During testing, drugs, such as heroin and opium both activate the hypothalamus just as salt does. Scientists are led to believe that such addicting drugs have found a way to seize and take over some instinctive performance and behaviors. While the connection currently only exists in a theory, Australian professors are hoping to make it a proven fact.

Until it can be proven, researchers have turned to mice in hopes of making a theory a reality. Scientists didn’t allow a certain number of mice to eat salt, and instead, fed them a very low sodium diet. Days after the diet change, the mice were taken and analyzed. It was found that the mice who ate the salt had activated the same gene patterns that were changed in those addicted to cocaine and opium. The mice that were allowed to have absolutely no salt were also allowed saline solution as their “fix”. In their results, it was shown that there was a change in the genetic make up of expression, in the brain.

With these new studies, scientist and treatment facilities are also looking at a new way to treat the addiction. Now that they understand the area of the brain where the damage is being done, there might be hope for a new approach to treatment.

A world salt metabolism authority, informed researchers that the cocaine and opium addiction has developed gradually over the past couple thousand years. It was also shared that salt is considered a basic need of survival because the body uses it to circulate tissue and blood fluid’s functionality of the nerves, glandular and muscles. It is also extremely important in reproduction.

With all of the research and findings, it is suggested that addicting drugs, like cocaine and opium, have learned to take control of neural pathways that help to further the appetite for sodium and the satisfaction of sodium intake. The research also found that the saline solution gave the brain the idea that it got its fix, even though it was impossible. Before salt even entered the blood circulation, the brain thought it was repaired. This is because salt is needed for survival and is something that has evolved with evolution.

The Australian research team was comprised of Professor Denton and associates Michael McKinley, Andrew Lawrence, John Drago and Lesley Walker of Florey Neuroscience Institutes and Baker Medical Research Institute. The United States research team consisted of scientists from the University of Texas, as well as Duke University.

The Salt and Heroin Correlation is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Dr. Ronald G. Crystal, lead investigator of the study and chairman and professor of genetic medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, said that the study shows that the vaccine can protect mice against the effects of cocaine, and could be promising in treating addiction in humans.

He added that the vaccine binds to cocaine molecule before the drug reaches the brain, preventing the effects of cocaine. This effect lasted for at least 13 weeks. Dr. Crystal said that while there have been other attempts to develop vaccine against cocaine, this is the first that likely won’t require multiple infusions that can be costly, and that will move quickly to human trials. He added that there is currently no FDA-approved vaccine for addiction treatment.

The vaccine is made up of a chemical that is very structurally similar to cocaine and components of the adenovirus, which is a common cold virus. The immune system is alerted to the virus and learns to view cocaine as an “intruder.” Once the cocaine is recognized, antibodies to the drug are produced and cocaine is prevented from reaching the brain.

Dr. Crystal said that the immune system doesn’t usually identify cocaine as an intruder, so the researchers engineered the response so that it does. For the study, a team of scientists from Weill Cornell Medical College, Cornell University in Ithaca, and the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, found that a strong immune response was generated against the vaccine.

Mice that received the vaccine were much less hyperactive after being given cocaine than those that did not receive the vaccine. This effect was even seen in mice that were given large, repetitive doses of cocaine.

Dr. Crystal said the vaccine needs to be tested in humans, but thinks that it will work best in people who are already addicted to cocaine and are trying to quit. He added that the vaccine may help people quit because if they use the drug, the immune system will destroy it before it reaches the brain.

Source: Science Daily, Vaccine Blocks Cocaine High in Mice: Approach Could Also Stop Addiction to Other Drugs, Including Heroin and Nicotine, January 5, 2011

New Vaccine Could Help People Addicted to Cocaine is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Led by Pierluigi Nicotera, scientific director of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE), a team of researchers from Germany, the UK, and Italy have discovered a molecular switch that is associated with establishing addictive behavior and memory processes. The findings could help scientist develop treatments for memory loss and addiction.

Neurotransmitters help neuronal signals pass from one nerve cell to the next; this is a the first step for any learning process, and sets into motion a sequence of events that lead to changes in neuronal connectivity and memory. Substances like nicotine and cocaine can also trigger this change in brain connections.

Nueronal plasticity, or the formation of new connections in the brain, involves calcium. In response to neurotransmitters, nicotine, or cocaine, the brain creates more calcium at the synapse, where the neuronal connection takes place. The increased calcium induces gene expression, or the synthesis of proteins that lead to new synaptic connectivity. Although it has been generally accepted that the increase in calcium is only part of the first step in this process and does not depend on gene expression, Nicotera and colleagues are challenging this idea.

