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An Austin, Texas man is facing felony assault charges after a drunk driving incident on Robert E. Lee Road on Friday, November 25th. Guillermo Leon, the 38 year old man responsible for the incident, is said to have been driving under the influence of alcohol at about 7:30 p.m. when he struck his girlfriend with his white Chevy truck.

According to a court affidavit, Leon was driving drunk to collect payment for a job he’d completed. His girlfriend was in the truck and she told him she would take over driving since he appeared intoxicated. Leon refused, became angry, and punched his girlfriend in the face.

The woman immediately exited the vehicle and began walking, but Leon would not leave her alone. He approached in the truck and struck her in the back with the truck’s side mirror. The mirror was broken, and the woman suffered injuries, the extent of which is unknown.

After striking the woman in the back with the truck, Leon attempted to drag her back into the vehicle. Neighbors intervened, and the woman was treated by emergency medical technicians. Leon drove away.

Police found Leon and his truck within hours; the man was arrested for vehicular battery.

When alcohol abuse becomes this severe, it is hoped that the abuser may find the help he or she needs. At Vista Taos, alcohol abuse can be treated either before or after actions escalate to such a severe level. Hopefully, Leon may find the alcohol abuse treatment necessary. If you or a family member needs this assistance as well, the caring staff at Vista Taos Renewal Center in New Mexico can help you reclaim your life.

Saying goodbye to 2011 with too much to drink in the Austin Texas area wasn’t such a good idea, as police in the area kept with their tradition of their “no refusal” drinking and driving weekend. Anyone suspected of operating a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol that refuses the breathalyzer gets their blood drawn when they arrive at the jail. This was also done last New Year’s and successfully removed 24 drunk drivers from the road.

This refusal law in Austin is supposed to be a deterrent to drunk driving. In fact, San Antonio practices it every day; something Austin may be doing sooner than later. Drunk driving can cause a lot of problems when the law gets involved. You’ll be lucky to evade any jail time and only get sentenced to an alcohol treatment facility. But beyond that, if no damage was done during the arrest, you will still have a large pile of fines and legal fees; it’s just not worth the risk. Make plans ahead of time to get home safely.

Vista Taos is an alcohol rehab facility located in New Mexico, but caters to many people from Texas. If you or a loved one has a problem with alcohol and could benefit from treatment before any serious legal issues arise, a counselor is available 24 hours a day to talk to you about the intake process. There is no shame in wanting to get help for an addiction, there is only shame when you let it destroy your life and affect your relationships.

Please get the help you need from an alcohol rehab facility before it’s too late. Alcohol addiction is a disease and needs treatment from experts in the substance abuse field. Vista Taos Renewal Center is ready to help you take the first step to sobriety.

At the end of 2011 a number of breakthroughs have occurred in the treatment of addiction. 

2011 saw the definition that addiction is a medical disease – a multi-decade effort made irrefutable by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) in conjunction with every other branch of medical science. There has been an emergence of research in 2011 underscoring the profound poisonous effects of ‘bath salts,’ ‘spice’, essentially 2 designer substances now illegal in all countries in Europe as well as the United States.

The most profound re-discovery is that there is no one cure for addiction – it’s clearly a very complex disease affecting the human body and brain in ways yet to be discovered.  The diverse branches of medical science will continue to discover and uncover the many ways that mood altering substances bombard the brain and body with toxicity as well as reveal a multitude of new ways we can heal from addiction.

Research was introduced confirming that children with high IQs are more likely to become addicted to illicit substances. This substantiates the belief among substance abuse specialists that addicts are typically bright, creative and exceptionally talented individuals.

The correlation between underweight and overweight teenagers and illicit drug use is confirmed.  Again, as the result of so much advertising and societal pressure we are given unhealthy messages about our body types, bizarre messages about what constitutes healthy food and very sparse information on preventing food and eating as mood altering behaviors for children, adolescents and adults.  However, there have been efforts by schools to limit – or even better eliminate – high sugar and high fat foods to students. 

