June 11 2012

The Rise Of The Zombie Nation: Why “Bath Salts” Pose More Threat To Society Than Any Other Street Drug

The news of a man eating another man’s face off and growling as he had human flesh hanging from his teeth was stomach-churning enough as a on-off isolated incident.

But in the past two weeks, more and more utterly atrocious situations which resemble the Miami incident have come to light.

The latest of which, saw a homeless man reportedly high on “bath salts”, attempting to bite off a police officer’s hand after he was arrested for erratic behavior at a Miami fast food restaurant.

The zombie-like incident took place only two weeks after another bizarre attack in the area, in which Rudy Eugene, 31, attacked homeless man Ronald Poppo, 65, by eating off his face.

And, according to Richard Taite, President and CEO of Cliffside Malibu,this new drug currently poses the biggest threat to society, more so than any other street drug because it is relatively inexpensive and easily accessible.

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June 6, 2012

Addiction expert comments on Scout Willis’ underage drinking bust

The daughter of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore, Scout Willis, was busted in New York for possessing a fake ID and drinking underage in public.

Willis is due back in court on July 31 after being charged with two misdemeanors Tuesday.

She allegedly drank a beer and then handed cops a fake ID in New York’s Union Square on Monday evening, according to People magazine.

Willis, 20, rejected the state’s offer to plead guilty to the charges as they stand now because she would have a permanent criminal record, which infuriates her attorney.

“It would be outrageous to mar a person that’s clearly going places – clearly seeking to have a career … with a criminal record,” her attorney, Stacey Richman, tells People magazine. “The goal is clearly a non-criminal offer.”

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June 4, 2012

Expert Opinion: Why The Gruesome “Miami Cannibal” Crime Could Just Be One Of Many We See

It’s a crime that shocked the world: A man not just eating a man’s flesh, but his entire face off. It’s one that the imagery alone has traumatized many (including us) as we try to come to grips at how a human being could possibly even contemplate doing such a despicable and throughly horrifying thing.

With various reports claiming that Randy Eugene was under the influence of a new drug called “bath salts”, we consulted Richard Taite, President and CEO of Cliffside Malibu, who informed us that the usage of this street drug is on the rise…. and rise.

And, as we have seen, the consequences of taking it are dire, stomach-churning and utterly beyond comprehension.

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June 1, 2012

Cliffside Malibu on Celebzter

Richard Taite discusses Amanda Bynes’s recent DUI accusations.

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June 1, 2012

Cliffside Malibu on Monsters and Critics

Richard Taite discusses the dangers of the street drug known as “bath salts” on Monsters and Critics.

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May 23, 2012

Expert Opinion: Nick Stahl Needs To “Get To The Root Issues Of His Addiction” If He Ever Wants To Get Clean

He seemingly vanished, leaving his wife fraught with worry over his wellbeing. So much so, in fact, that Rose Stahl filed a missing person’s report, stating she hadn’t seen nor heard from her husband Nick since May 9.

However, it emerged over the weekend that the Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines star had checked into a 30-day rehab program at an undisclosed facility to overcome the worst addiction cycle of his life.

Upon hearing the news, Rose, who has a daughter with Stahl, told People. “Now that he is safe, it’s time to focus back on healing. gotta lotta hope…’How dark it is before the dawn.’ I’ve chanted that a lot in my head. I find comfort in it.”

She also wrote about her anguish over his disappearance and his ongoing addiction problems.

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May 21, 2012

Boozing Will Turn Rihanna into “the Next Whitney Houston,” Friends Fear

Rihanna is one of the busiest stars at the moment, but she might soon have to make time in her tight schedule for rehab. She’s also been drinking too much and might be facing liver damage, says a new report.

Right after the MET Gala this year, Rihanna was hospitalized for dehydration and exhaustion, but the latest print issue of The Enquirer (story via CB) claims her problems were of a different nature: she’d been boozing it up.

Citing unnamed but admittedly reliable sources, the tab writes that, for the past several years, Rihanna has been drinking way too much and it’s finally getting out of control.

Her friends and her family are worried that she might do some irremediable damage to her liver and are urging her to go to rehab before it’s not too late.

“Rihanna is spiraling out of control and is headed for an early grave,”one spy says for the tab.

