Something to Consider

Solutions
This blog discusses news and current topics about drug addiction. It's goal to help you understand the problems and issues related to alcohol and drug addiction and offer solutions for new people that are looking for help or just want more information how to recover.
Everyone of us are different
Nobody ever sets out in life to become an Alcoholic or drug addict. many people take illegal drug for the first time and find it feels good and to have a thrill or be a part of the crowd.
Many people need prescription medications, but if these are used beyond the time they begin to be addicted without ever realizing it and start taking too much, too often. Whatever the case, people most differently did not invite the misery that will come with addiction. There is help for alcohol and drug addiction and many rehabilitation center that can work, but these can be very expensive 
Addiction Has Many Faces...
Addiction has many faces, none of them pretty. This site is devoted to trying to help find ways for you to recover from addiction.
We designed this site to give useful information that will help people learn to make better decisions. The key to dealing with #drugabuse, #alcoholism and #drugaddiction is having the right information. You need information to recognize and understand drug addiction or alcoholism in yourself, your family, your friends and your community. This blog has complete and up to date facts about drug and alcohol abuse to help people to stop their dependence.
We designed this blog to give useful information that will help people learn to make better decisions.
Who are we?
We are Drug-Addiction-Support website built to answer the questions and concerns of those harmed by drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. It’s a collaborative effort between many people and resources so that you receive the most update information available. Our goal is to be independent and not promote one treatment center over another but give you the tools to make a well-informed decision.
We do recommend that everyone suffering from this destructive disease join our Alcohol Free Social Life movement. If you are a family member or loved one of an addict we recommend you send them to this amazing site and begin to get yours or your loved ones life back though this process as soon as you can.

Try to stop for 30 days if your unable to then there is HELP for you HERE

Recovery from Alcohol Problems

(Please read on)

Recovery is the final step in the “getting clean” process and denotes making positive changes in how a problem drinker relates to and views the world. Like we spoke about earlier, there is always an underlying emotional struggle that makes someone want to drink; long-term recovery is achieved when those deeper issues are addressed, either through changing the situation or changing your feelings about the situation. Remember, alcohol numbs feelings. So once someone stops drinking, they are confronted with the pain behind the emotions that are no longer being numbed. It is facing those feelings in a healthy, solution-focused manner that allows for recovery.


Abstinence is essentially an alcohol diet, whereas recovery is a healthy lifelong change of how you think, act and feel. When you first abstain from drinking, the goal is solely to not pick up a bottle that day. It is a hugely vital step but does not guarantee that any of the other behavior associated with your addiction has been changed; this concept is often referred to by the term “dry drunk,” and refers to a person who has stopped drinking alcohol but still exhibits maladaptive, confrontational addict behavior.
This type of thinking and behavior are important to recognize because they go hand-in-hand with drinking and indicate the likelihood of a forthcoming relapse. So, how do you recognize this relapse behavior? Here are some examples:
  • Pursuing recovery with less energy than you pursued getting drunk: if you can drive thirty minutes to an open liquor store each night, you can find the time to make an AA meeting
  • Dishonesty: to friends, to strangers, to yourself. Lying and/or manipulation are principle addict behaviors
  • Needing to be right: there’s always two ways to look at something, and your way won’t always be the right one
  • Over-generalizing: “you never…,” “you always…,” etc. Keep in mind that no person and no thing are all good or all bad.
  • Self-pity or Overconfidence: One makes you believe you’ll never get better and the other tells you that you already are. Letting up on your commitment to recovery due to either can lead to relapse.
  • Exhaustion: Self-care is vital during recovery because when you feel well and look well, you are much more likely to think well.
  • Unrealistic Expectations: Nothing will change overnight- not you and not the people around you so give everyone, yourself included, a chance to adjust to the changes you’re making in your life.
There are countless other behaviors that indicate you might be struggling to move forward in recovery or are heading for a relapse, so be mindful of your own actions as well; what do you find yourself doing when you relapse? What negative thinking do you experience before you get the urge to drink? When you communicate, what creates conflict and what creates resolution?


