Eugene OR NA

When reaching out to AA or another alcohol rehab program for help healing from an addiction, the sixth step is difficult if a person has no belief in God because God or their higher power can offer so much comfort during this time. For the person who has tried to rely on their own willpower so many times before and failed at it each time, it is a big step to have faith in anything at all, let alone a Being that can not be seen. On top of the stretching an addict’s character must endure to make it this far in the program, this step makes them tackle each one of their character flaws one at a time. For some people this is painfully slow.

Every person was created with desires. Since these wants and needs are natural to us, there is no reason to be ashamed of them. The problem arises when one or more of these desires is fed to a degree where it becomes obsessive. It is natural for a person to want to have fun, but it is unnatural to forgo responsibilities in order to have fun every day. It is natural to want to enjoy the company of another person, but it is unnatural to want to be with them so often that it becomes a case of stalking.

Once the addict’s liabilities have been identified in step four of the plan and apologies have been made to their loved ones in step five, step six should be much easier to get through. While no one is ready to work on removing their defects one hundred percent of the time, every addict can be willing to make the effort to remove them. The emphasis here is on making the effort. It is important to understand that the willingness to change is the first step toward success with this step.

For insomniacs, nighttime can be a dreary, frustrating time. While most people are sleeping, insomniacs are flipping through television channels, surfing the Internet or cleaning their house. Sleeping pills have brought comfort and relief to many insomniacs, allowing them to get the rest everybody needs. But with this relief can also come dependency and an inability to sleep without medication.
Sleeping pill prescriptions are skyrocketing: according to a 2008 report by IMS Health, a pharmaceutical research company, more than 54 million prescriptions for sleep drugs were doled out in 2007.
A sleeping pill addiction occurs when an individual has an uncontrollable need to take sleeping pills. Doctors who prescribe sleeping pills often recommend patients use them on an occasional basis, but addicts will develop a need to take the pills and will build a tolerance for them, driving the addicts to take more than the intended amount.
Sleeping pill users could take their addiction even further: they may go to different doctors to get multiple descriptions, or they may take them during the day, to knock them out during long car or plane rides.
It’s not only the dependence on sleeping pills that poses a problem; what the users do while taking sleeping pills can be highly problematic. Sleeping pill users have reported they excessively eat or shop online during the night, only to wake up the next morning with no memory of what happened. Others have reported more dangerous situations, such as driving and crashing their cars while on sleeping drugs.
There is help available for sleeping pill addicts. Like with any drug addiction, it can be a challenging problem to kick. The user must first recognize he or she has an addiction, and be willing to get help. If the user is willing, treatment centers across the country can teach insomniacs how to become accustomed to a healthy sleeping schedule without the aid of medication.

The Need for a Body Detox

A body detox is something that most people do once a year or even twice, depending on their body’s needs and their personal lifestyle. Many alternative health sources suggest a body detox for individuals who experience the following things on a recurring basis:

• A sluggish, slow metabolism. Usually a person who finds it hard to “get started” every day may be a candidate for a body detox.

• Infrequent periods of bowel elimination. Medical professionals advocate anywhere from one to three elimination periods on a daily basis. This varies widely per individual, but if the person is not on a routine schedule, he may have a problem.

• Poor or interrupted periods of sleep. This is usually indicates a person needs to detox, especially if she wakes with episodes of stomach cramps, a boiling stomach, or even unusual hunger pangs.

• An upset stomach or poor digestion systems. If an individual can’t clear up these symptoms with traditional methods, he may need a more aggressive approach to rectify the problem.

Types of Detox Systems

There are numerous types of companies that produce products to help consumers with detoxing their bodies as they pursue healthier living. Traditional detoxing, like colon cleansing and liver flushing, are very common, but lung detoxing is quickly becoming a popular method of detoxing, too. Products from an electronic cigarette company may help people quit smoking while detoxing the body and lungs.

Detoxing Gradually for Best Results

In order for a person to gain desirable, long-lasting results from the detoxing efforts, she should approach detoxing slowly and carefully so as to avoid upsetting the body’s chemical makeup. A slow approach also helps the person to avoid any possibilities of quitting detox and rendering the efforts useless. With a good plan in place, people are more likely to have favorable results that last for a long time.

The beginning of drug rehab is one of the hardest things a person can go through. The personal demons that a severe drug addiction can unleash cannot be squashed in a day, and further more, it can take an immense toll on the family and friends of the person who is going through an addiction. When you have discovered that someone you love is going through a drug addiction there are very few things you can do with this person but there are a few things to know about the road ahead.

