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Mental Health & Alcoholism

Alcohol Withdrawal

alcohol withdrawalThe symptoms of alcohol withdrawal are exceptionally unpleasant, as I’m sure you know. There are physical symptoms and emotional ones. Let’s start with the most extreme to get it out of the way - death.

Yes, if you’re physically dependent on alcohol, then a sudden withdrawal as opposed to a gradual detox can actually kill you or leave you with brain damage, usually via a seizure (a bit like an epileptic fit). Heart palpitations are the milder form of this. But lets hope you’re not quite that bad just yet (if you are drinking over 70 units per week for a woman or 100 for a man, then at least try to cut down gradually, or better than that - see a doctor).

On to the less fatal withdrawal symptoms then, we have hallucinations (usually unpleasant - spiders or snakes are common), the shakes, nausea and vomiting, oh and diarrhoea of course. Particularly unpleasant is waking in the middle of the night soaked in cold sweat, or alternatively, your own piss. It’s not sounding like a party exactly, is it?

Then you might have a splitting headache, often from severe dehydration and dilation of blood vessels. Basically the brain shrinks away from the lining of the skull. Ouch!

Hypoglycaemia, caused by the inability of the liver to metabolize sugar, can then leave you feeling irritable, nervous or aggressive, and weak.

You might end up with a few more emotional effects too, like mood swings, depression or confusion. Basically feeling like the lowest form of life on the planet.

So how can you make alcohol withdrawal easier?

  • Electrolyte replacement might help (the sachets you can get for diarrhoea are the best), along with plenty of liquids.
  • Complex carbohydrates (like brown rice, wholemeal bread, wholegrain cereals etc.) will help to slowly stabilize your blood sugar levels.
  • Eggs contain Cysteine, which can help the liver to metabolize Acetaldehyde (the toxic by-product of alcohol).
  • B-vitamin supplements are essential, as they help your nerve cells to recover from the damage you’ve inflicted.
  • We all know about the healing powers of caffeine - this constricts the blood vessels and can therefore alleviate the headache.

But to be on the safe side, if you’re drinking most mornings in order to get through your hangover, or you often get the shakes and sweats if you haven’t had a drink for a while, then you really should get some medical support before you consider withdrawing.

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Am I an Alcoholic ?

Am I an alcoholic ?Most people who are drinking too much, in whatever way, will occasionally ask themselves the question - am I an alcoholic?

It’s a scary question to ask yourself, but as with most things the answer will not be a black or white,

“Yes, you’re an alcoholic” or
“No, you’re not”,

but a shade of grey somewhere in between.

What sort of alcoholic are you?

Binge Drinker

  • Irregular over-drinking,
  • Monster hangovers,
  • Doing embarrassing things you regret,
  • Alienating your friends,
  • Accidents,
  • Days off work,
  • Mood swings…

If this sounds like you, then get some help here.

Heavy Drinker

  • Very difficult to have a day without alcohol,
  • Can’t sleep without drink,
  • Drinking alone,
  • Guilt,
  • Cravings,
  • Can’t concentrate,
  • Low energy,
  • Depression…

Or if this sounds more like you, then contact us here.

Dependent Drinker

  • Physical withdrawal,
  • Drinking from early in the day, every day,
  • Isolation,
  • Poor health,
  • Unstable work,
  • Relationships failing,
  • Feeling hopeless & ashamed…

If however, this is who you are, then to start with you’re going to need some medical help to detox your liver - go and see your Doctor, then get in touch with us.

You might be wondering, more simply, how can I stop drinking alcohol? But of course it’s never as simple as that. You’ll need plenty of support, and some clear goals, plus some in-depth understanding of how your own particular addiction works. That’s what online counselling will do for you. Try one session at least, and you’ll see how it can help.

If you do nothing about your problems, then nothing will change.

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UK has highest cocaine use in Europe

cocaine use causes environmental destructionIt’s probably no surprise to some, but here in the UK, we have the biggest cocaine use in Europe.

