The old question of the chicken and the egg and which came first applies to this conundrum. Recent studies suggest that depression and addiction recurrently go hand in hand.

There is a strong correlation between depression and addiction and the problem is often approached in 2 different ways.

1. Some conventional psychiatric treatment procedures focus on treating depression as the root cause contributing to the drug or alcohol abuse problem,

Read the rest of this entry

Alcohol addiction is something that is commonly misunderstood among all population ages. There are many beliefs and thoughts about drinking within society, so in some cases people confuse someone that likes to drink with an alcoholic. So, how do you tell an alcoholic from a social drinker if you’re not a counselor or other mental health professional? Is there a per beer limit or number of drunken stupors that one must engage in before they can be said to have an alcohol addiction? Since there are many factors, these questions can be somewhat difficult to answer, however there are some basics that must be understood before one comes to any type of conclusion. Read on for more information about alcohol addiction and the effects it commonly has on those addicted.

What Is An Alcoholic

Read the rest of this entry

Alcohol addiction may be present when one is seen as sweating, nauseous, shaky, or mentally unstable when not able to obtain an intoxicating liquid substance. The more one drinks the higher doses will be needed for someone addicted to feel that ‘high’, or ‘buzz’. Drinking can potentially ruin your families, friends, and your own life. Drinking is a risk which you must be able to keep under control and moderate from time to time. Many health problems are associated with excessive alcohol consumption such as cancer, heart disease, brain damage, and liver disease. Excessive consumption of alcohol leads to brain cell loss, and may disturb brain processes necessary to retrieve and process normal day thoughts and information. Large consumption may cut off or shorten the oxygen supply and cause a blackout. Abusers may suffer from bone weakness and immune deficiencies. Most victims of alcohol are very defensive about their habits. They hate hearing anything pertaining to it, and most of all they try so hard to convince themselves that there is absolutely nothing wrong with what kind of habit their falling into. In fact, many victims are very secretive about their drunken nature that they regularly disguise their appearance and interactions with others. Psychological and physical harm is being done every second they are not looking for a solution to settle the addiction.

Alcohol withdrawal, or an abrupt stop of alcohol consumption can completely remove a balance of alcohol which replaced a once present neuroinhibitor syncope. Both are now gone and the body may act uncontrollably, resulting in many synapses. This may lead to hallucinations, convulsions, heart failure, seizures; all of which is known as the ‘jitterbugs’. ‘Jitterbugs is known as an acute episode of delirium that is usually caused by withdrawal from alcohol, first described in 1813′. Treatment is quite varied as there are many different perspectives for the condition. A common treatment however, would be to discontinue ones alcohol supply while reinstating social connections to keep there mind intact and on track. After alcohol consumption has been discontinued psychological interferences can be dealt with by attending ‘group sessions’ and or psychotherapy. Another way one might face the issue is to take medication to ease the issue into complete sobriety. As a side note, you want to be sure to keep your metabolic system intact in order to eliminate unstable behavior, which is preventable.

Read the rest of this entry

Where does one draw the line between being a social drinker and having an alcohol addiction? For many people, the lines aren’t always so clear, especially when everyone around them seems to be binge drinking, drinking on a daily basis or glamorizing alcohol use.

Social drinking can easily progress into a psychological, or even physical, dependence over time, as it becomes habitually ingrained in our behavioral patterns. Suddenly, we drink to be more interesting, drink to make others more interesting, drink for courage in social settings, drink to give ourselves a boost of energy, or drink to cover up negative feelings like pain, depression or anxiety.

Read the rest of this entry

The Life And Death Of Joe Rowley.

The funny thing is, I didn’t know Joe that well.

He was only an acquaintance really, a drinking acquaintance, not a close friend of mine by any stretch of the imagination. A ship that passed in the drink and drug soaked long dark night of my soul. So why was it that when I heard of his death, six thousand miles away, and more than a sober year or two after our last contact, that I was moved to tears? I cannot find a full explanation yet, it remains a teasing and tantalizing will o’ the wisp, dancing on the peripheral fringes of my consciousness. Perhaps in writing this and recounting the facts of the matter, I will be able to find some resolution, as I still get teary, some thirty years later, when I think of Joe, and the manner of his end.