Unfortunately, the friends who you were closest to prior to getting clean may also be the worst ones to be around when you are trying to stay sober. After spending time segregated from the social world while focusing on your treatment, many people instinctively look forward to reconnecting with friends. Think about what kind of activities you did with them and consider these questions; do they socialize without alcohol? Have you ever spent time with them sober? Do they support your recovery?
If the answers to these questions are yes, you are very lucky. Sadly, and very often, the people you socialized with while drinking may not understand your sobriety, support it, or be able to stop themselves from indulging when you are around. Thus, by being around them you are putting your own recovery at risk. Just remember your triggers- being in places you used to drink, with friends you used to drink with, or around others consuming alcohol are extremely common triggers for relapse.
Keep in mind an old cliché: “If you sit in a barber shop for long enough, eventually you’re going to get a haircut.” This essentially explains the theory that you may feel strong enough to hang around old drinking buddies or bars, but eventually you’re going to have a drink.
Because avoiding these triggers are so important but also potentially lonely, do your best to create new friendships outside the context of alcohol. The idea of making friends at this point in your life may seem odd and awkward, but take comfort in the reality that every single person who wants to get clean (and many who don’t) go through a similar feeling of isolation and loneliness.
Seek socializations outside the context of alcohol and be creative; book clubs, adult education classes, recreational sports leagues, your place of worship and AA are all great places to meet new people and keep your mind occupied. Reach out to acquaintances that aren’t habitual drinkers and build on those already-existing connections. But mostly, understand that sober social supports are an absolutely vital component of recovery and even though isolating may feel more comfortable, making social connections is what will help you the most in the long run. 


Finding Sober Support

Learn a new way of life without relying on alcohol
© Depositphotos.com/alistairjcotton
Opening yourself up to a fellow non-professional, like-minded addict can seem very unnecessary and scary- that’s a completely normal feeling. But picture the tough times when all you want is a drink and with no one to call who can convince you otherwise, you relapse. By increasing the sober support in your life, there is always someone to call. Though many cities have individual sober groups, here are a few universal options for finding sober support.
  • Get a sponsor: A sponsor is a personal support and mentor for you as you go through those same experiences. If you decide to get involved with AA, finding a sponsor is a common practice and easy to do after you begin making connections with people at meetings but can also be found through various other sober groups.
  • Sober Meetup: Sober meetup is a great way for people to find social activities that don’t involve alcohol. Not everyone you meet here will necessarily be in recovery, but all choose to abstain from drinking for one reason or another and want to have fun with like-minded people. Visit http://sober.meetup.com/ to find meetups in your neighborhood!
  • Life Ring: Though Life Ring offers face to face groups in some locations, it is a huge online source to connect with sober people online. Chat rooms, email and social networking are all available for anyone in recovery at http://lifering.org/lifering-on-line/
  • Al-anon: Al-anon, and alateen for teenagers, is a support group for family and friends of alcoholics. Their meetings are similar to AA, but instead open to the alcoholic’s loved ones.
  • Smart Recovery: Smart Recovery focuses on teaching sober people coping skills and recovery techniques in a group format. They have worldwide meetings, but also offer online groups. See their outlook on addiction and find a meeting for you at http://www.smartrecovery.org.
Remember that these are commonly used organizations but not the end-all-be-all, so feel free to research online or ask local treatment centers for sober support options in your neighborhood.
 Coping Strategies
Urges and cravings are a reality of sobriety and recovery, but there are many coping skills you can incorporate into your life to ease them. Here are a small number to consider:
  • Avoid environmental triggers: throw out liquor bottles, walk a different way to avoid the liquor store, don’t go to a party where alcohol is being served, etc.
  • When you feel an urge, tell yourself you can wait an hour, and then another: urges always pass in time
  • Distract yourself with an activity: take a walk, go to the gym, write in a journal, read recovery literature, do a puzzle, etc.
  • Reach out to supports: call a friend or family member, go to a self-help (AA) meeting
  • Substitute the urge with another feeling: chew gum, drink sparkling water, etc.
  • Boost your self-esteem
    • Give yourself three compliments every day and be specific- “I was a good friend to John today” or “I handled that rude woman at the supermarket really well by staying calm.”
    • Make a list of the things you’re good at
  • Reaffirm your recovery:
    • “A year from now I…”
    • “It’s getting easier for me to…”
    • “Something I see differently now is…”
    • “One of the ways I’m changing is…”
Keep in mind that different coping strategies will be relevant at different points in your recovery. For example, avoiding parties with alcohol may not be a long-term requirement but is probably a safe bet for the beginning of your sobriety, whereas journaling can be a lifelong support. What you can or cannot handle is a personal decision, so being honest with yourself is the most important thing you can do in recovery

