Beyoncé Opens Cosmetology Center at Phoenix House

The new Cosmetology Center will offer a seven-month cosmetology training course, helping our clients gain the career skills they need to lead productive, rewarding lives in recovery.
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Beyoncé spoke about meeting with women in treatment at Phoenix House while preparing for the role of Etta James in the 2008 film Cadillac Records. “Through their stories, I realized that all of us have our personal struggles and we all have something to overcome,” she said. “Drug addiction… has a stigma that must be removed. Addiction is a disease and these beautiful women I met did not choose to become addicts, but they have chosen to get better.”

Later donating her salary from the film, Beyoncé wanted to create a program that was geared toward women, “something that would teach them skills that would give them hope even after Phoenix House.” Together, she and her mother, who owned a popular hair salon in Houston when she was growing up, came up with the idea of our new cosmetology program.

As a child, she observed that her mother’s salon was a place for women to “share stories, cry, laugh, and get advice” – and she wanted to bring that experience the women at Phoenix House. “The first sign of recovery is caring about your appearance,” she said. “And hopefully, this Center will be a place that will change lots of lives every year.”

Photo by Hassy, 2009.

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Tiger Woods has greatly increased the focus on sex addiction recently. A few years ago, David Duchovny, of X-Files fame, rehabed to the Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services Treatment for a sex addition. That is the same rehab center that Tiger Woods is rumored to be a patient at now.

Taking sex addiction seriously by Nicole Baute

Statistics claim that from 3 to 10 percent of Americans have a sex addiction, but the condition is not listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders and not all experts agree that problematic sexual behaviour should be called an addiction at all.
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Vermeire describes sex addicts as people struggling with sexual compulsions they cannot stop, despite negative consequences.

The addiction is not limited to the rich and famous. In Toronto, there are therapists who specialize in sexual addiction and support groups like Sex Addicts Anonymous. Bellwood Health Services has a 12-week, $12,000 residential program and outpatient counselling.

Margaret Hicks, a Toronto psychotherapist and social worker, says the addiction is often about shame and low self-esteem. Sufferers are trying to fill a void in their lives, she says: “You can fill the hole with alcohol, you can fill it with drugs, you can fill it with sex.”

Hicks says Internet porn is increasingly driving the addiction, and exposure to certain types of porn can change a person’s sexual template in destructive ways.
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“Treatment for sexual addiction involves abandoning the unhealthy sexual behaviours and, after a period of abstinence, developing healthy sexual functioning with a primary partner – which often requires learning how to function in a healthy emotional way,” says Lawson, manager of family services and special programs at Bellwood.
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“With sex addictions we are sort of where the people supporting the idea of alcoholism were 50 years ago,” she says.

“When they started talking about alcohol addiction and being an alcoholic back then, there was the same reaction, ‘No way, there’s no such thing, what are you talking about?’ So, it takes time.”

Related: Brett Favre Overcomes Painkiller Addiction – Robin Williams Reflects on Rehab – Eva Mendes on Rehab

After 50 years, Smokey Robinson is still having fun

I speak at schools, churches, gang meetings, rehab facilities, telling people that drugs don’t discriminate. I was 39 years old and my life was going exactly as I would have it go. I couldn’t have written it any better. But drugs don’t care who you are, what you’re doing, where you are or where you’re going. When you open yourself up to them, you are vulnerable. And I was. You think drugs won’t get the best of you, that you will never become an addict. Ninety-nine percent of the people who start doing drugs do so with their friends. It’s a social thing and you call yourself having fun. Then you look up and fun has wiped you out like it did me. I did it for two years. I was a walking corpse, totally out of it.

Drugs are also a spiritual condition. If you don’t get your spiritual self together, you’ll never conquer them. I went to church and was prayed for; I gave it to God. I went to church one night a drug addict and when I came out of that church, I was free. That was May 1986. I haven’t even thought about drugs since then other than that I’m at war with them.

