Drunkenland

The Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota sued some of the world’s largest beer makers on Thursday, saying they knowingly contributed to devastating alcohol-related problems on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Radcliffe: I'm Drunk in Some 'Harry Potter' Scenes

The actor who starred in the "Harry Potter" movies has admitted to being intoxicated while filming many of the scenes. "I have a very addictive personality. It was a problem. People with problems like that are very adept at hiding it. It was bad. I don't want to go into details, but I drank a lot and it was daily -- I mean nightly," Daniel Radcliffe said.

There are basically 6 reasons why alcohol consumption and hangovers make many people anxious and I’m going tell you what they are. I want to share this with you so that you can be more informed and avoid becoming alcohol’s punching bag.

Alcohol withdrawal refers to a group of symptoms that may occur from suddenly stopping the use of alcohol after chronic or prolonged ingestion.

Woman Goes to Jail for Poisoning Baby With Alcohol While Breastfeeding

Alcohol poisoning is something that can result in brain damage and/or death. It also affects the people around you because they are the ones who are left trying to pick up the pieces. However, a story coming out of Russia shows another devastating way that binge drinking and alcohol poisoning doesn’t affect just you. Thanks to one of our readers who forwarded us this story.

SALT LAKE CITY — Jose Guevara and his wife were driving in West Valley City a year ago when a Chevy van crossed the center line and plowed into them head on.

Alcohol is a causal factor in 60 types of diseases and injuries, according to WHO's first report on alcohol since 2004.
Its consumption has been linked to cirrhosis of the liver, epilepsy, poisonings, road traffic accidents, violence, and several types of cancer, including cancers of the colorectum, breast, larynx and liver.
"Six or seven years ago we didn't have strong evidence of a causal relationship between drinking and breast cancer. Now we do," Vladimir Poznyak, head of WHO's substance abuse unit who coordinated the report, told Reuters.

 Alcohol causes nearly 4 percent of deaths worldwide, more than AIDS, tuberculosis or violence, the World Health Organization warned on Friday.

Rising incomes have triggered more drinking in heavily populated countries in Africa and Asia, including India and South Africa, and binge drinking is a problem in many developed countries, the United Nations agency said.

Yet alcohol control policies are weak and remain a low priority for most governments despite drinking's heavy toll on society from road accidents, violence, disease, child neglect and job absenteeism, it said.

Approximately 2.5 million people die each year from alcohol related causes, the WHO said in its "Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health."

One in 25 deaths around the world is caused by alcohol consumption, and booze is now as damaging to global health as tobacco was a decade ago, according to a new study in the British medical journal the Lancet.

The last global statistical analysis of the damage caused by alcohol, undertaken in 2000, found that 3.2% of deaths worldwide were the result of alcohol consumption. The new study, part of the Lancet's "Alcohol and Global Health" series published last Saturday, used the same statistical tools as the previous one, and found that for 2004 the figure had increased 0.6%. Alcohol-related causes of death include accidents, violence, poisoning, mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, suicide, stroke and many others.
While the number of Britons who died from alcohol-related illnesses increased by 126 in 2010 to reach 8,790 compared to the previous year, men over 55 accounted for a death rate of 45.2 per 100,000, figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed.

  Alcohol-related emergency room visits skyrocket in New York: 74,000 in 2009

BY KERRY BURKE AND LUKAS I. ALPERT (DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS)

Monday, November 15, 2010

·         Heavy boozing has caused a shocking spike in drunken injuries and emergency room visits in New York, a troubling new study says.

·         Nearly 74,000 people wound up in hospitals in 2009 for alcohol-related reasons, compared with just 22,000 in 2003 - a jump of nearly 250%, said the city Health Department study, which was released yesterday.

·         "Excessive alcohol use in general is a serious problem," said Health Commissioner Thomas Farley. "The data suggest that the problem is getting worse."

·         Hard drinkers wind up in the ER for reasons ranging from alcohol poisoning to barroom fights and drunken spills.

