Is Claiming You’re a Sex Addict Just an Excuse for Bad Behavior

As powerful, international figures Dominique Strauss-Kahn and Arnold Schwarzenegger deal with the fallout of their various sexual exploits -  ranging from sexual assault to chronic infidelity – the question “is it just bad behavior or a real disorder” often comes barreling to the forefront.

Another common thought is: sex addiction sounds like the kind of problem most guys would love to have.

Well, here is the truth about living with shame, secrecy, narcissism, and other words that accompany the behavior of someone with sexual addiction and intimacy disorders: for the sex addict is about as much fun as alcoholism is for the alcoholic. Many adults enjoy drinking now and then; and while some people drink socially, others drink a bit at the end of the day to relax and some even get drunk once in a while (New Years, etc). For these people, which means most drinkers, drinking alcohol is both fun and optional.

But there are others for whom drinking is neither fun nor optional: people who have no control over where their first drink will lead them AND who have a history of negative consequences related to past alcohol abuse. We call those people alcoholics, and for them (estimated at 6-8% of the population) alcohol is not a good thing. These individuals have to be very careful and persistent about not drinking because, if they start, alcohol will eventually destroy their lives.

Similarly, most healthy adults enjoy sex – many as a form of recreation or distraction. Both single and married adults may occasionally or frequently view porn, have sexual dalliances, affairs or even see prostitutes without it being a problem for them. Right or wrong it’s not anyone’s job to call these people ‘sex addicts’ or to judge their sexuality or relationships. However, for approximately 3-8% of the adult population, having recreational sex is not a good thing. Single, dating or married, when these people begin having disconnected intense sexual experiences, particularly sex that involves secrecy or shame, they also begin to experience negative consequences.

Once these particular individuals start using sex as a means of emotional distraction they have trouble putting the breaks on their behavior. In the behavioral health and addiction treatment industry, we call these people sex addicts; unlike the rest of us, when sex addicts have sex primarily for recreation and emotional distraction their sexual choices can end up destroying their families, careers, reputations and relationships. These particular individuals have to be very aware of how they live their lives around sex, romance and intimacy so they don’t return to the kinds of sexual situations and patterns that can very quickly ruin the good things we all work so hard to create and maintain.



So, all of that being said – it is my belief, as well as all sex addiction treatment professionals and those that accept sexual addiction as a valid diagnosis – living a life of secrecy (a “double life”) is not fun, NOR is claiming to be a sex addict an excuse for bad behavior; rather it is the acknowledgment that there is an aspect of one’s life they cannot control and they need treatment in order to regain what has been lost or displaced because of their addiction.

Robert Weiss is Founding Director of The Sexual Recovery Institute and Director of Sexual Disorders Services at The Ranch Treatment Center and Promises Treatment Centers. These centers serve individuals seeking sexual addiction treatment and porn addiction help.

 

new face of drug addiction

The face of drug addiction has changed, and the government is working to adapt.
The 21st-century drug addict is more likely to get a fix from a medicine cabinet than from a needle. More than 5 million Americans misused prescription painkillers in a one-month period in 2009, according to a National Survey on Drug Use and Health from that year.

And a huge majority - more than 70% - of those prescription-drug abusers said they got the drugs from friends and relatives.
"We believe there are two unique reasons for the growth in prescription drug abuse - easy accessibility to the drugs and the diminished perception of risk," Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee Tuesday.
Kerlikowske joined a slate of witnesses to describe the skyrocketing addiction statistics and a host of federal and state initiatives designed to stem the tide – several of which are still in the planning stages.
A White House plan released last month to confront prescription drug abuse emphasizes spreading public awareness of the problem by mandatory education of physicians who prescribe painkillers and also for people who receive the prescriptions.
"In many cases, prescription drugs remain in household medicine cabinets well after medication therapy has been completed, thus providing easy access to non-medical users for abuse, accidental ingestion or illegal distribution for profit," said Michele Leonhart, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Officials are crafting regulations to carry out a law Congress passed last year that will allow states to enable pharmacies to accept people's unused prescription drugs for disposal. In the meantime the DEA has organized two national prescription drug take-back days to collect unused or expired medications. On the most recent take-back day, Americans turned in 188 tons of unused or expired drugs at sites across the country for disposal.
Another measure awaiting a DEA final rule would allow electronic tracking of prescriptions, partly in the hopes of preventing forgeries and "doctor shopping," when an addict receives multiple prescriptions from different physicians.
Leonhart said she hoped both measures would be operational by the end of this year.
But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-Rhode Island, complained at the slow pace of reforms and asked panel members to pull any strings they could.
"It has been astounding to me as a newly-elected senator to see the pace at which federal rulemaking slogs forward," he said. "I've become - I don't know what you call it but - impatient, I guess, with the pace of federal rulemaking, and you may be in the position to expedite it a bit."
Another witness underlined the urgency.
"Daily, 50 people in our nation die from unintentional prescription opioid overdoses and, daily, 20 times that number are admitted to hospital emergency departments for opioid overdoses," said John Eadie, director of the Prescription Monitoring Program Center of Excellence at Brandeis University.

 

Heroin Trapping New Generation Of Users

It’s not the reputation that Portland wants, but heroin users say the Rose City is known for easy access and plentiful supplies of the deadly drug, which is now trapping a whole new generation of user.
“I never planned on being a heroin addict,” said Collin Wright, who’s now recovering and sober. He says his addiction started with prescription pills, after he was given Vicodin for a back injury when he was 18 years old.
As the amount of prescription opiates needed for his addiction became too expensive and difficult to find, he tried heroin at age 27.
“The friends who had it did not want to let me use it,” said Wright. “They knew what it did. I was sick enough at the time, in withdrawals from the pills, I was pretty forceful in getting it from them.”
Wright says once you try heroin, you can’t go back, and the high quickly turns to sickness.
“It gets painful enough,” said Wright. "If you’re not being medically taken care of and treated for withdrawals, you’ll get so desperate, you’ll do just about anything to get more, to get money, to get more.”
A recent survey of drug users by the Multnomah County Health Department has shown evidence of increased demand, as well as newer, younger users. The Department reports the number of syringes given out to prevent the spread of disease in Multnomah County increased by 42 percent.

 

Chinese man died this week after spending months living in an internet cafe and playing an online game around the clock.

Wang Gang, 31, collapsed in a gaming parlour in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province on May 6 and died on Monday from cardiac failure caused by tuberculosis, according to local news reports.

Wang, who had dropped out of college and cut himself off from his family, had been addicted to Dungeon Fighter, a South Korean multiplayer game which is hugely popular among China's burgeoning online community.

