Joseph Nowinski, Ph.D.

The title of her book, Drinking: A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp, succinctly captured the essence of the late author's gradual descent into alcoholism. The end point of this tragic journey lies at the far right end of the drinking spectrum, depicted below. In order to get to that final...

On April 11, 2012, the New York Daily News published an article titled "Beer Makes Men Smarter," which got a lot of attention. Is that really true? Let's take a closer look.

The Experiment That Started The Buzz

The March 2012 online edition of the journal Consciousness and...

Happy Hour During Work Hours

"They say a man's work is never done. They say you can't mix business with pleasure. They say that good things come to those who wait." -- Anheuser Busch Super Bowl 2012 commercial

The above were the opening lines in a Super Bowl...

Kentucky has won the national championship and college students across the country are ready to move on to the next big event: Spring Break. And hand-in-hand with the ritual of spring break goes the now ubiquitous tradition of Beer Pong.

Beer Pong: College Fun or Dangerous Game?

Beer Pong is...

A Disturbing Trend Among Boomers

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), drinking among seniors age 50 and older is on the rise. In fact, seniors make up the segment of the population for whom drinking has been increasing most. In one...

• A father who falls asleep on the couch after having several drinks three or four days a week, thereby missing out on time with his kids and wife.
• A sales executive who likes to "sip" scotch on the rocks from the time he finishes his dinner to the time he...

"I have often thought that the best way to define a man's character would be to seek out the particular mental and moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt most deeply and intensely active and alive. At such moments there is a voice inside that speaks...

If you want to discover a path for yourself as you approach the so-called "golden years," ask yourself the question: Why Am I Here?. Even better, take some time to contemplate the following pair of questions:

Why Am I Here? Versus What Do I Want?

Chances are, if you are...

After we admitted my father to the hospital for the last time, and after we were told that there was nothing that could be done to stop the buildup of fluid in his lungs, the doctor told me that he had four to six weeks to live. I'd been the...

"As a cancer patient, when I had been given my last chemotherapy treatment, my oncologist told me, 'Now get on with your life.'" -- Kathleen

Kathleen states that when she received the above advice it was simultaneously heartening and disheartening. It was heartening because the doctor was telling Kathleen that...

Imagine that you are a mental health professional and you meet with a new client who describes the following symptoms: "I haven't been sleeping well. I don't have much of an appetite and I've lost a few pounds in the last month. I feel sad most of the time and...

Managing the rest of my life has been so hard. "Numbing exhaustion" is a constant state for me -- emotionally and physically. I feel like I can't even process and grieve because I need to keep going and doing the next thing and there is always some sort of crisis....

When Elizabeth Edwards died, at age 61, following a four-year ordeal with cancer, she left behind three young children. Steve Jobs also succumbed, but only after a similarly long siege. For many parents that raises an important and challenging issue: what should we say to children when a loved one...

Megan and her husband, Jason, had separated right after the holidays in 2008 and their divorce was finalized that July. They have two children, a boy and a girl who are now ages 9 and 7, respectively. The boy still believes in Santa, although his older sister has lately expressed...

Jennifer and Alex had been divorced for three years. While neither had left the marriage for another person, both had had two-year relationships that they'd recently ended. They also had two children, a son and daughter ages 10 and 8 respectively, whom they had been co-parenting very effectively. Though the...

When she first began dating Max, Nikki was impressed not only by the fact that he was a successful medical professional, but that he seemed so organized. He owned a home that was spotless ("You could eat off the floor!," she'd boasted to her friends) and maintained a regular routine...

As we approach the holiday season, I've frequently been asked to share some advice for those who are mourning the loss of a loved one at this emotionally-charged and spiritually significant time of year. Today, there is also another large and growing population who find themselves facing a different challenge:...

In my first blog in this series I described research which shows that divorce is not inevitably damaging to children. Indeed, ongoing research continues to support the contention that, overall, children from divorced families are not significantly worse off, psychologically, than their peers from intact families. That said,...

Connie had been dating Conrad steadily for two years before she finally came to the conclusion that he was a man who didn't seem to have a generous bone in his body. From the beginning, for example, she'd noticed a decided tendency in him to be possessive when it came...

"I am a big time meditator and do lots of energy work. Frankly, I think that has had some impact on my being alive eight-plus years with metastatic cancer. We all have to die of something. I am not afraid to die, but I am afraid to die before I...