Novus Medical Detox, Florida Drug Detox Treatment Center, explains the dangerous cycle of becoming addicted to Vicodin.
You’re a business man, a housewife, a brother, aunt or uncle. But you got injured, and before you knew it, you were more than that. You were an addict. Not the stereotypical addict getting his fix in a back alley. All you had to do was go to the pharmacy to get your fix. It was that easy, that unexpected, and that unfortunate. And now the injury has healed, and you still can’t get off the drug. What are you supposed to do to kick it? First, a little background on the drug, and how you got here in the first place.
Vicodin is an opiod, that is, a synthetic drug manufactured in a lab. It is a close neighbor to the opiates made from the opium plant, like codeine, morphine and herion. It is highly addictive, and the cause of countless deaths a year due to accidental overdose. Vicodin is generally prescribed for pain after injuries, or surgery. The body’s natural painkillers are called endorphins. The production of endorphins is increased by the use of Vicodin in order to relieve the pain a patient is experiencing. What happens is, the body recognizes that another source for stimulating endorphin production is in action, so it slows its own natural production of endorphins down, and relies more and more on the Vicodin to bridge the gap. The downside is, If a person who’s been taking Vicodin for an extended period of time was to suddenly stop using it, the body’s normal endorphin production would be too small, and they would go into painful withdrawal. This type of withdrawal requires a medical detox, because the pain is simply unbearable. Many have attempted to withdraw on their own, but were unable to finish and were driven back to taking the drugs. Ironically, most people with Vicodin addictions became addicted under a doctor’s care. It could’ve been pain from an auto accident, a fall, a broken bone or anything, but the drug intended to control pain ends up delivering more pain in the end.
At Novus Medical Detox, a Florida Drug Detox center, we have pioneered advanced opiate / opioid medical detox protocols, which make withdrawal faster, safer and much more comfortable. Part of the withdrawal process is the time it takes the patient to again produce endorphins naturally, which is dictated by the individual’s DNA and is something which we carefully monitor. We know that people withdraw from all drugs differently, and we modify our withdrawal protocols for each person.
At Novus we find that most of our patients who are dependent or addicted to painkillers are dehydrated and are suffering from vitamin deficiencies. We ensure that our patients are hydrated properly through the use of IVs and this, along with individually designed withdrawal protocols, is a major reason that our patients, who have detoxed before, comment that their Novus detox was not only much faster but much more comfortable. Find out more about our Florida Drug Detox Treatment Center on our main website.
Finally, our staff will administer medically supervised drugs when the withdrawal symptoms begin, after your body is ready for them. This will help ease the patient off of the Vicodin with far less painful consequences. Through proper hydration, natural supplements, good food and a withdrawal protocol designed specifically for each person, our patients experience a much milder and more comfortable withdrawal than at many other medical detox centers. When they leave our Florida Drug Detox Center, they are off all unnecessary drugs.
If Vicodin dependency is destroying your life, act quickly while there is time. Don’t wait for an overdose, or worse, to happen. Call Novus Detox today at 1-800-505-6604 or email us!
Heal your bodies, and heal your relationship… together.
Novus Medical Detox, a Florida Drug Detox Center, provides a Florida Couple’s Drug Detox Program and Couple’s Alcohol Detox Program.
Drug abuse or alcohol abuse isn’t always the act of a single individual. In some instances we have requests from couples to enter the Novus Medical Detox program together. It’s uncommon in most programs for this request to be granted, but then few programs are set up to accept the scenario of a couple sharing a room and detoxing together. We understand the value of a couple’s natural support system, and how it can aid them in their recovery process.
There are couples that live a drug or alcohol influenced lifestyle together. They got into trouble that way, and want to get sober that way. We believe there’s a better chance for a successful outcome to drug or alcohol abuse when addicted couples recover together as a team. During the addicted portion of their relationship they were together and supportive of each other. And in most cases they will remain supportive of one another during the process of getting sober. It’s a natural support system. While the closeness of the relationship may have been stretched thin during the time they were addicted, the love that brought them together in the first place can help to guide and support each other to a full recovery as a couple.