At the time of his collapse, Mr Wang was running 20 high-scoring Dungeon Fighter accounts and had been playing almost solidly for seven months, only breaking for a few hours a day to nap on the cafe's sofa.

Images of Wang in the hospital before he died show a pallid, emaciated figure.

"He looked deformed. He was very thin and had long hair. He was also very dirty," a local newspaper quoted one person as saying after he saw Wang being taken out of the cafe.

"He was the kind of white you get from not having been in the sun for a very long time," another witness was quoted as saying.

Wang's collapse is the latest in a series of deaths linked to internet addiction in China.

Some 477 million Chinese now use the internet, the largest online community in the world, and about 33 million of them are thought to be addicted, according to experts.

In February, a man died after a three-day online games binge in Beijing and last year another man from Hebei province attacked a woman after spending two months in an internet cafe, where he played games for 22 hours a day.


Even though the Chinese government blocks huge parts of the internet through a system known as the Great Fire Wall, the average user here spends more hours online than his or her counterpart in America, or even in super-connected South Korea.

A recent report by McKinsey & Company, the consultancy, said urban Chinese spent as much as 70 per cent of their leisure time online, socialising, shopping, gambling or playing games.

China is the world's largest online gaming market, with more than 100 million players by some counts, and that figure is predicted to rise to about 200 million by next year.

But many worry that rapid growth will lead to more cases such as Wang's and they are urging the government to introduce tighter controls on internet cafes and games manufacturers.

Last year the government introduced a system whereby gamers could play only if they logged on using an official ID and cafes are supposed to evict players after five hours. In reality, however, players simply go to another cafe or log on using a borrowed ID card.

A few years ago, concern over internet addiction led to a proliferation of military-style boot camps for children whose parents feared had developed internet addictions.

But in 2009 the camps hit the headlines when a 15-year-old boy died while attending one. State media reported that his body was covered in bruises. Since then some Chinese schools and hospitals have begun less aggressive, family-oriented intervention programmes aimed at teaching teenagers to deal with social and academic pressures inside the family rather than retreating into a virtual world.

Before Wang collapsed, he had not seen his family for more than a decade.

Wang flunked college because he was spending so much time playing games. He tried but failed to get a job and then retreated more and more into the gaming world.

Friends and fellow gamers described how he would get immersed in games for months at a time, moving into the internet cafe to play them.

He would pay for his internet addition buy selling virtual gold and weapons, items that allow players to progress, to other Dungeon Fighter gamers.

Eventually he even lost the friendship of fellow players, who found his habits too extreme.

"He was reluctant to talk about topics other than games," a fellow gamer who goes by the name of Linjianxiaodao. "After Wang Gang got attached to Dungeon Fighter, it seems he disappeared from this world and we didn't see each other that much.

THE idea of vaccinating drug addicts against their affliction is an intriguing one. In principle, it should not be too hard.

THE idea of vaccinating drug addicts against their affliction is an intriguing one. In principle, it should not be too hard. The immune system works, in part, by making antibodies that are specific to particular sorts of hostile molecule. Such antibodies recognise and attach themselves to these molecules, rendering them harmless. Vaccines work by presenting the immune system with novel targets, so that it can learn to react to them if it comes across them again.

The problem is that the molecules antibodies recognise and react to are the big ones, such as proteins, that are characteristic of bacteria, viruses and other infectious agents. Small molecules, such as drugs, go unnoticed. But not for much longer, if Kim Janda of the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego has his way. In a paper just published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Dr Janda and his colleagues suggest how a vaccine against methamphetamine, a popular street drug, might be made. If their method works, it would open the possibility of vaccinating people against other drugs, too.

The idea of a methamphetamine vaccine is not new. The problem is getting the immune system to pay attention to a molecule that is such a small target. The way that has been tried in the past is to build the vaccine from several components.


First, there is a large carrier protein that forms a platform for the target. Then there is the target itself, a set of smaller molecules called haptens that are attached to the carrier. These may either be the drug in question or some analogue of it that, for one reason or another, is reckoned to have a better chance of training the immune system. Finally, there is a chemical cocktail called an adjuvant that helps get the immune system to pay attention to the carrier protein and the haptens.

Dr Janda noticed that past experiments on methamphetamine vaccines had all revolved around tweaking either the carrier protein or the adjuvant, rather than tinkering with the haptens. He thought he might be able to change that, on the basis of work he had carried out previously, trying to design a vaccine against nicotine. In particular, nicotine is a highly flexible molecule. That makes it hard for the immune system to recognise. To overcome this, his team on the nicotine project had to work out how to fix their haptens to the carrier protein in a way that rendered them less capable of twisting and turning, and thus made them easier for the immune system to identify.

In the new study, Dr Janda and his colleagues report that they have performed a similar trick with methamphetamine haptens. They used computer models to visualise the haptens in three dimensions and thus work out how the molecules could be rearranged such that they could not spring, twist or turn when being examined by the immune system. In light of this information they designed six new methamphetamine-like haptens. Once built, they attached the new hapten molecules to carrier proteins, mixed them with adjuvant, injected the results into mice and waited. After several weeks they tested the mice to see if the animals’ blood contained antibodies to methamphetamine.

Of the six new haptens, three successfully provoked the mice to make such antibodies. As a bonus, one of those three also stimulated the production of antibodies against another widely used drug, amphetamine. That is still a long way from providing a working vaccine, but it is an important step forward. And if human immune systems react in the same way to the new vaccines as murine ones do, the day when a drug addict might be offered vaccination rather than opprobrium will have come a little closer.

