The holidays are stressful and a time when many will over-use and abuse alcohol and other psychotropic chemicals. These times may present challenges for those of us who are committed to sobriety and they can be a risk for relapse. Understanding and applying the unique faculty of consciousness, mindfulness, may be extremely helpful during these celebratory times.
For quite some time, the public view towards drug or alcohol addictions was more focused on the problems of personal will power and lacking self control. But fortunately, the smoking cessation treatment programs in recent years have started to shed more light into our understanding about the unique biological needs in certain individuals driven by particular genetic predisposition and environmental factors.
Just about everyone knows that sugar is bad for our health, but during the holidays, it appears with more frequency and is difficult to avoid. In case there are readers who have missed out on this fact, I will provide you with the crash course to start off this...
President Donald Trump[1] has just proclaimed September 2017 as the National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month. One can’t fault any concerned American for bemoaning our #1 national epidemic that continues to escalate with no solution in sight. In true Trumpesque form, the issue is being met head on and brazenly confronted, a welcomed call to action. Deaths from drug abuse kill more Americans by far than any other disorder, with tobacco alone killing nearly a half million Americans per year and underlying much of the death and disability of the classical #1 and #2 killers, heart disease and cancer. Deaths from opioid abuse alone, heavily fueled by the prescription pad, now tally more than the deaths from auto accidents and gunshot wounds combined.
Sadly, opioid abuse and painkiller addiction are rising dramatically and are now exceeding the mortality rates of auto accidents and gunshot wounds combined. Restoring Natural Opioids to the Brain The new healthcare budget may pump 45 billion dollars into opioid abuse...
It’s common knowledge that adolescence is characterized by risk-taking behaviors and experimentation. As a parent, you try your best to warn your adolescent children about the dangers they may face, especially regarding drug and alcohol abuse. One type of drug use that is less commonly recognized is prescription drug abuse. In fact, after marijuana, prescription drugs are the most commonly abused drug by teenagers. Nearly 50% of Americans take at least one prescription medication, and the sale of prescription painkillers quadrupled from 1999 to 2010. Therefore, prescription medications are readily accessible by children and teens. It’s estimated that 25% of teenagers has misused or abused a prescription drug at least once in their lifetime. One disturbing risk taking trend in regard to prescription drug abuse is for teens to gather for what’s called pill parties, or “skittling.” In these settings, kids are encouraged to bring any pills they can find, and then the pills are dumped into a bowl for them to sample. The risks are very high, given that the child may be taking a very dangerous medication, and is also mixing medications together. These types of gathering have resulted in significant illness and even death for some teens.
If you’ve tried to kick the sugar habit and failed, you may be facing something similar to an addiction. You could be facing a larger problem than you may have realized. Have you ever noticed that when you eat sugar you crave more sweets? Sadly, sugar addiction is...
Research shows that sugar can trigger compulsive cravings and stimulate the need for more and more for the same effect, similar behavior to a drug addiction, although not classified as such. Many Americans had a rude awakening recently if they were in front of their...
In a recent study published online in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, it was found that low levels of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), the major omega-3 fatty acid concentrated in the brain, may increase suicide risk. A retrospective case-control study of 1600 United...
It is possible to quit smoking naturally if the underlying nutrient deficiencies in the body are rebalanced. Nicotine, the addictive substance in cigarettes, is one of the most powerful poisons on earth. It's so toxic that as few as two or three drops of pure nicotine...