Opening the heart generates a deep and profound emotional healing of the entire psyche. As our awareness resides there, we feel a quality of happiness that transcends worry, fear, sorrow, anger, regret, or any of the parade of concerns that have preoccupied us. Even if our external lives don't change at all, our internal lives change instantly.
I was stunned into a deep, visceral silence when I found Mark Peterson's amazing photo essay. Some of the images not only reminded me of times in my own alcoholic life, but also brought to mind a lot of unfinished business. I hope I never become satisfied with myself to the point of becoming a mere recovery pontification machine. The 'under the bridge shelters' and alleys where those of us not lucky enough to have found a last refuge are just as dirty and dangerous and unforgiving as they ever were. Jack Mc, in his memorable poem "Drunks", tells us that 'we don't have to die anymore'. Yet we still do, every day of every week. The bottom of the barrel drunks who will never type a word on a computer keyboard...
They're the real heroes.
In his native Minneapolis, he developed a bond with the residents of the Queens nursing home, leading to the work that appears in "Last Call." He is working with students at Sobriety High, a high school for chemically dependent and alcoholic teens in Minneapolis.
SoberTravelers.org is a service of the Online Alano Club, a California nonprofit association. As with the Club, its purpose is to provide services for members of 12-Step Fellowships and other recovery programs. Individual donations as well as proceeds from travel bookings are used to support operation of this and the Club's web sites.
The Serenity Prayer
God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
as it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
Forever in the next.
Amen.
--Reinhold Niebuhr
Women with drinking problems may show it in different ways than men, which could make their alcohol abuse harder to detect, according to a study published Monday.
In a study of 2,750 men and women, researchers at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis found that the sexes showed some key differences in symptoms of problem drinking. For example, men more often reported problems like bingeing or getting into fights, but women were more likely to report feeling depressed or guilty about their drinking.
Psychologist Penny E. Nichol and her colleagues report the findings in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
Traditionally, the rate of drinking problems and overt alcohol dependence has been higher among men than women. However, researchers have suggested that one reason could be a potential "male slant" in the criteria used to diagnose these problems -- criteria developed largely from studies of men.
The weight given to "male-oriented" symptoms, like bingeing and aggressive behavior, may mean that women's early drinking problems fly under the radar in some cases.
"It's possible we aren't capturing women's symptoms," Nichol told Reuters Health.
The current findings suggest it might be useful to develop a separate female-oriented scale for alcohol problems -- or at least a "gender-neutral" one, according to Nichol and her colleagues. However, much more research is needed before that happens, she said.
The researchers arrived at their findings by asking study participants a wide range of questions on their drinking habits, as well as the effects their drinking had on their feelings and behavior. Of the 105 signs of alcohol abuse the study considered, there were significant gender differences in one third.
Men more often reported they binged, got into fights when drinking, or they needed to drink increasing amounts in order to get drunk. Women were less likely to report such male-oriented symptoms, but they were more likely to have symptoms of depression or to say they felt guilty when they drank -- two traits not usually assessed in standard measures of alcohol abuse.
Instead, these measures typically focus on "outward behaviors," like when and how much a person drinks, according to Nichol. It's thought that women, in contrast, might have more "internalizing" symptoms, she noted -- a theory the current findings support.
Further studies, she said, are needed to confirm that there are significant sex differences in problem-drinking symptoms. Then researchers can look at whether sex-specific measurements improve diagnosis.
source: Reuters
The brain-damaging effects of alcohol strike women more quickly than men, a new study conducted in Russia confirms.
Female alcoholics performed worse on a number of tests of neurocognitive function compared with males, Dr. Barbara Flannery from RTI International in Baltimore and her colleagues found.
However, Flannery cautioned in an interview with Reuters Health, the findings aren't good news for alcohol-dependent men. "Women are vulnerable to the extent to which they will experience the negative consequences of alcohol abuse and alcoholism more rapidly than men, but men will also experience it -- the same kinds of effects," she said.
Other physiological effects of alcoholism, such as heart and liver damage, are known to occur more quickly in women than in men, a phenomenon known as "telescoping," Flannery and her team note in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
To determine whether the same occurs in the brain, they had 78 alcoholic men and 24 alcoholic women, between the ages of 18 and 40, complete a series of brain function tests. Sixty-eight non-alcoholic men and women also took part in the study as a control group.
The duration of alcohol use was significantly longer for men than women, at about 15 and 11 years, respectively, as was the duration of alcohol dependence, at 8 and 5 years. A greater percentage of men were college educated and employed full time. However, women reported binge drinking significantly more often than men, at 91 percent vs. 72 percent.
