2010
05.28
The purpose of the Halt Recovery Central Blog is to disseminate scientific or scholarly information relating to or about Alcoholish, Addiction and Drug Abuse. Virtually all of the information we post comes directly from the National Institutes of Health and its colleges, the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Institute on Drug Abuse, as well as the American Psychological Association and the American Psychiatric Association.
As such, this is not a typical blog that invites colloquy or allows the posting comments. It engages in neither.
Its sole purpose is to help dispel the misinformation that exists relating to addiction, not to debate it. There are many venues available for that purpose. We especially recommend About.com’s About Alcoholism site, or Buddy T. at About.com, if you want to discuss, engage or debate.
2010
07.19
Scientific research has found that teenage girls are vulnerable to a number of unique physical, psychological and social risk factors for drug and alcohol abuse. Click here to read the full report from the Partnership for a Drug Free America.
2010
07.15
About Alcoholism: Proposed Alcohol Dietary Guidelines Questioned
Buddy T’s Blog at About Alcoholism reported today that “Alcoholism advocates are up in arms about proposed new USDA dietary guidelines for alcohol consumption that they say will redefine moderate drinking and encourage drinking at a risky level. Moreover, some critics of the proposed guidelines say there is no evidence that moderate drinking is beneficial in the first place.”
The advocates are encouraging public comments on the proposed guidelines before the deadline this Thursday, July 15, 2010. You can read the full story by clicking here.
2010
07.06
How You Deal With Stress Can Reduce Cravings (From Buddy T’s Blog at About Alcoholism)
If you are trying to maintain a clean and sober life and you have a tendency to deal with stressful situations by avoiding them, you could be setting yourself up for a relapse. Researchers have found that addicts who deal with problems by avoiding them experience twice the number of cravings for drugs during a stressful day than those who use coping skills to work through their problems.
Recovering addicts who avoid coping with stress give in more easily to cravings and therefore are more likely to relapse during recovery.
Researchers studied 55 college students who were in recovery from substance abuse – alcohol, cocaine or club drugs. Each student was given a PDA device and asked to record their daily cravings and the intensity of any negative social experiences, as well as their strategies for coping with stress.
Stress Linked to Cravings
First, the researchers found that the number of stressful experiences the recovering addicts had during the day was directly related to the number of cravings they experienced on a daily basis.
They also found that link between experiencing stress and the level of the cravings they experienced was related to the students’ reliance on “avoidance coping.”
“We found that addicts who deal with stress by avoiding it have twice the number of cravings in a stressful day compared to persons who use problem solving strategies to understand and deal with the stress,” said Penn State’s H. Harrington Cleveland in a news release. “Avoidance coping appears to undercut a person’s ability to deal with stress and exposes that person to variations in craving that could impact recovery from addiction.”
Avoiding Stress Doesn’t Work
The authors of the study concluded that trying to avoid stress does not work for addicts, simply because it is impossible to completely avoid all stressful experiences. Avoiding problems end up just multiplying those problems, causing even more stress.
Those in the student who were more likely to remain in recovery without relapse were those who used coping skills to work through a problem head on, rather than trying to avoid it.
The study was published in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
2010
06.18
Alcohol dependence or abuse—and even moderate alcohol use—among fathers living with adolescents (i.e., youths aged 12 to 17) may increase the risk of substance use among those children. Increasing public awareness of the association between paternal alcohol use and adolescent substance use may help to focus attention on providing treatment for affected fathers and support for their children to prevent or reduce adolescent substance use. The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) gathers information that can help to provide a better understanding of the relationship between paternal alcohol use and adolescent substance use.
The NSDUH sample includes a subsample of parents and children who live in the same household. The survey annually collects data on the use of alcohol and illicit drugs,1 including questions about symptoms of dependence or abuse. Dependence or abuse is defined using criteria specified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV),2 which include symptoms such as withdrawal, tolerance, use in dangerous situations, trouble with the law, and interference in major obligations at work, school, or home during the past year.
This issue of The NSDUH Report examines rates of adolescent substance use and substance use disorders (i.e., dependence on or abuse of alcohol or illicit drugs) by level of alcohol use in the past year among fathers (i.e., no alcohol use, alcohol use but no alcohol use disorder, and alcohol use disorder). It focuses on biological, step-, adoptive, and foster children aged 12 to 17 who were living with their fathers at the time of the survey interview.3 All findings are based on annual averages from combined 2002 to 2007 NSDUH data.
2010
06.07
Young people just out of high school are less likely to drink heavily and smoke marijuana if they are in a romantic relationship, compared to their peers who are not dating. In the same way that getting married will often reduce substance abuse, a new study shows that dating can also influence young people to reduce their drinking and smoking.
Conversely, young people 19 or 20 years old who are not in a relationship are 40% more likely to use marijuana.
Many studies have shown that marriage among older people reduces the chance that people will drink heavily or smoke pot frequently, but the new study showed that just dating can have the same effect for young people.
Catching Up With Their Peers
The University of Washington study followed 909 young people from first and second grade through two years after high school. There were some surprises in the research findings:
- Those who were not in a relationship at age 19 and 20 smoked and drank less than their peers when they were in high school.
- After high school, however, those not in relationships catch up or surpass their peers in substance abuse.
Spending Less Times in the Bar
The authors of the study speculate that the reason that young people in relationships are less likely to drink and smoke less is because they are happier and get social support from their partners. They spend less time at parties and bars and less time with their drinking friends.
The researchers found that there was an exception to their findings about dating and substance abuse. If a person is dating someone who is a heavy drinker or drug user, it raises the odds that the person will smoke and drink.
Source: Alcoholism Blog of Buddy T.