Monthly Archives: April 2009

Question: Can people tolerate alcohol?

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It depends on what you mean by tolerate. Alcohol is a neurotoxin (nerve poison) that affects every cell in the body. It is good for no one in large quantities.

Can people tolerate alcohol in small quantities?

Most people can drink one or two drinks and suffer few if any ill effects, that will disappear in a couple of hours. If they find that they have a desire to continue drinking, they should read farther down this page.

Can people tolerate it in large quantities?

Some people develop a tolerance for alcohol’s presence in the body, in that it requires more and more of it to reach the same levels of subjective intoxication. This is one of the earliest and surest indications of developing alcoholism. The guy who can drink all his buddies under the table is the loser, not the winner.

BTW: the tolerance thing applies to all drugs, not just alcohol.

Eliminating Drug-Associated Memories To Treat Drug Addiction

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One more tool, maybe…
clipped from www.medicalnewstoday.com
“In this study, we found that after repeatedly giving cocaine injections to rats within a particular environment, the rats developed a strong preference for that environment over another environment where a placebo was given,” explains M. Foster Olive, Ph.D., co-author and senior investigator. “Next, we treated the animals with an experimental drug called CDPPB, and found that it decreased the rats’ preference for the cocaine-associated environment during subsequent tests.”
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New Drug Effective on 2/3 of Hep C Victims in 24 Weeks

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Studies: Drug shows promise against hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is a huge and growing problem because for years there was no way to screen the blood supply for the virus. Infection often doesn’t produce symptoms for many years, so many of these cases are just now being recognized even though they may stem from transfusions a decade or more ago.

Street Drug Linked To Lasting Social Deficits

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Street Drug Linked To Lasting Social Deficits

“This tells us that [methamphetamine] use has psychological consequences, and, potentially, consequences for these individuals’ social functioning. The size of these social reasoning deficits was comparable to the memory problems that have also been found in users of MA, consistent with other evidence showing that MA is a dangerous drug which can do lasting harm.

“However, we must also consider the possibility that these deficits could have been present before drug use and even a risk factor for drug use, in that people who struggle to make sense of other people might be more vulnerable to taking drugs in the first place.”

Swine Flu — No Need To Panic

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Good article. (I wrote it.)
clipped from open.salon.com
Hysteria has already begun with the recent news of the swine flu outbreaks in Mexico, the US and Canada. I have spoken to people who say that they intend to wear face masks in public as soon as a case of the flu has been reported in our state. Others have stated that they will take further extreme measures, such as remaining home if “things get bad.”

There is no denying that the possible spread of an especially dangerous strain of influenza is a matter of concern. Very young children, old folks like me, and people with suppressed or otherwise compromised immune systems are at real risk, but only if they actually contract the disease.  Fortunately, there are simple precautions that can be taken to minimize the chances of contracting any airborne disease, and of passing it on to others.
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8.5% of US Youths Who Play Video Games Show Multiple Signs of Addiction

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U.S. Youths Addicted to Video Games, Study Finds – washingtonpost.com

A new study concludes that children can become addicted to playing video games, with some skimping on homework, lying about how much they play and struggling, without success, when they try to cut back.

In what is described as the first nationally representative study in the United States on the subject, researcher Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University found that 8.5 percent of American youths ages 8 to 18 who play video games show multiple signs of behavioral addiction.

A couple of remarks about the infallibility of 12-step programs

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Let me say at the outset that I am a firm believer in AA, NA and the other 12-step fellowships, just in case no one has noticed. They saved my life, the life of my wife, and of my best friend, his wife, my son-in-law and many of the other people who are most important to me.

However…

It worried me early on, and continues to worry me nearly two decades later, how some people in the rooms seem afraid to allow their knowledge of alcoholism — not their program, but alcoholism — to progress beyond the middle of the last century. Continue reading →

Q: Can addictive drugs cause Down Syndrome?

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Down Syndrome is a genetically-transmitted disease cause by the presence of part or all of an extra 21st chromosome. We can’t blame this one on the drugs. However, drug use (including alcohol) while pregnant could complicate the issue with developmental problems.

I always remind people that if they use drugs during late-stage pregnancy, the child will be born with an addiction. Whether or not its later life is affected, the baby will have to withdraw from the drug during the first few days of life. Hell of a way to start your presence on the planet, wouldn’t you say?

A note to the folks who, by now, must think I’m suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder or something like that:

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Dear Readers,

I hope you don’t mind if I call you “Dear Readers.”  All three of you are very important to me, and I hope you’ll leave a message after the beep.

Here’s the thing about the changes on the blog.  For about three years now I’ve had a blog called Digital Dharma that deals with some other stuff that’s pretty important to me.  Prior to that I had done quite a bit of writing at various places on the Web, much of it about recovery from drugs and alcohol in general, and my own experiences in recovery and the treatment field in particular.

I imported a lot of the recovery material into a section of D-D, but because of the layout I have them tucked away on a back page, reachable by tabs but not out where folks can easily find them.  Despite that, a couple of articles — including the one about PAWS that is permanently posted above — have become exceptionally popular, garnering thousands of hits.  Many people have left comments and emailed me to tell me how valuable they found the information.

That being the case, and this blog having sort of been limbo for a while, I decided to make it more of an informational page rather than just a venue for my occasional clippings about addiction and recovery.  I’ll be importing some of the material from other sites, writing some new stuff, and posting my usual clippings of interest and the occasional photograph to add a bit of color.  The twits from @whatmesober will re-direct here, as well.  Hopefully people will find the material a bit more accessible.

Let me know what you think, and what improvements you believe would be helpful.  If you got a mad urge to post some links to the site on your own pages, that would be a real bonus.  This isn’t about me — it’s about the newcomer.

Thanks for letting me share.

Oh.  That’s right.  It’s my blog…