Before completing the tests, all of the alcoholics had been abstinent from alcohol for three to four weeks.
Compared with the alcoholic men, the researchers found that alcoholic women performed worse on tests of visual working memory, cognitive flexibility, and spatial planning and problem solving.
Flannery pointed out that women metabolize alcohol differently than men do. A woman will experience the alcohol effects faster than a man of the same weight. One reason is that men have more water in their bodies, which better dilutes alcohol's effects. Women may also have less of an enzyme that converts alcohol into an inactive substance.
"I think it's important that women understand this," she said, and it's also important to remember that alcoholism is underdiagnosed in men and women. More studies should be done in different populations, she added, to confirm the results.
source: Anne Harding, Reuters
Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly exclusively reports in their April 23 issue, that a new credential, represented by the initials CCDP (Certified Co-Occurring Disorders Professional) was introduced last week by the International Certification & Reciprocity Consortium/Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse (IC&RC) in a move that pressures the addiction treatment workforce to get more training, according to a report.
This new certification is meant to treat patients with both mental and substance use, or co-occurring disorders. These patients have historically been given conflicting advice or been told to get one treatment first over the other. The new credential will make it possible for addiction professionals to show they have the ability to treat co-occurring disorders.
In the brewing controversy about who will treat people with co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders – addiction or mental health professionals – turf, jobs, and millions of funding dollars are at stake. Not all addicts have co-occurring mental disorders, but as many as 80 percent do. Those people need specialized treatment that integrates best practices for treating both disorders at the same time, according to experts in the field. If people with co-occurring disorders are shuttled from program to program, neither condition will be treated successfully, studies have shown.
The new credential paves the way for a change in the treatment system, which has always had federal and state-level systemic barriers to integration of addiction and mental health treatment, according to Dalphonse. "The practitioner who will survive is the one who can deal with the interactive relationship of these two disorders," he said.
source: http://www.topix.net/health/alcoholism
The Internet is crawling with directories and compendiums, link farms and listings of addiction and alcoholism recovery stuff.
And at face value, one has to think the more the better.
I am a trained professional Internet Recovery Specialist. I own Internet Domain Names. I have aspirations to become the Montel Williams of the Cyber Recovery Niche. In the process, should you cross my path and you have what I want (namely groovy html and php skills), I will compliment you, maybe even offer you a business partnership, all the while appropriating your codes for myself. I will offer you responsibilities in my online community. But should your opinions differ from mine, should you refuse to do things my way, or should you have the audacity to not like me no matter what, I will dump you like blind lightning from our business partnership, rendering nil the work you have already done for me.
So beware.
I am a Trained Internet Recovery Specialist.
And you can copyright that... (sic)
tongue in cheek drive by courtesy of yours truly, D.E
More than 750,000 people take cocaine at least once a year as its price falls and ecstasy loses its popularity among clubbers, according to a wide-ranging study of drug abuse in Britain.
Official attempts to stem the use of illegal substances have failed, with cocaine soaring in popularity and addiction to heroin remaining stubbornly high.
The report delivers the bleak warning that Britain has the worst levels of drug abuse in Europe and the continent's second highest rate of drug-related deaths.
Cocaine use among young people has tripled since the late 1990s to more than 750,000 in 2005-2006, the study for the new UK Drug Policy Commission says.
Nearly 5 per cent of people entering drug rehabilitation programmes say their main problem is with cocaine. The average street price has dropped from £69 ($187) to £49 a gram over the past six years.
"From being an exclusive drug, used only by the wealthy and some dependent drug users, it has now become part of the menu of psychoactive substances that young people use to enhance their leisure time. It may have come into fashion among these people as ecstasy reduced in perceived quality," the report says.
It said one in four people aged 26 to 30 have tried a class A drug, such as heroin, cocaine or ecstasy, at least once.
The number of heroin users has risen from 5000 in 1975 to an estimated 281,000 in England and 50,000 in Scotland. It has now stabilised at "levels that are very high by international standards".
With around 20 per cent of people arrested dependent on heroin, the cost of drug-related crime in England and Wales is estimated at more than £13 billion.
Drug use is now of common experience for people born since 1970, although most try cannabis only a few times with a small minority going on to be problematic users of harder drugs.
source: Nigel Morris, New Zealand Herald
Really? Mmmmmm...
From yesterday's Christian Science Monitor
Provo, Utah - There is bad news and good news about teenage drinking.
