Author: CMPR
Barle’s Story by Else Poulsen
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“Her fur was a mess. The long guard hairs were broken or missing, the undercoat was wooly and matted, and she had bald spots revealing flaky, black skin. Bärle’s facial muscles had atrophied, giving her a sunken, weary appearance befitting an abused, neglected bear. She looked older than her nineteen years—not unusual for a mistreated animal—yet a cublike innocence, a simple sweetness, and, oddly enough, trust shone through her eyes and expressions.”
–from BÄRLE’S STORY
In 2001, the Mexican Suarez Brothers Circus came to Puerto Rico amid protests from organizations like PeTA and the USDA, who argued that bringing in seven polar bears to perform in tropical weather was potentially life-threatening and inhumane. One of the original seven polar bears was rescued at gunpoint and flown to the US. The rest were saved in 2002 by the US Fish and Wildlife Service after the circus, prevented from traveling by the US government, abandoned the bears with little food and water.
The Detroit Zoo was fortunate to welcome one of the rescued bears, a friendly adult female named Bärle. In a new memoir, BÄRLE’S STORY: One Polar Bear’s Amazing Recovery from Life as a Circus Act (Greystone Books; June 2014; $17.95), animal behavior specialist Else Poulsen shares Bärle’s struggles and triumphs as she mentally and physically recovers from the trauma she suffered as human entertainment.
Born in the Canadian arctic in 1980s, Bärle’s existence is virtually unknown until her arrival at the Suarez Brothers Circus. It is speculated that her mother was killed and Bärle was sold as a cub by poachers to a German contractor, who then sold her to the circus. She was held in a small, unclean cage with scarce room to lie down; given days-old lettuce and dog food; and was consistently battered while performing tricks for circus-goers in the extreme Caribbean heat. Polar bears can easily overheat and die. Wild bears in the arctic tundra can perish if the temperature is above -4°F, and will dive into the frigid water to cool off.
Along with Bärle’s recovery process at the Detroit Zoo, where she became accustomed to living with other polar bears and slowly forget her circus act past, Poulsen gives readers well-researched details on the history of the polar bear, a species that has been on this planet for almost 5 million years. She passionately talks about the problems of poaching and illegal trade of polar bear pelts across the world in locales such as China, where a Canadian polar bear pelt can sell for $80,000.
BÄRLE’S STORY is a moving portrait of a remarkable bear and Poulsen’s tireless efforts to help her rediscover her true polar bear ways. Poulsen also imparts an urgent call to action for people to learn about the arctic, climate change, animal welfare, and conservation.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Else Poulsen is an award-winning animal behavior specialist with a concentration on the behavior of captive bears, and has worked in Detroit and Calgary as a zookeeper and manager. Since 2007, Poulsen has been the president and co-founder of the Bear Care Group, an international non-profit organization that creates communication, cooperation and education among international bear care professionals. She has worked with the Bear Care Group all over the world, including Detroit, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, China, and Mexico as a consultant for zoos, sanctuaries, and bear rehabilitation facilities
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There is No End to This Slope by Richard Fulco
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“Richard Fulco’s THERE IS NO END TO THIS SLOPE is a brave novel. Fulco’s first-person protagonist, John Lenza, born Gianni, is an exposed nerve, a raw reminder of the fears, frustrations, and neuroses from which we all suffer at times when confronting our deepest truths. Truths, it must be said, that Fulco accesses with brutal honesty. With a deft touch, he explores themes of love, loss, self-recrimination, high theatre, rock & roll, mental exhaustion, and finally, personal détente. Any writer willing to avail his characters to such scrutiny, for all their strengths and weaknesses, is deserving of praise.”
—Peter Melman, author of Landsman
“Groucho Marx is famous for saying he wouldn’t belong to a club that would have him for a member. John Lenza, the hero of Fulco’s exhilarating novel, ups the ante and wouldn’t belong to any club no matter who they accept. With dialogue as crisp as a caramel apple, imagery of an-ever evolving Brooklyn, and terrific references to theatre, literature, and rock ‘n’ roll, THERE IS NO END TO THIS SLOPE craftily whips together elements of romantic comedy with the parts of life that aren’t so easily fixed. THERE IS NO END TO THIS SLOPE goes to show that not all endings bring a new beginning.”
