The Lord gives us friends to push us to our potential – and enemies to push us beyond it. ~Robert Brault

Alcoholism is an addiction that is poorly understood in Japan. As liquor consumption grew sixfold over the last 50 years in Japan to match its economic affluence, alcoholism became a growing but misunderstood problem.

Alcoholic beverages are easily available at convenience stores and vending machines. Liquor ads are prevalent on television and drinking with work colleagues is common.

Katsuya Maruyama of Kurihama Alcoholism Center, a leading hospital for treating alcohol dependency, said Japan is too tolerant with drinking. This attitude makes it tough for society and alcoholics to recognize the problem.

“There is no proper teaching on how alcohol can be dangerous, so no one knows alcoholism as a disease,” he said.

The economic loss from drinking problems in Japan is more than 6.6 trillion yen ($73 billion) a year, according to data from Tokyo Medical and Dental University. About 800,000 people are estimated to be alcoholics in Japan. While that number is less than that of the United States or Europe, it is rising as more women and elderly become alcoholics.

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

God grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the one I can, and the wisdom to know it’s me. ~Author Unknown

Millions of people across the United Kingdom could be putting themselves at risk of alcohol-related violence, casual sex or blackouts, according to a new survey.

Sixty-one percent of people questioned had been adversely affected following a night’s heavy drinking. The most common occurence was not being able to remember what had happened the night before/

The research shows that alcohol can negatively affect behavior in many ways.

“There is no doubt that alcohol is a harmful drug,” said Dr. Mark Collins, who led the research. “It damages both mental and physical health, creates problems for society and is the cause of violence. It is becoming increasingly apparent that drastic measures need to be taken to address these problems.”

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind. ~Mahatma Gandhi

Enhancing the effects of dopamine, a chemical in the brain, influences how people make life choices by affecting expectations of pleasure, according to new research from the UCL Institute of Neurology.

The study, published in Current Biology, confirms an important role for dopamine in how human expectations are formed and how people make complex decisions. It also contributes to an understanding of how pleasure expectations can go wrong, for example in drug addiction.

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter produced in several areas of the brain that is found in a wide variety of animals. Its role in reward learning and reward-seeking behavior is well established by animal research, though its role in humans is much less understood.

www.thetreatmentcenter.com


Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

Don’t bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself. ~William Faulkner

New research has exposed the risks and dangers of alcoholic energy drinks (AEDs). There has been a continuing effort from state attorneys to ban the drinks. On Nov. 13 the FDA asked 30 manufacturers of AEDs to provide safety data related to adding caffeine and other stimulants to their products.

The research from Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center found that college students who reported consuming alcohol mixed with energy drinks had significantly higher prevalence of alcohol-related consequences, such as sexual assault and injury.

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself. ~Jane Addams

More than 500 pounds of unwanted medications were collected at five sites in Polk County, Iowa last weekend.

Law enforcement agencies, substance abuse treatment and prevention organizations, and more than 50 volunteers participated in the Polk County Substance Abuse and Addiction Workgroup’s event.

“This is a tremendous outcome from the first initiative this group has undertaken to decrease drug abuse and addiction in Polk County,” said Mike Wenger, a prevention specialist with the group.

The drive-through drug drop-off made participation simple. More than 325 vehicles went through the lines. Most items were taken by law enforcement officers to an incinerator. About eight pounds were given to the Iowa Drug Repository.

“One-third of all new abusers of prescription drugs are 12 to 17 years old, and prescription drugs are the drug of choice among 12 to 13-year-olds,” said Wenger.

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
 Director of Admissions
877-392-3342

Praise the bridge that carried you over. ~George Colman

Giving heroin to heroin addicts may not sound like a great idea, but it could soon become the preferred treatment for addicts. Switzerland and a handful of other countries already have clinics that give small, supervised doses, and Britain could be next after completing a four-year trial on the practice. The results were encouraging. Street-drug use among participants fell 75 percent in six months.

The goal is to eventually wean addicts off the drug, and the treatment is only used if detox and methadone have failed.

