Doctors urged to take a harder look at heavy drinking | Summer House
Washington Post – When it comes to treatment, the experts think alcoholism needs to catch up to depression.
Doctors urged to take a harder look at heavy drinking
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Monthly Archives: July 2008
Wisconsin No. 1 for impact of alcohol
Booze News:
APPLETON, Wis. – Wisconsin, where beer is king and drinking goes hand-in-hand with tailgating, snowmobiling, deer hunting and even children’s baseball games, has a thirst for alcohol second to none, according to a data analysis by Gannett Wisconsin Media.
Drinking is a way of life in Wisconsin, and alcohol permeates and shapes the cultural landscape more than in any other state, the newspaper group’s analysis shows.
Gay men and straight women share brain detail
NewsDaily: Gay men and straight women share brain detail
LONDON, June 17, 2008 (Reuters) — Gay men and straight women share some characteristics in the area of the brain responsible for emotion, mood and anxiety, researchers said on Monday in a study highlighting the potential biological underpinning of sexuality.
To squash addiction, get rid of ‘Ambiguity’ in our attitude
Dr David Moore and Bill Manville publish a weekly column on addiction that is widely syndicated. Here is their take on celebrity addiction “reality” shows. They’re not impressed.
Bill: Did you see Dr. Drew Pinsky’s special on VH1 this week – the interview with porn star Mary Carey?Dr. Dave: The theme seemed to be, “Ooh, the crazy things I did when I was high.”
Bill: What I did not like was that those “crazy things” were made to sound sexy and attractive. Even worse were Dr. Drew’s efforts to justify the show by announcing that “today, in the celebrity world, we’re seeing an addiction epidemic.” My reaction was, Oh, really? Stupid me; I thought you were putting a porn star on camera for the ratings.
Dr. Dave: Bill, let me put on my clinician’s hat for a moment. Do I detect an overly personal note in your objections to Dr. Drew’s show?
Bill: What you hear is an angry note. Recovery saved my life….
Addiction Largely Determined By Our Genes – Annual Meeting Of The Royal College Of Psychiatrists
The genetic component of addiction (including alcoholism) is certainly not the entire answer, since it fails to consider, for example, the effects of living with an alcoholic parent or parents, and the other stresses that can lead to a desire to turn one’s brain off.
Nonetheless, it is good to know that more and more eminent experts are speaking to the essential lack of choice attendant to addiction. I’m getting tired of moralists who know nothing about the disease talking about how all you need is (insert metaphysical entity of your choice) to stay straight. Actually, I got tired of it about 18 years ago.
Professor Wim van den Brink, from the Academic Medical Centre at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands and a leading expert in the field of addiction, told the Annual Meeting of the Royal College of Psychiatrists today (Friday 4 July) that addicts have fewer dopamine or pleasure receptors in the brain and consequently seek out more and more stimulation.
“Addicts find it difficult to receive pleasure,” said Prof van den Brink. “They are not likely to enjoy most of the ordinary things most of us enjoy, experiences such as a day at the beach or night at a club. They are looking for more and more stimulus.”
However, Professor van den Brink stated that a person’s genetic vulnerability to addiction does not automatically translated into real alcohol and drug disease – there are also environmental influences. …
Addiction Largely Determined By Our Genes – Annual Meeting Of The Royal College Of Psychiatrists
Experimental Philosophy
Experimental philosophy gets at the roots of how we form opinions and really think about things. Not all that skillfully, as it turns out…
Experimental Philosophy Movement Explores Real-life Dilemmas
Happiness
Gautama Buddha discussed the role of the mind in the pursuit of happiness through the practice of the eightfold path. According to Buddha, “Mind is the forerunner of states of existence. Mind is chief, and (those states) are caused by the mind. If one speaks and acts with a pure mind, surely happiness will follow like one’s own shadow!” In Buddhism, the third of the Four Noble Truths states “to eliminate suffering, eliminate craving”, thus establishing happiness as beyond material and emotional possession and attainable only through an attentive practice leading to extinguishing of craving and aversion….
Turbo Turned On?
Fellow WordPress bloggers who have slow connections need to go to the Dashboard and click the “Turbo” link in the upper right corner. Follow the directions and download Google Gears, then install it and continue with following the directions.
Gears, when combined with WordPress, downloads and stores substantial amounts of data from the servers on your hard drive. Access to the various blog pages, etc. is speeded up substantially. It’s even noticeable on my 6Mb DSL connection at home, and the sorry-ass dialup here at work now operates as if it had been — well — turbo-charged. The whole process takes about ten minutes, and then things will run slowly on a slow connection for a bit until Gears caches the up with the data.
Warning: do not install Gears on a shared or public computer. A lot of the data from your blog will be stored on the hard drive. Keep the content of your blogs and comments in mind. The data won’t be accessed by Google (who provide the Gears applet) but will be available to anyone who has physical access to your machine.
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Anheuser to Stop Selling Alcoholic Energy Drinks
Anheuser to Stop Selling Alcoholic Energy Drinks – WSJ.com
Anheuser-Busch Cos. will stop making and selling caffeinated alcoholic drinks as part of a settlement with 11 state attorneys general, the attorneys general said Thursday.The states’ top lawyers began an investigation of the U.S.’s largest brewer by sales a year ago. They alleged that the St. Louis company had failed to adequately disclose negative health effects of its Tilt and Bud Extra drinks on their labels, made false or misleading marketing claims that they help users stay up late for partying, and illegally targeted minors with its advertising.
