Want to Cut Down on Your Drinking??
Have you begun to worry about how much you—or someone close to you—is drinking? Excessive drinking can harm your health and your well being. But how much drinking is too much? And how can you tell when it’s become a problem that needs to be addressed?
College Student Drinking--the Challenges for Their Schools and Communities
When student deaths, injuries, or brawls occur on campus, the response tends to be immediate and focused largely on the individual students and families involved. Once the crisis recedes, there is little incentive to consider either the root causes of such events or their broader implications.
Changing the Lives of Teens Through the Power of Choice: A Strength-Based Model in Wilderness Therapy
By Meghan Vivo
Outback is a progressive wilderness therapy program for adolescents ages 13 to 17 struggling with problems such as oppositional defiance, academic underachievement, low self-esteem, depression, substance abuse, and other behavioral and emotional issues that operates under the philosophy that we all have a choice as to what we’ll make of our lives.
Modern Rites of Passage in the Wilderness: Guiding Young People to a Sober Adulthood
By Meghan Vivo
Much of what you read about wilderness therapy speaks of the life skills young people learn in the wilderness, such as communication, teamwork, and understanding natural consequences, which teach them to build positive relationships and pull themselves out of the pitfalls of adolescence. And all of that is certainly true. But equally, if not more important, is the broader opportunity in wilderness therapy for young people to mark their transition into adulthood.
Teen Substance Abuse: What Parents Don’t Know Could Hurt Their Kids
By Meghan Vivo
The teenage years are all about developing a personal identity. As part of this period of self-exploration, many teens will break rules, defy authority, and possibly experiment with drugs and alcohol. To help parents determine whether their child may have a problem with drugs or alcohol, Laurie Wilmot, LCSW, provides responses to some of parents’ most common questions.
Beating Addiction: Help for Teen Girls
An Interview with Laurie Wilmot, LCSW—By Meghan Vivo
At an age when most kids are breaking away from their parents, exploring their career interests, and establishing lifelong bonds with friends and partners, teens who are addicted to drugs or alcohol face an entirely different challenge just to get back to normal adolescent life.
Does Your Family's History of Alcoholism Put You at Risk?
If you're among the millions who have a parent, grandparent, or other close relative with alcoholism, does that mean problems with alcohol are inevitable for you too?
The Link Between PTSD and Substance Abuse
Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is an anxiety disorder that can develop in some people after exposure to a terrifying event or ordeal in which grave physical harm occurred or was threatened. An emerging body of research has documented a very strong association between PTSD and substance abuse.
Turning to the Use (and Abuse) of Drugs, Alcohol and/or Tobacco in Times of Stress...
Stressful events can have a direct affect on the use of alcohol or other drugs. Stress is a major contributor to the initiation and continuation of addiction to alcohol or other drugs, as well as to relapse or a return to drug use after periods of abstinence.
Couples in Recovery
By Amy Zachary, MSW
When addiction strikes, what happens to a couple? In couples where one partner is using and the other is not, spouses usually develop over-functioning and under-functioning roles. That is, the user under-functions and the non-user over-functions to compensate for their mate.
Closing the Gender Gap in Addiction Treatment
By Hugh C. McBride
Among the many strides women have made in the past generation, at least one “advancement” is unlikely to be cause for celebration: According to the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, one in four abusers of drugs or alcohol in the United States is female, making women the fastest-growing segment of the nation’s substance-abusing population.
Do You Feel Me?
By Lana M. Ackaway, LCSW-R, NCPsyAv
Punitive superego is often found within addiction and within borderline. It produces not only self-criticism, but also acts as a censorship over what is felt to be unacceptable thoughts and feelings—a resistance that offers a protection against shame and humiliation.
Prescription Painkiller Abuse on the Rise With Teens
According to a newly-released national study, today's teens are more likely to abuse a prescription painkiller or other prescription medication as a means of getting high than they are to experiment with illegal drugs.
Helping Your Kids Say "No" to Marijuana—Even If You Didn’t
If your child asks whether you ever used marijuana and your honest answer is "yes," you don’t have to provide a graphically detailed account. Instead, use your child’s curiosity about your personal history as an opportunity to talk about questions and concerns they may be having about marijuana, as well as the use and abuse of other drugs and substances.