The consequences of this to the nation’s health (and therefore our National Health Service), are far reaching - depression, anxiety, heart disease, strokes etc.

However, there are many other tragic consequences which you might not be aware of next time you put a rolled banknote up to your nose -

  • Colombian manufacturers of cocaine routinely protect their crops with landmines - these account for roughly 1000 maimed or killed locals every year.
  • the same manufacturers spray carcinogenic pesticides on their crops, further threatening the lives of the local population.
  • 2.7 million people in Colombia have been illegally displaced from their land in the last ten years in order for the drugs cartels to grow coca (the crop used to make cocaine).
  • huge areas of tropical rainforest are cut down every year (so producers can keep evading the authorities) throughout the Andean region to make way for coca plants, producing massive soil erosion and flooding.
  • vast quantities of chemicals used in the refining process are being dumped illegally - such as Sulphuric Acid, Kerosene, Hydrochloric Acid, Ammonia, Acetone and Ether - all find their way into the local water supply.
  • Colombia’s biodiversity accounts for a massive 10% of the world’s species, these are all massively threatened.
  • Colombia has become one of the most violent nations in the world.
  • the USA is spending roughly $45 billion per year on it’s ‘war against drugs’, surely funds which could be better spent elsewhere, especially when they are now spraying chemical herbicide from the air over massive areas to try and eradicate the coca - affecting local farmland, animals and of course the people.
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Relapse Prevention

relapse preventionSo you’ve stopped drinking, or maybe you’re just not doing it every day now, and you want to know how to prevent yourself from relapsing, or (if you want to keep it simple) how to make sure you don’t drink today.

Relapse prevention requires some planning, specifically -

  • what situations might I encounter that could make me want a drink? (my triggers)
  • how might I deal with my feelings sober?
  • what action can I take instead?

You need to identify your internal triggers (like boredom, frustration, loneliness, anxiety etc.), and your external triggers (like arguments, bars, other people drinking etc.). Can any of these triggers be avoided? If so, plan how to do that. For those that can’t be avoided, you’ve got to learn to deal with them some other way.

So, what do these triggers mean to you? What beliefs do you hold about them that lead you to drink? A few common beliefs might be -

  • “drinking helps me get rid of stress”,
  • “drinking makes me more confident”,
  • “some people drink more than me, so that makes it ok for me to drink as much as I do”.

What thoughts go through your head when you’re exposed to these triggers? You may not even be aware of these thoughts, they’re so habitual, so you’ll have to listen carefully to your internal dialogue here.

Once you’ve got an idea what some of your automatic thoughts are, you need to learn to challenge them. So for example, the next time you’re feeling stressed and you think “a drink would relax me” you might then say to yourself “yes, it does, but it’ll make me even more nervous and stressed tomorrow”.

Relapse prevention is just knowing about your habits

Of course by the time you’ve got to this stage, you’re probably craving a drink, and you’re thinking about how to get some. You might be arguing with yourself - part of you doesn’t want to get drunk again. You’ve told yourself you’re not doing it any more (or today at least). So here’s when you might start looking for permission, to make it ok:

  • “just this time won’t hurt”,
  • “I’ll be able to hide it, so no-one will know”,
  • “I’m not at work tomorrow, so it doesn’t matter if I’m hungover”
  • “I can’t cope with this craving, so I might as well just get on with it”

As far as behaviour goes, we’ve already mentioned avoiding triggers, but another option is distracting yourself (look at our earlier article on ‘how to cope with alcohol cravings‘). Other things you might do are more general - make some new friends, find new things to do with your time, get into the habit of some exercise. Most importantly - find some support, people you can talk to about what’s troubling you.

Try going through our worksheet on Relapse Prevention Strategies.

Remember though, a binge does not mean failure, you just made a mistake, try not to think “oh well, I’ve failed, so obviously I’ll never beat this, I might as well just keep drinking…”

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Is there a Cure for Alcoholism ?

cure for alcoholismThere are those who believe (the alcoholics anonymous crowd mainly) that there is no cure for alcoholism - that if you’re an alcoholic or an addict, then no matter what treatment you go through, you’ll still be an alcoholic or an addict for the rest of your life.