She started drinking when she was just a teen and, today, she parties night after night away, as if there was no tomorrow.

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May 7, 20121

Sleeping Without The Pills

At first I was curious why Mary, a lovely lady in her early 60s, had come to see me. She described her problem as “being sleepy all the time.” As an internist practicing addiction medicine for the past 24 years, I have become sensitive to the significance of sleep disturbances and what they might represent (substance abuse) as well as the importance of a good night’s sleep to eliminate anxiety.

After interviewing her, my concern was justified: Mary had addictive disease as well. She was abusing Ambien, a prescription sedative for the short-term treatment of insomnia. She didn’t remember exactly when she first began taking it, but recalls why: her 401k had taken a huge hit at the outset of the Wall Street crisis several years ago. She suspected she had “a problem” when she failed to recall a very long and detailed phone conversation with her sister about their upcoming vacation together.

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May 3, 2012

Re-Examining Whitney Houston’s Battles With Substance Abuse In Light Of Bobby Brown’s ‘Today’ Interview

Yesterday, we wrote in detail about Bobby Brown’s first interview since the death of his ex-wife Whitney Houston.

The interview aired this morning on ‘Today’, with Bobby telling Matt Lauer that he wasn’t to blame for the singer’s early demise, and that he didn’t get her hooked on drugs.

When Matt asked him if Whitney was the victim and if he was behind her drug use, Bobby said: “No, that’s not true. I didn’t get high before I met Whitney. No, I- I — I smoked weed, I drank the beer, but no, I wasn’t the one that got Whitney on drugs at all.”

And he added that Whitney was dabbling in illegal substances “way, way before,” they got together.

We spoke to Richard Taite, President and CEO of Cliffside Malibu, to get his perspective on Bobby’s claims, and why, after several trips to rehab, Whitney still continued to dabble in illegal drugs.

Here’s out interview with him…

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May 2, 2012

Addiction expert weighs in on surge in babies born with drug issues

A new study published today in JAMA  (Journal of American Medical Assoc.) reveals that the number of babies addicted to drugs – and who must experience withdrawal – tripled in the last decade.

USAToday.com reports that physician-prescribed painkillers like Oxycotin and Vicodin are largely responsible.

“Our country is being flooded by a tidal wave of painkillers being prescribed by well-meaning but essentially clueless physicians who don’t think about where these pills end up down the pipeline,” says Robert Waldman, M.D., an addictionmedicine specialist with 25 years experience and a member of the detox team at famed Cliffside Malibu treatment center in Los Angeles (http://www.cliffsidemalibu.com/)  “The tragedy of this study is that these infantaddictions could have been largely prevented if we had a better control on how prescription painkillers are distributed.”

In fact, more than 15 million people in the United States are abusing prescription drugs, which is more than the combined number of people abusing cocaine, hallucinogens, inhalants, and heroin. Accidental deaths associated with prescription drug abuse outnumber overdose deaths from heroin and cocaine combined. (source: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University)

Dr. Waldman adds, “Prescription pills and pregnancy have an especially insidious relationship.  Because they’re doctor-prescribed, painkillers lull the user into thinking that they must be safe. Based on my own experience in emergency room critical care, I think most of the mothers identified in the study are average working women whom you’re more likely find living next door to you than encounter in some dark alley.”

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Original Article

April 26, 2012

Halle Berry and Daniel Craig made it from the streets to stardom, but not all stories have Hollywood endings

With big dreams of becoming a famous actor, a 20-year-old struggling male model moved to Hollywood from his small Midwest hometown in 2005. Without a penny to his name, and unable to find work, he was soon evicted from his L.A. apartment, and found himself one of Hollywood’s thousands of homeless.

“I don’t have wealthy parents, and they couldn’t help me. Either I sleep on the streets or I move home. Amazing what you will do to be an actor,” he told FOX411.com’s Pop Tarts column. “The best place was sleeping at the 7-11 in Hollywood until I figured out a way to get on my feet. I still made auditions, and no one had any clue I was homeless. It was hard to find places to clean up, but I got by.”

After six months on the streets, he got his big break: a role in an independent film. Making more friends and contacts in the industry, he also managed to find a couch to sleep on, and continued to score more work. Today, the actor boasts credits including a successful network sitcom and a role in one of the biggest super hero film franchises in history.