Best Practices among addiction treatment programs now cite an increasing array of interventions.  While there is no one best path, there is a growing movement toward providing smaller scale treatment communities and more training and professionalism for practitioners.  2011 saw repeated research that the following therapies help addicts quit and stay quit: cognitive behavior approaches such as ‘Mentalizing’ and ‘DBT;’ holistic practices such as nutrition supplements like amino acid therapy, Yoga as virtually parallel in efficacy as SSRIs in treating depression and experiential therapy such as equine therapy and challenge courses continue to be extraordinarily insightful for people in addiction treatment.

2012 will be another year with more discoveries on treating addiction.  The breakthroughs in the neurochemistry of addiction have been exponential during the past decade and will continue as we learn more about the more subtle complexities of how our brains work.  More negative myths about addiction will be dispelled such as categorizing addiction as a moral or simply genetic dysfunction.  Strategies on healing the families and those affected by the addict will emerge as well as refining techniques already in practice.

In summation, it is clear that addiction treatment has advanced tremendously and will continue to progress through this decade.

Tragically, a man driving drunk killed his entire family on Wednesday, November 9, in Valencia County, New Mexico. Possibly, and more tragically, the father will not release the remains of the children to their grandmother for burial.

James Woolbert was driving drunk with the mother and the two children as passengers on Wednesday when he crashed the car in Meadowlake. The children were not in the car seats, and they were thrown from the vehicle. They were 2 years old and 4 years old. The mother, Dawn, also suffered fatal injuries.  

The children’s grandmother, Pauline Jaramillo, has requested the remains of the children be released to her for burial, but Woolbert has been uncooperative with her request. Jaramillo, who helped raise the children, is heart stricken and has sought the assistance of a lawyer in the matter.

To complicate matters, Woolbert is currently recovering from his own injuries at the University of New Mexico Hospital. As soon as he has recovered, he will be arrested and await trial. The matter of the releasing the remains may be drawn out even more for these reasons.

Sadly, this tragedy may end in more tragedy, with the burial delayed and the father sentenced to prison. On a positive note, Woolbert may receive the alcohol rehabilitation he needs to prevent future lives from being lost.

While alcohol rehabilitation often takes place in rehabilitation centers like Vista Taos Renewal Center in New Mexico, Woolbert may receive his treatment while in prison. Jail is never the ideal environment for detoxification from drugs or alcohol, as the reoccurrence rate is high. Before you or someone you love is behind bars, get to an alcohol addiction center and seek proper treatment, outside of prison walls.

Not one, but three healthy young adults experienced heart attacks in the Dallas Texas area after smoking the synthetic marijuana: K2/Spice. Doctors are curious if there was something particularly dangerous in that specific batch, though all synthetic drugs are showing a high rate of illnesses associated with using them. These drugs are legal to purchase, but the FDA has been working hard to stop the production of these cannaboids. It seems as soon as one is outlawed, the makers manufacture another one to take its place.

Emergency rooms all over the United States have been reporting side-effects from these products, including nausea, convulsions, elevated blood pressure and many more. Now they can add heart attacks to the already long list of health issues associated with synthetic marijuana. Thankfully, the three young men who suffered the heart attacks in the Dallas area are healthy, and are lucky the heart attack didn’t bring about any other problems; they’ve all made a full recovery.

Doctors are warning people to stay away from these drugs and if needed, seek help for addiction at a drug treatment center. Spice and K2 may seem appealing because they are able to be obtained easily, cheaply and won’t show up on common drug screening tests, but the side-effects are not worth the risk. Though no reports link K2 to deaths in Texas, there have been reports in other parts of the country, such as Iowa.

Vista Taos Treatment Center is located in New Mexico, and able to assist those in the Dallas Texas community who need help with substance abuse. Let these stories be a warning to you; addiction does not end well for those who do not hurry and get on the right path to wellness. Please let Vista Taos show you the path to sobriety.