The bad news, research suggests, is that children who start drinking below the age of 15 are more likely to become alcoholics than those who start at the legal age of 21.
The further bad news is that new scientific evidence suggests that underage drinking could damage a teen's rapidly developing brain.
The good news is that concerned federal and state agencies are sounding the alarm about this serious problem.
The further good news is that parental disapproval turns out to be the key reason underage children choose not to drink alcohol.
Even in Utah, a state with a large Mormon population that eschews alcohol, 59 percent of Utah parents are surprised to learn that some heavy binge drinking starts as early as the sixth grade.
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. has launched a media campaign called ParentsEmpowered.org designed to educate parents about the dangers of underage drinking and the proven skills to prevent it. "You have more power over the choices your children make than you may realize," say Mr. Huntsman and Utah first lady Mary Kaye Huntsman.
He believes parents who drink should tell their children that some people should not drink alcoholic beverages at all. This includes children and adolescents, pregnant women, and people who plan to drive or take part in activities that require attention or skill. These parents should make it clear they do not want their children to drink alcohol until they are 21 and then only in moderation.
Parents who do not drink should explain to their children the reasons for not drinking, whether they are religious, health-related, or due to family history. They should set clear rules about no underage drinking, know where their children are and with whom, ensure their children's social environments are alcohol-free, and have daily, positive communication and interaction with their children. They should explain that drinking alcohol is not a "rite of passage" but a dangerous drug for a teenager.
The ParentsEmpowered.org campaign draws on research by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the American Academy of Pediatrics. The research finds that alcohol affects a teen brain differently than it affects a mature adult brain. It posits that the brain goes through rapid development and "wiring" changes during the ages of 12 through 21 and that teen alcohol use can damage this wiring.
According to Larry Lunt, chairman of the Utah state agency monitoring alcohol sales, a new law cracking down on sales to young people has increased compliance from 66 percent to 88 percent. Says Mr. Lunt: "We used to say 'reducing underage drinking in Utah.' " But he says the new motto for ParentsEmpowered.org is "eliminating underage drinking in Utah."
Meanwhile, California is considering action against a product that critic Jim Kooler describes as "an insidious strategy to get teens comfortable with alcohol." The product, under labels such as Smirnoff Ice, Mike's Hard Lemonade, Bacardi Silver, and Zima, is flavored alcoholic beverages that The New York Times says look and taste like soda "but offer the kick of a cocktail." Dr. Kooler heads a state-sponsored group that promotes healthy lifestyles for teenagers. He wants California to adopt stricter rules for drinks that contain distilled spirits but are sold and taxed as beer. The Times says that if the products were taxed as hard liquor the tax would jump from 20 cents a gallon to $3.30 a gallon. Maine has already reclassified these drinks, known as alcopops and flavored malt beverages, making them more expensive and difficult to buy. Arkansas, Illinois, and Nebraska are considering doing the same. In California, such reclassification is opposed by small business owners and industry groups.
Gary Galanis, a spokesman for the big alcoholmaker Diageo, told the Times that flavored malt beverages are roughly as potent as beer. The drinks, he argued, come from brewing, not distilling, and the alcohol stems from added flavoring, not hard liquor. But attorney Jim Mosher, who studies underage drinking, says, "If beer has alcohol in it, it's a distilled spirit."
Mr. Galanis says the real problem with underage drinking is not alcopops, but access to alcohol. The numbers, he says, show that underage drinkers get alcohol from siblings over age 21 or parents. From an oddly different viewpoint, this spokesman for the alcohol industry agrees with organizations such as ParentsEmpowered.org that what parents and families do may hold the key to combating underage drinking.
Mentor Moms
A trio of Nevada women -- all formerly addicted to alcohol or other drugs and dubbed the "Mentor Moms" -- are working to counsel other women with addictions, the Reno Gazette-Journal reported April 9.
The mentors, sponsored by the Sparks, Nev.-based nonprofit Tru Vista, work with women who are in danger of losing custody of their children because of their drug use. About a dozen women have already received help from the mentors.
The Mentor Moms attend probable-cause hearings in family court to encourage women to work through the local drug court and get addiction treatment. Many of the women being charged with child abuse and neglect are addicted to methamphetamine.
"People don't understand when they use and abuse drugs and alcohol, they are hurting themselves and majorly hurting their children," said Mentor Mom Tina Olvera, herself a mother of four. "Children are innocent and it's not fair to be born into that lifestyle. I fought to get my kids back. But I knew I needed to change. My biggest obstacle was taking that first step forward."
