“Scientists announced that they have located the gene for alcoholism. Scientists say they found it at a party, talking too loudly.” Conan O’Brien [American late night Talk Show Host. b. 1963].

Although much can be said about alcoholism and its impact on society, one thing is clear- We are breeding a nation of alcoholics. Drinking has become part of our national past time. I myself have been guilty of the excessive use of alcohol- a condition not learnt until university days when, some may say, I took a “crash” course in drinking.

However, we in Trinidad and Tobago do have a serious problem. According to Hari D. Maharajh and Akleema Ali in “Crime in Trinidad and Tobago: the effect of alcohol use and employment,” a reduction in beer available for home consumption – a major public health concern- would significantly reduce the occurrence of minor offenses. In fact, the consumption of beer accounted for 64% of minor crimes in this country. However, this aspect of the impact of alcoholism will be looked at in another article.

The purpose of this article is to summarize the statistical literature concerning the effects of alcohol consumption on earnings and employment. One of the most important findings of this research is that alcoholism has both direct and indirect effects on earnings. That is, there is evidence that alcoholics’ earnings are depressed both because alcoholism causes reduced labour productivity and because it discourages investments in “human capital” (e.g., education). Problem drinking is also found to increase unemployment.

Original article by: Dr. Anderson Morris

Posted September 10, 2009

From:

http://addictionrecoverybasics.com/

Any relationship involves a certain degree of codependency. Here is a quiz designed to find out if you are codependent to a problematic degree. The terms enabler and codependent arise when speaking of the partner involved in a relationship with an addicted person, but the addict may also be codependent.

Any relationship that involves addiction sledom has moderation as a foundation, it usually involves extremes such as one partner being the giver and one the taker. Here is the quiz:

By Royane Real, Are You Codependent?

Do you feel like you give and give in your relationships but you get very little back? Are you always trying to save somebody or rescue somebody that doesn’t have their life together?

You may be co-dependent.

Take the quiz in this article and find out. In a relationship between two emotionally healthy adults, the roles of giving and receiving help are balanced. Both people offer help and receive help from each other in approximately equal amounts.However, there are some people who always take on the role of being the helper, no matter what relationship they are in. These people give, and give, and they always seem to get involved with people who have very serious emotional problems, such as addiction.And they exhaust themselves trying desperately to save the other person, even at tremendous cost to their own health. These people have friendships that focus exclusively on trying to solve the problems of their friends.

We sometimes call this quality “codependency“, and we may label people who are obsessed with helping others “co-dependent”. A person who is co-dependent will tend to have relationships with people who have a lot of problems emotional, social, familial and financial. The co-dependent person may spend much of their own time, money, and energy helping other people who have problems, while ignoring the problems in their own life.Why would somebody be co-dependent?A person who is co-dependent often suffers from a deep sense of worthlessness and anxiety, and tries to derive a sense of self-worth by helping or rescuing others. A person who is co-dependent may not know how to relax and feel comfortable in a friendship where both people are equals and the relationship is based on enjoying each other’s company.

Co-dependent people may even feel anxious if someone they have been helping gets their life in order and no longer wants their help. The co-dependent person may immediately look around for someone else they can “save”. If you frequently take on the role of helping the people who are your friends, how can you tell if you are acting out of genuine kindness and concern, or whether your behavior is in fact co-dependency? When is it healthy to put the needs of other people first, and when is it unhealthy?There aren’t really any hard and fast lines between the two.

Here are some questions you can ask yourself to see whether your “helping” behavior may actually be co-dependency:

1. Do you have a hard time saying no to others, even when you are very busy, financially broke, or completely exhausted?
2. Are you always sacrificing your own needs for everyone else?
3. Do you feel more worthy as a human being because you have taken on a helping role?
4. If you stopped helping your friends, would you feel guilty or worthless?
5. Would you know how to be in a friendship that doesn’t revolve around you being the “helper”?
6. If your friends eventually didn’t need your help, would you still be friends with them? Or would you look around for someone else to help?
7. Do you feel resentful when others are not grateful enough to you for your efforts at rescuing them or fixing their lives?
8. Do you sometimes feel like more of a social worker than a friend in your relationships?
9. Do you feel uncomfortable receiving help from other people? Is the role of helping others a much more natural role for you to play in your relationships?
10. Does it seem as if many of your friends have particularly chaotic lives, with one crisis after another?
11. Did you grow up in a family that had a lot of emotional chaos or addiction problems?
12. Are many of your friends addicts, or do they have serious emotional and social problems?
13. As you were growing up, did you think it was up to you to keep the family functioning?
14. As an adult, is it important for you to be thought of as the “dependable one”?

