Belynda Moss uses her Facebook page to inform her family and friends how she has stayed clean.

Feedback from social networks can help fight drug addiction

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EL PASO – After 27 years of using drugs, many blackout nights and a few overdoses, Belynda Moss, 42, is using Facebook to share updates on her continuing efforts to stay clean. “I started at age 14 as a pot smoker, graduated to alcohol and became a blackout drunk.  At 18-years-old I did my first shot of heroin and overdosed.” She’s off drugs now, even cigarettes, and has moved from El Paso to Fort Worth where she works as a bus driver.  She’s staying clean by attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings and by using Facebook as a support. She knew it was time for a change or her life would soon end. She is one of the lucky few that managed to kick their alcohol or drug habit. According to SAMHSA’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), 23.2 million people (9.4 percent of the U.S. population) aged 12 or older needed treatment for an illicit drug or alcohol use problem in 2007.

Tory Lewis learnt to ride a motorcycle at age 15 and hasn't stop since. (Alejandra Gonzalez/Borderzine.com)

Gender makes no difference when it comes to having fun or accidents on motorcycles

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EL PASO — The 2006 Suzuki GSXR 600 roars down the I-10 freeway going 60 mph at 6:30 a.m. on a weekday and exits on Schuster Avenue. The woman at the wheel, Tory Lewis, a fit 5’ 2’’ blonde, then turns left onto Hawthorne from  Schuster Avenue entering the University of Texas at El Paso campus. Her bike comes to an abrupt stop behind the Administrative Building and she parks in a spot designated for motorcycles. She removes her dark-blue helmet and is ready to start her day as she walks towards her graphic and design fundamentals class located in the Liberal Arts Building. “I just love how I’m able to feel the speed,” said Lewis, a medical engineering student at UTEP.