As Smokey Robinson shows not everyone needs rehab to remove drugs from their lives but many do. He has devoted himself to helping those that are struggling with drug addiction. And that is what those with drug problems need – a helping hand and allies to tell help them improve their lives.

Photo by jcrawford

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Photo of United States Representative Patrick J. Kennedy (son of Senator Ted Kennedy) at the ADA rally at the Capitol, 17 September 2008.

Rep. Kennedy returns to Congress after month in rehab

After a four-week course of addiction treatment, Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy returned to Congress Wednesday with what he called “excellent” prospects for long-term sobriety – in large part because he sought help before he landed in the kind of trouble that has brought him criticism in the past.
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In May 2006, a late-night car crash on Capitol Hill attracted harsh publicity and prompted Kennedy to enter an addition treatment facility and to acknowledge that he had been an alcoholic and drug addict for most of his adult life. Since then Kennedy had become a public face for recovery from addiction.

On June 12, Kennedy announced through his office that he had left the House for an indefinite period of time to enter a treatment facility. He has since disclosed that he underwent a 28-day treatment regime at Father Martin’s Ashley, a Maryland center well-known in recovery circles.
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Kennedy said Wednesday that he hopes his decision to seek treatment was another “sign to people that this is a chronic illness not unlike a cancer that goes into remission but then becomes malignant again.”

He said, “This is a chronic illness that needs lifelong attention. You can’t ever be cured of it. It needs to be monitored on a day-to-day basis for your whole life.”

Congressman Patrick J. Kennedy Statement on His Drug Addiction (May 2006)

Over my 15 years in public life, I’ve felt a responsibility to speak honestly and openly about my challenges with addiction and depression. I’ve been fighting this chronic disease since I was a young man, and have aggressively and periodically sought treatment so that I can live a full and productive life. I struggle every day with this disease, as do millions of Americans. I’ve dedicated my public service to raising awareness about the chronic disease of addiction, and have fought to increase access to care and recovery supports for the too many Americans forced to struggle on their own.

This past Christmas, I realized that I had to seek help again so checked myself into the Mayo Clinic for addiction to prescription pain medication.
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I am deeply concerned about my reaction to the medication and my lack of knowledge of the accident that evening. But I do know enough to know that I need to seek expert help. This afternoon, I’m traveling to Minnesota to seek treatment at the Mayo Clinic to ensure I can continue on my road to recovery.

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Rapper Eminem’s first new album in 5 years, Relapse, explores his relapse and attempts to escape the trap of drug addiction after treatment at a drug rehabilitation center.

Eminem: ‘I wasn’t ready to get clean’

On the subject of his treatment, Eminem explained: “When I landed myself in rehab in 2005 I felt like I wanted to reassess everything. I remember sitting in rehab thinking, ‘Is this what it comes to, really?’.
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“I was like Bugs Bunny in rehab, Bugs Bunny walking in the room. The second you walk in the room…

Get Clean, Come Back: Eminem’s Return

IN late December 2007 a depressed, writer’s-blocked, pill-popping, opiate-addicted Marshall Mathers, better known as the multimilllion-selling rapper Eminem, overdosed on some new blue pills someone gave him — they were methadone — and collapsed on his bathroom floor. Public statements covered up the reason for his emergency hospitalization and detox, claiming the problem was pneumonia. A month later Mr. Mathers had ramped up his habit again.

But the overdose scared him. Early last year he hospitalized himself, went through rehab and started the full 12-step program of a recovering addict, complete with meetings, a sponsor and a therapist. Mr. Mathers, 36, says he has stayed sober since April 20, 2008.

Far from concealing his addiction battle, he’s making it the center of his comeback. The cover of “Relapse” (Shady/Aftermath/Interscope), the first new Eminem album since 2004, builds his face out of pills, and in some songs he raps, as directly as a rhymer can, about how drugs nearly destroyed him.

