Treatment Options for Alcohol Abuse & Addiction

With approximately 14 million Americans suffering from alcohol abuse or addiction, a discussion of alcohol abuse and addiction treatment options is not only timely, it is extremely relevant. Read more

Substance Abuse – An Occupational Hazard?

The likelihood of a substance abuse problem depends on a person’s type of employment or occupation, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Substance abuse among employed individuals varies based on other demographics, such as educational level, age and gender. Read more

Baby Boomers and Addiction

According to data released this week by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), many baby boomers are continuing longstanding habits of using illicit drugs. Read more

Substance Abuse, Health, and the Immune System

Individuals struggling with addiction often face serious health problems. Not only does regular abuse of drugs and/or alcohol interfere with the proper absorption of vitamins and nutrients from food and put immense strain on the heart, liver, and kidneys, it compromises the body’s ability fight off infection and disease. Read more

Making Excuses for Alcoholism

Addiction is often accompanied by denial. Denial makes it possible for the addict to continue his habits in the face of serious negative consequences. Individuals struggling with alcoholism tend to employ a certain set of excuses when it comes to facing their destructive behavior. Read more

Cognitive Impairment and Recovery from Alcoholism

According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), brain damage is a “common and potentially severe consequence of long-term, heavy alcohol consumption.” 

Brain damage from alcoholism specifically involves the impairment of cognitive functioning – mental activities related to acquiring, storing, retrieving, and using information. Studies have shown that individuals recovering from alcoholism experience difficulty with particular cognitive tasks, especially those related to higher functioning.

Some brain damage related to alcoholism is reversible, but not all. Whether or not the damage is reversible seems to depend on the severity and duration of alcoholic behaviors. Impaired cognition contributes to poor job performance in adults and poor academic performance for teens.

Alcoholics tend to exhibit moderate deficiencies in intellectual functioning as well as diminished brain size and changes in brain cell activity. The two most common types of impairment resulting from alcohol abuse are difficulty with visual-spatial abilities and higher cognitive functioning. Visual-spatial abilities (perceiving and remembering the locations of objects relative to each other and in 2- and 3-dimensional space) include driving a car or assembling a piece of furniture based on written/illustrated instructions.

Research has shown that although habitual heavy drinkers and alcoholics test at similar levels as other kinds of addicts for intellect, alcohol abusers have particular trouble with tasks that involve higher cognitive processes. For instance, an alcohol abuser may be able to file and retrieve documents from an existing filing system without trouble, but may struggle to devise an entirely new filing system.

The exact relationship among lifetime duration of drinking habits, total quantity of alcohol consumed, and cognitive impairment remains unclear. Some habitual, long-term light-to-moderate drinkers show signs of cognitive impairment equivalent to detoxified alcoholics.

The good news is certain alcohol-related impairment appears reversible with abstinence from alcohol. Studies have shown that newly detoxified adult alcoholics may exhibit significant deficits in problem-solving, short-term memory, and visual-spatial abilities, but tend to recover brain function for several months to a year after beginning to abstain from alcohol. During this time, they often experience an increase in attention.

Understanding cognitive impairment in alcoholics is especially important in considering alcoholism treatment programs and methods. Recovering alcoholics usually experience the most severe impairment in the first few weeks after beginning to abstain from alcohol. This high level of impairment interferes with the recovering individual’s ability to benefit from psycho-educational treatment classes or skill-development curricula. Recovering alcoholics may need to take more time than other kinds of recovering addicts before attending these activities in order for the activities to be beneficial.

Alcohol Use Disorder

According to a survey conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2001, approximately 30 percent of American adults met the diagnostic criteria for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) at least once in their lifetimes. Read more

April Is Alcohol Awareness Month

The federal government has designated April as Alcohol Awareness Month. This event is an effort by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) to call attention to the serious problem of alcohol abuse in the United States. Read more