An Addict Rarely Quits the First Time

Sure there are the feel good stories of the addict who finds God and sees the light and never uses drugs again, but more commonly the first time an addict stops is just the beginning in a longer road of relapses. You as the loved one must encourage him as he is doing well but be understanding when he is falling. This doesn’t mean to enable him or to let him make excuses, but you have to expect that at some point there will be a relapse and you must be careful not to push him over the edge.

It May Cause Damage to the Relationship

A lot of the families of an addict think that once an addict receives treatment and is clean again that the relationship will be repaired. But the fact is that when that time comes around there is something in the trust that has been broken and that could take many years to recover from, if at all.

There Is Hope

While the road is long and hard it is certainly not impossible. The road to recovery is filled with stories of people who stay clean for decades, so it does happen. With a little luck and a lot of hard work it can happen in your loved one’s life too.

Ninety percent of Americans have at least one morning routine in common: they sip on some sort of caffeinated beverage to get that extra kick they need to get revved up in the morning. While caffeine isn’t commonly thought of in the same vein as nicotine or alcohol, it is the world’s top habit-forming drug. It’s possible and common to become addicted to the substance.
Coffee is reportedly the most consumed psychoactive substance on the planet, with more than 400 billion cups drunk annually. Coffee is the preferred way to intake caffeine for most, but tea, soft drinks, energy drinks and chocolate can also give consumers an extra boost.
It’s easy to see why so many Americans need a caffeine fix: according to a 2007 poll by the National Sleep Foundation, people of all ages are chronically sleep deprived from college students hitting the books late into the night to mothers with young children, who reported getting as few as six hours of sleep on average.
Caffeine users can potentially become dependent on the substance, developing a minor form of addiction. Dependency involves needing a cup of coffee or some other form of caffeine to be able to function normally and concentrate on the tasks at hand. Getting sufficient sleep should be enough for people to feel energized in the morning, but some simply need that caffeine kick-start.
For regular coffee drinkers, abstaining from the morning brew can trigger a number of withdrawal symptoms within 12 to 24 hours, such as severe headaches, fatigue or drowsiness, irritability, difficulty concentrating and flulike symptoms. At its worse, cutting caffeine out of a diet could cause some to miss work or social engagements.
What’s more, drinking too much caffeine could lead to sleeplessness, and doctors fear it’s led some to depend on sleeping pills to get their much-needed rest.

Image via Wikipedia

Often associated with teenagers and young adults, huffing is becoming common addiction and a mounting concern among parents and teachers. According to Inhalent.org, in the United States over 2.1 million children ages 12-17 have huffed. Huffing, which is also referred to as inhalant abuse or inhalant addiction, is considered a serious addiction because it can lead to life-altering side effects and even death.
Unlike alcohol and drugs, huffing has become such a troubling problem because teens can easily obtain the substances they use to inhale. Inhalant abusers can use a variety of common household products such as computer duster, nail polish remover or aerosol sprays to experience the euphoric high that’s associated with huffing.
Short-term side effects of huffing include dizziness, hallucinations, apathy and impaired judgments, while long-term side effects can be anything from depression and weight loss to lack of coordination or weakness.
Huffing can also lead to much more serious consequences, including permanent brain damage, damage to other organs and death. Sudden cardiac arrest, asphyxiation and suffocation have all been reported as the causes of death among inhalant abusers.
While clear parental guidelines and disapproval of huffing can be an effective way to prevent teens from huffing, parents should also always be on the lookout for signs of inhalant abuse. These signs include sores and rashes around the mouth, paint stains on the teens hands or clothing or possessing rags soaked with chemicals or empty cans. Inhalant addiction can happen in any family, so it’s important to be vigilant about the signs to prevent tragedy.
If parents do suspect their child has been huffing, they should seek professional treatment immediately. Huffing is treated as an addiction, and quitting the addiction can be just as difficult as recovering from any other drug or alcohol problem. Withdrawal symptoms can last for weeks, and without proper long-term care, the relapse rate is high. The family physician or school counselor or nurse can help parents take the first steps toward helping their child recover.

Most people now realize and accept that humans are affected in many ways by chemicals — both those in the environment, and those produced by our own bodies.

The human brain uses chemicals — called neurotransmitters — to move information around to the different areas of the body through the nervous system. Dopamine, an important neurotransmitter, moves information from the brain stem to the more evolved areas but also plays another very important role that of reinforcement. Dopamine is known as the œfeel good chemical because it rewards the body. Anything that releases dopamine feels good and makes you want to do it again.

Scientists, using dopamine blocking chemicals, have shown that if an activity or substance doesn’t release dopamine and feel good, humans don’t do it. Unfortunately for addicts looking for some assistance to break free from their addiction, these chemicals can’t be used on a therapeutic basis because they cause dangerous side effects.