"You see someone who has done it, and you think, 'Ah, there is light at the end of the tunnel. I can get my kids back. They aren't lost forever,'" added Mentor Mom Sheena Wolfe, a recovering alcoholic.
source: Join Together
Pictured top right: Liz Donahoe is the Mentor Moms program supervisor who assists women addicted to drugs and alcohol get their lives back in order.
And the list just keeps growing...
Check out this slide show, courtesy of wcco.com.
It's worth noting that for every one celebrity mentioned, any one of us could probably come up with more names of the not so famous, or not famous at all. Stars don't exist exclusively in StarLand...
The MusiCares MAP Fund
www.MusiCares.com
MusiCares developed the MusiCares MAP Fund as a pool of resources set aside specifically to address addiction and recovery needs. Named for the Musicians' Assistance Program, the fund represents the joint goal of MAP and MusiCares to provide members of the music community access to addiction recovery treatment regardless of their financial condition.
The MusiCares MAP Fund acknowledges that a vital part of recovery consists of ongoing support and sound aftercare services. Group support is an essential component to successful recovery. Historically there have been three support groups offered at the Hollywood site for MusiCares MAP Fund clients. Facilitated by qualified Addiction Recovery Specialists, these groups provide a safe environment and additional support to clients addressing addiction issues. The groups are 60 – 90 minutes in length and occur on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of each week. All MusiCares MAP Fund groups are free of charge. Groups are mandatory for current MAP Fund clients but are voluntary for alumni and other music industry professionals interested in additional support.
source: Musician's Picnic
Cindy Mogil founded Prescription Anonymous, Inc. (RxA) in September 1998 and she continues to facilitate and sponsor groups today. Cindy started Prescription Anonymous after receiving treatment for prescription addiction. After her recovery she discovered there wasn't a prescription addiction support group in Georgia and very few offered in the United States. Through the invitation of a nationally recognized treatment facility she started her program for others to come and learn from each other about a very misunderstood disease.
She created this web site on prescription addiction for people who need support, share their stories and find help. She is currently writing a book entitled "Swallowing A Bitter Pill" to offer understanding and guidance to those who need to know that there are others with this disease that can identify with their confusion, including answering many questions such as "where do I go from here?" A book she desperately needed to read while going through treatment herself. A book every family should read to help not only their loved one but also themselves. This is a family disease that touches everyone.
source: http://www.prescriptionanonymous.org/
Each year, data is released from the Federal Election Commission that reflects campaign contributions for the previous election. In the alcoholic beverage category for 2006, doling out the most cash by far was the National Beer Wholesalers Association. The beer makers gave more than $3 million to candidates, with a whopping 69 percent going into Republican coffers. Of course, beer companies don’t throw around that sort of money without expecting a hefty return on their investment, which might explain why we won’t hear much about increasing federal beer taxes any time soon. Here are a few other alcohol industry players who made hefty political contributions.
* National Beer Wholesalers Association - $3,064,250
* Wine and Spirits Wholesalers - $665,858
* UST Inc (wines) - $531,500
* Southern Wine and Spirits - $176,250
* E&J Gallo Winery - $175,120
* Molson Coors Brewing - $168,597
source: The Hightower Lowdown
Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit
P J O'Rourke
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) library, which contained up to 12,000 journal volumes and 8,000 books, has been shut down due to budget cuts, SALIS News reported in its Winter 2007 issue.
The library primarily served NIDA's 400-person staff but also archived many historic documents, including every research article published by program staff since the original Addiction Research Center (ARC) was founded in Lexington, Ky., in 1935, and the minutes of every Committee on Problems of Drug Dependence meeting held since 1929.
Rumors of the NIDA library's possible demise began circulating last fall. SALIS reported that the decision to close the library was made for budgetary reasons. The library's collection may end up being incorporated with the main National Institutes on Health library, distributed to individual researchers, or sent to other addiction libraries.
source: http://www.salis.org/
Addressing Alcoholism with Diet and Nutrition
Alcoholism is a very complex problem that is rampant in our society and has many variables that need to be addressed simultaneously.