At Novus we encourage both partners to get involved in post-detox rehabilitation support programs to help ensure their long-term recovery, as they get to know each other as a sober couple again. We can recommend programs to attend after the detox part of the treatment is successfully completed. There couples will learn about challenges that are commonly faced while getting sober together. And they’ll get the resources and support system they need to help them strengthen their relationship without the need for drugs and alcohol anymore. As in any relationship, positive reinforcement and behavior modification are essential tools a couple can use to ensure that they stay on the same page post detox, this will help them to make sure they don’t fall back into the trap of abusing drugs or alcohol anymore. While it’s a difficult process, entering detox as a couple indicates that there is a strong desire for rebuilding their lives and relationship together.
If you’d like to learn more about couples detox, give Novus Medical Detox a call today at 1-800-505-6604. Save your lives, and your relationship!
Testimonial from couple who completed the Novus Couple’s Detox Program:
You have the best facility I have ever been in. The staff is unbelievable, they are all caring and kind. The food is great! I am going to rehab and coming back to visit you all. I recommend this place to anybody.
– BBI have decided to go forward with rehab. I can’t wait to come back and be clean happy healthy and free! Thank you ALL!
– SB
Categories: Couple's Detox, Drug & Alcohol Addiction Detox, Medical Drug Detox 
We will help you every step of the way!
It’s a popular notion these days that when addicted, a person can try and detox at home on their own. One may think that it’s an easy and private solution to a very serious problem. You don’t have to face your friends and family, or admit publicly that you even have a problem. But self-detox is not an easy proposition, and going it alone can have tragic results. Getting clean and going through withdrawal symptoms without the aid of a trained medical staff can do more harm than good. And in the end, the likelihood of being successful is slim, many people who try this end up back on drugs or alcohol because they simply couldn’t stand the pain. Trying to kick an addiction in privacy leaves the door open to giving up without giving yourself a chance to get your life in order.
Another problem with home detox is that a person remains in their own environment. While this may seem like a good idea, it makes it too easy to fall back into the same patterns and impulses that created the addiction in the first place. Novus provides a controlled environment free from outside influences, drugs and alcohol. It functions as a safe haven from one’s old, addicted lifestyle. It’s important to realize just how important this is when getting sober. After a short time at Novus, a substance abuser will start to look at their situation clearly and objectively, and begin to find ways to remedy it. This is a valuable way to begin to pick up the pieces, and repair the emotional and physical damage that addiction causes.
At Novus Detox, we understand our patients desire for a more confidential, at home-like treatment program, so we’ve moved away from the cold and impersonal hospital setting as the way to beat addiction. While having a good medical staff on hand in this situation is crucial, a sterile hospital environment can actually cause some in medical detox to take longer to begin the healing process.
By nature it’s neutral, generic feel leaves out an element that we at Novus feel is vital to one’s recovery…the feeling of being “safe” and “at home”, of being cared for as if you’re with your own family. We’ve made sure to take the importance of that feeling into account as an integral part of our inpatient medical detox program.
We also provide excellent medical supervision, 24-hour nursing care and 24-hour access to a withdraw specialist. Our safe and effective detox method cleanses the body in a comfortable manner that significantly diminishes most of the withdrawal discomforts that make so many other programs so painful. We use natural supplements whenever possible, because our goal is to send you home clean and drug free, not simply to replace one drug or alcohol dependency with another drug dependency. We also provide nutritional IVs, supplements and delicious food to speed your body’s healing process and keep you properly hydrated.
Simply put, Novus Detox will give you the feeling of being at home, with the finest medical care you can get. We will put you on the path to kick your addiction successfully. In private. And on your own terms. Speak to one of our drug detox specialists. All information is kept confidential. Call us today at 1-800-505-6604 or email us!
