Was Demi Moore high on laughing gas when she collapsed in her Beverly Hills home?

Her friend who called 911 reportedly claims that Moore was doing whip-its, hits of nitros oxide, also known as laughing gas. It’s popular with young people looking for a fast, cheap high.

Moore is being treated at Sherman Oaks Hospital in Los Angeles and the question now is, why would someone of her status, a 49-year-old movie star, use a drug typically inhaled by teenagers and broke college kids?

Addiction expert Doctor Marty Brenner says, “Its a quick, fast high,” says Dr. Brenner, “She is in emotional meltdown right now, if it was not the whip-it, it could have been something else. She is reaching out for help.”

One possible explantion for Moore’s alleged attraction to laughing gas is her apparent obsession with young people.

The Chicago Sun-Times quotes a family friend as saying, “You’ve heard about someone having a ‘daddy’ complex…Well Demi has a ‘daughter’ complex. She’s a great mom but.. She’s more like a pal than a parent.”

Moore’s best friend is said to be her 23-year-old daughter Rumer, they were out partying just days before the breakdown.

Photographers caught up with Rumer on her way to the hospital to visit her mom and asked, “How’s your mom?” But she didn’t want to say anything.

Ashton Kutcher is now reportedly on his way back from Brazil.

The night after Moore was rushed to the hospital, he was spotted at a Bruno Mars concert, fist pumping along to the music, and with an unidentified blonde by his side.

Tracy Morgan and his girlfriend on the red carpet shortly before he was hospitalized for exhaustion. Demi Moore went to the ER with the same explanation a few days later.

Drug addiction, eating disorders, depression, three-day benders — experts say these are just a few of the conditions Hollywood publicists sometimes try to cover up using the blanket term “exhaustion.”

This week, Demi Moore’s publicist said her client was seeking “professional assistance to treat her exhaustion and improve her overall health,” amidst widespread reports that she was hospitalized for substance abuse and eating disorders.  Demi Moore hospitalized after inhaling whip-its full of nitrous oxide, report says ’30 Rock’ star Tracy Morgan passes out at Sundance Film Festival, rushed to hospital.

“30 Rock” star Tracy Morgan’s team issued a similar statement last weekend, saying their client was hospitalized for exhaustion caused by high altitudes at the Sundance Film Festival in park City, Utah.

While exhaustion is a very real condition, in Hollywood it can also mask all manner of sins, not simply being sleepy.

“Exhaustion is the key word that covers everything. It allows PR to respond without saying anything,” explains gossip columnist Rob Shuter,  former publicist to Sean Combs ,  Jessica Simpson,  Paris Hilton and Jennifer Lopez.  “It also it means you are not lying,rather [you are] not telling the whole truth.”Among the celebrities whose publicists have claimed were exhausted are the late Amy Winehouse, Lindsay Lohan, Colin Farrell, Ashlee Simpson, Richie Sambora, Dave Chapelle, Janet Jackson and Whitney Houston.

“I had a client rushed to the hospital after three straight days and nights of partying,” one publicist of a troubled star revealed to Fox411. “Exhaustion was our excuse. She was definitely tired, but that’s not why she went to the hospital.

”Which isn’t to say that exhaustion isn’t an actual thing. Emergency room doctors tell Fox411 they see patients come in with exhaustion and fatigue all the time.

“We have many people come in feeling fatigue and weakness and exhaustion and our job is to find out the cause,” explained ER doctor Dr. Tara, Associate Medical Director of the Emergency Department at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. “Exhaustion is more a symptom than a diagnosis and people can have it for many different reasons, among them dehydration, metabolic problems, infections or hormone abnormalities.”

While it may be a real problem, exhaustion is also a Hollywood scapegoat. Beverly Hills addiction specialist Marty Brenner frequently works with celebrities who have claimed exhaustion as a cover-up to their substance abuse issues.

“When their publicists say exhaustion, it means they are having a hangover. They went out to party last night. They drank too much and then the PR guy will say they are exhausted,” Brenner told Fox411. “Those are just excuses. If they’re just promoting a movie or a show there is no reason they would be exhausted.”

Addiction experts wish the exhaustion blanket would just go away. It actually harms their efforts to de-stigmatize substance abuse treatment.