This is not a position which holds much hope for anyone considering treatment or a rehab. The idea that you will always be liable to relapse and descend into alcoholism or addiction again could easily dissuade many people from bothering to make changes at all.

Wouldn’t it be more useful to encourage people and remind them that lasting change is possible. If you can heal the underlying causes of the addiction, then a former alcoholic no longer has such a tendency. Of course they would be prudent to be very respectful and observant of their relationship to alcohol. But people in recovery should not live their lives as a ‘dry-drunk’, believing that they are just one drink away from their previous excesses.

Can a former alcoholic ever drink sensibly again? Some can and some cannot. Abstinence is an option for some, and the only option advocated by AA, but that does not mean it is the only option which works. The cognitive therapy approach advocates self-understanding, but leaves the choice of whether to drink again to the individual.

There is only a cure for alcoholism if the problems that are causing it in the first place are dealt with.

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Alcohol and Anxiety - the spiral of worry

alcohol and anxietyAnxiety ruins many people’s lives, and lessens the enjoyment of it for most of us. It’s focus can be anything, from the seemingly trivial to the life-threatening. Threat and fear can thread their way into many aspects of our lives.

Of course the solution that many people find is through alcohol. This can provide temporary but effective relief - allowing us to relax again and get on with life without being so preoccupied. But alcohol does not actually allow us to deal with our anxiety or manage the situations provoking it, so we fail to develop our resources.

Anxiety arises as a result of our interpretations of a situation as being in some way threatening or unpleasant. This is then combined with our perception of our ability to cope with that threat.

For example, two people are experiencing the exact same event - the possibility that they will lose their job. The anxiety prone person might think -
“but I’ll never find another job, I’m not good enough. I won’t have enough money, I won’t be able to cope - I’ll lose my house”. Obviously thoughts like that will tend to create anxiety.

The other person facing the same situation might think -
“I can get another job easy enough, I’m adaptable. Money might be a bit tight for a while, but I can cope with that”.

So if the first person can learn to adjust their perception of their abilities, they might not get so anxious, and they might not feel the need to drink so much alcohol as a result. Those perceptions and beliefs happen so automatically, we often forget that we have a degree of choice over them.

Unfortunately alcohol consumption tends to exacerbate anxiety levels subsequently - firstly by causing disruption to the nervous system, secondly by creating behaviour likely to induce further worry. A spiral of increased drinking causing increased anxiety can develop.

Anxious people tend to have a central belief about themselves as being helpless - they underestimate their ability to cope. Although, they are often aware that their fears are exaggerated.

Five key questions can be used to challenge the initial perception of threat and the appraisal of your coping ability:

  • What alternative interpretations could I make about this situation?
  • What concrete, factual evidence do I have to back-up or deny these beliefs?
  • What is the worst that could really happen, and how would that ultimately affect me?
  • What positive action can I take to manage this?
  • What are the pros and cons of me continuing with these catastrophic thoughts I’m having?

Coupled with some simple relaxation techniques like keeping aware of your breathing, you can soon lessen your anxiety to a tolerable level. If you can adjust the way you interpret the world, and thus not feel so worried about it, then you may not need to drink so much alcohol to cope.

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How to survive an alcoholic rehab

buy it from amazon This is the best account I’ve ever read of an alcoholic going through rehab and struggling with his subsequent recovery. It’s honest, compelling and darkly humorous.

It’s not for the faint hearted though - he graphically details his most debauched binges, his most horrific withdrawals and embarrassing bed-wetting episodes. But he balances this with some wonderfully insightful thoughts about the recovery process, about Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and of course, about his time in a detox and rehab centre.

Augusten Burroughs is a very clever writer, and he engages you from the first page, by the end you feel like you know him inside out. If you’re struggling with alcohol, or you’re thinking about going through rehab, you seriously should read this first.

If you fancy a copy for yourself, here’s the page on Amazon.com where you can get it.