Is it abuse? Is it addiction?
Addiction is more than an uncontrollable desire for substances; it is an underlying behavior pattern with deeply emotional roots. Successful treatment requires digging down and revealing the long-ingrained pattern at the root level. What's often revealed is behavior born of anger, helplessness, and shame, compounded by intense desires for immediate escape from these unsettling feelings.
What's Alcoholism's Affect on Mental Health?
People with mental health problems face an increased risk for alcohol problems and vice versa. Studies show that the overall prevalence of alcohol dependence is almost twice as high among people with mental disorders than in the general population. It is not clear whether mental health problems are a cause or a result of problems with alcohol dependence.
If an alcoholic is unwilling to get help, what can you do about it?
An alcoholic can't be forced to get help except under certain circumstances, such as a violent incident that results in court-ordered treatment or a medical emergency. But you don't have to wait for someone to "hit rock bottom" to act. Therapists especially skilled in alcoholism treatment have a series of steps they suggest to encourage an alcoholic get help.
Club Drugs Aren't "Fun Drugs"
By Alan I. Leshner, Ph.D.
"Raves" or all-night dance parties continue to attract teens and young adults who may think Ecstasy, GHB, Rohypnol, and other club drugs are harmless. While researchers continue to study club drugs with a sense of urgency, treatment and prevention strategies are being developed. The bottom line is simple: even experimenting with club drugs is an unpredictable and dangerous thing to do.
Steroids: The Hard Truth
Steroids are drugs intended to treat conditions that occur when the body produces abnormally low amounts of testosterone, such as delayed puberty, some types of impotence, and patients with AIDS and other diseases that result in loss of lean muscle mass. However, use of this serious drug has become widespread among athletes for aesthetic and performance purposes, with tragic and often fatal consequences.
Alcohol Affects Older People Differently
Alcohol's effects do vary with age. Even small amounts of alcohol can create problems for older people because as the body ages, the effects of alcohol can become amplified. The likelihood of taking more medications as you get older also risks increasing alcohol's effects.
Women Often Experience Drug Abuse and Addiction Quite Differently Than Men
The developmental stages of drug involvement and addiction are not necessarily identical for men and women. The path to drug abuse can be more rapid and complex for women and typically includes a pattern of breakdowns in individual, familial, and environmental protective factors and an increase in childhood fears, anxieties, phobias, and failed relationships.
Millions of Americans in Denial About Their Own Substance Abuse
Results of a recent nationwide survey reveal that, while millions of Americans habitually smoke pot, drink alcohol, use cocaine and swallow prescription drugs, too many who meet the criteria for needing treatment do not recognize that they have a problem. The figure of those "in denial" is estimated at more than 4.6 million--a significantly higher number of individuals who could benefit from professional help than had previously been thought.
Methamphetamine: Highly Addictive and Highly Dangerous
Methamphetamine--known by such slang names as speed, meth, chalk, ice, crystal, crank, glass, and uppers--is a highly addictive and ultimately dangerous stimulant. Whatever the excuse to use meth, or whatever the perceived short-term attraction to the drug may be, meth use is predictably physically, emotionally and mentally destructive.
Cognitive-Behavioral Approach to Treating Cocaine Addiction
A Cognitive-Behavioral approach to treating cocaine addiction attempts to help patients recognize, avoid, and cope. That is, to recognize the situations in which they are most likely to use cocaine, to avoid those situations when appropriate, and to cope more effectively with a range of problems and problematic behaviors associated with substance abuse.
Many Doctors Overlook—Or Ignore—Their Patients' Drug Abuse
A nationwide survey of family physicians, internists, obstetricians, gynecologists, and psychiatrists finds that, although primary care physicians are in a key position to help diagnose their patients’ drug addiction and get abusers proper treatment, too many either don’t address the issue with their patients, or they don’t offer intervention to those patients who tell them about their drug use.
