Helping the 'long-timers'
What happens when a sober patient comes in and says, “I’m
not certain if I need treatment or not”? This is a seldom seen phase of
addiction care, when a sober “long-timer” comes to therapy in order to work on
issues. It is not about denial. The clinical focus here may not even be about
“BUDD” (Building Up to a Drink or Drug). Looking more deeply to Terence
Gorski's relapse work(1) or to a 2000 study cited by the National Institute on
Drug Abuse (NIDA) about chronic disease relapse rates(2) might be helpful in
order to rule out those concerns, because this is not always about relapse. And
while this might sound very similar to what “high-functioning alcoholics”(3)
would wonder about, those individuals are so new in their sobriety efforts that
the difference is obvious. Click
here to read more.
Center's YouTube videos
seek to ease addicts' fears, despair
The Cumberland Heights addiction treatment facility in
Nashville has taken to YouTube as part of a community education and soft
marketing effort to help demystify the experience of treatment. The initial
subject in a planned series of short videos that will be posted through next
year focuses on medical detox, arguably the most feared component along the
treatment continuum. Click
here to read more.
Intervention today......is
it still the Wild West or have we learned from the errors of the past?
Intervention is something that is clearly misunderstood. A
lot of people have the impression that the family sets up an ambush on their
loved one, where a stranger comes into a family setting and grabs the loved
one, bundles him in a car and delivers him to an unsuspecting treatment center.
The loved one then spends the next 30 days planning retribution on his family
and what would be better than to relapse just to show you! All of this time and
energy having gone into a process which was doomed to failure from the outset. Click
here to read more.
Drunk-Resistant Worms
Become a Reality
Apparently, humans are not the only creatures that can get
drunk. Worms can too. But in a recent study, scientists at the University of
Texas at Austin said they have found a way to alter the genetic makeup of
Caenorhabditis elegans worms to make them drunk-resistent, according to The
Verge. Click
here to read more.
Decline in Prescription
Drug Misuse More than Twice as High in States with Broad Drug Abuse Prevention
Programs
Three-year analysis of more than 1.4 million test results
also shows majority of Americans continue to put health at risk through
dangerous drug combinations and skipping doses. Click
here to read more.
Gene variant linked to
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and alcoholism
A rare gene variant discovered by UCL (University College
London) scientists is associated with an increased risk of developing
schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and alcoholism, confirms new research. Click
here to read more.
Raising a Glass to
Chemistry
One of the great things about “Breaking Bad” was that it
emphasized just how much the magic of intoxication depends on science. Walter
White may have been a meth dealer and a criminal mastermind, but he was, above
all, a really good chemist. Click
here to read more.
National Study: Teens
Report Higher Use of Performance Enhancing Substances
New, nationally projectable survey results released today by
the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids confirmed a significant increase – a
doubling – in the reported lifetime use of synthetic human growth hormone (hGH)
among teens. According to the latest Partnership Attitude Tracking Study
(PATS), sponsored by MetLife Foundation, 11 percent of teens in grades 9-12
reported “ever having used” synthetic human growth hormone without a
prescription, up dramatically from just 5 percent in 2012. Click
here to read more.
FDA approves new opioid
pain reliever designed to be hard to abuse
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a new form of
the powerful and controversial pain reliever OxyContin that is designed to be
more resistant to abuse, but experts warned the drug could wind up having the
opposite effect. Click
here to read more.
Americans Still Oppose
Lowering the Drinking Age
Thirty years after federal legislation established 21 as a
uniform minimum age to drink alcohol in all states, Americans are widely
opposed to lowering the legal drinking age to 18. Seventy-four percent say they
would oppose such legislation, while 25% would favor it. The level of
opposition is similar to what Gallup has measured in the past. Click
here to read more.
World Health Organization
Calls for Decriminalizing Personal Drug Use
The World Health Organization came out publicly, if quietly,
in support of the decriminalization of personal drug use in a report released
last week. Click
here to read more.
Children Who Experience
Family Members’ Trauma at Twice the Risk for Substance Abuse as Adults
We know the effects of childhood traumas like abuse and
neglect on later substance abuse. But what impact does second hand trauma have?
A study published in the August issue of the journal Addiction shows that when
a child under age 15 is exposed to a family member’s trauma (e.g. a parent or
sibling being the victim of violent assault or a parent’s cancer diagnosis),
that child has approximately twice the risk of struggling with drug and alcohol
problems 6 years later. Click
here to read more.
Opinion: It's urgent that
physicians screen and intervene in opiate abuse By Daniel J. Meara
Great loss sometimes offers the solace of bestowing clarity.
Such hard-won understanding seems to be found in the wake of the many opiate
deaths in New Jersey and across the country. From the unsettling number of
lives lost to overdose and the sharp rise of addiction has emerged widening
recognition that drug addiction is, at its core, a public health matter — as
two responses to the crisis, issued by the American Medical Society (AMA) and
the Centers of Disease Control (CDC), attest. Click
here to read more.
Where does the medical
marijuana debate stand now?
Currently, 23 US states and DC have legalized the use of
marijuana as a medical treatment. Maryland, Minnesota and New York are the most
recent to join in 2014, and legislation to legalize medical marijuana in
Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania is pending. With policy changing rapidly on the
medical applications of the drug on a state-by-state basis, we take a look at
where the debate stands concerning the available evidence on medical marijuana
and its implementation as a therapy. Click here to read
more.
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