Addiction is a developmental disease that often begins in adolescence. It is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease, which is why the brain changes associated with puberty and ages 12-25 are so important to understand. So what is the brain / puberty / addiction connection? How does it relate to substance abuse, addiction, treatment, intervention,… Continue Reading
Monthly Archives: February 2012
Addiction and Adolescence – Stopping It Where It Often Starts
Addiction and Adolescence – as you read in my last post, “Addiction is a Developmental Disease – People Are Not Born Addicts/Alcoholics,” addiction often begins in adolescence. Not only that, but a person has to abuse a substance (drugs or alcohol) in order to set up the chemical and structural brain changes that lead to… Continue Reading
Addiction is a Developmental Disease — People Are Not Born Addicts | Alcoholics
Addiction is a developmental disease. In other words, people are not born alcoholics | addicts, which is why it’s important that prevention and intervention efforts start with education. Prevention. Intervention. Education. Late 20th and now 21st century brain and addiction-related research demonstrates addiction (whether to drugs or alcohol) is not “in the blood,” as people… Continue Reading
Worried a Loved One’s Drinking May Be Alcoholism? Here’s Information on Treating the Disease
Worried a Loved One’s Drinking may be alcoholism? Is there a difference between alcohol abuse and alcoholism? Can alcoholism successfully be treated? Information on Treating the Disease for Those Worried a Loved One’s Drinking May be Alcoholism Thanks to late 20th and 21st century brain and addiction-related research findings, it is now understood that alcoholism… Continue Reading
NIAAA’s Therapist’s Guide to Alcohol & Intimacy for Couples
For therapists working with couples in which intimacy and/or alcohol-related problems are a concern, NIAAA’s Guide for Marriage and Family Therapists, “Alcohol Problems In Intimate Relationships: Identification and Intervention,” may help. It may also prove a helpful read/review for couples struggling with these issues, as well. The following is a quote of the “Purpose of… Continue Reading
What Was I Thinking?
The following is a guest post by Carolyn Hughes, a freelance writer with special interest in alcohol issues. As she described her story, “For nearly 20 years I nearly drank myself to death. Here are some insights into what was going on in my alcoholic head.” Carolyn is currently writing The Hurt Healer, a novel… Continue Reading
Why a Child of an Alcoholic | Addict “Chooses” to Drink or Do Drugs – Meeting Ourselves Coming & Going
Why a Child of an Alcoholic | Addict “Chooses” to Drink or Do Drugs baffles most people – including the child themselves. It’s a funny thing about growing up or coming of age in a family with undiagnosed, unhealthily discussed, untreated addiction (whether it be an addiction to alcohol or illegal or prescription drugs). Children… Continue Reading
Binge Drinking? Heavy Social Drinking? Alcohol Abuse is NOT Alcoholism
When a person drinks, the alcohol bypasses the normal digestive process and enters the bloodstream through the walls of the small intestine, where it dissolves in water and travels through the bloodstream to areas of the body high water concentration and /or having lots of blood vessels – like the brain. Alcohol leaves the body… Continue Reading