ADDICTION

ADDICTION

Are You Getting Good Advice About Addictive Drugs?

The field of medicine has changed quite a bit over the years. For one thing, this field is much more complicated than it used to be. We know so much more about the human body. We know more about what ails us, and about what we might do to treat those ailments.

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Twenty Activities That Are More Fun When Done Sober

I hear so often among young adults and even my peers that drinking and social drug use is the “cool” thing to do. When I go to music shows and events, I’m always amazed by how much alcohol people consume…

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Taxation of Alcohol Does Not Offset the Costs of Alcohol Consumption

A new report in U.S News shed a concerning light on something many Americans have taken for granted for a very long time. For many years, decades even, people have more or less justified the existence of massive , multi-billion dollar alcohol companies...

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How to Talk to Kids About Drugs

“How do we talk to our kids, even young kids, about drugs and alcohol?” “And should we do so?” “What is the right age to start talking to my child about drugs and alcohol?” “How do I communicate to a nine-year-old what drugs are and why they’re...

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What You Can Do to Support Overdose Awareness Month

Every year, tens of thousands of people die from drug overdoses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2017, a little over 70,200 people lost their lives due to overdoses.

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The Importance of Informed Consent in Opioid Drug Prescribing

Who doesn’t want to make informed decisions? Have you ever paid for a product or service on a whim and then regretted it after finding out the product or service wasn’t really what you wanted? You probably would not have made the purchase had you been...

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Yet Another Urgent Reason to Help Addicted Parents

Suicide attempts are another risk factor for the children of addicted parents. We have known for some time that it is harmful for children to grow up in households where one or more of the parents is using drugs and alcohol. There is a wealth of research...

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How to Get the Real College Experience

College is a fantastic opportunity to learn a great deal and to gain valuable experience in order to ready oneself for life as an adult. College is a time to learn a trade, or simply to further one's general education.

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What Happens During an Overdose and What Can You Do About It?

I’ve always believed the best way to tackle a problem was to first learn as much about the problem as possible. So when one of my closest friends died from an overdose in 2012, I dedicated a good deal of time and my career to learning about the dangerous...

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Summertime and Sobriety—How to Stay Sober During the Party Season

Summer is upon us, and for most people, this an exciting and fun season. The sun’s out, the temperatures are up, and there is an energy and aliveness in the air. But for some of us, the summertime can bring a bit of a struggle.

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Taking a Look at Drug Education—No One Can Avoid Responsibility

Drug and alcohol addiction is tearing our society apart, creating a severe struggle and hardship for millions of American families. While teens and young adults as a demographic do not experiment with hard drugs to the same degree that grown adults do,...

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Is there a Connection Between Cold Weather and Opioid Overdoses?

I saw an article in U.S. News that shed entirely new and unique light on addiction and drug overdoses. This news piece sought to determine the correlation between increasing overdose statistics and cold weather.

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How Many Addicted Parents Have Kids Still Living at Home?

“New research shows more than 600,000 American parents with kids under 18 are addicted to opioids.” That was the headline that caught my eye from a May article in U.S. News . A sucker for headlines and statistic-based research, I clicked on the material...

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Naloxone—Does It Help Us or Hinder Us?

Naloxone. This is the overdose reversal medicine, the injection or nasal spray which can bring an overdosing addict back from the brink of death. Naloxone truly is a miracle of modern medicine, but one might be surprised as to the controversy over the...

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Why Are Some Addictions Taken More Seriously Than Others?

The subject of drug and alcohol addiction is riddled with stereotypes and stigma. Our negative view of addiction and addicts is actually a big part of the reason as to why we have such a terrible drug problem. We refuse to confront this problem as the...

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Washington State, Opioid Overdoses, and One Representative’s Efforts to Solve the Crisis

As concerned as I am about the 19.7 million people in our country who struggle with addiction, I keep my ear close to the ground on all issues drug-related. So when I saw a report from last year in the Golden State Sentinel that presented one representative’s...

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What Can You Do to Build a Better World in Recovery?

Being in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction is infinitely preferable to the alternative of living with an active drug addiction or a drinking problem. But that does not mean that living in recovery is easy or straightforward. No one ever said that...

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Exploring the Difference between Overdoses and Overdose Deaths—What We Can Learn from These

A wise friend once introduced me to the concept that, “Correlation does not imply causation.” The principle is that, just because two incidents occurred side by side, or just because one event took place and was closely followed by another (correlation),...

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Keeping a Sober and Drug-Free Home

What do you think would be easier or would take less effort invested and time committed—helping someone kick an addiction, or preventing someone from ever falling prey to a substance abuse habit in the first place? Prevention is the clear winner.

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Parents: Don’t Let Yourself be Blindsided by Your Child’s Drug Use

Too many parents lose their teen or young adult children to drugs when they don’t even know the individual is using drugs. Learn how to prevent this horrible surprise and possibly save a young life.