Facts About Alcohol--From Social Drinking to Dangerous Dependence
Most adults can drink moderate amounts of alcohol up to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women and older people (one drink equals one 12-ounce bottle of beer or wine cooler, one 5-ounce glass of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits). However, for a variety of critical reasons, many should not drink at all.
Driving Under the Influence
"Have one [drink] for the road" was, until recently, a commonly used phrase in American culture. It has only been within the past 20 years that we have begun to recognize the dangers associated with drunk driving.
Treating “Peter Pan Syndrome” with Wilderness Therapy
By Meghan Vivo
The “Peter Pan Syndrome” is a common phenomenon witnessed by parents: young people in their late teens and twenties who look like adults on the outside, but are still teenagers on the inside. Often, these young adults get caught up with “partying” and staying out all hours of the night, resisting the responsibilities of adulthood and glorifying the “freedom” of adolescence.
Understanding How Wilderness Therapy Programs Change Teens
By Meghan Vivo
“I often see the greatest progress in students after someone has drawn a boundary with them or they have gone through some sort of struggle,” explains Lynn Anne Madory, a therapist at Aspen Achievement Academy, one of the oldest and most reputable wilderness programs in the nation. “Parents get nervous when their child has a tough week, but that’s when the growth happens."
Hooked on Pills: What Parents Need to Know About Prescription and OTC Drug Abuse
An Interview with Arianne Power, CD Counselor, By Meghan Vivo
Arianne Powell, a chemical dependency counselor at SageWalk the Wilderness School, has some strong advice for parents of adolescents: “More teens than ever before are abusing prescription and over-the-counter drugs. It’s time to take precautions in your own home. You could be providing your children with something that could kill them.”
The Future of Teen Addiction Treatment--Trends and Predictions from Jeff Nalin, Psy.D.
By Meghan Vivo
In this article, Jeff Nalin, Psy.D., co-founder and executive director of Echo Malibu, an innovative residential treatment program for adolescents in Malibu, California, weighs in on the trends in teen-focused substance abuse treatment programs and makes predictions about what changes we can anticipate in the years ahead.
Baby Boomers: The Changing Face of Older Adult Addiction
By Emily Battaglia
Coming-of-age baby boomers heralded a new era of illicit drug use in the United States – and aging members of this generation have maintained a higher rate of involvement with illicit drugs than the generation immediately preceding it.
Which Came First: Marijuana Use or Depression?
By Meghan Vivo
Marijuana has adverse effects on the brain, heart, and lungs--and mounting evidence also suggests a correlation between marijuana use and depression. The question experts on all sides want answered is, which came first? Marijuana use or depression? Do depressed teens smoke pot to relieve their symptoms, or does smoking pot actually cause depression?
Interventions for Chemical Dependency
By Lana M. Ackaway
The chief issue with chemical dependency/addiction is that most often an addict believes he/she can use safely. I've never encountered a chemically dependent individual who thinks, feels, says or behaves otherwise.
It’s Twice as Strong Today…
Even if you experimented with pot when you were younger, there’s nothing hypocritical about trying to keep your kids off of it now. Reliable and consistent evidence indicates today’s marijuana is more than twice as powerful on average than it was twenty years ago. With twice the concentration of THC, marijuana is now capable of causing double the damage.
The Dark Side of Prescription Drugs
By Patti Geier, LCSW
Prescription drug addiction usually begins by genuinely needing the drug that's been prescribed for medical reasons...but somewhere along the line it progressively turns to the regular use/abuse of the medication in an attempt to satisfy emotional and psychological needs.
Drug Rehab Programs
Selecting a drug rehab for yourself or someone you care about may be one of the most important decisions you will make in your lifetime. Most of us don't know what to look for in a quality program. Not all drug rehab centers are the same--they differ greatly in program options, staff qualifications, credentials, cost, and effectiveness.
Marijuana Facts For Teens
Get answers to some of the questions about marijuana most commonly asked by teens, including what are the short- and long-term effects of using marijuana; what effect does it have on regular activities, such as driving, studying, and sports; what does using marijuana do to the brain and to the body; how addictive is it; and what can you do to get help if you want to stop using.
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