I only wish she could have found Phoenix House first

As all administrators, board members and advocates of state-funded social service agencies are doing these days, Phil Francoeur is spending every spare minute working on ways to convince state legislators how disastrous proposed state budget cuts would be to vital substance abuse prevention and treatment programs.
From his seat on the advisory board of Phoenix House, the Dublin-based residential substance-abuse treatment and recovery program, Francoeur said he has watched success story after success story emerge from the program’s three campuses over the years and cringes at the thought of seeing many of the programs lost to funding cuts.
But much of the passion the 55-year-old Nashua native has for state-funded programs like the Phoenix House comes not from his role as an adviser. A one-time drug addict and trafficker who served several years in State Prison, Francoeur largely credits the Phoenix House’s comprehensive, soup-to-nuts treatment approach for what he is today: Alive, clean, sober, employed, productive and happy.
“I’ve been clean and sober many times,” Francoeur said recently in his small, cozy apartment in Milford, where he now lives with wife Doris. “Addicts do that a lot. But it never lasts.”
Achieving lifetime sobriety is a far different animal, Francoeur said.
“You need to get to the root of the problem, to find out what causes us (addicts) to keep putting poison into our bodies,” he said. “That’s why we need these long-term programs, these residential programs like Phoenix House.
“They work.” Francoeur added. “I know they work.”
It’s that kind of personal experience, coupled with a lot of determination, that inspired Francoeur and several other Phoenix House graduates to record “real-life impact” videos as part of a “YouTube Channel” initiative by the Concord-based prevention and advocacy group New Futures.
Each recounts in the videos his or her personal stories, which include “crashing and burning with heroin at 23, 24 years old,” said contributor Rob Winslow, and “realizing when I was 15 that I had alcohol and drug addiction,” said Jenny Vanderbilt, who is now a counselor at Phoenix House.
Asked his date of birth, Francoeur, a member of the well-known Francoeur Baking Co. family whose parents, Reginald and Muriel Francoeur, still live in the family home on Wood Street, unhesitatingly answers “Jan. 20, 2001. I’ve been clean and sober since that day,” he says. “I remember the date like it’s my birthday, because it is.”
On the video, Francoeur calls it the day “I finally got help.” It’s sort of an infamous birthday, really, because it also marked the beginning of a string of court appearances and incarcerations resulting from his arrest for dealing cocaine to undercover police officers, who had him under surveillance for six months.
When he was sentenced later that year to six to 12 years in State Prison, Francoeur told Judge Bernard Hampsey he wanted to go straight. “I said I realize I owe the state time because of what I’ve done,” he said. “I told the judge I want to pay back the community by doing drug education programs and help people, help kids.”
Francoeur kept his promise, first earning his GED – he’d dropped out of Nashua High at age 16, in his junior year – then moving on to college-level courses, some of which were taught by local college professors and others, by fellow inmates whom the professors trained, he said.
Ordered by terms of his sentence to undergo drug rehabilitation treatment in prison, Francoeur said he wanted to go one step better and receive treatment through an “outside” program like Phoenix House, rather than in the state-run program.
“I filed a request. It was denied right away,” Francoeur said matter-of-factly. Undeterred, he called Nashua lawyer Steve Maynard. “He looked it over, said it was really well done, made a few tweaks to it … and guess what, it was accepted,” he said.
Calling his bid to enter Phoenix House “the best thing I ever did,” Francoeur enrolled in May 2005. “Everyone comes in with little or no self-esteem, no sense of worth at all,” he said. “That’s where I was. They (the counselors) start peeling off layers, like an onion, to get down to what’s causing all the negative behavior” of each resident, Francoeur said.
Phoenix House’s inclusive, peer-centered philosophy is a major reason the program works, Francoeur said. “Residents actually run the house,” he said. “The staff is there to guide you, but you learn how to do things for yourself. It really builds self-esteem, a sense of accomplishment,” he said.
“Seriously, I don’t know where I’d be today if it weren’t for Phoenix House.”
Francoeur emphasizes that in his segment of the YouTube video.
“I’m clean and sober almost 11 years now, thanks to funding the state has provided to Phoenix House and other drug rehab programs throughout the state,” he says.
Following through with proposed funding cuts would be “devastating” to prevention and treatment programs and those who need them, according to New Futures executive director Linda Saunders Paquette.
“These cuts will eliminate all state support for community prevention programs and cut 33 percent of funding for treatment programs,” she said in a statement. “The impact will harm more than 30,000 children and adults in New Hampshire who will not receive critical services to prevent and treat addiction.”
Francoeur said he has also received treatment through the former Keystone Hall, now the Greater Nashua Council on Alcoholism, one of several programs of the Nashua-based Partnership for Successful Living.
He grows animated as he cites some relevant figures. “The state is projecting $1.18 billion in alcohol sales for the next two years,” he said. “Something like $376 million of that is profit. We (Phoenix House and similar programs) get about $3.6 million a year in funding (roughly $7.3 million for the two-year period).
“And now they want to cut these wonderful programs like Keystone and Phoenix House by 55 percent?”
Adding to Francoeur’s determination to keep such programs intact is the memory of a devastating personal loss, one he believed may have been prevented with timely drug-treatment intervention.
In summer 2001, as Francoeur sat in jail awaiting prison sentencing, his girlfriend of several years took her own life. “We’d been using…she had problems with depression too,” he said, shaking his head. “She just lost hope.
“I only wish she could have found Phoenix House first.”

NEW surgical procedure in the brain could be a cure for drug addicts without injuring the vital organ

NEW surgical procedure in the brain could be a cure for drug addicts without injuring the vital organ, local medical authorities said yesterday.

With the new method, doctors from Renji Hospital managed to help a 24-year-old patient with a five-year history of drug abuse to remain clean for more than six years without a relapse. Usually, over 95 percent of addicts relapse within six months after quitting, due to the strong psychological dependency.

It is said to be the world's first reported successful case of treating drug addiction with a form of acupuncture through electrical stimulation in the brain, according to the latest edition of Biological Psychiatry, an international academic journal.

Doctors said the article is a good reference for health authorities to regulate and restart surgical treatment for drug addiction in China after the Ministry of Health banned a controversial surgical procedure that involved removing a small portion of the patient's brain, in November 2004.

"Unlike the surgery where a part of the brain is removed, our treatment is minimally invasive and just stimulates a part of the brain to block the addict's drug-induced psychological dependency," said Dr Zhou Hongyu of Renji Hospital's neurosurgery department. "Similar therapy has been used for many diseases, like Parkinson's, around the world and in China."

During the surgery, doctors input two needles as electrodes into the brain, at a certain position, to stimulate relative tissues to stop people's desire to use drugs.

The two needles are connected by wires to a remote control placed in the patient's chest and takes effect after the strength and frequency of the stimulation are set.

"Compared with the previous banned surgery, this treatment doesn't remove any brain tissues," Zhou said. "The process is even safer than the one used to treat Parkinson's disease, as the position where we place the needles is not close to any major functional tissues in the brain while the position of the needles for treating Parkinson's is close to the part which controls mobility."

But the new therapy is still in an experimental stage; wide adoption will need the health ministry's approval.

U.S. prosecutors say they have dropped drug-related charges against 27 south Florida defendants, although they declined to say why.

The cases involved South Florida head shops that reportedly sold undercover agents compounds used to "cut" cocaine, then sent the profits to the Middle East for possible terrorist activities, the Miami Herald reported Saturday.

The U.S. attorney's office issued a statement saying, "new information surfaced that, in our discretion, made it appropriate to dismiss the charges."

"At this time, I cannot provide further details of what that information entailed, as it is not in the public record," said Alicia Valle, special counsel to the U.S. attorney.