“It’s a less than perfect treatment,” said one researcher. “But for entrenched addicts, it gives them the first step toward getting their life together.”

The idea is still controversial. In Switzerland last year, 68 percent backed a referendum to keep the clinics open.

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
Admission Director
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. ~Natalie Goldberg, Wild Mind

A rise in heroin abuse by teenagers across the country has led one high school to issue an ultimatum to parents: attend a seminar on the dangers of heroin or your child will be banned from the prom. More than 1,000 parents showed up to the forum in Smithtown, New York two weeks ago.

Those teenagers include Natalie Ciappa, a National Honor Society member, star of school plays, and a cheerleader who sang the national anthem at basketball games. She was everything a parent could want – and the furthest thing from the traditional picture of a heroin addict. Ciappa is one of the new faces of heroin addiction. Days before her high school graduating in 2008, Natalie overdosed and died.

“When we found her, she was already gone,” said Natalie’s mother Doreen Ciappa. “She wasn’t breathing. We heard her last breath.”

Natalie was one of 46 people to die last year from a heroin overdose in Nassau County, New York, a 75 percent increase from the previous year. This disturbing trend is being felt across the country.

Heroin has killed 23 people this year in Will County, Illinois, compared to 16 last year. The number of heroin deaths in Jefferson County, Alabama, has tripled from six in 2007 to 18 this year. And in 2008 there were 119 deaths in Oregon – 71 in Multnomah County alone.

A small bag of heroin “is actually cheaper than a six-pack of beer,” said John Gilbride, the special agent in charge for the Drug Enforcement Agency’s New York field office.

Dealers have refined production methods, making the drug cheaper and more powerful.

“You can do heroin once,” Gilbride said. “It may be the last chance that you get to do heroin.”

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

Carrying a resentment is like being pregnant. Everyone else sees it but your the one that feels it. David Chalkley

A group of drunken fruit flies have helped researchers from North Carolina State and Boston universities identify entire networks of genes – also present in humans – that play a key role in alcohol drinking behavior.

This discovery provides a significant explanation of why some people seem to tolerate alcohol better than others, as well as a potential target for drugs aimed at preventing or eliminating alcoholism. This finding also sheds new light on many of the negative side effects of drinking, such as liver damage.

The researchers first measured the amount of time it took for the fruit flies to lose postural control (fall down) after the exposure to alcohol. At the same time, changes in the expression of all the flies genes were recorded. Using statistical methods to identify genes that work together, the scientists were able to pinpoint specific genes that played a crucial role in adaptation relating to alcohol exposure. The expression of the human counterpart of a critical gene in fruit flies could be directly tied to alcohol consumption in humans.

www.thetreatmentcenter.com

Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342

The friend who holds your hand and says the wrong thing is made of dearer stuff than the one who stays away. ~Barbara Kingsolver

Ireland has the fourth highest use of cocaine among 15 to 24-year-olds in Europe.

The annual report of the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction found that almost 4 percent of 15 to 24-year-olds used cocaine in Ireland last year. Denmark had the highest rate, with 5.6 percent, Spain had 5.4 percent, and the rate was 5 percent in Great Britain. The lowest rate for cocaine use was found in Romania, which had 0.1 percent.

Ireland was also among those countries with the highest prevalence of drug-related deaths. It was fifth in Europe, with 57 drug-induced deaths per million of population, behind Luxembourg, Estonia, Norway and Denmark.

Treatment demand for cocaine use had increased dramatically in Ireland in the last eight years. In 2001, 81 people reported cocaine use as their main drug problem, while the number for 2008 was 775.

Ireland was identified as a country where legal alternatives to illegal drugs are sold. The internet and “head shops” were seen as the main outlet.

The director of the European Monitoring Centre on Drugs and Drug Addiction said that “there is little to suggest at present any improvement regarding cocaine and heroin use in Europe.”

www.thetreatmentcenter.com



Kevin Kline
Director of Admissions
The Treatment Center
877-392-3342