Former Celebrity Rehab cast member Kari Ann Peniche is being accused by her estranged husband Justin Williams of exposing their 10-month old son to meth. Williams claims he took the baby for a hair follicle test after noticing behavior from Peniche that suggested she was using again, and the tests came back positive for the drug. He also said that there is specific evidence to suggest the former beauty queen has used within the last two months. "(The baby) has a habit of sucking on Kari Ann's hair and clothes and I became concerned that he could be affected by drug residue," said Williams in legal documents. "I do not want him to continue to be exposed to smoke from meth or to accidentally ingest illegal drugs while with Kari Ann." The court papers are now demanding sole legal and physical custody for the father and asking for Peniche to be banned from any unsupervised contact with the child. Williams also wants Peniche to submit to weekly drug tests and have her visitation rights revoked entirely if she tests positive. Peniche and her attorneys have yet to comment.

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Bath salts—not the stuff you use to make your bathtub smell like lavender—are just as habit-forming as cocaine, according to a new study published in the Behavioral Brain Research journal. The designer drug of the season gnawed its way in to the public consciousness after being falsely blamed for the Miami cannibal attack, and the ever-changing properties of the chemical compound have made it difficult to test. Scientists recently tested the drug's effect on mice using "intracranial self-stimulation" (ICSS)—a method that has been used for decades as a way to look at how drugs activate the reward circuitry in the brain, which can lead to addiction. Researchers trained the mice to run on a wheel and rewarded them by stimulating electrodes that had been implanted in their brains. “If you let them, an animal will work to deliver self-stimulation to the exclusion of everything else—it won't eat, it won't sleep,” says Dr. C.J. Malanga, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. Certain drugs increase the brain's sensitivity to reward stimulation, which in turn makes them work harder to receive the reward. The researchers measured the mice’s wheel-spinning efforts before, during, and after they received doses of cocaine or bath salts, and they found that bath salts had the same reward potency as cocaine. These findings suggest that bath salts, although marketed until recently as a relatively benign "legal high", could be more addictive than people may realize. "All drugs of abuse, regardless of how they act in the brain—heroin, morphine, cocaine amphetamine, alcohol, do the same thing to ICSS, they increase its rewarding value," Malanga said. A ban on bath salts in the US was signed on July 9. 

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• Behavioral, Cognitive Challenges Define Fetal Alcohol Exposure [PsychCentral]
• You Can't End AIDS Unless You End the Drug War [Huffington Post]
• Bath Salts Compared to Cocaine in New Study [redOrbit]
• Racial Differences in Personality Traits that Contribute to Youth Drinking [The Grio]
• Authorities Search for Grandmother, Boyfriend After Toddler Ingests Cocaine [MSNBC]
• Van Sells Weed-Flavored Lollipops Around NYC [Gothamist]
• Jaguars' Blackmon Pleads Guilty to Drunken Driving [ESPN]

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If you‘re sober, or have friends in recovery, chances are that you have already heard of My 12 Step Store: the worlds’ hippest recovery book and gift store. Located in the heart of West Hollywood, we specialize in recovery gifts for all 12-step programs. Whether it’s addiction to alcohol, drugs, sex, love, food or co-dependency, we can ship gifts all over the world for you.

Here is where you'll find meeting chips, medallions and jewelry for anyone in recovery, prayer bookmarks as well as "One F*cking Day at a Time" T-shirts and "You’re a F*cking Miracle" greeting cards—and of course the ever-famous "Lindsay Lohan" sober women's underwear!

Legendary rock star Steven Tyler stopped in on his way to perform at the Hollywood Bowl one time and designed a T-shirt that's become a signature postcard of the store: “One Day At A Time.” Other celebrities and shoppers who can be seen visiting the store range from Russell Brand, Gwen Stefani, Jamie Lee Curtis and David Arquette to Steve-O from Jackass.

Whether you are famous or infamous, we offer ways to make recovery real and exciting. Anyone’s dreams can be become broken. As our 24-hour lit sign says: “YOU ARE NOT ALONE.”

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The members of Mötley Crüe are almost as famous for their wild antics as they are for their music—but even "the World's Most Notorious Rock Band" may be sobering up these days. Mick Mars, the group's 61-year-old guitar player, says he, like bassist Nikki Sixx before him, gave up partying so he can continue playing. "I don't smoke. I don't drink. I don't have many vices, except playing my guitar too much," he says. "I guess I'm kind of a boring guy these days. But that's how I'm gonna keep going with Mötley Crüe as long as I can." The heavy metal band, hailing from Los Angeles, has sold more than 80 million album copies worldwide, including 25 million in the US. But various of its members have struggled with alcoholism and addictions to drugs such as cocaine and heroin, and Mars says he battled a prescription drug addiction in addition to a bad booze habit. But now, "there's one thing that's really different for me...being sober," he says. Fans may wonder how the Crüe will change with a sober guitarist in their midst, but Mars says things will only improve. "It's really helped. The playing is better. The songs are better," he says. "There are some people who drink their whole lives. But thankfully, I was just like, 'Ah, I'm over this shit. Over the drug thing. Over the booze thing. Over this other thing.' It's great to be clear-headed, instead of just sitting around going, 'Huh?' like a dummy." One thing, at least, has not changed: "I'm still no gentleman," he says. "I'm still as big an asshole as ever. Lewd and aggressive."

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Even those who manufacture the machines are not immune to the siren song of technological "devices." In Silicon Valley, device addiction is becoming a concern among employers at some of the world's biggest tech companies. Despite the fact that most of the companies in the area profit from people spending more time online, many tech executives are beginning to examine their role in the increasing problem of technology dependence and its potentially harmful impact on productivity and personal interactions. “We’re done with this honeymoon phase and now we’re in this phase that says, ‘Wow, what have we done?’” says Soren Gordhamer, who organizes Wisdom 2.0, an annual conference he started in 2010 about the pursuit of balance in the digital age. “It doesn’t mean what we’ve done is bad. There’s no blame. But there is a turning of the page.”

"Internet use disorder" will be included in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders next year, but it has yet to be deemed an official condition. Some companies are beginning to take action to prevent "device addiction" among their own employees. Google, for example, started a company-wide “mindfulness” movement to teach employees self-awareness and to improve their ability to focus. Many employees aren't even aware that the devices they use have addictive properties. “It’s this basic cultural recognition that people have a pathological relationship with their devices,” says Kelly McGonigal, a psychologist who lectures about the science of self-control at the Stanford School of Medicine. “People feel not just addicted, but trapped.” McGonigal also believes that interactive gadgets could create a persistent sense of emergency by setting off stress systems in the brain. However, some higher-ups in Silicon Valley companies claim there's very little they can do to prevent the issue. “The responsibility we have is to put the most powerful capability into the world,” says Scott Kriens, chairman of Juniper Networks. “We do it with eyes wide open that some harm will be done. Someone might say, ‘Why not do so in a way that causes no harm?’ That’s naïve. The alternative is to put less powerful capability in people’s hands and that’s a bad trade-off.”

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