It was recently announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the number of overdose deaths from powerful prescription drugs like OxyContin, Vicodin and methadone has tripled in the past decade. These are drugs that are prescribed to help people in severe pain, yet the after-effects are far more devastating to those who become addicted to them, and their families, friends and loved ones.
It’s a simple fact… the likelihood of getting addicted to prescription drugs, the ones your doctor prescribes to you for pain management, is much more likely to happen to you than getting hooked on illegal drugs off the street. If a medical doctor prescribes them, it’s automatically assumed that they’re safe to take, and that there won’t be consequences later. So you take them for a while for a bad back, or a broken bone, and the pain is masked while the injury is healing. The problem with that is that most people don’t realize they have a problem with them until they try to get off these medications. Many patients want to stop taking them because they can no longer live with the side effects. But when they stop taking the drugs they are hit with withdrawal symptoms; some potentially life threatening, so they keep taking them. They’ve become addicted, and they never saw it coming and never thought it could happen to them.
Prescription drug addiction is a silent killer, most people do not know there is a problem with prescription drug addiction because it only hits the news when a prominent person enters rehab or worse, overdoses. Well known celebrities like Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson died from prescription drug overdoses, but the public has grown immune to hearing of these tragedies. The problem is, celebrity deaths are only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of people are dying every year from legally prescribed prescription drugs.
There is a different mindset to a prescription drug addiction. Because the drugs are legal, many people facing this problem can’t accept the fact that they are addicted, and when they return to the doctor aren’t referred for drug detox. The doctor simply replaces one medication with another and sends them on their way. Now the patient grows dependent on the new drug. It’s a vicious cycle that has nowhere to go but downhill.
The only way you are going to be able to beat this is to seek help from a drug detox facility. At Novus we offer individually tailored programs that will get you off of prescription drugs in as little as one to two weeks, which is much faster than most other programs. The Novus programs also offer vastly reduced withdrawal symptoms when compared to most other programs. Novus Medical Detox protocols make the experience of getting clean much easier to get through than more traditional programs. Our protocols are based on the latest research and development in drug detoxification and treatment.
You can expect a taper-off program medically designed to match your unique health needs, 24/7 medical supervision of all aspects of your prescription drug detox, daily IV’s with vitamins and other health-building nutrients, special dietary supplements to boost your health even more, great food, no restrictive schedules and no group meetings, one-on-ones with staff members when you ask for them, medications that help control withdrawal symptoms, and taper adjustments to ensure the most comfortable withdrawal. In most cases, you can expect completion of your detox program, and be off all drugs in 10 to 14 days.
We realize that getting addicted to prescription drugs was not something you set out to do. We believe that allowing people to become addicted to prescription drugs under the guise of pain prevention is the wrong way to treat a condition. We need to wake up to this widespread problem now, before it gets even worse. At Novus, we will help you get your life back quickly and more comfortably, once you take the first step. We will treat you with respect. And we’ll be there to help you, every step of the way. Give us a call today at 1-800-505-6604 or email us!
After several months of speculation, it has been determined that Amy Winehouse died from acute alcohol poisoning, and had five times the legal limit of alcohol in her bloodstream when she died. An initial autopsy was inconclusive, though no drugs were found in her system at that time. When she was found in her bed, she had two full sized empty vodka bottles, and a third smaller one in the room. She had been attempting to self treat her alcohol problem, and had been dry for three weeks before the vodka binge that took her life. It is believed to be an accidental death. Winehouse was not suicidal, and often spoke about the future, and what she had left to accomplish. The coroner called it “death by misadventure”. In her career, Winehouse won five Grammy awards for her 2006 hit album “Back To Black”. But she became as well-known for her battle with alcohol and drugs as for her singing. It’s truly a tragic ending for a very talented artist.