Eminem Got Rehab Help From Elton John

When it came time for wisecracking tough-guy rapper Eminem to kick his addictions to the curb, he looked to an unlikely source for help — music legend Elton John. “I came home from the hospital the second time and I realized that I was giving up drugs forever,” Eminem reveals in the June/July issue of Vibe. “I reached out to Elton ’cause I knew he had a problem before.”
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He was like, ‘Don’t do it. Do not do it,’” he recalls. “But I didn’t want to disappoint anybody. He talked me out of doing it. He was like, ‘I’m telling you you’re gonna get over there and you’re gonna wanna use. Don’t do it, it’s too early. You don’t even have enough clean time under your belt.’”

And Elton wasn’t just there to advise on the big things; he took an active interest in Em’s sobriety. “He called a lot. A few times a week,” says Eminem. “

Eminem tells a gritty tale in new ‘Relapse’

With its blistering glimpse into his struggles with addiction and sobriety, depression and ennui, the album marks a gritty return for an artist who slipped off the public scene four years ago amid a cloud of speculation. The singsong choruses of “Insane,” “My Mom” and “Déjà Vu” are like taunts in the face of the harsh reality — taunts at his own weaknesses, perhaps — with the intensity broken by the jokey skits and bouncy tracks like “Old Time’s Sake.”

Photo from March, 2009 press release

Related: Billy Joel Alcohol Rehab – Winehouse to Rehab: Yes, Yes, Yes – Colin Farrell Wanted To Be A Better Dad – find a drug rehabilitation center

At age 21, she became the youngest recipient of the Best Actress Oscar and one of only four actresses to receive that honor for a film debut: Children of a Lesser God. In her book, I’ll Scream Later, she discusses her drug addiction. In fact she was in drug rehab when she learned of her Oscar nomination.

Marlee Matlin Reveals a Darker Side

At just 18 months old, Matlin lost her hearing due to a bout with the roseola virus. Without hearing aids, she says she is absolutely deaf.
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Even as she was winning accolades for “Children of a Lesser God,” Matlin said she was preparing to check herself into rehab to battle her drug addiction that began when she was 13. In fact, the name of her book “I’ll Scream Later” was inspired by her inability to react to her Oscar nod because she was in rehab.

Now happily married with four children, her demons seem long gone. But it was a certain dancing show that inspired her to write about her troubled past.
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“I was very rebellious,” she said of her early involvement with drugs.” I was very fiercely independent.” Her drug use began with marijuana and escalated to cocaine, she writes.

Related: ‘Marcia Brady’ Recovers After Drug Addiction – Robert Downey Jr. Rehab Success – Carrie Fisher’s Journey Through Drug Addiction

Masekela’s message for ‘addictive’ SA

One of the biggest names in world music – trumpeter Hugh Masekela – has said the message behind his latest album Time is to help the fight against drug and alcohol addiction in his native South Africa.

Masekela himself is a recovering addict, having gone into rehabilitation six years ago before establishing an organisation to help those with similar problems in his homeland. And he told BBC World Service’s The Ticket programme that he felt a duty to help others suffering from the same problems.
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“I myself am a recovering addict and alcoholic. Six years ago I came to England, took up counselling, and learned the psychology of addiction.”

Drug-busting Masekela calls a brave new tune

The project, called the Musicians and Artists Assistance Programme of South Africa (Maapsa), is a partnership between several South African celebrities, including musicians Jabu Khanyile and Family Factory, actress Connie Masilo and talkshow host Felicia Mabuza-Suttle. Masekela said: “This organisation will make South Africans aware that addiction is a dynamite powder-keg. In South Africa, people are often praised for being able to drink a lot. They think drinking is something to be proud of.”
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Victor Ntoni, another respected musician, said alcohol and substance abuse among musicians was exacerbated by the increasing exploitation of artists in South Africa.
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Mabuza-Suttle, one of the trustees of Maapsa, said that because she came from a background of alcoholism, she knew about the devastating effects of addiction on families.