If you answered “yes” to a lot of these questions, you may indeed have a problem with co-dependency. This does not mean that you are a flawed person. It means that you are spending a lot of energy on other people and very little on yourself. If it seems that a lot of your friendships are based on co-dependent rescuing behaviors, rather than on mutual liking and respect between equals, you may wish to step back and rethink your role in relationships.If you suspect that your helping behavior is a form of co-dependency, a good therapist or counselor can help you gain perspective on your actions and learn a more balanced way of relating to others.

There are many excellent books available on the subject of co-dependency, such as “Codependent No More” by Melody Beattie. Attending support groups such as Al-Anon can also help you reduce the stress of codependent relationships, and get you to focus on your own life instead of endlessly trying to rescue all those around you.

This article was written by self help author Royane Real. For more information about how you can have more friendships and better relationships, get her new book “How You Can Have All the Friends You Want” Download it today at>http://www.royanereal.comCopyright Royane Real http://www.royanereal.com

Posted September 3, 2009

Original article by Royane Real

From:

http://addictionrecoverybasics.com/2008/05/27/are-you-codependent-quick-quiz-reveals-codependency/

Highlights of recently published NIDA-supported studies

Studies Focus on Acculturation and Hispanic Youth

U.S.-Born Hispanic Women Have More Drug Problems Than Immigrants: Among 19- to 21-year-old Hispanic women in South Florida, those born in the United States face a higher risk of drug addiction than immigrants, according to a recent study by Dr. R. Jay Turner and colleagues. The U.S.-born women reported more acculturation, measured as preference for English over Spanish, and greater exposure to stressful events, both of which were associated with increased risk for addiction. The gap in acculturation between the two groups accounted for 40 percent of the risk difference; a high score on either acculturation or stress exposure was associated with a nearly three-fold increase in the odds of addiction, compared with low scores on those measures (evaluated at one standard deviation above and below average). The investigators speculate that cultural influences help protect foreign-born Hispanic young women from stress. Native-born and immigrant young men reported similar levels of stress exposure and had similar rates of addiction.
Drug and Alcohol Dependence 83(1):79-89, 2006. [Abstract]

Latino Parent Training: Men and women who completed a parent-training program adapted for Latino culture reported improvements in effective parenting practices and their children’s (aged 13 years, on average) behavior compared with those who did not receive the intervention. Children whose parents received the program also reported that they were less likely to abuse tobacco, marijuana, and other drugs in the future. The parents also said their children’s behavior improved.

Drs. Charles R. Martinez and J. Mark Eddy of the Oregon Social Learning Center randomly assigned 73 Spanish-speaking Latino parents (90 percent were of Mexican heritage) to participate in Nuestras Familias: Andando Entre Culturas (Our Families: Moving Between Cultures) or to receive no intervention. During each of 12 weekly 2.5-hour sessions, participants in the intervention group discussed developing effective family communication, bridging cultures, being positive, and encouraging success using appropriate discipline and limit setting, and practiced parenting techniques in role-play.
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 73(5):841-851, 2005. [Abstract]

Medical Care During Addiction Treatment Reduces Hospital Use

On-site delivery of primary care reduces emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient hospital stays over the next 12 months among adult patients in methadone maintenance or in long-term residential treatment programs, according to a recent article by Dr. Peter D. Friedmann and colleagues. Their longitudinal analysis showed that offsite referrals reduced hospitalizations, but not ED visits, among those in long-term residential programs. Neither on-site care nor offsite referral curbed health service use by outpatients in nonmethadone treatment programs. In all three types of programs, health care use declined after substance abuse treatment. Overall, ED visits decreased from 47 percent to 23 percent, and hospitalizations from 42 percent to 13 percent; the greatest reductions were observed among patients with the longest stays in treatment. The National Treatment Improvement Evaluation Study included six methadone maintenance programs, 14 long-term residential programs, and 24 outpatient nonmethadone programs with over 2,000 patients. The investigators advocate future studies of the cost-effectiveness of integrating primary care into addiction treatment.
Medical Care 44(1):8-15, 2006. [Abstract]

Brain Changes Accompany Cocaine Withdrawal

Rats repeatedly exposed to cocaine and then withdrawn from it exhibit neural changes in the lateral amygdala, a part of the brain involved in responding to pleasurable and aversive stimuli. Such changes may mediate the negative emotional effects that accompany drug withdrawal, say the researchers who documented the effect in a recent study. Dr. Vadim Bolshakov and colleagues at Harvard Medical School have shown that longterm potentiation (LTP), a process underlying learning and memory, occurs in the lateral amygdala when cocaine-exposed rats no longer have access to the drug. They found a clear link between LTP and enhanced levels of the neurotransmitter glutamate in the lateral amygdala and signs of withdrawal in the rats. The findings suggest that amygdala circuits might contribute to drug modulation of motivational states and influence addictive behaviors.
European Journal of Neuroscience 23(1):239-250, 2006. [Abstract]

Posted September 1, 2009

From:

http://www.nida.nih.gov/NIDA_notes/NNvol21N2/RIB.html#medical