Opioid use disorder has become a major problem across the United States over the past two decades. Prescription opioids administered to American pain sufferers, while seen initially as a saving grace for many, have become an issue that federal, state, and local governments have all had to address. Although very useful for pain management, prescription…
What to Expect from Your Body When You Quit Drinking Alcohol After living with an active alcohol addiction and deciding that is time to stop drinking alcohol, many wonder what effects it will have on your body when you stop engaging in alcohol consumption. In the initial stages, individuals will often go through a period…
Concerned a Loved One Might be Using Meth? We want the best for our loved ones and would do anything we can to make sure that our loved ones are safe and out of harm’s way. When you begin to suspect that a loved one may be battling a problem with substance abuse, it can…
How Addiction Affects the Brain Addiction is a complex disease of the brain that causes the brain’s reward system to intensely crave a substance (drug addiction or alcohol addiction) or behavior (gambling addiction, internet addiction, or sex addiction), causing an inability to stop using the substance. Obsession starts to take over, and soon the person…
What is Considered Alcoholism versus Casual Drinking? As per the national institute on alcohol abuse and Addiction, alcoholism is characterized by an individual engaging in heavy drinking or binge drinking behaviors that have begun to create negative consequences within your day-to-day life. If an individual living with an alcohol addiction attempts to stop their alcohol…
Passing a Drug Test When You’ve Used Cocaine Cocaine is detected on drug tests in several different ways because there are different types of cocaine drug tests available. The half-life of cocaine is about one hour, meaning that it takes your body around one hour to get rid of half of the drug in the…
How Family History Impacts Alcohol Addiction When you have grown up with loved ones that have battled a life of alcohol abuse, you want to know what your risk of developing an alcohol use disorder is. According to the National Council of Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), the greatest risk of developing an alcohol use…
How Substance Abuse Affects Your Mental Health The connection between mental illness and substance misuse is well-known in the behavioral therapy community. If a person is predisposed to a mental health disorder, symptoms may be triggered by alcohol and drug abuse. Substance use disorders can lead to mental health illnesses such as anxiety and depression,…
Heroin Withdrawal Symptoms Heroin is a potent opioid drug that, when smoked, snorted, or injected, binds to the opioid receptors in the brain and makes chemical changes that produce feelings of euphoria but also change the way the brain controls the heart rate, and pain, pleasure, breathing and sleeping. The brain becomes dependent on having…
Do You Have a Problem with Alcohol? Alcohol abuse is defined by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) as: Binge drinking is a pattern of drinking that brings the blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08% or higher. For men, this is usually 5 or more drinks in about two hours, and for…