—Richard Melo, author of Happy Talk and Jokerman 8
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He writes letters to a dead girl—John Lenza, an aspiring writer from Brooklyn, New York, hasn’t written a novel, a play, or any other potentially publishable project. His obsession with his part in the death of his best friend Stephanie in high school, is a metaphorical brick wall—blocking him from a fulfilling life. Lenza’s struggles to reconcile his guilt from the past and to enjoy the present sets the tone for Brooklyn native and playwright Richard Fulco’s emotionally charged debut THERE IS NO END TO THIS SLOPE (Wampus Multimedia; March 18, 2014; $XX).
By day, John Lenza sells textbooks to New York City schools. Like a 21st century Willy Loman, Lenza drifts, letting things happen to him rather than figuring out what he really wants from his work-life and his relationships. At Cobble Hill High School he meets his future wife Emma Rue, an impulsive alcoholic. At a “writerly” coffee shop near his new digs in Park Slope he meets Teeny, an overweight gay man, who mines Lenza’s life for his own material. Richard, a homeless man becomes a voice of reason and a roommate, while Pete the landlord worries mostly about whether Lenza is truly taking special care of those beautiful wood floors in the apartment and, when Lenza loses his job, if the rent will be paid.
At one point in THERE IS NO END TO THIS SLOPE John Lenza describes himself as intelligent, perhaps too intelligent to do anything. For him and many of the characters in Fulco’s novel it is hard to find a way to navigate the day-to-day while nurturing a sensitive and creative spirit. Does John Lenza deserve to be tortured by something that happened so many years ago? Or is the event really a safety net that he allows to prevent him from finding out what his true creative potential might be?
Through deeply wrought characters and scenes that mirror the angst everyone faces as life happens and years pass, Fulco touches on a fundamental issue that drives great artists to self-destruct. Ironically when Lenza has wrung all he can out of his pained self, it may be the mundane day-to-day that ultimately saves him.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Richard Fulco received an MFA in Playwriting from Brooklyn College. His plays have either been presented or developed at The New York International Fringe Festival, The Playwrights’ Center, The Flea, Here Arts Center, Chicago Dramatists and the Dramatists Guild. His stories and reviews have appeared in The Brooklyn Rail, Failbetter, Front Porch, Bound Off, The Rusty Toque, Full of Crow, Nth Position, and the Daily Vault. He is the founder of the online music magazine Riffraf. There Is No End to This Slope is his first novel.
Painkillers, Heroin, and the Road to Sanity by Joani Gammill
PAINKILLERS, HEROIN, AND THE ROAD TO SANITY
Real Solutions for Long-Term Recovery from Opiate Addiction
By Joani Gammill
Author of The Interventionist
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the National Institutes of Health, the total number of prescriptions for opiate pain relievers in the United States jumped from 76 million in 1991 to 210 million in 2010. And Americans are more likely to die from an overdose of medication than to die on the highway. These astounding facts along with real-life solutions to the nation’s painkiller abuse epidemic can be found in the first book ever to address this problem from the inside out:
PAINKILLERS, HEROIN, AND THE ROAD TO SANITY: Real Solutions for Long-Term Recovery from Opiate Addiction (Hazelden; May 2014; $14.95; Original Trade Paperback) by Joani Gammill, author of The Interventionist. Joani Gammill, a recovering alcoholic, was struggling with a back injury and the pain it caused. After surgery, she was prescribed a cornucopia of opiate-based drugs including Oxycontin, which her doctor said was a nonaddictive painkiller used especially for recovering addicts (information that came straight from the drug company). She got hooked and ten years later, with the help of Dr. Phil, who performed and televised her intervention, Gammill found sobriety again, this time from alcohol and opiates. She has gone on to a successful career as a professional interventionist who helps everyone from celebrities to executives to moms get into treatment.
Through her work as well as her own experiences, Gammill is highly educated on the subject of painkillers, and in PAINKILLERS, HEROIN, AND THE ROAD TO SANITY she shares some eye-opening facts:
• Americans make up 5 percent of the world population, yet we consume over 90 percent of the opiates worldwide.
• According to Erin Marie Daly of the blog Oxy Watchdog, “Florida’s crackdown on pill mills has dried up the supply of pills to much of the East Coast, with the unintended consequence of fueling heroin abuse.”
• Ocean County, New Jersey, supplies much of the heroin to the East Coast due to its centralized location near Philadelphia and New York City, as well as its extensive coastline and thriving tourist business, which make it easy for drug dealers to hide.
• Women who have experienced sexual abuse and suffer from PTSD as a result are most likely to develop an addiction to opiates and cocaine.
• Treatment for opiate addictions typically requires more than one twenty-eight-day stay in a treatment center.