Dropping charges against all the defendants in such a case is very unusual, said a former government drug agent.

"Dropping charges against a few defendants is not that unusual," said attorney David Weinstein, former chief of the narcotics and national security sections at the U.S. attorney's office in Miami. "Dropping charges against 27 defendants connected together in one investigation is highly unusual."

The two-year investigation, called "Operation Cedar Sweep," focused on head shop owners in south Florida. Most of the owners were of Lebanese descent. Prosecutors were unable to make a connection between the shop owners and terrorist organizations.

The defendants were accused of selling compounds containing regulated pharmaceutical products, including lidocaine, tetracocaine or benzocaine.

An attorney for one of the defendants said the case was flawed because the defendants didn't break any law.

"They sold legal products that you can find at a GNC," said Miami attorney Joseph Rosenbaum, who represented defendants Khaled Nabil Ismail and Mohamad Ali Jawad. "No drugs were ever found on the premises. No crime was ever committed."

Keith McCants was the nation's most feared defensive player, a relentless package of sideline-to-sideline intensity for the University of Alabama. Now, he's in constant physical agony because of football injuries.

Keith McCants was the nation's most feared defensive player, a relentless package of sideline-to-sideline intensity for the University of Alabama. Now, he's in constant physical agony because of football injuries.

He walks with a cane. He said he has been diagnosed with clinical depression and early stages of dementia. Sometimes, he can't recognize family members. More than once he considered suicide. He's 43 years old.

Once, he was a first-round draft pick of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, who presented him with a $7.4 million contract and the largest signing bonus ever given to a rookie defender. He lived fast and hard, with a mansion on the water, cars, boats, jewelry, flashy clothing, nights on the town, lavish vacations. Now it's all gone. He's broke.

Once, he was the good-guy favorite son of Mobile, Ala., where residents bragged about his accomplishments. Now, they are accustomed to his litany of legal entanglements — since 2002 he has had 11 arrests on charges of possessing drugs or drug paraphernalia and three convictions — but remain baffled about how it all went so wrong.

McCants said he had 29 surgeries, many on his troubled knees, and six concussions. Football injuries caused an addiction to painkillers, which he said led to cocaine use. His problems, though, began much earlier.

"I wish I had never had any money," he said during an interview at the Pinellas County jail, where he has been held since April 23 on a fugitive warrant from Mobile. "I would've been great without money. It's a sad story, but it's a true story. Money destroyed everything around me and everything I care for, my family, my so-called friends. I just want enough to live on. I never want to be rich again."

He wants his mistakes to be an eye-opening example. He wants to stand before high school and college athletes and tell his story. If he can remain clean, if he can stay away from the law, that's how he will spend the rest of his days.

McCants, who has a wife in Mobile, moved back to the Tampa Bay area within the past year. He's closer to his children, who live with his ex-wife. He had been entered in a drug-rehabilitation program at St. Petersburg's Solid Rock Ministries.

"I'm trying, really I am," he said.

In December, McCants was arrested after St. Petersburg police said he was found leaving an exotic dance club with a crack cocaine pipe on the console of his vehicle. His female passenger had cocaine in her purse, police said. In February, as McCants removed identification from his pocket during a police stop, the officer said she noticed a plastic wrapper of cocaine. When she attempted to handcuff McCants, he pulled away and fled.

Last week, McCants pleaded guilty in both cases. The judge withheld adjudication, sentencing him to the 16 days he had served. He remains jailed on the warrant from Mobile, where authorities said he didn't appear in court last year on a controlled substance charge.

"I don't know much about the demons that Keith is fighting," said former Bucs teammate Ian Beckles, an offensive lineman who also was drafted in 1990. "It's scary to see all of this. It's easy for people to judge him and say he has done all this stupid stuff, but he has a disease. I just know that deep down, he's not a bad guy.

"Maybe a very naive guy, but not a bad guy."

* * * * *

Shortly after signing with the Bucs in 1990, McCants visited Jimmy Wigfield, a Mobile Press-Register sportswriter who had covered his career. McCants offered to buy him a Jeep. Wigfield said he couldn't accept such a gift because it wasn't ethical.

"I'm not sure he understood," said Wigfield, now the paper's assistant sports editor. "He meant well. I think for every one of me, there were 10 other people around him who took him up on such offers. That might explain where all that money went."

Mobile resident Danny Sheridan, a nationally known sports analyst and handicapper, met McCants when the athlete was 14. Sheridan liked the kid, who lived in the city's Orange Grove neighborhood of subsidized housing, and grew close to him as his football career evolved. But when the NFL draft approached, when McCants bypassed his senior season for riches that could free his family from poverty, there were ominous signs.

"I told him he had to take his signing bonus, put it away and invest it, not pay any taxes on it, and just live very comfortably off his salary" of $300,000, Sheridan said. "That way, if he got hurt and the money dried up, he'd have something to fall back on.

"He wouldn't hear of that. I said, 'Keith, if you don't listen to me, you're going to have all this new wealth, you're going to be surrounded by an entourage of people who like you just because you have money and, unless you're the next Lawrence Taylor, in a few years, you're going to be broke.' Well, guess what happened?"

Bucs coach Ray Perkins, who recruited McCants to Alabama from Mobile's Murphy High School, sat the player down when he received his $2.5 million signing bonus. Perkins said he knew of financial advisers in Alabama who would manage McCants' money, free. Instead, McCants hired Texas-based lawyer Lance Luchnick, who later pleaded guilty to violating Alabama's registration law for sports agents.

McCants was taken fourth overall by the Bucs, despite rampant concern about a knee injury. The San Diego Chargers, up next, picked another linebacker, University of Southern California's Junior Seau, who became a 12-time Pro Bowler and likely Hall of Famer.

Two days after the draft, McCants underwent knee surgery.

"I remember seeing him move around that first year and I said to myself, 'Something isn't right with him. He's hurt,' " Beckles said.

On the field, things rarely clicked for McCants, who was shifted from linebacker to defensive end. Perkins said he never saw the game-altering speed McCants displayed with the Crimson Tide. Off the field, though, his lifestyle was pure opulence.

"You could say I hung around the wrong people, but I think it was more that the wrong people came around me," McCants said. "I was green. I gave people the benefit of the doubt. I was trying to help them."

* * * * *McCants never saw another large contract. The Bucs cut him in 1993. McCants lasted six seasons in the NFL. He draws a monthly $1,100 disability check from the NFL, his only regular income. Since 2004, he has unsuccessfully petitioned the league for an increase based on his physical condition. His pension kicks in at age 55.