The new study shows that gene expression involved in calcium signaling is required to induce plasticity in nerve cells after repeated exposure to nicotine or cocaine. After giving nicotine to mice, they found that the nicotine induced the expression of a gene called type 2 ryanodine receptor (RyR2), which is associated with releasing calcium from the endoplasmic reticulum, leading to neuronal plasticity.

RyR2 is expressed in several brain regions that are associated with cognition and addiction, suggesting that it plays an important role in these processes. In another experiment, the researchers confirmed this theory by demonstrating that reducing RyR2 in living animals alters behaviors associated with learning, memory, and addiction. This suggests that RyR2 is necessary for developing long-term changes in the brain that can lead to addiction.

The researchers hope that these findings could help develop more efficient treatments for both memory loss and addiction.

Source: Science Daily, A Molecular Switch for Memory and Addiction, November 26, 2010

Researchers Discover Memory Switch That Plays Role in Memory and Addiction is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

The study found that chronic exposure to cocaine results in increased activity in D1 neurons and decreased activity in D2 neurons. Activation of D1 neurons increases cocaine reward, and activation of D2 neurons decreases cocaine reward.

The researchers used optogenetics, which is a technology that optically controls neuron activity in rodents. They activated neurons by disrupting brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is a protein in the brain that is associated with learning, memory, neuronal survival, and drug abuse signaling through the receptor TrkB, found in D1 or D2 neurons.

Eric Nestler, MD, PhD, Chair of Neuroscience, Nash Family Professor, and Director of The Friedman Brain Institute at Mount Sinai and co-author on the study, said that this study provides new information on how cocaine takes over the brain’s reward center, and how it can affect two neuronal subtypes in the nucleus accumbens. This information could help develop new methods for cocaine addiction treatment.

Source: Science Daily, Why Cocaine Is So Addictive: Activation of Specific Neurons Linked to Alterations in Cocaine Reward, October 18, 2010

New Study Helps Explain Why Cocaine Is So Addictive is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Science Daily reports that the study, published in the European Heart Journal on January 13, carefully investigated all the circumstances surrounding a consecutive series of sudden deaths between 2003 and 2006. During post-mortems the pathologists tested blood and urine for traces of toxic substances and studied the organs, focusing on the cardiovascular system and toxicological analysis; they also gathered information on substance abuse prior to death, the circumstances of the death and death scene investigations.

Out of 668 sudden deaths during the study period, 21 (3.1%) were related to cocaine use; of these, all occurred in men aged between 21 and 45, and most of the cocaine-related deaths were due to problems with the heart and its related systems.

Dr. Joaquín Lucena, MD PhD, Head of the Forensic Pathology Service at the Institute of Legal Medicine (Seville, Spain) who led the study, said: “Our findings show that cocaine use causes adverse changes to the heart and arteries that then lead to sudden death.”

He and his colleagues found that median levels of cocaine in blood or urine were 0.1 and 1.15 mg/L respectively, with a range that varied widely but which depended on a number of factors related to the drug itself (how it was taken, how people’s bodies processed it and what other substances were taken at the same time), and to the people themselves (body mass index, acute or chronic use of the drug, other underlying health issues, age and sex).

They wrote: “Any amount of the drug can be considered to have the potential for toxicity due to the fact that some patients have poor outcomes with relatively low blood concentrations, whereas others tolerate large quantities without consequences.”

The researchers also found that 81% of the men who died after cocaine use also smoked, and 76% had drunk alcohol. Ethanol, the intoxicating ingredient in alcoholic drinks, enhances the “high” obtained from cocaine while minimizing the subsequent “low.”

However, both smoking and alcohol are associated with heart disease. “The combination of cocaine with either or both of these habits can be considered as a lethal cocktail that promotes the development of premature heart disease,” said Dr. Lucena.

The study is the first to investigate the prevalence of cocaine-related sudden deaths in such a detailed and methodical way. The authors highlight the importance of this method of studying sudden deaths.
“For the correct diagnosis of the sudden death, especially in young adults, it is important to use a uniform autopsy protocol, including a toxicology investigation of the blood and urine for illicit drugs,” said Dr. Lucena. “Cocaine abuse is a growing public health issue in Europe and we can only monitor its prevalence by performing these detailed autopsies whenever someone dies suddenly.”

