Wellness & Well-being Highlights December 26

Wellness & Well-being Highlights

for the

Week of December 18, 2022

This week’s edition of our Worker Wellness & Well-being blog consists of topics from the homelessness crisis in the USA to the lowering of life expectancy in the USA to, once again, the impact of fentanyl on our society. Today, I wish to highlight the articles pertaining to how synthetic drugs (i.e., fentanyl and meth) are being weaponized by countries like China and Mexico to destroy communities from within. This blog has provided dozens of articles over the past year indicating how our loved ones are dying all around us…this scourge knows no boundaries! To this end, it is important to keep in mind that we reap what we sow. Our free market economy way of life continues to push manufacturers to seek lower costs and higher earnings. Often these producers must move production overseas in order to cut labor costs, etc. In turn, as consumers seek cheaper goods, we gut the backbone of our cities and towns: good paying jobs with benefits. Some experts suggest that China is exacting revenge for the Opium Wars (over 100 years ago) by leveraging the new idleness in these (rural) locales. America must reframe the concepts of addiction and recovery if we are to stem the tide of overdose deaths in this country!

Sources:

https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-chinese-ambassador-warns-sanctions-hurt-fight-against-fentanyl-flow-us-1747680

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dmgBg7nw94

The homelessness crisis

2022 Women’s Health Survey

Suicide / Warning signs

Grief & Holidays

Loneliness & holidays

Managing Anxiety?

Gambling / Teens / College

Screening for anxiety <66

US life expectancy (1)

US life expectancy (2)

MH Journey

MH: More Americans seek help

Teens & MH

Candy & Addiction

Trauma & US Intelligence

Impact of pandemic on rural HC workers

Frats & Narcan

STL Co Opioids Settlement

Snap Chat & Fentanyl sales

Brief history of US plunge into opioids

US fentanyl deaths

Fentanyl seizure’s potential impact

Mexican cartels & Fentanyl

The shift from plant-based drugs to synthetic drugs

DEA’s fentanyl failure

Fentanyl’s flow from China to Mexico to USA

Testing for fentanyl

Fentanyl: How media misguides public

US Attorney General & Powder/Crack Cocaine

Vets / Pain / Acupuncture

Healing power of forgiveness

Plugging the plug on social media

Student loan: Update

Concussions & Q Collar: Real or Myth?

Child labor & Hyundai supplier

2022 & Union organizing

Upcoming Webinar:

Suicide Awareness & Prevention

NOTE: The links provided above are for informational purposes only. None of these serve as a substitute for medical advice one should obtain from his/her own primary care physician and/or mental health professional. Please contact johngaal@moaflcio.org with related questions or comments.