Hugh Masekela Biography

As the brutality of the Apartheid state increased, Hugh finally left the country with the help of Trevor Huddleston and his friends Yehudi Menuhin and Johnny Dankworth who got him admitted into London’s Guildhall School of music. Miriam Makeba who was already enjoying major success in the USA later helped him with Harry Belafonte, Dizzy Gillepsie and John Mehegan to get admission to the Manhattan school of Music in New York. Hugh finally met Louis Armstrong who had sent the Huddleston Band a trumpet after Huddleston told the trumpet king about the bank he helped start back in South Africa before deportation.

With immense help from Makeba and Belafonte, Hugh eventually began to record, gaining his first breakthrough with “The Americanization of Ooga-Booga” produced by the late Tom Wilson who had been producer of Bob Dylan and Simon & Garfunkel’s debut successes. Stewart Levine his business partner in Chissa Records went on to produce hit records for Hugh on Uni Records, beginning with “Alive and Well at the Whisky” in 1967 and then “”Promise of A Future” which contained the gigantic hit song “Grazing in the Grass” in 1968.

By the beginning of the 1970’s he had attained international fame, selling out all of America’s festivals, auditoriums and top nightclubs. Heeding the call of his African roots, he moved to Guinea, then Liberia and Ghana after recording the historical “ Home is where Music is” with Dudu Pokwana.

photo from Ritmo Artists

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Actor, Who Wanted To Be A Better Dad, Is Glad To Be Sober

“I knocked that on the head, I haven’t had a drop in six months,” the Irish actor said Monday on The Late Show With David Letterman. “It was tough. It was something that I did every day for about fifteen years so it was tough, yeah, absolutely.”

The 30-year-old actor said that he decided to get help when he realized his fast-paced Hollywood lifestyle was taking its toll on him and affecting his ability to be a good father to his two-year-old son James.
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“It was horrible in one way, because I went away because I was pretty sick,” he said. “But in another way it was great, because it was a very safe environment with a bunch of people who were looking to sort out things in their life.” “But I don’t want to go back,” he added.

Colin Farrell: Drink and drugs nearly killed me

The Dublin-born star of Miami Vice was renowned for his wild lifestyle, but made the decision to enter rehab two years ago as he said he knew he was “dying”. “It was a fairly drunken life for 16 years so it was a tough life change, but I was dying and I’m one of the lucky ones in that so far I’m out of it,” he said.

“For me there was no choice. I was pretty sick. I went away for five or six weeks and that was a very safe environment and I began to come out of the haze that I had burrowed myself into so deeply. “I came back into the world and everything was in a degree of focus that I hadn’t experienced.”
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“I don’t believe I have any chemical predisposition towards depression, but let’s just say I was suffering from a spiritual malady for years and I indulged it.
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Farrell is now in a relationship with novelist Emma Forrest and seems to have put those dark tendencies behind him. “I’m glad I’m out of that cycle of my life, and I’m very lucky,” he admitted.

photo © Eric Charbonneau

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Brett Favre’s addiction to painkillers (1996)

After the seizure had ended and he had come to his senses, Favre looked into a sea of concerned medical faces and saw Packers associate team physician John Gray. “You’ve just suffered a seizure, Brett,” Gray told him. “People can die from those.” Favre’s heart sank. Upon hearing from doctors in the room that his dependence on painkillers might have contributed to the seizure, he thought, I’ve got to stop the pills, I’ve just got to.