“It is damaging to the field of addiction,” says Dr. Paul Hokemeyer an addiction speciality with Caron Treatment Center. “It is important for celebrities in particular to be honest about their challenges and struggles. The only way to eliminate the shame and stigma surrounding addiction id for people to be open and honest about their problems.”

Hokemeyer added that rehab is not where people go to get treated for exhaustion: “People go to spas for exhaustion, and rehabs are not spas.”

HollywoodLife.com spoke with two addiction specialists who both said seeing Ashton Kutcher at the Golden Globes party a couple weeks ago could have thrown Demi Moore into the deep throws of substance abuse

When Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher saw each other at a CAA Golden Globes party Jan. 13, they both acted calm, cool and collected. However, two specialists tell HollywoodLife.com the awkward encounter could have triggered Demi’s unfortunate spin out of control.

“She is probably still in love with him. Its just like anybody, when there is a break-up and one person doesn’t want to break-up and you see that person in a social situation or if you see him with another woman it could throw things into a whole cascade of events,” addiction specialist Gregory A. Smith MD explains to us.

Los Angeles-based addiction expert Marty Brenner echoes Dr. Smith’s thoughts and believes the entire breakup is to blame in Demi’s subsequent substance abuse issues.

“[Her failed relationship] was all done in the public eye and she was really embarrassed,” he says. “When you become embarrassed, you become ashamed and when you become ashamed, that is when you go toward alcohol and drugs.”

He adds, “Plus, she had body image problems because of her age and that is probably what led to her anorexia.”

Additionally, Brenner doesn’t think it was solely nitrous oxide that led to the 49-year-old actress’s seizure and hospitalization Jan. 23.

“I’m sure more will be revealed, but it’s a combination of everything and not just a Whip It,” he says.

Adds Dr. Smith, “It could really send someone over the edge to take a lot of medicine and pills.”

Demi is currently seeking treatment in a facility. We wish her nothing but the best during this difficult time.

For more information on Marty Brenner please contact him at www.talktomartyb.com

ANGER MANAGEMENT
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ASSOCIATED PRESS STORY

Desecration of the dead is as old as war itself

By ALLEN G. BREED, Associated Press – 8 minutes ago

Since before Achilles dragged Hector’s body around the walls of Troy in the 12th century B.C., warriors have been desecrating the corpses of their vanquished enemies, whether to send a message or exact revenge.

And for just as long, they have known in their hearts that it was wrong.

The video that surfaced this week of four Marines apparently urinating on three Taliban corpses has stirred outrage in the U.S. and beyond, but also focused attention on the brutalizing effects of war on those sent to wage it.

Reserve Marine Lt. Col. Paul Hackett, who teaches the law of war to Marines before they are sent off to Afghanistan, made it clear Friday that he was not condoning the Marines’ actions. But he warned against judging them too harshly, saying: “When you ask young men to go kill people for a living, it takes a whole lot of effort to rein that in.”

In the long history of war, the episode pales in comparison to other battlefield atrocities. But one difference this time was that, in the Internet age, it was captured on camera and instantly shared with the rest of the world.

“This outrage is so interesting to me because it almost tops that” of other, more ghastly war crimes, said psychologist Eric Zillmer, a Drexel University professor and co-editor of the book “Military Psychology: Clinical and Operational Applications.” ”Because of the technology, the video, you actually see it. Most of the other war crimes, you heard about, you read about.”

The Geneva Conventions forbid the desecration of the dead, and officials in the U.S. and abroad have called for swift punishment for the four Marines, identified as members of the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, which fought in the Afghan province of Helmand for seven months before returning to Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The prohibition against desecrating the battlefield dead is almost as old as war itself.

In Homer’s “Iliad,” Achilles kills Hector and refuses to allow for a proper burial. He relents after Zeus sends word that Achilles “tempts the wrath of heaven too far” with his desire to “vent his mad vengeance on the sacred dead.”

In the 7th century, Abu Bakr, father-in-law of the prophet Muhammad and Islam’s first caliph, issued 10 rules to his people for their guidance on the battlefield. Among them: “You must not mutilate dead bodies.”

In 1907, the Hague Convention said that after every engagement, the combatants should take steps to protect the dead against “pillage.” The first Geneva Convention in 1949 addressed preventing the dead from “being despoiled.”