In their study, the authors wrote: “The estimated number of COC [cocaine] consumers is about 12 million Europeans with an overall prevalence of 3.7% of the total adult population (15-64 years). Ever in lifetime experience of COC is reported by more than 5% of the total adult European population in three countries: UK (7.7%), Spain (7.0%) and Italy (6.6%). The prevalence of use of COC is higher among young adults (15-34 years), with around 7.5 million young Europeans (5.4% on average) estimated as having used it at least once in their lifetime. In the year 2007, an estimated 3.5 million (2.4%) European young adults have used COC, with the highest prevalence levels, of over 3%, being found in Spain, Italy and the UK.”

“As the estimated number of European young adults cocaine consumers is similar in Spain, UK and Italy, there is no reason to consider that the cocaine-related sudden death in UK and Italy would be different to what we have found in our research in south-west Spain,” said Dr. Lucena.

To put the rates of sudden deaths in context, he added: “According to our experience in the Forensic Pathology Service at the Institute of Legal Medicine, the rate of cocaine-related deaths per year in Seville, is roughly half the number of people who die suddenly from hemorrhagic stroke.”

Professor David Hillis and Professor Richard Lange, chairman and executive vice chairman, respectively, of the Department of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center (San Antonio, USA), who were unconnected with the work, wrote an editorial to accompany Dr. Lucena’s paper. They reported that the prevalence of cocaine use varied in Europe from 0.7% in Romania and Lithuania to 12.7% in the UK, but this was likely to be an under-estimate.

They agreed that uniform protocols were required for post-mortems on victims of sudden death, including toxicological examination of the blood and urine for illicit drugs. “Until these are accomplished, the prevalence of cocaine and other illicit drug use will be underestimated, and cocaine-related complications will not be recognized,” they wrote.

“Physicians should consider the possibility of cocaine abuse in a young individual with cardiovascular disease or sudden death, especially in those without traditional risk factors for atherosclerosis. Finally, the notion that recreational cocaine use is ‘safe’ should be dispelled, since even small amounts may have catastrophic consequences, including sudden death.”

Study Examines Sudden Deaths Related to Cocaine Use is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Science Daily reports that Andrew Ewing and colleagues note that laboratory mice, rats, and monkeys have been mainstays in research with the ultimate goal of finding effective medicines for treating addiction. Although these mammals have helped establish the behavioral effects of cocaine on the body, they provide relatively complicated models to study the effects of cocaine and other illicit drugs on the brain and nerves. In the hope for a new, simpler animal model they turned to fruit flies, which have many biological similarities to mammals but are easier to study.

The scientists confirmed those hopes in research that involved giving cocaine, amphetamine, methamphetamine, and methylphenidate to fruit flies and then studying brain chemistry with a microelectrode one-twentieth the diameter of a human hair. The results demonstrate that fruit flies are a valid model for studying drug addiction in humans, the scientists say.

Fruit Flies Help Study Effect of Cocaine and Other Drugs on Brain is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

With the support of a $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), an interdisciplinary team headed by Vanderbilt chemist John McLean and physicist John Wikswo will attempt to determine whether an individual’s white blood cells retain chemical memories of exposure to drugs like cocaine and alcohol that can be read reliably and unambiguously.

David F. Salisbury of Vanderbilt University writes that the capability to characterize an individual’s history of drug abuse should allow physicians to tailor treatment strategies on a case-by-case basis, and that the technology could provide new insights into the biological pathways that control addictive behavior, which is a first step toward identifying effective new treatments.

If successful, their findings might also provide the basis for a new technology for drug testing that could be more difficult to evade than current tests that detect the presence of specific drugs or their metabolites in the body.

McLean, Wikswo, and their collaborators at Vanderbilt, Cornell, Duke, and NIDA will be using an experimental platform specifically designed to characterize millions of biomolecules and search them for various signatures. In this case, they will be analyzing a large suite of biological signaling and metabolic molecules in search of signatures that correspond to past exposures to cocaine, alcohol, and other drugs of abuse.

“In essence, we are hitting these cells with a hammer to hear how they ring and to determine if those that have been exposed to a drug ring differently,” said Wikswo.

The researchers have also received a $1.5 million grant from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency to search for signatures of biological warfare agents that could be built into field detectors. In addition, the researchers propose using it to analyze biopsy material from cancer patients to identify the most effective chemotherapy agent for each individual.

