By Paul Carr
For years I’d told myself I wasn’t an alcoholic. I never drank alone. I didn’t wake up with fierce cravings, and sometimes I went for one or two days without drinking. A need to drink all day, every day, was never my problem.
My problem was that once I had a drink—whether it was at 7 p.m. or 9 a.m.—I couldn’t stop until my body shut down and I passed out in a pile on the floor. I still had plenty of friends and still managed to hold down a job, but my relationship with alcohol was very obviously different from most people’s. I was an alcoholic.
As of Saturday, the counter on my website says "878 days." Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I had my last alcoholic drink. Eight hundred seventy-eight days since I declared—very publicly—that my drinking had passed the point where it was funny, crazy or even merely dangerous. In fact, my addiction to alcohol had reached a stage where it was highly likely to kill me.
Enough was enough. So I decided to quit. But I didn’t do it in the typical way.
Full story of a alcoholic’s life at The Wall Street Journal
By Adele Horin
CHILDREN addicted to video games are more likely to suffer depression, anxiety and social phobias and may need professional help to recover, a visiting researcher says.
Once their gaming is back to normal levels, their psychological problems shift, and their mood and school work improve, says Douglas Gentile, a lead researcher on two major studies of video game addiction.
Dr Gentile, an associate professor in psychology at Iowa State University, will be guest speaker at the Corporate Takeover of Childhood conference in Melbourne next month.
His study of 1178 American children found nearly one in 10 gamers to be pathological players and his study of 3034 Singapore youngsters found a similar level of addiction, measured according to standards established for diagnosing gambling addiction.
Full story of gamer addicts and depression at The Age
By Dori F. Zaleznik, MD
Varenicline (Chantix), a drug that helps some smokers kick the habit could also reduce problem drinking by diminishing the pleasurable effects of alcohol, researchers suggested.
In a randomized, cross-over trial, dysphoric sensations after drinking an alcoholic beverage were greater when preceded by a dose of varenicline (Chantix) than placebo, reported Emma Childs, PhD, of the University of Chicago, and colleagues online inAlcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Alcohol-induced impairments in a measure of cognitive function also were less severe when participants took varenicline, the researchers indicated.
“This study, combined with previous evidence, suggests that varenicline may reduce alcohol drinking behaviors among light smokers by increasing the negative subjective effects of a low dose of alcohol, thus reducing the likelihood of a drinking episode becoming a binge,” Childs and colleagues concluded.
Full story at Med Page Today
By Maia Szalavitz
Pop legend Whitney Houston was apparently found unresponsive in her bathtub at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, with bottles of prescription sedatives in her room. The cause of the singer’s death at age 48 has not been confirmed as an overdose — and the results of a toxicology report may not be available for weeks — but it bears many of the hallmarks of such a death.
Like most overdose victims, Houston had a long history of addiction. Her ongoing and distressingly intense battle with cocaine had received extensive media coverage. She had tried rehab at least three times; her latest stay was in May. Like her, the majority of overdose victims have typically attempted rehab previously.
Victims of unintentional overdose also or show clear signs of drug misuse before or at the time of their death. In a 2008 study in West Virginia — a state with a high rate of overdoses — researchers found signs of drug misuse, including shooting drugs intended to be taken orally or drinking alcohol while taking depressant drugs like Xanax, in 95% of the deaths.
Full story at Time
By Rheana Murray
Surf the web too much? That might soon land you on a psychiatrist’s couch.
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is catching heat over proposed amendments to its newest Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) — widely considered the “bible” of psychiatric symptoms in the mental-health industry.
Opponents say the new version would label millions more people as “mentally ill” for conditions such as extreme shyness — and qualify them for psychiatric drugs they don’t need.
“[It's\] hard to avoid the conclusion that DSM-5 will help the interests of the drug companies,” said Allen Frances of Duke University, according to Reuters.
The DSM-5, as the new edition will be called, is scheduled to be released in May 2013, and could list “Internet addiction” among its diagnoses.
The association says it is still considering how to address non-substance-abuse addictions.
Full story at NY Daily News
For years I’d told myself I wasn’t an alcoholic. I never drank alone. I didn’t wake up with fierce cravings, and sometimes I went for one or two days without drinking. A need to drink all day, every day, was never my problem.
