Anyone who has become addicted to a chemical intoxicant will be facing one of the most daunting challenges of her life if and when she finally decides to make a concerted effort to overcome her dependency. Drugs and alcohol encase their victims in a physical, emotional, and psychological prison, and while escape is possible, the path to freedom is steep, rocky and filled with treacherous detours.
Read more about The Top 10 Most Addictive Drugs: An Introduction
After attempts to offer advice, assistance, and support to addicted loved ones have been repeatedly rebuffed, the family members and friends of substance abusers often throw up their hands in despair and surrender, convinced that the situation is hopeless and that they have no power to make a difference. Feeling as if they have no other choice, they may reluctantly decide to cut the addict out of their lives completely, leaving her all alone to face the stark consequences of her self-destructive, out-of-control behavior. No one wants it to end this way, but if a substance abuser refuses to grab any of the lifelines that her loved ones have thrown into the turbulent waters of her life she will inevitably drown, and there will be nothing anyone can do to stop tragedy from occurring.
But while the loved ones of an addict or alcoholic whose attempts to help have been rejected may believe that terminating the relationship is their only remaining option, before they permanently sever the ties that bind they may want to take a little time to reassess their previous approach. In many cases, the strategies that families adopt when trying to rescue an addict from the dark pit of chemical dependency are ill conceived and inappropriate.
When someone is lost in a storm you wouldn’t tell them to use the stars in the sky as their guide back home, since the sky would be covered by clouds and the stars would not be visible from their location. But addicts and alcoholics are wandering aimlessly in a tempest-plagued land where the sun, moon, and stars are perpetually obscured, which is a fact that many family members and friends truly fail to truly grasp. Because they underestimate the all-encompassing and all-corrupting influence of addiction, they choose approaches that might work perfectly well in other situations but will make no impact on the life and distorted world view of a substance abuser. So before giving up completely on an addict or alcoholic, it would behoove her loved ones to take a second look at what they have been doing to see if perhaps there might be a better way.
Hepatitis is a medical term used to describe swelling and inflammation in the liver. Doctors and researchers also use the term to refer to five separate forms of viral infection that can result in that inflammation. Specific forms of hepatitis common in the United States include hepatitis A, hepatitis B and hepatitis C. People who abuse drugs have seriously elevated risks for developing viral hepatitis. The clearest risks appear in people who use intravenous (IV) drugs, who have increased risks for both hepatitis B and hepatitis C. However, drug abusers who smoke or nasally inhale a variety of substances also have elevated risks for hepatitis C.
A recent survey finds that around 14 percent of tested drivers are coming up positive for drug use.
The California Office of Traffic Safety (OTS) announced that its recent survey shows that there are more drivers testing positive for drugs than for alcohol. There are more drivers on the road with marijuana running through their veins than alcohol, but by a narrow margin – 7.4 to 7.3 percent.
Read more about Drugged Driving is a Serious Issue, and a Growing Problem in California
In the age of the Internet, illegal drug sellers have found a new way of distribution. Avoiding street traffic, violence, and face-to-face sales, distributors and buyers can keep their anonymity, purchase from a wide selection of substances, and have the substances delivered safely straight to them.
Read more about Online Black Market for Illegal Drugs is Booming
Drug addiction is a serious problem. Not only can drug addiction impact an individual’s professional, financial, social and family life, it can also impact other aspects of health. Many individuals who struggle with drug addiction also have other mental health issues, such as depression or anxiety.
If the war on drugs has done nothing else, it’s certainly caught many large-scale producers of drugs and shut down a lot of supply chains. The presumed effect of this is that the amount of people taking drugs will decrease in lock-step with the reduced supply. The effectiveness of the measures is fairly hard to gauge, because drug usage rates fluctuate wildly, seemingly independent of the ongoing efforts to reduce the amount of drugs on the streets. Using the data from the recent "Monitoring the Future" study, we can examine the effects of the availability of drugs on the amount of people who use them.
The Data Source
A drug commonly used in anesthetic can cause long-term problems if abused. An article out of the United Kingdom includes information about a study on ketamine, otherwise known as “special K” and the effects it has on the urinary system if used inappropriately.
Nurturing mothers may protect their offspring from drug abuse, according to a new study from Duke University, in conjunction with the University of the Adelaide in Australia.
Read more about “High-Touch” Mothering Protects Lab Animals from Drug Abuse
A new study of alcohol and drug use by teenagers found that African-American teens were less likely to be abusing drugs and alcohol than non-Hispanic whites. The group with the highest rates of abuse and addiction was Native American.
Read more about White Teens Have Double the Rates of Drug Addiction as African-Americans
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