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Half of alcoholics and drug addicts suffer from mental health problems

alcoholics and drug addicts suffer mental illnessThe charity Turning Point have released a report suggesting that 50% of all alcoholics and drug addicts suffer from mental illness, in the UK at least.

Unfortunately many people still associate the term ‘mental illness’ with considerable stigma - as it may conjure up images of psychosis. However the illnesses referred to here are primarily depression and anxiety.

The main point to consider from this is that alcoholics or drug addicts are struggling with addiction as a way to deal with their mental health. Alcohol or drug use often arises as a means of dealing with emotional problems, then from there they develop into additional problems in their own right.

Many alcoholics wonder why they have such a difficult time with alcohol, when others around them seem to cope with it more easily. The answer is often that they have other mental health problems which are not being dealt with.

The only way to beat alcoholism or addiction then is usually to find other ways to deal with depression or anxiety. Once those are having less of an impact on your emotional life, then the purely ‘habit’ element can be addressed.

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How to stop drinking alcohol

Are you trying to decide if you should stop drinking alcohol? Maybe you’ve already tried a few times to just cut down, and drink more sensibly like other people seem to.

There will be many different factors which contribute to your alcohol consumption, so in order to stop drinking so much, you might need to address some of these.

how to stop drinking alcohol

It may be stress or anxiety, depression or boredom, perhaps social pressure or relationship problems. If you can identify that you often drink alcohol in response to some of these, then your first step is to look for different solutions to these issues.

So how do you stop drinking? The first thing to look at is:

Consider your motivation for stopping

Why do you actually want to stop? What are the consequences of your alcohol consumption? Weigh up the pros and cons of your drinking, the costs versus the benefits (write them down here if you like).

  • What are the negative effects of your drinking? Be honest here - look at your relationships, your health, job, self-esteem, depression etc.
  • Next what are the good things you expect to happen when you stop drinking, how will your life be better?
  • Finally what are the negative aspects of quitting? What is putting you off the idea? This is important because you will have to find some way to solve these concerns.

You need to be reminding yourself about this list of your motivations every time you think about having a drink. The next stage is to find out:

Are you physically dependent on alcohol?

For the sake of safety, if you are drinking all day from the moment you wake up in order to avoid your hangovers, then you will need some sort of medical supervision to help you through the detox. So if you’re drinking this much you should see your doctor before you plan to stop drinking alcohol. If you won’t do that, then you MUST try and cut down a bit before you stop completely.

So you’ve worked out why you want to stop, and if you can stop safely. Now what? You need to:

Develop a plan for how you can avoid those urges to drink.

Read our earlier article on coping with alcohol cravings first. It will give you a few techniques to help you. One thing’s for sure, will-power alone is not enough to stop you from drinking.

You need to work out what are your ‘high-risk’ situations, what are your ‘triggers’ that make you want to drink? Some of these can be avoided, so make plans as to how you can avoid them. For those that clearly can’t be avoided, you have to start thinking about how you can deal with them differently. Make your own relapse prevention strategy.

But what if things go wrong?

Ok, so it might not be as easy as all that (of course not), you may well slip and have a drink when you weren’t planning to. You haven’t failed, it’s just a mistake, you let that old habit sneak up and catch you unaware.

This obviously isn’t going to change over night. And realistically, this is where you might need the help of a professional. You will need to replace all that drinking with other activities, which means you need to set yourself some achievable goals.

The same goes for your feelings, learning how you can cope with difficult feelings without alcohol will take some time. Alcohol has been your way of dealing with everything difficult in your life, so you are going to have to find some other ways to cope, basically.

You should regularly review what is working and what’s not, what things are still tripping you up and most importantly, what benefits you are seeing. Remind yourself of your original reasons for wanting to stop drinking alcohol. And of course, if you find that you need some help, try a therapy session.

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Alcohol causes increased breast cancer risk

alcohol causes breast cancerEveryone knows that alcohol causes harm like brain damage and liver cirrhosis. What most people aren’t aware of is that alcohol consumption also causes cancer. Recent studies show an increased risk of colorectal and breast cancer, liver and larynx cancer from regular heavy drinking.

