal conditions. The new therapies proved successful, and prescription pain medications saw a huge leap in sales throughout the 1990s. But opioid therapy has always been controversial. The habit-forming nature of some prescription pain medications made many physicians, medical boards, and law enforcement...

I think about it all the time. I crave it when I'm not doing it. I wake up and want to do it. No matter how much I do it, I always want more. I can't stop. It's computer games. My name is InHisService, and I am an Acroholic. My favorite computer game in the world is "Acrophobia" which I've been playing for about 6 months. You are given letters, and you make acros; example: WTHIGOWA, What the hell is going on with Acrophobia? The game began freezing all the time, every time you'd go in. There's a chat room,...

A year after her older brother checked himself into rehab, 19-year-old Kelly Osbourne is seeking treatment for addiction to painkillers. Kelly's parents, Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, revealed the news Friday (April 2) on CNN's "Larry King Live." Their daughter, whose hard-partying antics are a common theme on "The Osbournes," is at the Promises treatment center in Malibu, California. Sharon said that Jack Osbourne brought his sister to the rehab facility on Friday. In mid-April last year, Jack checked into Las Encinas Hospital in Pasadena, California (see "Jack Osbourne Checks Into Rehab Facility"). He later admitted to being addicted to the...

This is the place for Freepers and Lurkers to get suggestions from others on how to get and stay free of all or any chemical substances including, but not limited to alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, pain killers, nicotine, you name it.