Maybe you have noticed something unusual in your son’s behavior or you have found unusual items in his room or among his possessions. Your observations have led you to become concerned that he is using cocaine, but when you confront him directly he denies any and all drug use. Your parental instincts tell you that
Tag: Substance Abuse
Being a Man Means Admitting When You Screwed Up
History is replete with examples of men who have proven the aphorism that “the cover-up is worse than the crime.” It may be out of vogue in popular culture to discuss how a person can achieve or improve a level of “manliness”, but admitting and taking ownership of mistakes is a hallmark of maturity and
Alcoholism Withdrawal Symptoms
Alcohol normally depresses a person’s central nervous system. When a person consumes large amounts of alcohol for a longer period of time, his brain and central nervous system adjust and rewire themselves to speed up and to accommodate that excessive alcohol consumption. When that consumption suddenly ends, the alcoholic’s central nervous system reacts
Risk Factors that Lead to Substance Abuse
There are certain risk factors which contribute to the likelihood that someone will use drugs and subsequently abuse them. We call these “risk factors” because when they are exhibited by an individual or group of individuals, they are said to be at risk of developing a drug abuse habit or persistent addiction. Some of these
How Methadone is Used to Treat Heroin Addiction
Individuals who are addicted to heroin and other opiate products, including oxycodone, will experience severe and often-dangerous physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms when they stop using these drugs. Those symptoms are cited as a primary reason for relapses when heroin addicts are in rehab. Methadone is used to ease the worst of those symptoms and
Putting a Stop to Your Self-Harm
In their hard rock song, Hurt, the Nine Inch Nails sing the lyric “I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real.” This lyric accurately depicts self-harm as a mechanism to cope with numbness and buried pain. If you have adopted this coping mechanism
What Does Crack Cocaine Do To Your Body?
Crack cocaine is the same chemical product as powdered cocaine, but with a different delivery system. Powder cocaine is a water-soluble “salt” form of the chemical, while crack cocaine is a fat-soluble form that is absorbed more readily and more quickly into a user’s body when it is smoked. Crack’s effects are felt more quickly
Alcohol Poisoning: Why Binge Drinking Is Not Harmless
Binge drinking and excessive alcohol consumption can and will cause you grievous harm even if you are not an alcoholic. At high levels, alcohol is a fatal poison that can cause irreparable brain damage if it does not kill you. Because alcohol absorption and processing rates are different for different people, you might suffer alcohol
How Marijuana Use Has Changed Through History
Marijuana has been used for almost five thousand years. Early Chinese medical texts include records of marijuana’s psychoactive and medicinal properties. Trade and cultural cross-breeding took marijuana from China and into North Africa and Europe, where it continued to have medicinal and occasional recreational uses. Spanish settlers brought marijuana to the North American continent in
How Does Your Brain’s Dopamine System Work?
Long before man developed a capacity for logic and reason, his brain developed a dopamine reward system that gave him an intuitive and instinctive capacity to distinguish good from bad. When intuitive man experienced what we now recognize as pleasure, his brain released a dopamine neurotransmitter that attached to certain receptors in his brain to