Not everyone who uses drugs or alcohol becomes addicted, but about 164 million people worldwide have. Addiction is a progressive disease. It can hijack your brain, and your life. Genetics and certain challenges make some people more prone to addiction, but anyone can become addicted.
An estimated 40 to 60% of people with addiction relapse, but author and clinician Shawn Leadem, LCSW, CSAT, CMAT, has a message of hope: “Relapse doesn’t have to be part of your story.”
During April 2018, Houston police arrested 36 drivers on felony alcohol charges. Although most of these felony cases were the result of a third driving while intoxicated (DWI) charge, 14 people were arrested on a charge of DWI with a child passenger and two were arrested on a charge of intoxicated manslaughter.1
In the field of substance abuse treatment, binge drinking presents some special challenges. Binge drinking is confined to heavy drinking in specific episodes, and when those episodes are not frequent it would be wrong to assume they represent “alcoholism” in a medical sense. But there is a certain tipping point with binge drinking where it…
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For thousands of years, inhabitants of South America have chewed or brewed coca leaves in tea for increased energy and alertness. German chemist Albert Niemann isolated the active ingredient from the leaves in 1859 and published his findings the following year, calling it cocaine. By the 1880s, cocaine was used in numerous medicines in the…
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“Remember that just because you hit bottom doesn’t mean you have to stay there.” ~ Robert Downey Jr.
Underage drinking is a widespread phenomenon that leads to thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of injuries in the U.S. each year. For these and other reasons, public health officials place a heavy emphasis on decreasing the number of Americans below the age of 21 who consume alcohol.
When most people hear the word codependent, they associate it with addiction or behavioral disorders. In fact, the term was coined nearly 40 years ago in context with alcoholism. Codependency can manifest in many ways, but the common factor is that coping mechanisms become mutually destructive.
Known as meth, ice, blue ice or glass, crystal methamphetamine resembles shiny blue-white “rocks” or fragments of glass of various sizes. Meth is an odorless, blue or colorless form of d-methamphetamine, a synthetic psychostimulant.
By Sara Schapmann In a criminal justice system where 1.5 million of its 2.3 million prisoners meet the DSM-IV criteria for drug addiction, Lake County Jail in Waukegan, IL is making a positive impact. Substance abuse in prisoners is a widespread problem, and one that often goes unaddressed–some argue at the expense of both perpetrator…
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