The history of war is replete with stories of atrocities committed to send a message. In the 15th century, Prince Vlad III of Wallachia struck fear in his Turkish enemies — and earned his gruesome nickname, Vlad the Impaler — by littering the battlefield with the impaled corpses of the vanquished.

Over the centuries, fingers, scalps and other body parts have been taken as battlefield trophies.

Nevertheless, Zillmer said the desecration of a dead foe is “taboo across cultures.”

“It doesn’t need to be explained to be inappropriate,” he said. “Anybody who looks at it says it’s disgusting.”

But, like Hackett, he said it can be difficult for soldiers, particularly members of a tightknit group, to go on killing missions and then just “switch off.” And he said the inhibitions against such misconduct tend to fall away as the number of participants increases, a phenomenon he calls “diffusion of responsibility.”

Soldiers have long understood that savagery begets savagery — or at least breeds indifference.

In his World War II memoir “With the Old Breed,” E.B. Sledge writes of seeing the bloated, blackened corpse of a fellow Marine on the Pacific island of Peleliu, his head and hands cut off, his severed penis stuffed in his mouth.

“My emotions solidified into rage and a hatred for the Japanese beyond anything I ever had experienced,” he wrote. “From that moment on I never felt the least pity or compassion for them no matter what the circumstances. My comrades would field-strip their packs and pockets for souvenirs and take gold teeth, but I never saw a Marine commit the kind of barbaric mutilation the Japanese committed if they had access to our dead.”

Urinating on the dead is not exactly a new idea.

In the same book, Sledge writes with disgust about a young Marine officer on Okinawa: “If he could, that ‘gentleman by the act of Congress’ would locate a Japanese corpse, stand over it, and urinate in its mouth. It was the most repulsive thing I ever saw an American do in the war. I was ashamed that he was a Marine officer.”

On the very day the video from Afghanistan emerged, Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz took the stand in a courtroom at Camp Pendleton in California and testified that he urinated on the skull of a dead Iraqi in 2005. Dela Cruz made the admission during the court-martial of a Marine charged in the killings of 24 Iraqis in the town of Haditha.

Dela Cruz said he was overcome with grief over a comrade killed by a roadside bomb. “The emotion took over, sir,” he told a military defense attorney.

Marty Brenner, an anger management specialist in Beverly Hills, Calif., who treats combat veterans and civilians, said the acts depicted in the video — and the Marines’ recording of it — demonstrate rage.

They have no other way of expressing their anger at these people,” Brenner said, “so what they’re doing is urinating on them to show, ‘I’m better. I want the world to see you guys are crap and that’s what you deserve.’”

In Jacksonville, N.C., the home of Camp Lejeune, some people resented criticism of the Marines over the video, and some expressed fear the footage would make their job harder.

“It demolished me to see that,” said Arthur Wade, a Vietnam veteran who retired in 1989. “If one of those men being urinated on was your father, would you want to help the United States?”

But Maynard Sinclair, a Marine veteran of Vietnam and the peacekeeping mission in Beirut, said the outrage shows the public’s naiveté about war.

“I did a hell of a lot worse in Vietnam than urinate on some dead bodies,” he said. “We cut left ears off and wore them around our necks to show we were warriors, and we knew how to get revenge.”

Gary Solis, a former Marine Corps prosecutor and judge who teaches law of war at Georgetown University, said the Internet has added a dimension that soldiers in the past did not have to deal with.

“In Vietnam, when you screwed up, no one back home heard about it,” he said.

Breed reported from Raleigh, N.C., Watson from San Diego. Associated Press writer Tom Breen also contributed to this story from Jacksonville, N.C.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

When times are good, having healthy relationships can be easy. However, when times are tough, we need the support provided by a productive, mutually beneficial, healthy relationship; it is from such relationships that we derive the sense of worth and validation that is needed to weather tough times. Tough times can lead to problems with anger, loss of control, or development of bad habits, such as, addiction to drugs or alcohol.

Contrary to what might be believed, it is very easy to learn how to develop a healthy relationship in tough times. A few inner directed and outward focused steps will help anyone build the kind of relationship that serves as a suit of armor and an anchorage in battling the turbulent seas of hard times.

First, Develop a Better You

Start by cultivating a more positive image of yourself. Next, set goals that challenge, but that are achievable with effort. While you should strive to strengthen your weak points, don’t obsess over them or give in to anger; focus your energies on your strong points and don’t be afraid or hesitant of patting yourself on the back for your achievements – just, don’t overdo it.