The Harvard Centre for Cancer Prevention found an average of two alcoholic drinks per day increases the risk of breast cancer by about 25 percent.

Swedish scientists have found this risk to be exacerbated by Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). And the more you drink, the higher the risk. If you combine this risk level with the other well-known risk factors, such as a young age for starting your period (12 years or less), or a close female relative who has had breast cancer, then you really should consider cutting down on your alcohol consumption.

Cornell University have an informative summary of the issues involved with alcohol and breast cancer.

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The Alcoholics Anonymous Alternative

Is there an alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous? Do the 12 steps really work? These are questions that most alcoholics will ask when they decide that they want to change.

Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) originated in Akron, Ohio in the 1930’s from religious individuals grouping together to solve their alcoholism. The 12 steps soon emerged as a formula for all addicts to follow if they were to stay sober.

From the very beginning, complete abstinence was seen as the only answer. Of course this does work for some people, but clearly not for everyone.

Figures for how effective the 12 step recovery process is are impossible to find. Estimates suggest only about 5% of people who attend meetings regularly stay sober for more than a year. Not much more than the placebo effect really.

However, AA and NA (Narcotics Anonymous) do develop networks of community support, which is undoubtedly very positive. The support given is from other addicts or alcoholics of course, not trained professionals. And by their very nature the meetings are public access, anyone can attend.

The main objection many people have to the philosophy is its rigidity, so anyone who hasn’t seen them before must be wondering, what are these 12 steps then? Here you are - (more…)

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National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month

addiction recovery month - thanks bush!George W. Bush has very compassionately decided to declare that September is National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month, 2006.

That’s wonderful Mr. President, after thirty years of your ‘War on Drugs’, you’ve decided your country needs to focus on treatment and recovery too.

And for a whole month!

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Abstinence reduces alcohol damage to brain & nervous system

alcohol nerve damage repairs itselfBecause alcohol is highly neurotoxic, as we’ve said before, it leads to damage of the brain and nervous system. Over time it can cause cognitive deficits, or loss of mental abilities in areas such as memory, concentration, motor control and ability to learn.

However, there is some hope now that those precious brain-cells are not lost for ever. Researchers at Stanford University have found that after at least six months of sobriety, the brain damage caused by alcohol’s toxicity does in fact repair itself.

They concluded that the mental abilities of their study group of long-term alcoholics, who had all been sober for between six months and thirteen years, were now the same as their control group who had not been alcoholics. The only capability that had not been recovered was spatial awareness.

Surely this is information to further motivate anyone who’s alcohol consumption is out of control - if you keep drinking, you’ll gradually lose all your faculties. If you stop, you’ll be dazzling friends with your razor-sharp wit just like you used to, right?

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Kudzu as a treatment for alcoholism

You’ve made the decision to cut down on your drinking. At this point, you may be wondering “is there anything that I can take that could help me with my cravings?”

Currently a few drugs are popular for the treatment of alcoholism – Naltrexone, Acamprosate, and Disulfiram. None are always effective or appropriate.

Common side effects include diarrhoea, dyspepsia (indigestion), headache, nausea and vomiting, rash, and itching. More severe side effects have been associated with these drugs which cause suspicion as to whether they are doing more harm than good.

kudzu reduces alcohol consumptionThe pharmaceutical industry has little to offer for keeping alcoholics sober. Herbal medicines, on the other hand, have shown more promising and dramatic results. However, for profiteering reasons, it is not likely that drug companies or your doctor will provide herbal alternatives.

The herb Kudzu can cut consumption of alcohol in half perfectly safely without the side effects of drugs. It has been used to reduce drinking in China since 600 A.D. Scientists have found the herb to be effective in reducing alcohol intake in rats.

Recently, studies have shown evidence that Kudzu can reduce drinking in humans. Essentially, kudzu increases blood alcohol concentration so that people need less alcohol to feel its effects. People feel satisfied on fewer drinks.