Despite all of this advice, the reality is that staying clean is hard and recovery is a never-ending process. Plus, relapse is often a part of recovery, so don’t give up if a slip-up happens; make realistic goals, be fair to yourself, and remember that every single progression and obstacle you experience in the rehabilitation process is a lesson worth learning. A relapse means that at one point you were sober, so take the positive and use it again. It also means that something didn’t work, giving you a chance to change your plan and better your recovery for the future.
Above all, be proud of yourself for going forward with this step and cherish the strength that it takes. Good luck!




Robert Wants to Ask You A Few Important Questions...

Do you feel that alcohol is controlling your life right now, or at least becoming a MAJOR distraction that's starting to negatively affect everything you do?
Do you feel that if you stopped drinking or at least CONTROLLED your drinking... things would be better for you?
Do you often find it tough to make it through the day without feeling you NEED a drink? Is the thought of drinking constantly on your mind?
Do you ever use drinking as a coping mechanism or a way to relax and de-stress... and it's something you seem to look forward to?
Are you starting to find that the more you drink... the LESS OFTEN your friends, family, and co-workers come around?
"Is alcohol causing damage to your life - your health, your relationships with your family and children?"
Do you feel that your drinking is starting to hurt the ones you love... or at least negatively affect your relationships with them?
Do You Ever Worry About How Your Partner Feels Because of Your Drinking?
Do you ever worry that your excessive drinking COULD be setting a WRONG example for your kids... that they may model and COPY your behavior?
Or do you ever worry that you won't "be there" for your kids when you need to be, because of your drinking?
If you can answer "Yes" to ANY of the above... and you feel that your life would be better if you found a way to control or STOP your drinking.... then I have something just for you.
You see... over the last few years, I've taken all the information I learned and used to quit drinking... and I put them into a new Course starting with a 204 page Course Book.

How Alcohol is Destroying Your Health

This is a painful section but I need to do this to remind you of the damage alcohol is doing to you every time you reach for a drink. Especially if you have been drinking for years.
According to the NIAAA - the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, the leading organization for researching and tackling alcohol problems in the United States, 17 million adults over the age of 18 had an Alcohol Use Disorder in 2012. And 1.4 million received treatment at a specialist facility in the same year.
Let's have a quick run-through of the potentially life-threatening damage which your years of alcohol have been causing you:
  • When the liver is breaking down alcohol it produces acetaldehyde, a substance which has toxic effects on your liver, brain and stomach lining, resulting in headache, nausea, vomiting and heartburn.
  • Dehydration - Also the liver needs water to do its work but alcohol is a diuretic meaning it removes water. So the liver has to divert water away from other organs including the brain making you feel worse and further dehydrated
  • Effects on the Kidneys: Alcohol can have major impacts on the kidneys. The main ways are from causing cell damage and enlarging the kidneys to impacting the various hormones that control kidney function.
  • Alcohol causes an ionic imbalance in the body that can affect many metabolic processes.
  • Skin: Because alcohol dehydrates your body and skin, this causes redness of the skin and makes it appear blotchy. This is particularly more marked with women as their skin is thinner than men's so the effects are more marked.
  • Brain: In large amounts, alcohol interferes with some of the chemical messages in your brain. It dramatically reduces your ability to learn and form memories, which is why people experience "blackouts". Long-term heavy drinking can lead to problems in learning new skills.
  • Psychological Effects: Alcohol can reduce inhibitions which lead to destructive or unhelpful changes in behavior. Excessive drinking also affects chemical balances within the brain such as the production of serotonin, which regulates moods. So depressive feelings, insomnia and a loss of concentration can be the results.
  • Magnifying Your Existing Emotions: "What's in a sober man's mind is on a drunken one's tongue" - Alcohol is like a magnifier. If you are depressed, it will make you more depressed. If you are angry, it will make you more angry etc.
  • Other Psychological Problems: Addiction, Cravings as you rely on alcohol for mood change, Affecting Judgement and Ability to correctly assess threats putting you at risk. It can become a habit which can lead to feelings of boredom and hopelessness.
As you read this doesn't this cause you to feel worried and to really feel the potential harm you have done to yourself? Don't you start to question yourself - is this what you want to do with your life? Don't you deserve better than this? And to stop putting yourself and your family through the hell of dealing with sickness and illness caused by your alcohol drinking?
Do you want this damage to your body to continue? Or would you rather stop this and survive the effects of alcohol? And be healthy, happy and clear in mind and in your body? 