Amy Winehouse passed away in July this year aged just 27
Alcoholism is not just a problem for the rich and famous. In 1999 there were 11 million people in the U.S. whose drinking was considered heavy enough to be considered alcohol addiction or abuse. Today, there are more than 15 million. Despite the number of deaths and ruined lives, we clearly have a serious problem to address.
Alcohol addiction is a growing problem, partly because it is legal for adults to drink and partly because drinking is considered “normal.” However, many people with alcohol addiction don’t really understand what alcohol is doing to their bodies and also are not sure what steps to take to safely stop drinking. Alcoholism is best treated in a facility away from home, where you can detox painlessly, and learn how to change the way you look at alcohol, and learn the harm it has done to you. Amy Winehouse attempted to try to quit drinking without entering a detox program, and the result was tragic.
At Novus Detox, we offer new patient admissions 7 days a week. Your privacy and confidentiality are our top concerns. We offer individual private rooms and, you will be personally treated and cared for by our experienced staff 24/7. Our program is individually tailored to your metabolism, and we offer one-on-one support counseling with staff that know what it’s like to go through the experience. We offer delicious and nutritional foods that help replenish the body. And you’ll leave our facility usually in less than a week, safely withdrawn from alcohol and not taking any new drugs.
If you or a loved one has a drinking problem, Novus Detox has the solution. Speak to a alcohol detox specialist at 1-800-505-6604 or email us, and start down the road to recovery!
Categories: Drug & Alcohol Addiction Detox, Drug News, Drug Overdose
At Novus Detox, a Florida Detox Center, we’ve removed an important roadblock that keeps many people from entering drug treatment….fear of pain!
Novus Detox offers Pain Free Detox to help you overcome substance abuse and help you get back to living a healthy, happy life
If you’ve been using drugs for a while, your life could literally be coming apart at the seams – you have trouble at home, trouble at work, trouble with your personal life, and possibly even trouble with the law. In facing all these issues you begin to realize that you are suffering from a substance abuse problem and want to do something about it to get your life back before it’s too late. There is hope for you. Hope, because the fact that you realize you’re addicted means you have come to grips with the hardest part of correcting your situation and coming clean. You’ve overcome denial which is the first huge step in getting clean. So now that you admit you need help, you must take the next step, and ask for help kicking drugs. But you’re terrified about getting really sick during withdrawal from your drug of choice. And that fear is putting your decision to get help in jeopardy. And along with it, it’s putting your life in jeopardy! Every wasted moment creates another chance that your next dose will be your last. Don’t let drugs take your life away from you, and your loved ones. Call Novus today! We understand how the fear of the pain of withdrawal can stop you from taking the first step. Our safe and effective detox method cleanses the body in a comfortable manner that significantly diminishes withdrawal discomforts. That’s why we chose our name, “Novus”. It means “New” or “New Person”. We have a new detox approach with personalized service and individualized treatment plans in a comfortable atmosphere. Our unique approach involves creating a tailored detox program for each patient’s body, metabolism and circumstance. We provide excellent medical supervision, 24 -hour nursing care and you have 24-hour access to a withdraw specialist. Our nutritional IVs and supplements and delicious food with our specialized detox protocols are all designed to speed the body’s healing process. Everything we do is tailored to get you clean as painlessly as possible, and put you on the path to stay clean! Novus Detox is always incorporating the most advanced medical procedures with the leading natural remedies to effectively combat withdrawals in a comfortable, safe and nurturing environment. Our patients are treated as individuals with dignity, respect and understanding in a non-judgmental environment. There really is hope for you to get a new life. With your desire to get clean, and a personalized treatment program from Novus you can succeed. So give Novus a call at 1-800-505-6604 or email us, and start getting your life back!
Categories: Drug & Alcohol Addiction Detox, Novus Medical Detox
Novus Detox explains the signs of alcohol addiction.