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April 24, 2012

Pat Robertson backs legal marijuana. Will other conservatives follow?

“Clearly he is ill-informed about the drug war,” says Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation. She says in 1978, 58 percent of high school seniors had used an illicit drug in the past year, compared with 28 percent in 1992 – more than a 50 percent drop.

The numbers have crept back up to 40 percent, a trend she attributes both to the 16 states andWashington, D.C., which have legalized the medical use of marijuana, as well as the big push in Californialast fall to legalize recreational use throughProposition 19.

But she adds, “We are still well below the 1978 usage rate, hardly a complete failure.”

For Paul Armentano, deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, the recent trends relate to a bigger picture. Polls have been shifting for three decades, showing that voters of all ages and both parties support regulating cannabis like alcohol, he says. At least 70 percent of Americans support legalizing medical marijuana, he says.

“When a person like Pat Robertson realizes that the immorality of jailing nonviolent marijuana users, keeping medicine away from the sick, and contributing to murder and mayhem in Latin America is far, far worse that the supposed immorality of using marijuana, we have reached a positive turning point in the debate,” adds Morgan Fox of the Marijuana Policy Project in an e-mail. “We are starting to see more people’s moral judgments aligning themselves with the realities of marijuana prohibition.”

Critics, however, worry that Robertson’s comments only hurt antidrug efforts.

“If you work and live in the world of addiction, a world where you have your sleeves rolled up and are dealing with the true impact that drugs have on society, you just may have something to say to people like Pat Robertson, who so cavalierly come out with a statement like this,” says Richard Taite, founder of Cliffside Malibu, an addiction treatment center, in an e-mail.

Adds Robert DuPont, president of the Institute for Behavior and Health: “I think he’s acting out of his sense of compassion and thinks he is being reasonable, but that he is drinking the Kool-Aid of the pro-marijuana forces.”

Recently, Robertson said that God could have stopped the tornadoes that swept the Midwest if more people had been praying. He also said in December that homosexual people can “un-acquire” the lifestyle.

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Original Article

April 24, 2012

Lifestyles of the not so rich and famous: 5 top ways stars lose all their cash

Last week Gary Busey passed a mandatory online financial management course in an attempt to convince a U.S. Bankruptcy court he’ll start sensibly managing his money.

The veteran actor recently filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. But in Hollywood, going broke is just about as as common as a leaked nude photos; just ask Toni Braxton, Larry Wilcox, Vince Neil, Mike Tyson, and Stephen Baldwin, all of whom have recently filed for bankruptcy.

Not to mention Zsa Zsa Gabor‘s husband, who was forced to put their Bel Air mansion on the market last year to pay the ailing star’s medical bills; Wesley Snipes, who was imprisoned for three tax-related misdemeanor convictions; and Nicolas Cage, who lost one of his homes to foreclosure and has been plagued by IRS issues.

So how is it that some of the most well-paid people on the planet can end up with next to nothing? We talked to financial management experts and they ticked off the top five ways rich celebs lose it all (or close to it).

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April 24, 2012

Parents need to step up, says addiction expert on synthetic K2 Pot problem

Synthetic Marijuana (K2) is sending kids to the hospital and confounding their doctors on how this substance is gaining in popularity.

Reuters Health [via Pediatrics] reports that “Three U.S. teenagers ended up in the emergency department with altered mental states and seriously elevated heart rates after smoking synthetic marijuana…”

The culprit that did this was K2, one of the many names for synthetic marijuana.

Despite a ban in the U.S. and the Drug Enforcement Administration wishes to classify them permanently as schedule 1 controlled substances — a category that includes heroin and natural marijuana.

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April 24, 2012

Bobblehead Dad: Keeping Our Teens Safe Over Spring Break

Want a sobering statistic? One-third of all alcohol-related teen deaths and injuries will take place in the months of April, May, June. You know, those celebratory months of Spring Break, prom and graduation. What should be a time of fun and youthful bliss results all too often in unnecessary accidents or deaths.

Want hear something even more sobering? More than a quarter of teens out there say their parents have never spoken to them about alcohol and drug use or safety.

What can a parent do?