GO HERE FOR YOUR  FREE E-BOOK

The Psychological Effects of Drinking Alcohol

If He can DO - IT so can you !
Countless people believe alcohol and are a 'social lubricant'. A great way of calming down and freeing yourself from bashfulness and more able to be more socially communicate and interact with new potential friends or romantic partners.

However, as we have already seen, alcohol can be very deadly and is both a poison and a drug. In this area we will learn how it affects you socially and emotionally, causing you to become in need of a drink and reliant on the effects that just one drink can bring.

You may also be dealing with underlying causes of your emotional and social impairment e.g. a stressful job, the feeling of social awkwardness, low self-esteem which can cause more anxiety in social situations, there are additional problem to deal with, i.e. the serious effects of alcohol like blacking out and becoming rather antisocial rather than the happy go lucky you may think you are becoming or just the issue at hand. And it can also exacerbate these destructive emotional feelings and amplify them.

So, if you are in a good emotional state and then drink you are more likely to be able to moderate your drinking. If you are using alcohol to change your emotional state then excess is a likely possibility as well as frequently drinking in order to get back to the change in emotional state.



The most common form of emotional effect of drinking alcohol is the lessening of inhibitions you feel after a couple of drinks. This is because alcohol is a depressant. This means that alcohol starts to switch how you act and speak, and it is these behaviors that will cause a problem for you psychologically and on a social basis.
Alcohol is like a magnifier. If you are depressed, it will make you more depressed. The same goes for angry people who can become angrier and more violent
Difficulty walking blurred vision, slurred speech, slowed reaction times, impaired memory: Clearly, alcohol affects the brain. Some of these impairments are detectable after only one or two drinks and quickly resolve when drinking stops. On the other hand, a person who drinks heavily over a long period of time may have brain deficits that persist well after he or she achieves sobriety. Exactly how alcohol affects the brain and the likelihood of reversing the impact of heavy drinking on the brain remain hot topics in alcohol research today.
  • how much and how often a person drinks;
  • the age at which he or she first began drinking, and how long he or she has been drinking;
  • the person’s age, level of education, gender, genetic background, and family history of alcoholism;
  • whether he or she is at risk as a result of prenatal alcohol exposure; and
  • his or her general health status.
Equal numbers of men and women reported experiencing blackouts, despite the fact that the men drank significantly more often and more heavily than the women. This outcome suggests that regardless of the amount of alcohol consumption, females—a group infrequently studied in the literature on blackouts—is at greater risk than males for experiencing blackouts. A woman’s tendency to black out more easily probably results from differences in how men and women metabolize alcohol. Females also may be more susceptible than males to milder forms of alcohol–induced memory impairments, even when men and women consume comparable amounts of alcohol (4).