Make learning a continuous part of your life. Try to learn a new skill every week at first and then throw caution to the wind and try to learn something new every day. Take your intellectual pursuit into previously uncharted territory. For instance, set a goal to learn a new language. Start with an easy language like Spanish, which is similar to English to make self-study a relatively easy task. After you’ve developed a moderate degree of fluency in an easy language, dive into a harder language, such as, Chinese or Arabic. Programs like Rosetta Stone are available on line to help you master many languages. While you’re at it, don’t just focus on learning to speak, understand and read the language, but learn the culture behind the language. You should also consider hobbies like art, yoga, etc.

Don’t neglect physical improvement

Get adequate rest, exercise and establish a healthy diet. Avoid drugs or excess alcohol consumption. The ancient Greeks were on to something with their philosophy of a healthy mind in a healthy body. More importantly, when you’re fit and healthy, and you have mastered new intellectual skills, you will find that you feel spiritually better as well.

Reach Out to Others

No man is an island. Take the better you on the road; reach out and communicate to others as you undergo your transformation into a better version of yourself. Share what you learn with others and take the best that they have to offer. Seek mentoring from those who have skills and abilities you admire and offer your skills to others.

When times are tough and the journey is filled with obstacles, the power of shared knowledge and striving will help to smooth over the rough spots. Problems that seem insurmountable to one often fall easily if attacked by many working together. Communicate your feelings honestly and candidly; this will encourage others to communicate with you in the same manner; good communication is the heart and soul of an effective relationship, so work hard on those communication skills.

Anger gave your prehistoric ancestors the courage and strength to kill very large, very scary prey. This powerful emotion causes a cascade of physiological changes that make you strong enough, quick enough to defend yourself when you are in serious trouble. Anger puts the fight in the fight-or-flight reflex humans rely on when in mortal danger. Modern man doesn’t have to struggle against saber-toothed tigers anymore, but he does have to find a way to control stress in his life so he doesn’t burst into a fit of anger during dinner with his family every night.

Ideally, you build a family unit on a foundation of love, where two parents engage in adult love and lavish parental love upon their children. Humans typically associate love with the desire to provide comfort and happiness. When you love someone, you want to take care of them and give them nice things.

While this sounds nice and easy in theory, it takes a herculean effort to provide a nice home, decent clothing, healthy food and emotional support in this modern world. One or both parents must leave the confines of the warm, comfortable home to battle traffic, deal with an unreasonable boss and impossible workload to earn a paycheck that doesn’t quite cover the bills.

The modern world is filled with unnatural, man-made stresses like working long hours in a factory or sitting on a freeway for hours, and there are very few ways to vent frustrations between the stressful workplace and the comfortable confines of your own home. There is little choice but to transport the negative emotions from the outside world into what should be the positively-charged environment of a loving family home.

When you do arrive home from a stressful day at work, with your emotional resources depleted and in need of replenishment, you need your family to love and appreciate your epic and stressful battle. It feels good when your family acknowledges your hard work and valiant efforts. Conversely, it feels terrible when, despite your best efforts, you slip further and further behind in the bills and no one in the family seems to care.

Your parents and family taught you how to deal with stress and anger from the time you were an infant. You observed your parents’ reaction to the misbehavior of siblings and suffered the consequences when you acted inappropriately. You also watched how your parents expressed and repressed their own negative emotions. Children are programmed to deal with problems in nearly the same way as their parents had. Chances are, if your parents could not deal with stress and anger, you and your siblings will struggle as well.

You carry these anger management tools from the confines of your family home into the workplace, and you will introduce external, stressful influences into your home. You teach your child how to manage his own anger in the face of stress, based on what your parents taught you. Your kid may never have to slay a saber-toothed tiger, but she will have to learn how to deal with her anger caused by stressful, modern life.

Top experts agree that Amber is ‘reverting back to an unhealthy lifestyle too soon and too quickly!’

Teen Mom star Amber Portwood has only been out of rehab a little over a month and it seems that she’s already heading down the wrong path again. She’s been spotted at bars drinking and hanging out with boys on multiple occasions, been rushed to the hospital for a panic attack and even admitted to still being suicidal. Well, addiction experts tell HollyBaby.com exclusively that it looks like Amber’s on the downward spiral towards rehab again!