So, where can you find some? David Lee, a chemist on the McLean Hospital research team did assays on a variety of kudzu herb extracts from stores and websites and found that many of these products contained less than 1 percent of active kudzu, and thus were ineffective. Higher concentrations are needed - around 30-40 percent of one of Kudzu’s active ingredients (puerarin) is advised. Please be aware that the Kudzu capsules available in Holland & Barrett are only 7%. The tincture they sell is of course alcohol based (all tinctures are), at roughly 60% alcohol.

We’ve reviewed a number of online Kudzu suppliers, and this is the best we could find:

BUY KUDZU ONLINE HERE

Or read some more information about Kudzu.

Alternatively you can try Liv.52 - a herbal supplement proven to protect the liver from the damaging effects of alcohol. It assists in the process of detoxification also, in that it speeds up the elimination of acetaldehyde (which means your hangovers won’t be quite so nasty).

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Cravings and Negative Beliefs Cause Relapse

If you are trying to cut down your alcohol use, even if you are mostly successful, there will inevitably be times when you will relapse and have a binge. Don’t be put off by this, you haven’t failed. What is important here is to learn from your mistakes and work out how you could do things differently next time.

What was it about that situation that caused you to drink more than you intended? Was it a particular trigger that you couldn’t avoid (birthdays or a bereavement for instance)? Or was it a trigger that has caught you out before? If so, you need to work out some different ways to deal with it.

Many relapses occur as a result of the beliefs you may hold about alcohol. For instance if you believe that you “can’t cope with these feelings” and so you “need a drink otherwise you’ll lose the plot”, or if you believe that the only way you can be sociable is after a drink, then obviously these beliefs will tend to make you relapse.

The beliefs you have about your cravings or urges will also determine how easy it is to avoid relapse. So again, if you believe that once you get a craving, it won’t go away until you have a drink, then every craving you get becomes very risky. Similarly, if you believe that you don’t have the mental strength to cope with your cravings, then of course you probably won’t. Your beliefs are self-fulfilling.

What you need to do now is find out what your beliefs are, and more importantly how accurate they are. This means testing out your beliefs by looking at the evidence. Most of our problems in life arise from inaccurate beliefs about ourselves and how the world works. But this is where you might need a counsellor or a therapist, because it’s very difficult to be objective and impartial about your own thoughts.

» Try this test to see what your negative beliefs about alcohol or drug use might be.

» Then try this one to examine what your beliefs about cravings are.

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The Addictive Personality

addictive personalityFor most people with some sort of alcoholism, their over use of alcohol has arisen from too many unpleasant emotions in their lives.

As such, understandably they yearn for the good feelings usually associated with positive life experiences. These feelings are immediately available through alcohol, so excessive use can take hold. As many an alcoholic has said -

“I just wanted to feel normal…”

The important thing here is that most of the time alcoholics do not feel normal, they feel like something is wrong. Sometimes it’s because a part of their personality is not being expressed fully, they are suppressing a part of themselves which may have been buried for years, for so long they have probably forgotten it was a part of them.

What often happens though is that when drunk, these suppressed or forgotten parts of us come out to play - sometimes this is enjoyable, and sometimes not. But the way people behave when they are intoxicated can be very informative. It can tell us a lot about the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of the addiction.

These two aspects of an addict’s personality - ‘the straight’ and ‘the addictive’ are very often in conflict with each other. They don’t like the other part, they don’t trust them and they fear each other.

To move forward, there has to be a truce. An acceptance and understanding of both parts of the self. You need to recognise what the positive qualities are about both. Then maybe some of the guilt and self-blame can subside…

» Read this related article on Addiction and Mental Health.

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the English are addicted to binge drinking

A report released recently by the Centre for Public Health at Liverpool John Moores University and the North West Public Health Observatory stated that the North of England particularly, is in the grip of dangerous levels of binge drinking.

18% of adults in England overall reported binge drinking (defined by them as more than double the recommended daily limit) more than once a week. Certain areas reported even higher levels - up to 27% in some major northern cities. This is not just a problem with young men - women are binge drinking far more than they used to.