Alcohol addiction is an increasingly common problem in our society. Alcohol consumption is a common and legal activity among Americans and the fact that it’s glorified on television and in the movies doesn’t help with trying to discourage people from excessively drinking. Intoxication is considered hilarious in movies like “The Hangover”, where young men go out drinking and do all kinds of crazy things, suffer from blackouts, and set out to undo all the problems they’ve created for themselves from drinking the night before. A large majority of the commercials on TV during a sporting event are beer or alcohol related. Drinking is viewed as a rite of passage, a sign that you’re “grown up”, and can do whatever you want. But don’t let that fool you. Just because something is legal doesn’t mean it comes without risk. Thousands upon thousands of people simply can’t handle even the occasional drink. So how do you know that you aren’t among those that have a drinking problem instead of just the occasional drink? How do you know if you’re a candidate for alcohol detox?
There are a few simple questions you need to ask yourself if you want to find out:
- Have you ever felt like you need to cut back on your drinking?
- Have people annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?
- Have you ever felt bad or even guilty about your drinking?
- Do you ever feel a strong need to have a drink?
- Do you ever take a drink in the morning to “cure” a hangover, and drink to excess alone?
If you answer any of the questions with a yes, you most likely have a drinking problem that needs to be addressed. At Novus Detox, we have a highly successful alcohol addiction detox program that will put you back on track to getting your life together.
Novus Detox will design an alcohol detox program specifically for the individual, taking into account the actual physical condition of the person. We carefully use medicines to ensure the alcohol addiction treatment is safe and more comfortable. We understand how alcohol affects the body – that it depletes the body’s hydration and reduces the body’s ability to absorb and use nutrients, amino acids and minerals. That’s why we use specially formulated vitamin IV’s to handle the hydration, nutrient, amino acid and mineral deficiencies which will allow our patients to safely and more comfortably complete their alcohol detox without the serious and dangerous side effects of alcohol withdrawal.
We use natural supplements at each step of the way, and serve delicious and nutritious fresh food. We also provide round the clock medical supervision, for everything you need, the whole time you’re with us. Novus is a very comfortable facility. You can take walks on our 3.25 acres while you’re in alcohol detox, and if you smoke, we provide smoking areas for you to use. We offer private or shared rooms with a TV, DVD and internet access, so you’re not cut off from the world. And most importantly, we educate you on how alcohol affects your body, and the medical problems drinking causes that don’t just go away when you quit drinking. We will help you complete a comfortable and safe alcohol addiction treatment program, and teach you how to best address any drinking related medical problems you may have. And we will show you how to live a healthy life.
In short, help is just a phone call away. Novus offers a safe, effective and highly successful alcohol detox experience, and we’ll put you on the road to recovery in a safe and pain-free environment. Contact us today at 1-800-505-6604 or by email!
Categories: Alcohol Addiction Detox
When deciding on the choice of which type of detox program to enter, you’ll find that there are many options. Times have changed a lot in recent years, moving away from the typical hospital setting as the way to beat addiction. While having a good medical staff on hand in this situation is crucial, a sterile hospital environment can actually cause someone in medical detox to take longer to begin the healing process. A medical environment is not a friendly, personalized environment. By nature it’s neutral, generic feel leaves out an element that we at Novus feel is vital to one’s recovery…the feeling of being “safe” and “at-home”, of being cared for as if you’re with your own family. We’ve made sure to take the importance of that feeling into account as an integral part of our inpatient medical detox program.
Our residential facility provides living accommodations similar to the comforts of home. There are many advantages to this. For many individuals, it takes getting away from the situation to fully understand the predicament. When an alcoholic/addict is attempting an at home detox, they remain in their own environment. This makes it too easy to fall back into the same patterns and impulses that created the addiction in the first place. Novus Inpatient drug detox provides a controlled environment free from outside influences, including drugs and alcohol. It functions as a safe haven from one’s old, addicted lifestyle. In just a matter of days the substance abuser can start to look at their situation in life clearly and objectively, and begin to find ways to remedy it. This is a valuable way to begin to pick up the pieces, and repair the emotional and physical damage that addiction causes.