“With this system we are not limited to one type of molecule,” said McLean, an assistant professor of chemistry and expert on ion mass spectrometry. “We can look at all the biomolecules that are consumed or secreted by the cells—nucleic acids, proteins, fats and sugars—and this will give us a comprehensive view of how the cells are responding.”

In order to achieve these ambitious goals, the researchers are constructing a new class of instrument that acts as a robot scientist that can rapidly run thousands of virtual experiments and hundreds of actual experiments per day without human intervention.

The brain of the system is a self-learning software program developed by Hod Lipson, associate professor of computer science at Cornell University. His program will directly control the instrument, which consists of a robot-controlled microfluidics chamber, an automated fluorescent microscope, and a device called an ion mobility mass spectrometer that can identify millions of biomolecules at one time.

White blood cells obtained with a pinprick are placed in the microfluidic chamber, which can keep them alive and healthy for a period of several days. The chamber is connected to an automated chemical mixer that can be stocked with hundreds of different compounds. This allows the computer to expose the cells to a wide range of different environmental conditions and drugs. The chamber is monitored by the automated fluorescent microscope, which keeps track of the process and makes some key measurements.

The small volume of the chamber holds the cells in place and does not dilute their cell’s secretions, allowing the system to rapidly detect changes that are taking place. A tiny tube delivers the cell’s secretions to the guts of the system, the ion mobility mass spectrometer.

The spectrometer has two stages. The first is a cylinder that generates a uniform electrical force and is filled with inert gas. When the biomolecules enter this chamber, those with smaller surface areas travel faster than those with larger areas. After the molecules reach the end of this chamber they are sprayed into a larger cylinder where an electrical field briefly accelerates smaller molecules to higher speeds than heavier ones. These molecules then travel down an evacuated tube where they hit a detector. By precisely recording the time when each molecule strikes the detector, the instrument independently determines each particle’s surface area, mass and charge. This allows the instrument to identify millions of biomolecules at a time.

All this data is transmitted to the software program for analysis. The program compares the results with those of the millions of simulations it made during the two minutes that it takes to get the wet-lab measurements and, based on this comparison, decides what changes to make to enhance the signature. It then makes these changes, such as increasing the cell’s cocaine exposure or reducing the pH, and then starts the next run. Using machine-learning algorithms, it continually refines its internal model of the process it has been asked to analyze.

To look for evidence of past drug exposure, the researchers will start by taking white blood cells from mice and rats that have been exposed to varying amounts of a specific drug, like cocaine. Next, they will expose the living cells to different chemicals, starting with the drug itself, then siphon off the biomolecules that the cells secrete in response and run them through the spectrometer.

“Our software will analyze the information and suggest changes in the initial conditions that are most likely to strengthen the signature we are looking for. We can automate this process so we can run thousands of tests at a time,” Lipson said.

“This ARRA grant is allowing us to train a new generation of scientists and engineers, is creating jobs at Vanderbilt and Cornell, as well as in participating companies and equipment suppliers in Tennessee, Alabama, Massachusetts, California, Oregon, and Texas, and is helping to address the major problem of drug abuse in the United States,” said Wikswo.

Researchers Studying White Blood Cells’ Ability to Retain Memories of Drug Exposure is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

While talking to Oprah on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” Phillips read a page from her memoir, High on Arrival, aloud:

"I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father. I don’t remember how it started or, thankfully, how it ended…Was it the first time? Had this happened before? I didn’t know and I still don’t. All I can say is that it was the first time I was aware of it. For a moment I was in my body, in that horrible truth, and then I slid back into a blackout. Your father is supposed to protect you.”

Phillips told Oprah she was 17 or 18 the first time she remembers being raped by her father. At that time, she was best known as the young star of the sitcom One Day at a Time, but no one knew the dark secret she was hiding.

In 1981, Phillips went on the road with her father and their band, the New Mamas & the Papas. By this time, she was addicted to cocaine. “We’re touring, and I begin waking up after drug-fueled events with my pants around my ankles and my father sleeping beside me," she says. "Again, [I thought]: ‘Don’t think. Don’t look. Just keep going.’ And this happened over time. It didn’t happen every day. It didn’t happen every week, but it certainly happened," she said.