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Drunken people do put both themselves and others in danger through many of their behaviors and becoming aggressive or act very inappropriate. The loss of awareness (blackout) can put drunken people in danger of being injured physical and sexual. In the US, UK and Canada, researchers found that most domestic violence incidents (spouse and child abuse) occur when the perpetrator has been drinking excessively.
Excessive drinking also affects chemical balances within the brain. Such as the production of serotonin, which regulates moods? Some depressive feelings, insomnia, and a loss of concentration can be the results.
Heavy drinking interferes with the balance of chemicals in the brain. It lowers the production of serotonin, which regulates to mood - this leads to mild symptoms of depression, including insomnia, sluggishness, anxiety and loss of concentration.

MAGNIFYING YOUR EXISTING EMOTIONS


ALCOHOL’S DAMAGINGEFFECTS ON THE BRAIN

We do know that heavy drinking may have extensive and far–reaching effects on the brain, ranging from simple “slips” in memory to permanent and debilitating conditions that require lifetime custodial care. And even moderate drinking leads to short–term impairment, as shown by extensive research on the impact of drinking on driving.
A number of factors influence how and to what extent alcohol affects the brain (1), including
This Alcohol Alert reviews some common disorders associated with alcohol–related brain damage and the people at greatest risk for impairment. It looks at traditional as well as emerging therapies for the treatment and prevention of alcohol–related disorders and includes a brief look at the high–tech tools that are helping scientists to better understand the effects of alcohol on the brain.

BLACKOUTS AND MEMORY LAPSES

Alcohol can produce detectable impairments in memory after only a few drinks and, as the amount of alcohol increases, so does the degree of impairment. Large quantities of alcohol, especially when consumed quickly and on an empty stomach, can produce a blackout, or an interval of time for which the intoxicated person cannot recall key details of events, or even entire events.
Blackouts are much more common among social drinkers than previously assumed and should be viewed as a potential consequence of acute intoxication regardless of age or whether the drinker is clinically dependent on alcohol (2). White and colleagues (3) surveyed 772 college undergraduates about their experiences with blackouts and asked, “Have you ever awoken after a night of drinking not able to remember things that you did or places that you went?” Of the students who had ever consumed alcohol, 51 percent reported blacking out at some point in their lives, and 40 percent reported experiencing a blackout in the year before the survey. Of those who reported drinking in the 2 weeks before the survey, 9.4 percent said they blacked out during that time. The students reported learning later that they had participated in a wide range of potentially dangerous events they could not remember, including vandalism, unprotected sex, and driving.


ARE WOMEN MORE VULNERABLE TO ALCOHOL’S EFFECTS ON THE BRAIN?

Women are more vulnerable than men to many of the medical consequences of alcohol use. For example, alcoholic women develop cirrhosis (5), alcohol–induced damage of the heart muscle (i.e., cardiomyopathy) (6), and nerve damage (i.e., peripheral neuropathy) (7) after fewer years of heavy drinking than do alcoholic men. Studies comparing men and women’s sensitivity to alcohol–induced brain damage, however, have not been as conclusive.
Using imaging with computerized tomography, two studies (8, 9) compared brain shrinkage, a common indicator f brain damage, in alcoholic men and women and reported that male and female alcoholics both showed significantly greater brain shrinkage than control subjects. Studies also showed that both men and women have similar learning and memory problems as a result of heavy drinking (10). The difference is that alcoholic women reported that they had been drinking excessively for only about half as long as the alcoholic men in these studies. This indicates that women’s brains, like their other organs, are more vulnerable to alcohol–induced damage than men’s (11).
Yet other studies have not shown such definitive findings. In fact, two reports appearing side by side in the American Journal of Psychiatry contradicted each other on the question of gender–related vulnerability to brain shrinkage in alcoholism (12, 13). Clearly, more research is needed on this topic, especially because alcoholic women have received less research attention than alcoholic men despite good evidence that women may be particularly vulnerable to alcohol’s effects on many key organ systems.