Throughout this process, the patient isn’t alone, left to deal with the detox by himself. We tailor a detox program customized for each patient’s body, metabolism and circumstance. We provide excellent medical supervision, 24-hour nursing care and 24-hour access to a withdraw specialist. Our safe and effective detox method cleanses the body in a comfortable manner that significantly diminishes most of the withdrawal discomforts that make so many other programs so painful.
Our medical detox program also focuses on the physical needs of the recovering addict’s body in a natural way. Natural supplements are used whenever possible, because our goal is to send you home clean and drug free, not simply to replace one drug or alcohol dependency with another drug dependency. We also provide nutritional IVs, supplements and delicious food to speed your body’s healing process and keep you properly hydrated.
At Novus, our goal is to guide you through the healing process from your addiction or dependency. A place where you’ll be shown dignity and respect. Nurturing and caring. And to provide the safest, most medically current inpatient drug detox program possible to put you on the path to recovery. Call us today at 1-800-505-6604, and take the first step towards getting your life back!
The Opiate and Opioid Treatment Program at Novus Medical Detox is designed to get you clean, and help you stay clean.
Many people with an opiate addiction are just average, run of the mill people that sought help for a painful injury, not knowing that sometimes the cure can be worse than the condition itself. The problem they face is pharmaceutical addiction. The use of drugs to treat pain. They were put on opiates or opioids to rid themselves of pain, and as a side effect, developed an opiate addition.
The word opiate refers to drugs like morphine, codeine and heroin that are made from the opium plant. An opioid is a manmade chemical substance developed by drug companies that causes a similar reaction in the body as that of opiates. Some well known opioids are methadone, Percodan/Percocet, Lorcet, Lortab, Demerol, Vicodin, OxyContin, Suboxone, Subutex and Dilaudid. These drugs are commonly prescribed in the treatment of pain caused by injury. While they are effective in controlling pain, they regularly turn ordinary people into substance abusers, either dependant or addicted to them for long periods of time. An opiate addiction can be very difficult to overcome, and opiate withdrawal symptoms can be quite painful to deal with as well.
The human body produces endorphins, natural hormones that the body uses to block pain signals from the nervous system to relieve pain naturally. But narcotic painkiller receptors are molecules on the surfaces of cells to which narcotic painkillers attach and activate the receptors to produce endorphins. Different types of narcotic painkiller receptors are present in the brain. The receptor most relevant to narcotic painkillers has been named the “mu” receptor. It is believed that through activation of the mu receptor, painkillers exert their analgesic and addictive effects and their feelings of euphoria. The problem is, the opiates that activate these endorphins are highly addictive, and difficult and painful to detox from. At Novus, we can greatly ease the discomfort of opiate withdrawal symptoms.
Part of the substance abuse withdrawal process is the time it takes the patient to again produce endorphins naturally, which is dictated by the individual’s DNA and is something which we carefully monitor. People withdraw from all drugs differently, so we tailor our withdrawal protocols for each individual person. For example, most of our patients who are dependent or addicted to painkillers are dehydrated and suffering from vitamin deficiencies. We ensure that our patients are hydrated properly. This, coupled with our individualized substance abuse programs, is a major reason that our patients who have tried other detox programs and failed to stay clean have said that Novus detox was not only faster, but much more comfortable than what they tried before.