"They call me a bust," he said. "I played six seasons on one leg. I think that's remarkable. I was always hurt. I was so shot up all the time. Without the dope, I couldn't play. My body was wrecked, so I didn't want that needle anymore. I was ready to leave the game."

With no post-NFL career options, his financial troubles mounted. Court records show he bounced 34 checks over a few days in 1999. The following year, the home he built for his mother was seized by the state of Alabama because of unpaid taxes. In 2004, he went to a Mobile car dealership, took a Lincoln Navigator for a test drive and never returned it. He was indicted by a grand jury and later pleaded guilty to unauthorized use of a motor vehicle.

There was a time when he roamed the streets, not knowing his name, sleeping in cars, eating out of garbage cans, showering in gas stations, wondering where he belonged.

"It was some crazy stuff that people here had never seen from him when he was growing up," said Mobile County Sheriff Sam Cochran, formerly the city's police chief. "It was a huge surprise from him. It's really no longer a surprise. I don't want to say people are numb to it, but it kind of blends in together."

* * * * *

Three years ago, Paul Sousa, who was McCants' principal at Murphy High School, gathered a dozen Mobile community leaders. Sousa was particularly fond of McCants, who never was sent to the school office on a disciplinary problem.

"We wanted to get him some work, but he's really not able to do much work because of his physical state," said Sousa, whose daughter graduated from Murphy High with McCants. "He couldn't even get up and down out of a chair. And he couldn't get another type of job because people knew about the drugs. Just when things seem to be going well, he falls back, usually because of the drugs. It's a hard, hard road."

McCants said it's a road he never intended to pursue.

"How does this happen? I'll tell you how it happens," McCants said. "You want to kill the pain. You're out of the NFL, they throw you out the door and those expensive prescriptions are gone. They take away your health insurance. The next best thing is street drugs because you're desperate for the pain to go away.

"I didn't indulge in drugs to get high. I wanted to moderate my pain. It didn't go away totally, but it felt better. I could get out of bed, go to the store. One thing leads to another. You end up going to jail. Your picture is on TV. You get ridiculed, ripped apart. You just wanted your pain to stop. That's how it happens."

Kevin Hayslett, McCants' attorney, said the cycle could change if his client commits to a rehabilitation program for up to one year.

"If he solves his life problems, he solves his legal problems," Hayslett said. "It's people and places. Unfortunately, Keith has been hanging out with some people who were horribly negative influences, and crack has been involved. Until he gets different people and places, history is going to repeat itself."

McCants said he has been clean and doesn't believe he has a drug-addiction problem.

"I have a sex addiction," he said. "I didn't really want that to get out, but that's it. What people do for drugs, I do for sex. Drugs just happen to be in it. I've been messing with women who did drugs.

"Sometimes, I took the rap for them and ended up in jail. I'm not saying what I did was right, but that's what happened. For all this to go away, I know I've got to change everything about me."

So much has changed.

McCants said he thinks his condition will lead to Alzheimer's. He wants to see his mother, who was recently hospitalized. He says he's fighting against time — time he wants with his children. He hasn't been around them regularly in years. His son, nearing high school graduation, wants to be a firefighter. His daughter is a professional model. Another daughter is an aspiring tennis player.

Once, McCants was young and vibrant.

He was reminded of an epic 1989 game at Auburn, when he had 18 tackles, an interception and caused a fumble. He also prevented a touchdown with a stunning field-length chase-and-catch of Tigers receiver Shane Wasden, who had a 30-yard head start.

McCants hung his head.

"I can't remember that far back," he said.

He paused a moment.

"I ain't mad at nobody," McCants said. "I don't want anybody to feel sorry for me. Maybe it's good that I can't remember everything. It keeps me from being depressed.

"I can make money again. What I can't get again is my body, my mind."

 

I don't think it is fearmongering to say heroin use ... is becoming epidemic

Smack, snow, scag, tar, junk were once all names associated with back-alley heroin use in tough parts of the city. Now, these terms - and plenty of pure-grade heroin - may be finding a home on your own suburban street.

Heroin in gel capsules is finding its way onto local high school and college campuses, as well as at parties that young people attend in suburban neighborhoods. Sometimes young people are not even aware that heroin is what they are getting in these gel capsules, but the results can be - deadly.

Carmen and Tom Heard of Fenton lost their son to heroin on Oct. 1, 2010. He came home from college in Springfield, Mo., for a funeral in 2007 and didn't look right. He told his mother that he had a real problem and needed help.

"I was stunned when I found out it was heroin" said his father. "Michael was a great kid. He had great grades and great friends in high school at Rockwood Summit High School. And I always thought heroin was for the lowest of the low, who live in a gutter.

"Michael did have issues with anxiety, and while he was at Missouri State, he began getting prescription meds off the 'brown market' - stuff like Xanax and OxyContin," said Tom Heard. "Those meds were expensive, and the heroin capsules were cheaper and much more available."

Thus began a three-year cycle of addiction, rehab and recidivism, with the addiction ultimately winning out. Last fall, Tom Heard got a call that his son was in the hospital after police found him slumped over the steering wheel. At Barnes Hospital, two physicians, a social worker and a chaplain broke the news that son, Michael, was dead from an overdose.

"It can start with a capsule and end with an addict and an entire family in chaos," said Heard. "It's a disease that is beyond your control to fix. But it's actually far worse than a conventional disease, because I saw it take away everything - my son's confidence, his integrity, his personality.

"I am speaking out because it is therapeutic for me, but far more important, because parents need to know that heroin is all over the place now," said Tom Heard. "And it doesn't start with a needle. And it is right here, not somewhere else."

An Influx of Heroin



Carmen and Tom Heard with their son, Michael (center), taken at a rehab center shortly before his death as the result of a drug overdose. (click for larger version)
"Parents are being blindsided by this stuff and with the most tragic of consequences - their children are dying," said Dan Duncan, director of community services at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse in Brentwood. "I don't think it is fearmongering to say heroin use among suburban young people is becoming epidemic.

"In my 26 years in the field of drug abuse I've seen a lot, but this is the worst because of its lethality," said Duncan. "It's so powerful that kids are dying the very first time using it. In the past five years, we've seen 100 deaths yearly from its use in St. Louis County."

According to Duncan, heroin traffic into this area has increased ten-fold and is coming through Mexico from South America. He said it is purer and cheaper than ever before. He said kids think it is OK, because it comes in a capsule. They snort or smoke the ingredients inside, but at some point, they will be shooting it up with a needle like a junkie.

"The other part of this story is the kids often have already tried pain killers like Vicodin or Oxycodone," said Duncan. "So they see these capsules and think no 'big deal,' but it is a big deal because it offers an intensely pleasurable feeling. You can get hooked after the first use."