Their sexual relationship continued for 10 years. Phillips says she can’t explain why it went on for so long, but she believes drugs and alcohol were partly to blame. “My father was not a bad man. He was kind of a testament to what drugs and alcohol—in huge quantities—can do to a person’s priorities. Their motives," she told Oprah. "I don’t hate him. I understand that he was a very tortured man, and he sort of passed that torture down to me."

She also admitted that her father taught her how to shoot up cocaine as a teen, and that they often got high together. "What you’ve been taught is what you know, and that was kind of like it for me," she said. "I didn’t have very good role models."

After she landed the starring role on One Day at a Time alongside actress Valerie Bertinelli, Mackenzie’s life began to revolve around drugs. She freebased cocaine, popped pills, and dropped acid. Then, two years after Mackenzie’s first arrest, she was fired from One Day at a Time.

Over time, Mackenzie says drugs changed her and her father’s perceptions of the world. Society’s rules became warped and twisted. "It’s sort of the Stockholm Syndrome, where you begin to love your captor," she said. "And I felt great love for my father."

In 1990, Phillips said she had an awakening, realizing that what she and her father were doing was wrong. In High on Arrival, she describes the moment:

"The Mamas & the Papas had several gigs in Hawaii, and Dad and I had adjoining rooms. But I don’t think I went to my own room the whole time. Dad had brought tons of pills, and I found us some coke. We were lying in bed, in a stupor, when Dad said: ‘We could just run away to a country where no one would look down on us. There are countries where this is an accepted practice. Maybe Fiji.’ Then he said, ‘We can take Bijou and Tam and Shane and raise them as our children.’ My father was completely delusional. He was fantasizing about living with me, as man and wife, and raising my siblings, his children, as our children. The moment he tried to make it romantic, I had a visceral reaction. ‘No,’ I thought, ‘We’re going to hell for this.’"

At the time, Phillips was also in a relationship with another man, the father of her son, Shane. She says her boyfriend had no idea what was going between her and her father. After she became pregnant for the second time—and didn’t know whether the father was her boyfriend or her father—she had an abortion and never let her father touch her again.

She said that after the abortion, she vowed to give up alcohol and drugs and became sober for the first time in years. She encouraged her father to do the same, but she said he resented her sobriety. In 1992, he had to undergo a liver transplant due to his alcoholism, and he passed away in 2001 at the age of 65 from heart failure.

After her father’s death, Phillips had trouble coping, and started using cocaine again. She hid away in her Los Angeles home and even allowed drug dealers to sleep in her son’s room. In 2008, when she was invited to be part of a One Day at a Time reunion on The Rachael Ray Show, she was arrested on her way to New York City for possession of heroin and cocaine.

"That was one of the most terrifying moments of my life," she says. "I cried. I was just weeping. All I could think of was my son. All I could think of was Shane, and God bless him, he is the loveliest person. I’m so lucky to have such a great young man."

Phillips was charged with two felony counts of possession of narcotics, and she’s serving 18 months of informal probation. Since her arrest one year ago, Phillips says she’s been clean.

When asked why she wrote her memoir, Phillips said she believes she survived years of addiction, overdoses, and near-death experiences to share her story. “I think the universe shows us some sort of purpose for our lives when you think there’s no hope left,” she said.

"In the finding redemption and freedom for myself, maybe I’m going to be giving a little piece of it to somebody else to hold onto," she says. "Having this type of story, and still being here to tell the tale, tells me that I’m still here for a reason."

Mackenzie Phillips Opens Up About Addiction is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

“I never used cocaine until after I met Whitney. Before then, I had experimented with other drugs, but marijuana was my drug of choice. At one point in my life, I used drugs uncontrollably,” he writes. “I was using everything I could get my hands on, from cocaine to heroin, weed and cooked cocaine.”

“I used to roll the cooked cocaine and weed up into a joint. This was called a laced joint, which was one of my favorites. It always gave me the blast I was looking for,” he explained. The Grammy Award-winner also said that he nearly died three times, with medics managing to resuscitate him, after he overdosed as he binged with his wife.

Brown, who has a 15-year-old daughter with Whitney, also said he believes his marriage to Whitney was destined to fail from the start. “I think it was doomed from the very beginning. Within the first year we separated, with several more to follow. I think we got married for all the wrong reasons,” he writes.

“Now, I realize Whitney had a different agenda than I did when we got married. I believe her agenda was to clean up her image, while mine was to be loved and have children.”

