The Effectiveness of Teaching Your Teen to Drink
Teaching your teen to drink – what does that mean? can it be successful? Often parents talk about the reasons for letting their teens drink at home. One reason that regularly comes up often is the desire to “teach” their teen to drink so that when their teen is presented with an opportunity to drink…
Read MoreSecondhand Drinking | Secondhand Drugging (SHD)
Secondhand drinking, secondhand drugging – they’re as real as secondhand smoke. They are what happens to those who are on the receiving end of a person’s drinking or drug abuse behaviors. What is Secondhand Drinking | Secondhand Drugging (SHD) SHD refers to the negative impacts of a person’s drinking or drugging behaviors. It is what…
Read MoreAddictions Are Treatable Brain Diseases
The idea that addictions are treatable brain diseases is foreign to most people. The definition of the disease itself – addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease – is little understood, and as such, so are its treatment. The following is a guest post by Judith Ann Miller, Ph.D., and CEO of Courage to…
Read MoreConcerned About Your Child’s Drinking or Drug Use? Watch This!
Concerned about your child’s drinking or drug use is cause for alarm in and of itself. For if we are concerned, then likely there really is a problem. This may sound confusing, but think of it this way – something (whether it’s changed behaviors, changed friend groups, outrageous risk taking activities) is raising an alarm,…
Read MoreHow It Is That a Person Can Choose to Drink and Drive?
How does a person get a DUI if they didn’t choose to drink and drive? One of the most difficult obstacles to overcome when working to halt DUIs/DWIs — driving while impaired — is that by the time a person who has been drinking through dinner or over the course of an evening still thinks s/he…
Read MoreThe Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study
Astounding findings about the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACE) on brain development are now available. Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) – Childhood Trauma If you’ve been following my blog or my books, you will have repeatedly read that one of the key risk factors for developing a substance abuse problem and/or addiction is childhood trauma.…
Read MoreBorderline Personality Disorder
Borderline personality disorder and the substance abuse | addiction connection explained. The importance of understanding is, in part, due to the role mental illness plays as one of the five key risk factors for developing an addiction. Often people who suffer from a mental illness, such as borderline personality disorder, also suffer from substance abuse…
Read MoreFinally! The Need for Physicians Substance Abuse Training in the News
Physicians Substance Abuse Training is gaining traction in the news! I was thrilled to read Join Together’s January 18, 2011, News Summary, “Physician Substance Abuse Training ‘Inadequate,’ Experts Say.” The following are the recommendations cited by the referenced paper’s lead author, Patrick O’Connor, M.D., Chief of the Section of General Internal Medicine at Yale, who…
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