BRAIN DAMAGE FROM OTHER CAUSES

People who have been drinking large amounts of alcohol for long periods of time run the risk of developing serious and persistent changes in the brain. Damage may be a result of the direct effects of alcohol on the brain or may result indirectly, from a poor general health status or from severe liver disease.
For example, thiamine deficiency is a common occurrence in people with alcoholism and results from poor overall nutrition. Thiamine, also known as vitamin B1, is an essential nutrient required by all tissues, including the brain. Thiamine is found in foods such as meat and poultry; whole grain cereals; nuts; and dried beans, peas, and soybeans. Many foods in the United States commonly are fortified with thiamine, including breads and cereals. As a result, most people consume sufficient amounts of thiamine in their diets. The typical intake for most Americans is 2 mg/day; the Recommended Daily Allowance is 1.2 mg/day for men and 1.1 mg/day for women (14).

LIVER DISEASE

Most people realize that heavy, long–term drinking can damage the liver, the organ chiefly responsible for breaking down alcohol into harmless byproducts and clearing it from the body. But people may not be aware that prolonged liver dysfunction, such as liver cirrhosis resulting from excessive alcohol consumption, can harm the brain, leading to a serious and potentially fatal brain disorder known as hepatic encephalopathy (20).
Hepatic encephalopathy can cause changes in sleep patterns, mood, and personality; psychiatric conditions such as anxiety and depression; severe cognitive effects such as shortened attention span; and problems with coordination such as a flapping or shaking of the hands (called asterixis). In the most serious cases, patients may slip into a coma (i.e., hepatic coma), which can be fatal.
New imaging techniques have enabled researchers to study specific brain regions in patients with alcoholic liver disease, giving them a better understanding of how hepatic encephalopathy develops. These studies have confirmed that at least two toxic substances, ammonia and manganese, have a role in the development of hepatic encephalopathy. Alcohol–damaged liver cells allow excess amounts of these harmful byproducts to enter the brain, thus harming brain cells.

ALCOHOL AND THE DEVELOPING BRAIN

Drinking during pregnancy can lead to a range of physical, learning, and behavioral effects in the developing brain, the most serious of which is a collection of symptoms known as fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS). Children with FAS may have distinct facial features (see illustration). FAS infants also are markedly smaller than average. Their brains may have less volume (i.e., microencephaly). And they may have fewer numbers of brain cells (i.e., neurons) or fewer neurons that are able to function correctly, leading to long–term problems in learning and behavior.


GROWING NEW BRAIN CELLS

For decades scientists believed that the number of nerve cells in the adult brain was fixed early in life. If brain damage occurred, then, the best way to treat it was by strengthening the existing neurons, as new ones could not be added. In the 1960s, however, researchers found that new neurons are indeed generated in adulthood—a process called neurogenesis (29). These new cells originate from stem cells, which are cells that can divide indefinitely, renew themselves, and give rise to a variety of cell types. The discovery of brain stem cells and adult neurogenesis provides a new way of approaching the problem of alcohol–related changes in the brain and may lead to a clearer understanding of how best to treat and cure alcoholism (30).
For example, studies with animals show that high doses of alcohol lead to a disruption in the growth of new brain cells; scientists believe it may be this lack of new growth that results in the long–term deficits found in key areas of the brain (such as hippocampal structure and function) (31,32). Understanding how alcohol interacts with brain stem cells and what happens to these cells in alcoholics is the first step in establishing whether the use of stem cell therapies is an option for treatment (33).

SUMMARY

Alcoholics are not all alike. They experience different degrees of impairment, and the disease has different origins for different people. Consequently, researchers have not found conclusive evidence that any one variable is solely responsible for the brain deficits found in alcoholics. Characterizing what makes some alcoholics vulnerable to brain damage whereas others are not remains the subject of active research (34).
The good news is that most alcoholics with cognitive impairment show at least some improvement in brain structure and functioning within a year of abstinence, though some people take much longer (35–37). Clinicians must consider a variety of treatment methods to help people stop drinking and to recover from alcohol–related brain impairments, and tailor these treatments to the individual patient.
Advanced technology will have an important role in developing these therapies. Clinicians can use brain–imaging techniques to monitor the course and success of treatment, because imaging can reveal structural, functional, and biochemical changes in living patients over time. Promising new medications also are in the early stages of development, as researchers strive to design therapies that can help prevent alcohol’s harmful effects and promote the growth of new brain cells to take the place of those that have been damaged by alcohol.