Seattle Teenage Drug Abuse and Addiction Prevention

Teenage Drug Abuse. Protecting Your Kids from Substance Abuse and Addiction While raising your child is one of the most rewarding aspects of living your life, it is also one of the toughest. As children grow up and become teens, the issues that surround parenting change and many families recognize that their youngsters will certainly…

Do Twelve Step Programs Like AA Work for You? | Explore Your Alternatives!

Do 12-step programs work? Again, sort of . . . A 10-year-long research study published in 2013 claimed to demonstrate a significant benefit for those attending AA meetings, while critics of the organization often point to a 2006 review article that found no quantifiable benefit from AA or other 12-step programs. In fact, it is clear that…

Alcoholics Anonymous | Addiction Doctors Fight and Outdated Battle!

Alcoholics Anonymous is, without question, the largest and most venerable addiction recovery group in the world. Founded nearly 80 years ago, AA now boasts or an amazing 2.1 million worldwide members, many of whom attribute their very survival to “The Program.” In the United States, where 12-step programs originated, AA is viewed by many as…

The Ever Present Danger of Relapse in Drug Addictions

Why Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Death Is So Scary It is clear that the root causes of drug addiction, like those of many multifactorial diseases, are frustratingly elusive — exceedingly nebulous mixture — of genetics, exposure, culture, conditioning, personality and environment . . . Addiction obviously runs in families, but plenty of addicts come from…

Picking Addiction Help | Family Intervention

Addiction is a Family Illness | How Families Can Help Addiction is a family illness. Families suffer when someone they love descends into the purgatory of addiction. But I take issue with historical confrontational interventions and outdated confrontative “rehab oriented” mandates that families should cut off contact with addicts and allow them to reach…

Effective Addiction Treatment | Alternatives

It is clear that countless people addicted to drugs or alcohol have managed to get clean and stay clean with the help of organizations like Alcoholics Anonymous or the thousands of residential inpatient and outpatient clinics devoted to treating addiction. However, if you have somehow failed to achieve lasting sobriety after “rehabilitate,” perhaps after spending…

Writing a Forgiveness Letter Can Change Your Life

Writing a forgiveness letter to someone who has hurt you can be a valuable step in resolving lingering emotional pain. When a past incident constantly replays in your head, it weighs heavily on you and your relationship with the offending person. Moreover, if you are dismissed in a face-to-face encounter, like the author of this…

Blaming Your Parents Hurts You Most

In therapy, to explain why they aren’t successful or happy, some people blame their parents. They believe their parents are responsible for the way they feel and live their lives. Perhaps their parents were emotionally cold or critical, which explains their difficulties in relationships. They may blame their lack of success academically or professionally on…

ADHD Teens More Likely to Have Substance Abuse Problems

An eight year study from researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, in conjunction with six other healthcare centers across the country, of over 600 teenagers has shown that kids diagnosed with ADHD have a substantially higher prevalence of substance abuse and cigarette use than kids without ADHD, regardless of whether or not…

Diagnosing Substance Abuse and Dependence in Schizophrenia

It has been shown that people with mental disorders are more likely to also have a substance abuse disorder, and the more severe the mental disorder, the more likely it is to have an accompanying substance abuse disorder. The more common severe mental illnesses with the highest levels of substance abuse attachment are depression, bipolar…