Addiction Treatment Blog

In 1954, Olds and Milner discovered that there appeared to be pleasure spots in the brain. Implanting electrodes in certain areas of the brain, through which a rat can give itself an electric current by pressing on a lever, produced in most brain areas nothing of note. In some areas, however, the rats seemed keen on the effects of self-stimulation and, in some cases, if left to their own devices would self-stimulate to the exclusion of all else – even food and drink.

As mentioned, noradrenaline was discovered in the brain in 1954. In 1959, a second catecolamine, dopamine, was identified, which was shown to be deficient in Parkinson’s disease.

The later mapping of dopamine-containing neurones has shown that they too, like noradrenergic neurones, tend to originate in a discrete area, the ventral tegmentum. Some of these neurones run to strictly motor areas of the brain and constitute the nigrostriatal system, and it is loss of nerve calls in this pathway that leads to Parkinson’s disease. Read more…

If the induction of appetites and cravings, which has been hitherto seen as psychological dependence, is not in fact any more psychological than the physical dependence that underlies withdrawal, is there any other psychology involved? There almost certainly is (1). For example LSD, phencyclidine and many of the new designer drugs do not cause either type 1 or 2 physical dependence. Yet they are increasingly abused, despite evidence that many of these compounds may be fatal. Phencyclidine, for example, has led to a considerable number of fatalities and, despite not leading to any obvious euphoria, during the 1980s became for a period the second most common drug of abuse in the USA. Why?

Common to many of these drugs is the fact that they alter consciousness and, as a result, are interesting to take. On tis basis, one explanation that may account psychedelics, opiates or alcohol, there is a certain amount of playful activity. Read more…

Watching your daily drinking limits carefully will be beneficial to you in longer term.

All estimates of the total number of problem drinkers tend, by their nature, to be conservative. However, some statistics are very useful for statutory bodies.

The total cost to the NHS of alcohol related problems (ARPs) was £149.35 million in 1990. £26.51 million went into in-patient mental health units, while £109.41 million went into other forms of psychiatric intervention for ARPs. It is estimated that 200,000 life-years are lost per year due to alcohol related problems, with an overall cost to the nation of approximately £2.5 billion.

It is currently estimated that each health district has, on average, 43,000 people who currently drink more than the recommended sensible limit. Approximately 13,750 problem drinkers in each district are presently in contact with the caring professions as a consequence of their alcohol misuse. Read more…

Home Detox has many advantages compared to clinical detox on alcohol addiction.

The term ‘detoxification‘ can be applied in several ways. It can be used to imply a ‘process’ whereby a substance leaves the body, ie removal of alcohol or a poison; or it can refer to an ‘action’. ie a treatment which entails subjecting onself or another person to a ‘process’.

Within the caring professions, alcohol detoxification is largely recognized as a treatment. What follows aims to examine and explain this method of treatment.

Dr. Tim Stockwell developed the currently recognized model for home detoxification, which he defined as:

a treatment designed to control both medical and psychological complications which may occur temporarily after a period of heavy and sustained alcohol use.

This blog will use Dr. Stockwell’s model throughout.

Withdrawal from even small amounts of alcohol consumption will have physical effects as the substance decreases within the body. These may be relatively minor, such as sensitivity to light, irritability or thirst. Only a small proportion of people with alcohol related problems will have withdrawal symptoms that are so severe that they risk experiencing delirium tremens (DTs) or convulsions. Read more…

If we heard it said of Orientals that they habitually
drank a liquor which went to their heads, deprived
them of reason and made them vomit, we should
say: ‘How very barbarous!’

Jean de la Bruyere (1645-96), ‘Les Caracteres’.

In 1994, the UK spent nearly £12 billion on alcohol.

History of Alcohol

Alcohol has been available to man for several thousand years. Ethyl alcohol, or ethanol, is produced by the action of yeasts on sugars found in fruit and other plant material. Compared with most other substances of abuse it has a very simple chemical structure. One tends to assume that it was one of the first intoxicants used by man because it is so easy to make. However most of the fruits grown today have been selected for their high sugar content and so the manufacture of fruit wines is a relatively simple process. This was no so in prehistoric times, when sugar-rich plants and sugars themselves were rare. Therefore other plant-derived psychotropic substances that could simply be eaten without preparation probably pre-date alcohol. The first cultures to produce alcohol are thought to have been based in the eastern Mediterranean and Mesopotamia. During the 4th millennium BC they probably fermented dates. The warm climate and the high sugar content of the dates were ideal for the purpose. As the process spread, a whole range of naturally occurring substances were used to produce alcoholic drinks.

The discovery of distillation enabled early civilisations to make more concentrated alcoholic drinks. This process was probably discovered independently by several ancient societies. Concentrating the active constituent in this way enabled the alcohol to act as a preservative and beverages could be stored for longer. In Britain, the strength of alcohol-containing drinks was traditionally measured in terms of ‘percentage proof‘; 100 percent proof was equal to 57.1 per cent ethanol by volume. However, it is now the standard practice to state alcohol content in terms of percentage by volume and to refer to the content of individual drinks in terms of ‘units’. Read more…

Alcoholism is not only dangerous to your life, but harms others around you.

Alcoholism is the continued abuse of alcohol regardless of the detrimental consequences to the health of mind or body.

A more popular definition might allude to Jekyll and Hyde, where somebody’s personality profoundly changes for the worse as a result of drinking alcohol.

Alcohol is believed to cause around 33,000 deaths per year in Britain. The most common ways to die through alcoholism are:

• Impaired judgement and decision-making process, often resulting in fatal accidents at work and while driving.
• Cirrhosis of the liver.
• Choking to death on one’s own vomit.
• Cancer.
• Atrophy of the brain.

Statistics About Alcoholism

• One in four admissions to hospital in the UK is alcohol related.
• Sixty per cent of British suicides are alcohol related.
• Alcohol is implicated in forty per cent of domestic violence cases and thirty-nine per cent of fires.
• It is an illness that affects the body and mind, is compulsive in nature and considered to be an addiction. It was first reported by Senecca in ancient Rome as something very close to insanity. The Italian for alcoholic is alcoolisto; the French is alcoholique and the German is alkoholiker. Read more…