Though scientists haven’t yet figured out if there is a genetic fault in the dopamine release system in some people that leads to addiction, one thing has become clear from their research; people attempting to stop an addiction to one substance are highly susceptible to becoming addicted to another. Many alcoholics who succeeded in breaking their addiction to alcohol replaced it by becoming addicted to sugar — and it turns out that sugar causes the same dopamine release that alcohol does. Alcoholics also reported problems with binge eating after abstaining from alcohol and sweet foods topped their preferred binge foods.

These studies raise many interesting questions, including the possibility that the reason that humans can become addicted to so many different substances and behaviors isn’t because of the substance or behavior at all — it’s because of the release of dopamine that the substance or behavior causes. Take that method of release away and a human will locate another to replace it. This could change the face of addiction treatment world-wide. It may be just a matter of replacing an addiction with a more socially acceptable one that is less harmful to the individual.

Image via Wikipedia

Scientists used to think that only humans exhibited addictive behavior and  that only humans engaged in certain behaviors or ingested certain substances even when they knew it was bad for them. But researchers have now identified addictive behavior in rats, and are now able to gain new insights into addiction and the real danger it poses.

The puzzle of addiction has always been its inconsistency — not everyone who drinks alcohol, even every day, becomes an addict — and not all drug users become addicted. Contrary to what some support groups would have you believe, only a very small number of users of anything actually become addicts someone who can’t say no. These groups and most addicts believe that it is a matter of getting to the point where you just say no and with enough support, beat the addiction. But the new research seems to contradict that way of thinking.

Due to new technology and the ability to study addiction in rats, researchers are coming closer to understanding the point-of-no return where addiction is concerned. They have discovered that repeated exposure to chemicals like drugs or alcohol, or even the feel good chemicals that the body itself releases, can cause physical changes in the brain or human or otherwise. These physical changes in what is referred to as œsynaptic plasticity “ actually limit the brains ability to learn how to deal and adapt to the chemicals and these changes, for some people after a long period of time, become permanent. The important point here is that these are real physical changes, not just behavioral changes that the addict is experiencing.

Scientists now think the changes in the brain don’t occur during short term usage, but do occur after a longer period of use in all users. After a long period of time or with heavy use, the changes will become permanent and cause compulsive behavior and addiction.

This research suggests that addicts will have a higher rate of success in beating their addiction if they start trying earlier rather than later after the physical damage has already occurred.

A basic reward/feel good system is easy to understand to do something, get a reward for doing it, and do it again because it feels good  like getting all those gold stars from your teacher in elementary school. But as an addict, you may not realize that you are still trying to rack up those gold stars and experience that flush of enjoyment  with whatever you are addicted to.

People don’t set out to become addicted to anything. People look for solutions to a problem that they most likely have tried to deal with on their own, but have failed. People look for a way to stop some sort of physical or mental pain, and for a short time, alcohol or drugs or food and a surprising number of other things — can cover up the pain.

Scientists used to think that being addicted to something meant that you were weak willed you just needed to man-up and say “no” to whatever you were addicted to. But now they know that behind every addiction, there is a strong craving that is controlled by the brain—and it is just as strong as the craving for food, water, or sex and just as difficult to deal with. That craving is for reward in the form of pleasurable feelings from the release of dopamine.

Dopamine is a natural chemical produced by your body to make you feel good. The body wants you to do certain things that are good for your exercise, have sex, eat. The problem is that there are artificial chemicals and foods that can imitate dopamine  and the feelings of pleasure it provides. Refined sugar and other sweet man-made foods mimic the natural dopamine in the body, as does the sugar in alcohol — and hide pain just as well.

Scientists are still researching and trying to understand exactly how food, alcohol and some drugs manage to imitate dopamine, but for now it helps to understand just how powerful and addicting it is and to show compassion and understanding to those trying to deal with their addiction to dopamine.

In the US and much of the world, any form of addiction is seen as a weakness in the addicted person. Somehow, we have come to believe and accept that if the addict would just clean up, straighten up, and stop using, they would no longer be an addict.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s that simple — and we may soon discover that we have been persecuting people who are already living in torment because of a combination of both genetic and environmental factors that they have absolutely no control over.

Research based on the study of adult twins who consume alcohol is being conducted around the world – in particular, identical twins that have been adopted by two different families and raised without knowing each other. Researchers were surprised to find that alcoholism was much more likely in twins whose father was an alcoholic — whether or not their adoptive families even consumed alcohol. This would seem to suggest that alcoholism is highly influenced by genetics.

After further study, scientists found that addiction is most likely a complex interwoven balance between genetics and environment. Any person can become an add