For older adults, drinking too much and misusing medications are the major substance use problems, affecting as many as 20 percent of them.
The first season of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills was grand, opulent, and ostentatious. In the second season, though, the once-innocent fun is clouded by reports of abuse and suicide.
We now have an opportunity to shift the emphasis to the problem rather than the person. Let us correct our perception of those who abuse substances to reflect current understandings that support humane, non-judgmental and comprehensive treatment.
These are young people with a range of issues related to drinking who will all now embrace the one true 12-step philosophy, including that they can no longer control their own destinies when it comes to substance use.
With Winehouse's global notoriety, it is hoped that her death will not be in vain. Though she cannot be brought back, her story can be told, understood and used to help those who suffer from addictions and to facilitate awareness for those that love them.
My quitting strategy was to keep my mind and body busy all the time, in order to keep my thoughts of cigarettes at bay, but new science now suggests that the worst thing smokers can do is try not to think about cigarettes.
We have to find a way to keep people safe while still giving them hope, even if they aren't quite ready to quit using.
Drug abuse and addiction are tragic things, but they are not character traits. Just as depression is a no-fault mental illness, so is addiction.
The more that I am surrounded by addiction the more I am reminded of the words of my daughter's counselor from treatment and they were "all addiction ...
Almost every species of animal engages in some form of play. Play helps all species, animal and human alike, to learn the adaptive behaviors that incr...
Why do alcoholics feel the need for anonymity? Because we're ashamed. Why are we ashamed? Because society told us we should be. We need to stop that. I'm tired. Shame is hard work.
I thought I'd share with you a conversation I had recently with some friends who caught their daughter's eating disorder early, took action quickly and participated fully and effectively in restoring her to health.
Whether it is because they are members of a stressful profession or because personalities with a penchant for addictive disorders are drawn to the law, lawyers have twice the addiction rate of the general population.
I'm not a boxing fan, but when it's part of a good story my heart races. That's how I felt encountering Rocky many years ago, and the experience was matched at a screening of The Fighter.
We travel in part to be free of ourselves, the roles and responsibilities of home. Travel allows us to escape those self-constructed constraints of Who We Are and What Our Lives Are, and allows us to live more freely in the moment.
Experts say it often helps to let raceaholics string together a few convoluted sentences so they get to experience hearing the nonsensical assertions when speaking aloud about anything relevant to race.
It is lack of political courage that has permitted this...