I had moved from London, our English capital city, to Brighton, a small seaside holiday town about sixty miles South, with it’s more provincial ambience. Also, as a holiday resort, it possessed a subclass that derived much of it’s income from the periodic influx of tourists. These people ranged from those who provided legitimate services, such as board and lodging, a well known genera including such sub-species as seaside landladies and hotel workers, to the more exploitative, such as bargirls, and the downright predatory, such as pick-pockets and pimps. Graham Green in his novel Brighton Rock, gives his grim, gray, grainy portrait of these under classes, with their admixture of petty criminality, that populate this underside of Brighton society; and the sordid parabolas of fungal doom that constitute the nightblooming of their lives. Probably not so different from many towns whose income is in some large part derived from similar sources.

Read the rest of this entry

If all the jinxes of human lives are short listed then alcohol and drug addition will come at the forefront position. According to a recent report, there are millions of people all around the world suffering from the nuisance of these addictions and these eventually are becoming the reasons behind their death.

Those days are gone when the near-dear ones of alcoholics and drug addicted patients used to roam around for the proper treatment. Now due to the increasing number of sufferers, a need to implement drug and alcohol detox programs has been realized. Currently, there are thousands of such programs available all over the world, which serve the addiction affected people to get them back to a normal life.

Read the rest of this entry

Alcohol addiction is defined as a disease. It is estimated that it affects about 10% of the population of the United States. When one has an addiction to alcohol, they become vulnerable to many negative effects, in many areas of their life.

Read the rest of this entry

One point that is quite clear in the addiction treatment program in Texas is the fact that detoxification is not the end-all-and-be-all of the recovery process. In fact, the detoxification phase is just a medical phase that removes the presence of the addictive substance from the body and does not work for entire recovery from the dependency at all. The true treatment comes from removing the temptation for using the substance from the mind of the patient. This is the true meaning of rehabilitation anyway; to make the patient readjust himself or herself to the life left behind due to the addiction.

An addiction treatment center in Texas realizes that it is important to treat the mind of the person to overcome the addiction just as it is important to treat the body. That is the reason there is an elaborate aftercare program in the state that helps bring people completely into sobriety. Here we see some details on how the aftercare phase of the recovery program is implemented.

Read the rest of this entry

The alcohol and drug problem in this country is huge and most of the standard addiction recovery and treatment programs aren’t working. Consider the following:

CRIME: 25% of all prison inmates are there for drug related crimes. 16.4% are in prison for committing crimes to get money for drugs. 47% of crimes were committed while a person was on drugs or alcohol.

SEX: A lot of the sex outside of marriage wouldn’t happen if it weren’t for alcohol or drugs being used to try to drown out guilt and fear (which are nature’s feedback to try to stop us from doing something against its perfect order). And nature does other harsh things to try to stop sex outside of marriage. USA Today reported that shockingly, 1/2 of everyone under 25 years old in the United States has had an STD (Sexually Transmitted Disease). The U.S. Dept. of Health reports that there are 1.1 million current cases of AIDS/HIV in the United States. (So obviously, it needs to be recognized that nature is hostile towards sex outside of a monogamous, heterosexual marriage, which is the only sexual setting that nature doesn’t try to stop via harsh consequences). 80 percent of unmarried teen mothers end up on welfare, costing this country $7 billion annually. And a University of Georgia study reports that of those individuals who experienced unwanted sexual intercourse in the last year, 92.1% had been under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

Read the rest of this entry

Alcohol addiction treatment is a hard and difficult path but the fruits accrued by taking this cumbersome are more than sweet compensation for the difficulties involved. Getting into the habit of alcohol addiction takes only a little bit of time, but getting out of it is not so. Any person planning to kick the habit needs to understand this fact and prepare oneself to undergo the strenuous procedure.

Until several years ago, many people thought that alcoholism is an evil spirit induced habit and no scientific steps are successful against such supernatural elements. The superstitions hindered many from walking the path of rehabilitation. But we now understand that alcoholism is induced by an errant mind and treating the mind can save the body as well as the mind too.

Read the rest of this entry