As another part of our opiate addiction treatment, we use Suboxone®, which was approved by the FDA in 2002 and is administered in tablet form. Suboxone® contains buprenorphine, an opioid that triggers a response in the body similar to the response triggered by heroin, oxycodone, and morphine. However, unlike heroin, OxyContin® and other frequently abused narcotic painkillers, buprenorphine increases endorphin production only to a certain point and then no longer adds to the effect no matter how large the dose. Our medical staff must determine when the opiate-addicted individual is ready for the first dose of Suboxone® to be administered. If someone who is dependent/addicted to painkillers is not in withdrawal, this means that the painkillers are still activating the receptors in the brain and causing it to produce endorphins. If you were to take Suboxone® at this time it would cause a drastic drop in endorphin production from the opiate painkillers, and start a hard and painful withdrawal very quickly. When treated after the onset of withdrawal symptoms, Suboxone® will bridge the gap, and help to wean the patient off the opiates gradually.
At Novus, using hydration, natural supplements, good food and a withdrawal protocol designed specifically for each person, we ensure that the Suboxone® dose is properly tapered so that the person’s natural production of endorphins increases as the Suboxone® is tapered down. Our patients experience a much milder and more comfortable withdrawal than at many other medical detox centers. When they leave Novus Medical Detox Center, they are usually off all unnecessary drugs.
It must be noted that if a patient is dependent only, and if we are able to help them address any remaining pain through outside physical rehab and natural remedies, then the patient will likely be able to resume their life without resuming the use of opiate or opioid painkillers. But if a patient is truly addicted, then medical detox is only the first step. Unfortunately, 95% of addicted people who don’t get further outside treatment will resume their substance abuse addiction to painkillers.
Give Novus a call at 1-800-505-6604, and begin the process of overcoming an addiction to painkillers, and resuming a normal life again!
In what seems to be a never-ending line of tragic and unnecessary deaths, R&B Singer Vesta Williams passed away in her hotel room in Los Angeles on September 22. While toxicology results won’t be available for 4 to 6 weeks, according to law enforcement officers on the scene, there were several bottles of prescription drugs found in her hotel room, and several were completely empty.
Underneath Williams’ tiny frame lied a powerful and soulful, larger than life voice. Her early success as a singer came as a background vocalist for numerous well-known artists, from Chaka Khan, to Luther Vandross, to Anita Baker and Sting. At one time, Williams sang in the group “Wild Honey,” which was headed by her cousin, the late R&B singer Ron Townsend. She also sang on TV commercials. Her career took off when she made the charts in 1986 with her song “Once Bitten, Twice Shy”. That song was on her first solo album “Vesta.” Her album “Vesta-4-U,” released two years later, included the popular songs “Sweet, Sweet Love” and “Congratulations”. She had also done some work in television and the movies, including parts as a saloon singer in Mario Van Peebles’ 1993 flick “Posse”, and her recurring role in the television sitcom “Sister, Sister” as actress Jackee Harry’s best friend Monica.
The 5-foot-3 Williams had also battled weight problems. At one time in the 1990′s she ballooned to a size 26 dress. She went on an intense weight loss program, and dropped 100 pounds to get back to her original size 6. She once told Ebony magazine that she began gaining weight rapidly after her singing career began to falter. She blamed her obesity on the loss of her recording contract. When asked about that, she said “When I lost my record deal and my phone wasn’t ringing, I realized that I had to reassess who Vesta was and figure out what was going wrong,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t my singing ability. So it had to be that I was expendable because I didn’t have the right look.” She later became an advocate for the prevention of childhood obesity and juvenile diabetes.
She had recently been working on material for a new album. Her latest release was “Relationships,” and included a number of her original songs plus a cover of one of her favorite Stevie Wonder tracks, “You and I.” Her final performance was on September 17, 2011 in Portsmouth, Virginia, performing at the Autumn Jazz Explosion.”
Williams was scheduled to perform at the 21st annual “DIVAS Simply Singing!” in Los Angeles on October 22. The show has stated that it will now be paying tribute to her and the late singer, Teena Marie. She was also scheduled to be the subject of an upcoming episode of “Unsung” on TVOne.
Vesta Williams was 53 years old.
Categories: Drug & Alcohol Addiction Detox, Drug Overdose