Jennifer M. Mitchell, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, states 

Alcoholism ‘Many Diseases’

Although the nucleus accumbens has been previously associated with opioid regulation and reward processing, the involvement of the orbitofrontal cortex was unexpected. Raymond F. Anton, MD, who directs the Center for Drug and Alcohol Programs at the Medical University of South Carolina, says it is likely that there are other, as-yet-unidentified regions of the brain associated with addiction.

“It is also likely that alcohol dependence is not one disease, but many, with many systems involved,” he says. “People drink for different reasons, so a treatment that works for one person may not work for another.”

Anton is conducting genetic research in hopes of discovering why naltrexone blunts alcohol cravings in some people but not others.

“We may be able to say in a few years if genetic predisposition can predict who will and will not respond to this drug,” Anton says.

Recovery from alcohol abuse or dependence means finding a way to stay sober while changing your attitudes and behaviors. You will work to restore relationships with your family and friends and people at your job or school. You will need to find meaning and happiness in a healthy lifestyle that doesn't include alcohol.

Recovery is not a cure. It is a lifelong process. It begins in treatment, but it doesn't end when your treatment ends. There are 10 principles of recovery that can help you reach your goals and learn new things to help yourself. They help you gain self-confidence and respect for yourself. They make clear that you're in charge of your recovery. How far you go is up to you.

To stay sober after treatment, focus on your goals. Find things to do, such as sports or volunteer work. Learn how to say no to alcohol and drugs.

Health Risks of Alcohol: 12 Health Problems Associated with Chronic Heavy Drinking
By David Freeman
WebMD Feature
Reviewed by Marina Katz, MD
It's no secret that alcohol consumption can cause major health problems, including cirrhosis of the liver and injuries sustained in automobile accidents. But if you think liver disease and car crashes are the only health risks posed by drinking, think again: Researchers have linked alcohol consumption to more than 60 diseases.
"Alcohol does all kinds of things in the body, and we're not fully aware of all its effects," says James C. Garbutt, MD, professor of psychiatry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine and a researcher at the university's Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies. "It's a pretty complicated little molecule."
Here are 12 conditions linked to chronic heavy drinking.

Anemia/Cancer/Cardiovascular Disease/Cirrhosis/Dementia/Depression/Seizures/Gout/High Blood Pressure/Infectious Diseases/Nerve Damage/Pancreatitis. Read a description of each one here.

By Cheryl Shoquist

My friend Pat and I have been friends, really good friends for a number of years now. When she recently lost her husband in a car accident she was devastated as was I. I sat with her in the hospital room every day as she held his hand and clutched onto the last semblances of his life and their life together. When he died, she was emotionally traumatized and the whole experience changed her. She began drinking heavilly to combat the grief that swallowed up her heart. There were times that I would have a drink or two with her, but I was more concerned about her, so I wasn't there to party but to keep my eye on her.

The word friend summons up feelings of something warm and cozy. Like sitting next to a roaring fire with a blanket,  a cup of cocoa and a really good book on a cold and frosty Winter night. A friend  and a really good friend or best friend is that person that is always there for you, helpful, compassionate, and supportive. A person that cares enough about you to put your needs first.

In the world of Alcoholism, inhabitants of Drunkenland (refer to the book Drunkenland, by Cheryl Shoquist, information on this website) hold different meanings  for the word friend and some of those definitions are not quite so warm and fuzzy. How do you really know if the friends that you have, the ones that claim to be your friends actually are your friends? Can you trust them? Will they betray you or hurt you?  How do you know? Because they tell you? 

The foggy cloud of alcoholism is like a veil that only allows you to see some things, but does not allow you to see the truth. Can you tell the real truth if you see it, or are you too far gone in the realm of Drunkenland?  

Jennifer M. Mitchell, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, says that  research findings could lead to better versions of the existing alcohol abuse drug naltrexone, which blocks the opioid response and blunts alcohol cravings in some, but not all people.

Mitchell says a better understanding of the specific endorphin receptors involved in the alcohol “high” could lead to treatments that better target these reward centers. Currently, naltrexone takes more of a buckshot approach, affecting multiple receptors. This research could lead to more focused medications.