The shadow home secretary, David Davis said:

“This alarming research shows why it was wrong of the government to unleash 24-hour drinking on all our towns and cities without a proper assessment of the consequences.”

This is a problem which seems to be getting worse. Realistically, what can be done about it? As we’ve said before, it is not just the responsibility of the government to advise against drinking, or of the health service to ‘mop-up’ the mess afterwards.

Some people point the finger at the alcohol industry which produces such cheap drinks now. But many countries in Europe have much cheaper alcohol than England, so why are we such a nation of drunkards?

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Antioxidants reduce the toxic effects of alcohol

brain damage from alcoholFor those of you who are drinking too much alcohol, but aren’t yet ready to change, here’s some useful health advice.

Alcohol is highly neurotoxic, meaning it directly destroys nerve cells - both those in the central nervous system (the brain and spinal chord), and those in the peripheral nervous system (the rest of the body).

Unfortunately nerve cells do not regrow as well as ordinary tissue, so such damage can be irreparable.

This can have a number of unpleasant effects, from peripheral neuropathy (pain, numbness or tingling, especially in the extremities), to atrophy of brain tissue.

In alcoholism particularly, this damage to brain tissue can cause a condition known as Korsakoff’s Syndrome. This is similar to Alzheimers, and is characterised by short-term memory loss and confabulation (making things up).

Fortunately though, some of this damage can be prevented with proper nutrition, or more easily, with vitamin supplements. Common vitamins called antioxidants can help the brain deal with the effects of alcohol by limiting the damage to nerve cells. These include the vitamins A, C and E plus the mineral Selenium. The vitamin Thiamine (B1) is also essential in preventing the onset of Korsakoff’s. They are all available in most health stores.

Of course taking vitamins won’t eliminate the toxic effects of alcohol, so don’t think that by popping a whopper mega-vitamin tablet every day you can magically drink as much as you like. It doesn’t work like that. But you might just lessen the damage a little.

» Nutrition and Mental Health
» The role of antioxidants in health

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Alcohol Related Deaths Doubled

Recently released figures show that the number of deaths caused by alcohol has risen dramatically in the past ten years. In fact it has almost doubled - from 4144 in ’91 to 8380 in ’04 (The UK Office for National Statistics Online).

The difference is even more profound among men than women. Oddly, the age range with the highest level of deaths caused by alcohol was men between the ages of 35 and 54, not the younger groups, as you might imagine.

But again, the rate of death for this age group in women too, has nearly doubled in the same time period from 9.3 to 17.9 per 100 000 of the population.

Alarming figures, as I’m sure you’ll agree. But a serious question which arises from this is, why? Are we really drinking that much more than we were ten years ago? Are our health services failing us?

Of course it is important to remember also that these figures are only for deaths directly attributable to alcohol. There will have been many more where alcohol was only an indirect cause (for instance someone killed in a car accident in which the other driver had been drinking).

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Heroin on Prescription

heroin on prescriptionThere’s been a few articles around lately in which various people have suggested that Heroin should be made available on the NHS (that’s the free UK health service for non-UK readers). One of these is Dr Richard Simpson, the former Scottish drugs minister, BBC NEWS - Call to trial heroin on the NHS.

Cleveland Police Det Supt Tom Stoddart supports the idea, suggesting that it would help to get those most addicted off the drug without them engaging in crime to fund it. BBC NEWS - call to offer heroin on NHS.

Now what these people don’t seem to realise (maybe they should do a little research), is that heroin is already supplied on prescription through the NHS, and has been for many years. It’s rare for anyone to get it, and they usually have to demonstrate that the normal Methadone prescription isn’t helping them. But I myself have worked with a number of people being supplied pharmaceutical heroin on prescription. Its nothing new.

Does it actually help people get off the drug though? That’s arguable, for some people, yes. But for others, it just allows them to get on with their lives without having to raise vast sums of money (usually illegally) to fund an addiction which is seemingly beyond their control. Here’s one woman who’s been on a prescription for over two years - “I get my heroin on the NHS“

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