Duncan said the heroin capsules are sometimes given to unsuspecting young people for free the first time, just to get them hooked. Soon, they will want to do more pills to get the same high, and then they will be looking for cash to pay for a habit that requires a needle.

"I don't care how good a reputation you think your kid's high school has, I will venture to say there is no school in St. Louis County where some kids aren't using it," said Duncan. "I've done talks about it, twice in Webster Groves, and the rooms are packed, because parents are becoming aware that it's an issue in their back yard."

How We Got Here

"We've had a pharmaceutical drug problem for about 10 years now, with too many people abusing Vicodin, Oxycontin and Oxycodone," said Harry Sommers, special agent in charge of the St. Louis Division of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). "Pharmaceuticals have become a sort of gateway drug to heroin.

"Heroin never really had a huge market in this country, but a few years ago the Mexican drug cartel decided that they could capitalize on the use of pharmaceutical narcotics," explained Sommers. "What they did is take the needle out of the equation.

"They put the heroin in these $10 capsules," said Sommers. "A capsule is not so scary to a high school or college kid. It's also affordable. Of course, as you quickly need more and more of it, kids go the spoons and the needles and start stealing to support their habit."



"They put the heroin in these $10 capsules. A capsule is not so scary to a high school or college kid. It's also affordable." -- Harry Sommers, DEA (click for larger version)
The DEA's Sommers hesitates to call the new heroin presence in our communities an "epidemic." He did call it an alarming and growing problem that needs to be confronted.

"It's a significant issue, because it is deadly," said Sommers. "It also is hitting a population that never has really been involved in this kind of narcotics abuse."

St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch concurred. He can point to alarming statistics documenting overdose cases involving young, white males. Fitch said an education campaign at schools on the dangers of heroin is imperative.

"Forty-six percent of our drug buys on the street involve heroin now," said Fitch. "Heroin sold on the streets today is on an average four or more times stronger than just five years ago."

Fitch said too many young people in St. Louis County are first abusing prescription drugs, and then graduating to heroin and becoming immediately addicted. He said action must be taken to divert anyone from trying heroin even one time.

"Parents cannot look the other way if they suspect their kids are getting involved in this," said the DEA's Sommers. "Parents need to be very attentive to behavioral changes and if their kids are hanging out with a new set of friends. Obviously, if they are finding cut straws, or needles, or are missing spoons in their home, they have a big problem going on."

More Personal Accounts

"My son came down with a virus in his pancreas in 2006," said Pam Jones of St. Charles. "He was prescribed pain killers for it. He found the pain killers could be bought from friends at college, and in 2009 he actually bought heroin from some friends at a Cardinals baseball game.

"If it were just a matter of will power, Andrew would have beat this," said Jones, fighting back tears. "His personality changed. It was just too big for him. He was totally depressed. On May 12, 2010, he overdosed. My husband and I are not ashamed of Andrew. He was a good kid. We tell other parents: 'If this could happen to Andrew, it could happen to anyone.'"

A Glendale parent, who prefers to remain anonymous, said his family has been dealing with the heroin addiction of a daughter. She has been in and out of rehab programs and is currently in an out-of-state, half-way house for drug abusers.

"My daughter did well when she was in the Webster schools and was pretty normal - no purple hair or nose rings or body tattoos," said the Glendale father. "She started mixing with a different crowd. One day, she came very close to over-dosing and we asked her what was wrong and she said one word: 'heroin.' We had to rush her to the hospital. It put us into shock. We didn't want to believe it.

"I know people in Kirkwood and Webster think they are living in the classic, contented American towns," observed the distraught dad. "But I can tell you there is an underworld here - and my daughter got involved in that underworld. She told me she doesn't want to come back, because it is too easy to get the drugs again - it's like low-hanging fruit here."

He said local law enforcement has told him that the big time dealers are in the South Grand Avenue area of the City of St. Louis. He said they sell capsules to teens to deal at parties, and these teens are told to just give some away, just to get a habit started and the users hooked.

"Shame on me for not being more aware, for not asking questions when my daughter's behavior changed," said the Glendale father, shaking his head. "My advice is to confront your kids if you find empty gel capsule halves in your home. When you start finding cut straws, and spoons are missing, and jewelry disappears - it's probably too late."

 

Taiwan and US researchers have found that a drug used to treat Alzheimer's disease is effective in reducing heroin dependency

Taiwan and US researchers have found that a drug used to treat Alzheimer's disease is effective in reducing heroin dependency, it was announced Friday.
The discovery was made by the National Cheng Kung University Hospital and the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), following ten years' research, Lu Ru-band, a psychiatrist at the Cheng Kung hospital, told a news conference.
The Cheng Kung hospital and the NIH have applied for patent for their discovery in the United States and the European Union, he noted.
According to the study, memantine, which is used to treat Alzheimers, is more effective in reducing heroin dependency than methadone, a narcotic pain-reliever similar to morphine.

In many countries, methadone is used as a pain reliever or as part of drug addiction detoxification and maintenance programmes.In many countries, methadone is used as a pain reliever or as part of drug addiction detoxification and maintenance programmes.
'Methadone helps because a heroin addict can take one methadone pill daily instead of having to taking a heroin shot every few hours and run the risk of becoming infected with the HIV virus,' Lu said.
'But as methadone is an opium-like compound, it is using a long-action addictive drug to replace a short-action addictive drug,' he said.
To test the effect of memantine, the Cheng Kung hospital used 90 heroin addicts in a three month trial.
During he trial, they all took methadone, but 48 also took memantine, while 42 took Valium.
The study found that for those who took five milligrammes of memantine daily, their dependency on methadone ,and neuro-toxicity, fell and there was less damage to their liver function.
For those who took methadone and Valium, their neuro-toxicity increased and liver functions was affected.
'Our human trial lasted only three months. We have no plan to conduct longer trial because it is too costly,' he said.

 

Charles and Sherry Best stopped for bacon milkshakes after dropping off their dead sister-in-law’s body after she overdosed on heroin,

Charles and Sherry Best stopped for bacon milkshakes after dropping off their dead sister-in-law’s body after she overdosed on heroin, prosecutors said Friday.

The Bests remained in the Lake County Jail on Friday after Associate Judge Raymond Collins ordered them held on $1 million bond. Both are charged with concealing a homicide in the death of Round Lake Park resident Melissa Best, while Sherry Best faces an additional charge of drug-induced homicide.