• The rate of relapse from opiate addiction is among the highest when compared to other addictive substances.
Gammill eloquently describes the problems that prevent doctors and the authorities from stopping the abuse. She also recommends some solutions that include proper use of antidepressants and other nonopioid-based drugs to control pain. For people who have crossed the line into addiction she suggests intervention; residential treatment; Twelve Step and cognitive-behavioral therapy programs; healthcare system overhauls that make it possible for people with and without financial means to get help; and education. In fact, with the right curriculum, education may be the most important in that it is a preventative measure that can begin as early as elementary school.
Understanding what opiate addiction is as well as turning to alternative therapies for pain relief in the first place can help prevent a problem that is so much harder to fix after the brain becomes hardwired to crave opiate medications and heroin. PAINKILLERS, HEROIN, AND THE ROAD TO SANITY will show why and how this problem has ballooned and how if we address it on several levels—federal and judicial, medical, and individual—we will change the statistics and save thousands of lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Joani Gammill, RN, has appeared regularly on Dr. Phil, where she has led interventions that have inspired millions of viewers. Before her career as an interventionist, she worked as a registered nurse in medical facilities, including a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. She is also the author of The Interventionist (Hazelden, 2011).
Rein in Your Brain by Cynthia Moreno Tuohy
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Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, BSW, NCAC II, became a ward of the state when she was only eight months old. Her parents, in their late teens and unable to control their destructive behaviors, were unfit for child rearing. Moved from one foster or group home to another, Tuohy learned how to protect herself by not trusting anyone; sabotaging relationships; and indulging in petty theft and substances for comfort. Through her addiction, life experiences, and eventual recovery, she gained incredible insight to the way the addicted brain is programmed, leading her to develop and apply techniques that have proven to help those in recovery end their compulsive behaviors, making her one of the leading experts in the field today. Tuohy is the director of the National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC). Her professional role and her life experiences provide an effective backdrop for the thought-provoking analysis, insight, and advice she offers others in her new book entitled REIN IN YOUR BRAIN: From Impulsivity to Thoughtful Living in Recovery (Hazelden Publishing; May 2014; $14.95; Original Trade Paperback/eBook), written with Emmy Award-winning science journalist Victoria Costello.
Written for people working hard on their recovery, REIN IN YOUR BRAIN helps readers end compulsive behaviors while fostering a more thoughtful lifestyle that ensures long-term emotional sobriety. She focuses on the brain, an organ that we know so much more about today than in years past. She clearly explains the limbic system, which is the center of the fight-or-flight responses that often result in impulsive acts commonly associated with people struggling with addiction. She maintains that people who were raised in unstable environments, especially where role models were unable to control their own impulsive behaviors, may find it challenging to live thought-directed lives and instead give in to instant gratification. They become victims of their own deficient limbic brains, which steer them into inappropriate situations and actions as a way of coping.
In REIN IN YOUR BRAIN, Tuohy explains how the brain functions and why. Then she presents ten proven ways people in recovery can change or better manage their thoughts and actions. Some examples are as follows:
- Give up control
- Stand still in the moment
- Don’t assume intent
- Create a blameless relationship with yourself
- Take responsibility for self-fulfilling prophecies
With individual chapters on each suggestion, each filled with true stories from Tuohy’s life as well as the lives of patients she has helped in her practice, REIN IN YOUR BRAIN is an essential handbook for tackling the “triggers” that can propel a sober person to take potentially unhealthy actions. Readers will, perhaps for the first time in their lives, comprehend that the unhealthy coping mechanisms they can’t seem to control were hardwired during childhood. They will learn how their brain’s physiology has contributed to their problems, as well as how they can “rewire” the brain to realize the true version of themselves, the one that has been there all along, hiding behind a lifetime of “limbic” motivated, negative habits.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, NCAC II, CCDC II, SAP, is the executive director of the National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors.
Victoria Costello is an Emmy Award-winning science journalist, known for publishing and advocacy work in mental health and wellness.
ABOUT HAZELDEN:
Hazelden Publishing is part of the Hazelden Foundation, a national nonprofit organization founded in 1949 that helps people reclaim their lives from the disease of addiction. With over 60 years of knowledge and experience, Hazelden offers a comprehensive approach to addiction that addresses the full range of patient, family, and professional needs, including treatment and continuing care for youths and adults, research, higher education, public education and advocacy, and publishing. Hazelden has facilities in Minnesota, Oregon, Illinois, Florida, and New York
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