In 2006, Bobby’s sister Tina Brown claimed Houston was living in squalor, hopelessly addicted to crack cocaine. She released photographs to a US magazine showing the star’s bathroom littered with drug paraphernalia, including a crack pipe.
Houston was said to be disgusted with the claims. An aide said: “Bobby is trying to get maximum impact with the book by releasing it at the same time she’s returning to the world stage.”

Bobby Brown Blames Cocaine Addiction on Whitney Houston is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment

Fielder-Civil revealed that in August 2007, after they had spent three days using heroin and crack, he was begging her to get some sleep when she suddenly went into a fit. “It was nearly midnight and I’d finally got her upstairs. We were sitting on the bed talking. Her eyes suddenly went blank,” he said. She began foaming at the mouth and “started having a fit on the bed. She slid down on to the floor before I could stop her.”

He continued, “She started quivering again and it suddenly grew into what seemed like a full-blown epileptic fit. I was panicking. I didn’t know how to help her. I was out of it on drugs as well, and was sobbing and crying out, ‘Amy!’”

“I knew it was important to stop her choking, so I turned her over on to her side, putting her in the recovery position. Then I pulled her tongue out of her mouth so she wouldn’t bite it. She had an awful look on her face, just frightened and pale…then suddenly she just passed out and stopped breathing.”

He describes how he was sure she was dying right in front of him, but somehow managed to open her mouth and deliver air down her throat. “At first nothing happened. So I did it again. I was feeling for her pulse because I thought her heart might have stopped. Then she spluttered, and I saw her chest rise. I was still sobbing and panicking but I just felt this huge relief that she was alive.”

But shortly after she awoke, she begged for more drugs. Fielder-Civil and a friend rushed her to London’s University College Hospital, where she was put on a drip after collapsing again.

Fielder-Civil said her behavior left him terrified for their future. He said he begged her to quit her drug habit, which had already led her to having “mini seizures.” “She had everything going for her. But she ended up behaving badly just to shock. After a while that just becomes a bore. I’d warned her to stop…but she always wanted to keep on taking the drugs,” he explained.

He said his ex’s brush with death failed to scare her off of hard drugs, which he fears could still claim her life. “Amy is a fun girl,” he said. “She’s quite wild, but it’s only on drink and drugs with her. It’s just a shame because she’s very funny, very clever, and she’s very loving…but she just put everything going for her—all that talent and personality—and hid them behind drink and drugs.”

“I think having seizures and just carrying on – that is pretty shocking, pretty hardcore behavior. It’s not something I would be able to do,” he said.

He also explained that Amy would smoke crack during her live shows. “Amy would stumble off [stage], with her hands out waiting for the crack pipe,” he said. “She smoked after every song and without her next hit, she wouldn’t go on. It’s no wonder she couldn’t sing properly…The only thing she cared about was her crack pipe.”

In the interview, Fielder-Civil took responsibility for introducing Amy to hard drugs. He admitted that he smoked heroin once in front of her and she asked to try it. “I was out of my mind on drugs and I said, ‘Of course.’ She inhaled the heroin and then just sat back, smiled, and her eyes went a bit funny. She said, ‘I can see why you take this.’ Amy took to heroin like a duck to water, same as me.”

He also explained that Amy funded his heroin addiction while he was in prison and would transfer money—sometimes as much as 1,000 pounds a week—into a bank account for him. He was jailed for 27 months last year for assault and obstructing justice, and was released last November.

Fielder-Civil also told The Sun that Amy stole cocaine from supermodel Kate Moss’s handbag at a star-studded bash in New York. “Kate Moss and another supermodel were there, as well as Hollywood actresses. Kate had told Amy to get a 10 dollar note out of her handbag to snort lines with.”

“But Amy told me she found two grams of cocaine in there, so she nicked them. We did some in the toilets…but we did the rest in front of everyone. Kate was so drunk, she never noticed any was missing.”

Fielder-Civil claims that cocaine was freely available to guests of the party, held at the Gramercy Park Hotel just weeks after he and Amy married in Miami in May 2007. “There was plenty of cocaine on a table in the room available to everyone,” he said.

The former couple’s divorce will be finalized next month, though Amy is refusing to change her name. At her own assault trial last week, she insisted on being referred to as “Amy Civil” and was wearing her Tiffany engagement ring.

Amy Winehouse’s Addiction Detailed is a post from: Drug Addiction Treatment