Melissa Best was last seen alive on April 15, and her body was found in a Grayslake parking lot 10 days later. Round Lake Park police said that Sherry Best, her sister-in-law, provided heroin that Melissa Best injected into herself during a visit to the couple’s room at an extended-stay hotel in Waukegan.

Melissa Best fell unconscious almost immediately, and Sherry Best, who police say had also injected herself with heroin, made no attempt to assist her, authorities said.

Police said Charles Best, the brother and co-worker of Melissa’s husband, Clinton, arrived home a short time later and was unable to resuscitate her.

Later that same day, the couple carried Melissa Best’s body to her minivan and drove it to Grayslake, police said. They chose that location to leave her body because Charles Best once dated a woman who lived in the complex, Lake County prosecutor Steve Scheller said.

After dumping her body, they stopped on the way back to Waukegan for the milkshakes at a Denney’s restaurant, Scheller said.

A toxicology report later determined that Melissa Best died of morphine intoxication.

Sherry Best will be represented by the Lake County public defender’s office, and will next appear in court on June 8. Charles Best’s next court appearance is slated for Tuesday.

You’re only as sick as your secrets

You’re only as sick as your secrets – A.A. aphorism

Among the supposed detriments of anonymity identified in David Coleman’s article Challenging the Second ‘A’ in A.A. are:

the supposed restriction on using one’s last name at A.A. meetings;
the alleged need for sober public role models;
the purported ban on disclosing one’s participation in A.A.;
the apparent inability to get Angie’s List or Yelp type references for “the best” or “most effective” A.A. meetings;
the belief that anonymity signals shame;
the assertion that anonymity “may only be contributing to general confusion and prejudice”; and,
the suggestion that public disclosure of one’s participation in A.A. is the only or best way to remove any stigma that might still be associated with alcoholism or drug addiction.
When properly understood, the principle of anonymity – A.A.’s “spiritual foundation” – does not erect any roadblocks to one alcoholic sharing his experience with others nor restrict access to information about the benefits (and many irritations) of “the Program.”

Communications at the Level of Press, Radio and Film

The twelve “traditions” that guide A.A.’s organizational conduct suggest that its members “maintain anonymity at the level of press, radio and films.” As Colman notes in his New York Times article, the age of the internet has raised questions about what channels of communication other than, say, the Los Angeles Times or CNN, fall within this restriction.

Facebook, for example, is a quasi-public space – one in which the user is free to set his or her own privacy boundaries. One’s Facebook friends can be limited to family and real friends – the people that word originally described – ones you’ve not only met face-to-face, but whose house you can picture, refrigerator you’re free to open, and whose voice you recognize over the telephone. People you can call at 3 a.m. when you learn your teen-aged daughter has broken out of rehab in Utah again.

These people – let’s call them “true friend” Facebookers – are free to facebook (verb) anything they want about their own A.A. experiences. Their Facebook page is more like group correspondence – the annual family holiday letter, say – than like a blog to which the entire world has access.

Rule of thumb – if your Facebook postings can be found on the internet, you’re operating at the level of “press.” If not, not. This solves the twitter question as well since every tweet is posted on the internet for anyone to peruse even if only your followers can see them in their twitter stream. So twitter operates at the level of “press” no matter how small your network.

If you “out” yourself as a member of Alcoholics Anonymous in public (as David Colman did on the front page of Sunday’s Style section) you are not maintaining anonymity. If you tell your family and friends that you just celebrated your first A.A. birthday or “slipped” or attend the “Log Cabin” meeting every morning at seven-thirty, you are not breaking anonymity unless your primary channel of communication is People Magazine. Charlie Sheen comes to mind.

Role Models and the Freedom to Express One’s Recovery Story

Because I have many friends who found sobriety in A.A., I’ve heard many stories about “how it works.”  Since most A.A. meetings are open to the public, there is no shortage of role models nor any limitation on “outsider’s” access to A.A. information. I’ve heard that there are more than 3,000 meetings every week in Los Angeles, most of which can be found here. Those New York City meetings where Colman says he’s greeted artists he’s interviewed “or a fashion designer I want to” or seen “well-known actors and authors up on the dais” sharing their stories can be found here.

Most A.A. meetings open with a “share” or “pitch” where members describe what their life was like prior to achieving sobriety, what made them realize they were “addicts” or “alcoholics” and what their life has been like since they stopped drinking or using (“what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now”).

According to anthropologists and psychologists who have studied A.A. as a program of folk healing, this story telling tradition permits the alcoholic to

reaffirm an identity with his or her former self (I am the person who did these things, the person who takes responsibility for these things) even as he or she creates (with each retelling) an increasing sense of distance from that self.

One may, during the moments of confession, bring yet another aspect of one’s ego, one’s sense of shame or remorse about past events, before God and an audience so that it has less power over him or her.

The speaker reaffirms his or her present persona, his or her identity as a recovering alcoholic, which entails membership within a community, which is an identification with a future self, the self that the speaker promises to become.


According to A.A. oral tradition and literature, if you go to enough meetings, you will eventually hear your own story told, enabling the addict or alcoholic in need of recovery to identify and seek assistance within the program of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Some recovering alcoholics are fond of turning this concept on its head by saying that if you haven’t been to a meeting or encountered a speaker you hate, you haven’t gone to enough meetings. So much for Yelp and Angie’s List.

Why Anyone Other than an Addict or Alcoholic Should Care

You likely expect me to say that everyone knows or is related to someone who could use a healing community like A.A. or one of the dozens of recovery programs it has spawned – N.A., C.A., Alanon, M.A., and S.A. to name just a few. I have one self-described “old fashioned single substance” alcoholic friend who frequented Marijuana Anonymous meetings because they were so “mellow” and another self-identified alcoholic acquaintance who attended N.A. meetings because they were so “raw.”

In other words, you don’t need to “identify” as any type of substance abuser at a 12-step meeting if you’re just Anonymous-Curious.