Last season Favre went on such a wild ride with the prescription drug Vicodin, a narcotic-analgesic painkiller, that Tynes feared for his life. He scavenged pills from teammates. At least once he took 13 tablets in a night. But on Tuesday of last week, during his final telephone call before entering the Menninger Clinic, a rehabilitation center in Topeka, Kansas [which moved to Florida in 2003], to treat his dependency (and also to evaluate his occasional heavy drinking), Favre told SI that he hadn’t taken Vicodin since the seizure. “I quit cold turkey,” he said, “and I entered the NFL substance-abuse program voluntarily. I don’t want a pill now, but I want to go into a rehab center because I want to make sure I’m totally clean.
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Tynes wiped her eyes. She took a deep breath. She sniffled a few times. “You know,” she said, “he’s changed already. He talks to me again. He takes Brittany and me out. He pays attention to us. A few days ago he hugged me and he thanked me for everything I’ve done, and he said some really nice things to me.”

She wiped her eyes again. “I said, ‘I can’t believe it. The old Brett’s back!’” Time will tell. The true test will start in September.

Time has shown the answer, after struggles for several years, as Brett Favre has continued his amazing NFL career with great success.

Through triumph & tragedy, Deanna and Brett Favre remain a constant

After doctors found severe liver damage in 1996, Brett agreed to enter rehab, and was able to kick his addiction. He and Deanna were married several months later and welcomed daughter Breleigh in 1999, but his problems with substance abuse had not ended. By 1999, Brett had returned to heavy partying, and was abusing alcohol. Deanna contacted a divorce attorney, which helped scare her husband into quitting drinking entirely, according to Deanna.

The 1990s tested their relationship, but Deanna ultimately appreciated that Brett chose to seek help. “He was battling a disease,” she says. “I was trying to support him, and when he started making the right choices by getting the help he needed, that made a difference.”

Life had stabilized for the Favres by 2003: Brett was sober and a Super Bowl-winning icon in Green Bay, and Brittany and Breleigh were healthy and happy. “We were at a good spot in our lives,” Deanna says.

Then, in December 2003, Brett’s father died in a car accident. The following October, Deanna’s 24-year-old brother Casey was killed when his all-terrain vehicle hit a patch of gravel and flipped. Casey had recently overcome his own drug problems, and his girlfriend was eight months pregnant when he died.

In her memoir, Deanna described the loss of her brother as the darkest time in her life, but the darkness would not pass quickly – just days after Casey’s funeral, Deanna was diagnosed with breast cancer at 35.

Related: The Family of Favre Blog (family photo) – Deanna Favre Hope Foundation – Green Bay Press Gazette Favre Tribute (action photo) – Maradona Drug Rehab – Los Angels Drug Rehab Centers

Maureen McCormick, best known for her role as Marcia Brady, is now 52 and has a new book – Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice

In the book, Maureen provides a behind-the-scenes view of the Brady Bunch. She reveals the lifelong friendships, the hurtful jealousies, the offscreen romance, the loving support her television family provided during a life-or-death moment, and the inconsolable loss of a man who had been a second father. But The Brady Bunch was only the beginning. Haunted by the perfection of her television alter ego, Maureen landed on the dark side, caught up in a fast-paced, drug-fueled, star-studded Hollywood existence that ultimately led to the biggest battle of her life.

The book presents a story of success. After kicking her drug habit, Maureen battled depression, reconnected with her mother, whom she nursed through the end of her life, and then found herself in a pitched battle for her family in which she ultimately triumphed. After fifty years, she has finally learned what it means to love the person you are, insight that has brought her peace in a happy marriage and as a mother.

Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!

Ain’t no sunshine in interventions, rehab, depression and therapy, which is what followed her “Brady” years. But in 1985 McCormick married actor Michael Cummings, and her life started to turn around. She credits his love and support, plus that of her “Brady Bunch” family, with helping her get sober.

During her troubled times, McCormick got an occasional acting role but nothing substantial. Post-recovery she became the winner on VH1’s own version of dysfunction, “Celebrity Fit Club.” More recently she starred on two other reality series, “Gone Country” and the bizarre “Outsider’s Inn.”

Related: Carrie Fisher’s Drug Rehab – Robin Williams Reflects on Rehab – Piano Man Alcoholism Treatment

Photos via ABC News