“Plenty,” according to Dr. Robert Waldman from the Cliffside Malibu Treatment Center in California. I spoke to him last week to get some direct advice from this father of three.

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April 24, 2012

Going Behind Closed Doors: What Rehab Is REALLY Like

With stars checking in and out of rehab with such frequency, we’ve always wondered what really goes on in rehab and what it is really like. So, today we take you behind closed doors, and give you an insight into what is the day-to-day reality of being in a treatment facility.

We spoked exclusively to Richard Taite, President and CEO of Cliffside Malibu, who gave us a better perspective on life in rehab.

Here is our interview with him….

Celebzter: Cliffside Malibu is described as a 5-star rehab, what are the attributes that make it more elite than other facilities?

Richard: The level of expertise and service provided by the entire staff is impeccable. We have personalized treatment programs that are created for each individual based on their needs, and along with one-on-one therapy, we have available an entire array of integrated holistic treatment therapies such as yoga, personal fitness instruction, chiropractic care, massage, detox foot baths, acupuncture, orthomolecular therapy, brain mapping/neurofeedback, EMDR,  hyperbaric chambers to name a few.

We also provide high-end quality to all the accommodations on our site.  That means, 1000 thread count sheets, down pillows and comforters, flat screen TV’s, DVR’s, turn down service, maid service, chefs that cook to order for all dietary needs, comforts that our clients are used to on a regular basis.

Cliffside Malibu is located on a private, serene estate, with white water ocean views which acts as a natural calming and soothing atmosphere during some intense times in our clients lives.

Celebzter: Can you tell us a little about what the treatment facility offers in terms of specialists?

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April 24, 2012

The Fix Expands Its Rehab Review

The Fix is proud to announce the first expansion of itsRehab Review, with four new drug-and-alcohol treatment centers–and one sober-living facility–added to its growing list of insider-reviewed rehabs.

The new additions are concentrated in Southern California, and include Cliffside Malibu, SOBA Recovery Center,Las Vegas Recovery Center, Newport Academy–The Fix’s first reviewed teen rehab–and Malibu Beach Sober Living’s Beach House. Check out the star ratings and insider perspectives on just what getting clean and sober at one of these places is really like. From roommate drama to mixed martial arts, from distracted doctors to compassionate staff–if you are considering rehab for yourself or a loved one, you’ll want to hear about what it’s like from people who’ve been there.

The Rehab Review will continue to expand going forward–so if you represent a drug-or-alcohol treatment program and want to get your facility reviewed, just email Rehab Review Editor Hunter R. Slaton, and we’ll get the wheels in motion. And finally, thanks to all of the rehab alumni who shared their experiences and impressions withThe Fix, and made these new reviews possible.

Cliffside Malibu:

An up-and-then-downhill drive to a secluded cul-de-sac leads those who need to dry out or clean up–from addictions that run the gamut from straight-up drinking problems to pot, Oxy, heroin, cocaine and crack habits–to Cliffside Malibu, a sun-drenched, white-washed resort of a rehab, surrounded by wild lavender and windswept greenery, and perched on two lush acres overlooking the blue Pacific Ocean.

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April 24, 2012

Expert Opinion: Gerard Should Be Going To Therapy Three Times A Week

He seemed to have a ball, and though the reports seem to be consistent that he wasn’t drinking (picking up girls, is another matter), Gerard Butler’s appearance at the three-day music festival Coachella, did raise some eyebrows… and some concerns surrounding how long his sobriety can last given the tempations around him.

Recently, we did an article about what treatment facilities are really like, and we consulted Richard Taite, President and CEO of Cliffside Malibu, who has some good advice for the recently- rehabbed actor… Oh, and we also asked about Lindsay Lohan while we were at it. Here’s our interview with Richard…

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April 24, 2012

Revealed: Why Society Is Abusing Prescription Drugs More Than Ever

We constantly read about one star after another checking into rehab for a whole host of problems. Often, it’s attributed to “exhaustion” for media press release purposes.

But it’s not just stars who are falling by the wayside. The public as a whole, has started to use prescription drugs as their clutch to get them through whatever curveballs life throws at them.

We spoke to Richard Taite, President and CEO of Cliffside Malibu about the rise and rise of prescription drug abuse in society.Here is our interview with him….

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