The University of California study included 13 people who identified themselves as heavy drinkers and 12 people who did not.

Using PET imaging, the researchers were able to measure opioid release in the brain before and immediately after the study participants drank the same amount of alcohol.

Drinking alcohol was found to be associated with opioid release in the nucleus accumbens and orbitofrontal cortex -- two areas of the brain associated with reward processing.

The study appears in the Jan. 11 issue of the journal Science Translational Medicine.

We know alcohol makes many people feel good, and that it affects the brain, but new research goes a step further by tightening the focus on areas of the brain most likely affected by alcohol.

The new brain imaging research may lead to a better understanding of alcohol addiction and possibly better treatments for people who abuse alcohol and other drugs.

Investigators say they have identified specific differences in how the so-called reward center of the brain responds to alcohol in heavy and light drinkers.

In both groups, drinking alcohol caused the release of naturally occurring feel-good opioids known as endorphins in two key brain regions associated with reward processing.

But heavy drinkers released more endorphins in response to alcohol, and they reported feeling more intoxicated than the lighter drinkers after drinking the same amount of alcohol.

The findings suggest that people whose brains release more natural opioids in response to alcohol may get more pleasure out of drinking and may be more likely to drink too much and become alcoholics, researcher Jennifer M. Mitchell, PhD, of the University of California, San Francisco, says.

“Greater endorphin release was associated with more hazardous drinking,” Mitchell says. “We believe this is an important step in understanding where and how alcohol acts in the brain.”

Along with higher unemployment and bankruptcy, an economic recession brings increased drinking of alcohol, a study suggests. The increased use of alcohol includes binge drinking, problem drinking, and driving under the influence.

The study is published in Health Economics.

The findings run counter to what had previously been thought about drinking habits during economic downturns.

"It was thought that when unemployment goes up, income goes down and people will consume less because they don't have the resources," says study researcher Michael T. French, PhD, a professor of health economics at the University of Miami.

"People are self-medicating with alcohol," French says. "If you have more free time, you can engage in activities like drinking more frequently than if you were

employed. The self-medication and leisure time effect are dominating the income effect."

The new study tracked alcohol drinking patterns from 2001 to 2005, which predates the current recession. This means that things may be a whole lot worse now, French says. "There will also likely be an uptick in addiction and treatment admissions due to alcohol abuse."

How to Protect Your Health Care in a Rough Economy

"Even if you have a job, you may be concerned about losing it or maybe you are worried about other family members who are at risk for losing a job," he says.

We are talking about the high-functioning alcohol abuser here, says addiction specialist Paul Leslie Hokemeyer, PhD. He works at the Caron Treatment Center's New York City office.

"From the outside, their lives look perfect," he says. "They have a job, two cars,

own a house, and have kids in private schools, but they are being eaten up by a sense of anxiety and helplessness."

"People who do have jobs may keep it together and go to work during the week, but then on the weekend, they start drinking and they can't stop," he says.

Many people do use alcohol to ease their anxiety -- and a bad economy definitely fuels anxiety.

"They think, 'Everything is falling apart, so screw it, I am going to drink,'" he says.

There are healthier ways to deal with stress and anxiety. Addiction and problem drinking thrive in isolation, he says. "Bring other people into your lives and talk about what is happening."

About 1 in 6 U.S. adults binge drinks, according to a new CDC report. That's 38 million people who overindulge.

They do so an average of about four times a month, sometimes downing eight drinks at a sitting.

"Binge drinking is defined as consuming four or more drinks on one occasion for a woman and five or more drinks for a man," says Ursula Bauer, PhD, MPH, director of the CDC's National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. She spoke at a news conference today discussing the new research.

 "Binge drinking is most common among 18- to 34-year-olds,'' she says. They average about 9.3 drinks each occasion.

However, the researchers found that those age 65 and over who did report binge drinking tended to binge drink more often -- five or six times a month.

The new data is published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Who Binge Drinks?