She’s reverting back to an unhealthy lifestyle too soon and too quickly,” Beverly Hills Addiction, Recovery and Anger Specialist Marty Brenner tells us. “She’s heading back [to rehab].”

Amber still hasn’t changed her mentality. “She’s not doing anything different,” explains Marty. “She should concentrate on staying sober rather than going out and playing hard. The only time she should be in a club is for a business deal.”

Rehab didn’t cure Amber. “I’m not her doctor — but alcoholism and addiction involve relapse and rehab is just the beginning,” says NYC based Addiction Psychologist Dr. Harris Stratyner. “Often when they get discharged, they go to a step down program to readjust. After that, it’s important to see an addiction therapist, go to an out patient program, AA, and 12 step help meetings other wise they fall victim to post acute withdrawal [symptoms are: starting to feel anxious, depressed, hanging out with the wrong people, feeling like they have nothing to live for and feeling overwhelmed and anxious.”

“Any pressure sets them off,” agrees Marty. “Going back to bars and parties — everything is becoming overwhelming and her body is going through changes.”

It looks like Amber isn’t serious about her recovery. “If someone took sobriety seriously, they would be doing the right things to maintain a healthy lifestyle,” shares Marty.

“Stop what you are doing and get serious, stop this foolishness,” Marty advises Amber. “Stop thinking you’re cured and you can handle this. You can’t beat the odds this quickly. In three years when she has a base, but one month out she can’t beat the odds.”

Humans possess a wide variety of emotions, ranging from love to hate and everywhere in between. While psychologists disagree about the exact number of emotions, most would agree emotions are either negative or positive. Love, compassion, respect and happiness are positive emotions, whereas fear and anger are negative. Despite scientists’ attempts to put emotions into tidy categories, human emotions show varying shades of good and bad. Anger, generally considered a negative emotion, actually gives you the emotional power to overcome frightening or overwhelming obstacles, or to set clear boundaries of personal space. Repressed or poorly expressed anger, however, can become unhealthy. Bad anger, if left unaddressed for a long period of time, becomes an insidious parasite to your emotional well-being and your relationships with others.

Nature bestowed the emotion of anger to humans as the fight portion of the fight-or-flight response to danger. When you are in mortal danger, your brain decides whether you should be fearful and run away, or if you should be angry enough to fight. Without anger, you would only feel fear in dangerous circumstances and unable to fend for yourself in a fight. While it is a necessary emotion, anger is a bad emotion when expressed excessively or inappropriately.

Anger becomes an unhealthy emotion when it becomes part of a lifestyle, or when your anger infringes on the health and well-being of others.  Frustration builds when displaying anger does not resolve the unpleasant situation or relieve the negative emotions. Frustration grows more quickly than it dissipates and it seems to increase exponentially – the more frustrated you become, the harder it is to feel happy. Eventually, the pent up frustration bursts into emotional rage. Rage is a potentially dangerous reaction to anger and frustration suppressed for extended periods of time.

An outrageous outburst is an obvious example of bad anger but there are other types of this negative behavior. A person might acquire passive-aggressive anger issues, where he expresses his anger indirectly through counter-productive actions instead of openly communicating his thoughts and feelings. He may agree with you verbally, even enthusiastically, about a project or idea but then procrastinate on deadlines or make a lot of mistakes when performing the task. For example, a husband may agree to help with housework but only does half the dishes and forgets the laundry entirely. He does a poor job of doing housework instead of directly communicating his underlying resentment for having to do chores.

Bad anger becomes a habit and, in a chronic state, will take a toll on your emotional well-being and your body. Anger, as a protective emotion, gives you the emotional power to dominate things you view as unjust or distasteful. Anger can become addictive in the way it gives you a feeling of superiority or righteousness. Left unchecked, a person with chronic bad anger is perpetually in the fight mode of the fight-or-flight response. He begins to view everyone and everything as a mortal threat and responds to all his problems with inappropriate anger.

Bad anger breaks down communication and disintegrates the fabric of trust in both personal and professional relationships. Anger is a protective emotion that temporarily disrupts empathetic and bilateral communication between you and your enemy so that he cannot recognize your weaknesses and attack your emotional soft spots- anger allows you to set clear boundaries. When you employ anger excessively or inappropriately, you erode the foundations of two-way communication. As humans, we are programmed to avoid people who are angry.