Pain pill addicts use heroin when money gets tight, drug study says

The over prescription of opioid medications — like OxyContin, Vicodin, Percocet and methadone — is not only leading to increased overdose rates on those drugs, but may be leading to an increase in heroin use, according to a annual statewide study of drug trends.
The Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network’s annual report, which compiles information from eight regions in the state, shows that heroin use has increased in the past six months in Dayton and statewide. The report attributes the spike in part to the wide availability of opioid prescriptions, which often lead to addiction and then heroin use when pills become too expensive.
The report, distributed by the Ohio Department of Drug and Alcohol Addiction Services, covers June 2010 through January 2011. The findings are based on interviews with treatment providers, active and recovering drug users, and law enforcement officials as well as crime lab data and coroners’ reports.
Robert Masone, a pain specialist and president of the Ohio Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, said because two or three OxyContin 80 milligram pills can cost up to $200, many addicts are forced to seek other alternatives when money is scarce.
“When they can get that money, that’s what they prefer. When they can’t there’s always a heroin pusher out there offering them a single dose of heroin,” Masone said.
Vie Ross, an outpatient counselor at Project Cure, a methadone clinic in Dayton, said once someone tells pain pill addicts they can get a similar high for a much lower cost with heroin, many switch drugs.
“Nobody ever sets out to be an addict,” said Dwight Richard, clinical director of Project Cure. Both Richard and Masone said most heroin users don’t want to use illegal drugs and aren’t even getting high. They are trying to avoid a painful withdrawal.
“The minute they experience it once, they’ll do anything they can to avoid it again,” Masone said.
Rogue doctors operating faux pain clinics are fueling the problem, he said.
Doctors running so-called “pain clinics” can write several pain prescriptions during a $100 visit. “If (the patient) can sell half those pills they’ll make a couple hundred dollars,” Masone said.
“Pain prescriptions, between 1994 and now have increased 900 percent,” Richard said. “(Opioids) are more widely and freely prescribed.”
Recognizing the problem, the medical board has tried to crack down on rogue doctors, but many move before a case can be made. Ohio doctors and pharmacies also have been encouraged to make use of the Ohio Automated Rx Reporting System (OARRS) deveoped in 2006 to track those trying to doctor shop. But Masone said since the system is voluntary, only about 17 percent of doctors and 23 percent of pharmacists enter information, creating loopholes for abuse.
Users, health care professionals and law enforcement interviewed for the OSAMN report also suggest that the recent increase in heroin use in the region could be attributed to the reformulation of OxyContin.
On Aug. 9, 2010, manufacturer Purdue Pharma discontinued the manufacture and distribution of the original OxyContin. The new formula breaks down to a gel instead of a powder when crushed.
The change was meant to make the tablets more difficult to manipulate and abuse as it is difficult to snort or inject the gel.
Abusers have found ways around the new deterrents, however, including freezing the gel and then chopping it or loosening the protective coating with water.
Meanwhile the scarcity of the older tablets has made them much more valuable. According to the OSAMN report the street value has more than doubled for the original OxyContin 50 cents to $1 per milligram to as much as $2 per milligram. Richard said it makes sense that many OxyContin users would switch to buying much cheaper heroin after the reformulation.
Increased heroin use also can be attributed to increased availability. With gel caps of powdered heroin, most commonly white or brown powder, available for as little as $7 a piece or three for $20 in Dayton, one participant in the OSAMN study called heroin easier to get than marijuana, widely regarded as the most prevalent drug in the state.
Another study participant said heroin was easier to get than beer and users described driving down some streets in Dayton where free samples are tossed into car windows.
Project Cure is searching for a new location for their clinic because the neighborhood surrounding their current location at 1800 N. James H. McGee Blvd. is such a hotbed of drug activity. Their patients often encounter heroin dealers at the bus stop just steps from the treatment center’s door.
Lt. Brian Johns, head of the narcotics unit for the Dayton Police Department, said Dayton has become a destination for heroin, with people traveling long distances to buy it cheap.
“They can drive from their hometown, take it home and use it or resell it and make two or three times the money,” Johns said.
Ross attributed the low price point to the fact that there is very little pure heroin in many of the batches found in Dayton. “They are cutting with anything,” she said, citing one recent case where a woman was hospitalized after injecting heroin cut with drywall powder.

 

Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan Recognized for His Commitment to Sobriety

The intersection of rock and roll and recovery was the focus of a benefit concert and dinner held at Los Angeles’ Club Nokia on Friday night.
The seventh annual MusiCares MAP Fund benefit honored Depeche Mode singer Dave Gahan and Warped Tour founder Kevin Lyman, both recovering addicts, for their efforts on behalf of sobriety. Aerosmith frontman and American Idol judge Steven Tyler presented Gahan with the Stevie Ray Vaughan award. Concert promoter Gary Tovar introduced Lyman, recipient of the MusiCares From the Heart Award.
Established in 1989 by The Recording Academy, MusiCares provides emergency aid for music professionals in times of need, often in the form of financial assistance to help with basic living costs and medical expenses. The organization also focuses heavily on addiction and treatment, as evidenced by the event’s dry bar.
Ultimately, it didn’t matter much -- the array of talent was plenty intoxicating, particularly the four-song closer by Gahan, which included a spot-on cover of Joy Division’s poignant “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Jane’s Addiction also provided plenty of punch during the classic “Been Caught Stealing,” one of three songs the band delivered during its mini-set. Other performers included Linkin’ Park’s Chester Bennington, who played acoustic guitar on the moving “The Messenger,” off his band’s latest album, 2010’s A Thousand Suns. Pop-rockers Paramore also opted to go unplugged for their hit “That's What You Get.”
Ozomatli opened the show with a rousing horn and percussion-led rendition of the Depeche Mode 1981 favorite “Just Can’t Get Enough.” The L.A.-based Latin rockers joked that they were among the throngs who rioted in 1990, when some 20,000 fans showed up to Wherehouse Music (then located across from the Beverly Center) for a Depeche signing. They also credited Gahan’s music for getting several band members laid during those formative years.
In speaking of Lyman, Paramore’s Hayley Williams described someone who’s “been like the godfather of our band… and always believed in us. It's why we're here and doing Warped Tour again this year." Also recognizing the career-launching power of Warped was Katy Perry, who cracked about the trek’s “grungy, smelly, raucous” vibe, via video. “I learned a lot,” said Perry. “I still am, but I’m taking more showers… Thanks for taking me, a pop girl, to all the punk rockers. I survived.”
Of course, when it comes to tales of survival, few rock stars have the drug and recovery pedigree of Tyler, a recipient of the Vaughan award in 2005. In introducing Gahan, after spotting longtime MAP supporter Bob Forrest (of Celebrity Rehab fame) in the crowd, Tyler poignantly described a disease that’s taken so many musicians’ lives and livelihood. “At the end of the day, one of the hardest things an addict can do is to get sober and to stay clean,” he said. “It's harder than being a musician, it's harder than being a rock star, it's harder than selling more than 100 million albums worldwide -- all of which Dave has done as well as other unmentionables as Depeche Mode's frontman.”
In accepting the honor, Gahan recounted a moment spent under the influence. “[Steven] accosted me in a bar one night somewhere like Chicago; He wasn't drinking and I was,” Gahan began. “I was tying one on and this guy was sort of annoyingly talking to me. Apparently it was Steven Tyler f--king with my drinking. Anyway, that was a long time ago and I'm blessed to be here.”