The success rate with mainstream treatment options is poor at best. The nutrition and diet components are rarely addressed and most
people are unaware of their extreme significance. It is not widely known that Bill Wilson, one of the founders of AA was aware of the
importance of vitamins and hypoglycemia in the treatment of alcoholism. Before his death he was trying to educate physicians about
these issues. (Null 95, Larson 92) After losing a son who had tried all the traditional approaches to alcoholism, Joan Larson researched
with the passion of a mother on a mission and wrote a detailed comprehensive book that emphasizes the importance of addressing diet
and nutrition in the treatment of alcoholism. In her treatment Center, The Health Recovery Center, they maintain a 75% success rate
with an approach that addresses issues such as making diet changes, eliminating sugar and refined foods, supplementing numerous
vitamins, amino acids and minerals which are most often depleted in alcoholics, treating hypoglycemia and treating food allergies. Her
book provides very specific guidelines necessary to take beginning with detox and continuing through recovery. She discovered it is
necessary to make biochemical repairs in order to achieve success and prevent relapse. It is a "must have" book for anyone involved in
the treatment of alcoholism.
Randolph (80) contends that alcoholism is not a mental sickness, but rather it is a symptom of advanced food allergy. In his practice he
has found that it is not the alcohol that one is addicted to it is the food source of which the alcoholic beverage is made of. Alcoholic
beverages are made of food such as grains like barley, corn, cane or grapes. Alcoholics have a food allergy to these. In advanced food
allergy the individual craves the allergic food. Randolph proposes that the alcoholic is craving the beverage is made from not the alcohol
itself. The alcohol serves as a catalyst to help the food be absorbed more quickly, because alcohol is absorbed rapidly throughout the
gastrointestinal tract. This is why most alcoholics struggle to stay sober and relapse is so common. Because, when alcoholics put the
alcohol down they are continuing to eat sugar, corn, etc., and when they eat these foods it triggers cravings. The food itself cannot
provide the quick fix that the alcohol can provide because of its rapid absorption.
Pfeiffer(80) has found that people with addictions have high levels of histamine which he states results in compulsive behavior. He has
had success using calcium, methioninine and a low protein high carbohydrate diet in treating not only compulsive behavior, but also
depression.
There is considerable data that supports the notion that most alcoholics are hypoglycemic. (Larson 92, Airola 77) There is a reciprocal
relationship between the two. Chronic drinking just like excessive sugar contributes to the development of hypoglycemia just as people
with hypoglycemia are potential candidates for alcoholism. Hypoglycemia can cause irritability, depression, aggressiveness, insomnia,
fatigue, restlessness, confusion, a desire to drink and nervousness, many of the same symptoms of an alcoholic. (Larson 92) When an
alcoholic gets sober the symptoms listed above continue to plaque them and if hypoglycemia is not addressed these symptoms leave the
individual at high risk of relapsing in order to temporarily relieve these symptoms.
In 1991 more than 60% of individuals admitted to traditional treatment programs had been in treatment before and more than half of
those repeating were being admitted for the third time. About half of these were drinking again within one year. (Grinspoon 1996)
Unfortunately this is a common scenario in treatment in general. Relapse is expected, common and usually the norm. Most people are
not successful in long -term recovery. In a four year study of 922 men only 28% refrained from drinking for six months after
treatment. After one year 21% remained abstinent and after four years 7% remained abstinent. (Rand Repot 1990) It is only a small
subgroup of people who are helped by 12 step programs and traditional treatment. Obviously traditional treatment is missing a very large
piece of the puzzle. Traditional treatment could be more successful if it implemented a holistic approach to addiction and address issues
such as hypoglycemia, food allergy and nutritional deficiencies.
I know from personal experience that this is true. As a chronic alcoholic I entered traditional treatment and although some of it was
extremely helpful, it could not help with the intense depression, anxiety, confusion, irritability and nervousness that I continued to have
that was putting me at high risk of relapsing. After a year of pure misery and "white knuckling" it, which had left me hanging by a very
fine thread, I discovered a book that changed my life. After finding a doctor who
was knowledgeable in this area, I learned that I had numerous food allergies, chemical allergies, hypoglycemia and vitamin and mineral
deficiencies. It was when I addressed these issues that my life really changed. I discovered that my eliminating sugar and wheat from
that I could eliminate my disabling anxiety and depression. By treating all my allergies and addressing my hypoglycemia and deficiencies
and changing my diet I was able to turn my mental health completely around and I was no longer "white knuckling" it to stay sober. I
have been sober for 13 years and don't attend any AA meetings.
Author: Cynthia Perkins
M.Ed., writer, educator, therapist/advisor/coach and Holistic Health Consultant
Specializing in Life Management and Support for Living with Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, and Disability as well as Sexuality and Sexual Intimacy.
http://www.holistichelp.net/
And I'm going to turn this space into a war zone of information and opinions about drug addiction and alcoholism past, present and future.
My friend P. Bench might even drive by and deposit some goodies.
Turn Over A New Leaf...
