Posts tagged with ‘Addiction’
Addiction can be used strictly to describe a specific dependency on alcohol or drugs that involves increasing tolerance for the drug, increased dosage, cravings, and withdrawal symptoms when stopping using the drug. Addiction is also used to describe process addictions, compulsive behaviors that while not based on a specific substance, is often described as similar in its progression (such as gambling, sex, shopping, Internet addiction)
How Important Is Family In Drug and Alcohol Treatment?
By Suzanne Kane
Let’s face it. Going through treatment for drug and alcohol dependence or addiction is a tough process. Not only is it hard on the individual seeking to get clean and sober, but it is also a difficult experience for family members. Addiction in any form affects the entire family. There’s no way any individual can get through treatment and on to recovery without a lot of support. That support comes from counselors, group meetings, friends you meet in treatment and recovery—and family.
Gambling Addiction and the Brain
In Saint Louis, Missouri, a national conference on gambling addiction and substance abuse is underway. When it comes to gambling, Fox 2’s Charles Jaco reports that the focus is less on casinos and more on brain chemistry.
How Trauma Can Lead to Addiction
In her Huffington Post blog “The Road to Addiction,” Carole Bennett discusses how trauma can be a trigger for addiction. “Trauma is an incident or occurrence that happens inexplicably or without warning,” she writes. “It is categorized as an overwhelming life-changing experience (and) is typically a physical and/or emotional shock to the very fiber of one’s being.”
Marijuana Addiction: Not So Harmless
Joyce started smoking marijuana when she was 15. It started as a pleasant escape and then turned into an obsession, something she needed just to get through the day. She found herself hiding her addiction from her family, friends, and co-workers.
“I would come home from work, close my door, have my bong, my food, my music, and my dog, and I wouldn’t see another person until I went to work the next day,” Joyce told the New York Times. “What kind of life is that? I did that for 20 years.”


