Women who drink alcohol during pregnancy are more likely to give birth prematurely or have a miscarriage, a new study has revealed.
The research, published in the journal BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, looked at the amounts of alcohol women consumed during the early stages of their gestation and the effect this had on their unborn child.
Carter explained the “substance abuse continuum,” which outlines varying stages of alcohol addiction, and how individuals in those stages respond to negative consequences, such as being arrested for a DUI.
Here’s how Carter explained the five stages:
Full story at; Addictions counselor explains ‘substance abuse continuum’ / LJWorld.com.
Parental Drinking Encourages Youth Alcohol Use, Hurts Discipline
Older adolescents’ drinking decisions are strongly influenced by their parents’ drinking habits, and parents who drink often suffer breakdowns in monitoring youth alcohol use, the Washington Post reported Feb. 4th 2008.
Finnish researchers studied more than 4,700 male and female adolescents and their parents, questioning the teens about their alcohol use at ages 14 and 17.5 and querying parents about their current rates of alcohol use and intoxication and alcohol-related problems over their lifetime.
Researchers found that parental monitoring and discipline played a stronger role in drinking behaviors among the younger youths, whereas parental drinking habits had a stronger effect on the older teens, who often increased their drinking when parents attempted to discipline them.
"With respect to individual aspects of parenting, our analyses show that parental alcohol use, intoxication, and problem-drinking symptoms are consistently associated with decreases in monitoring and increases in discipline," Latendresse said. "Decreases in monitoring are related to higher levels of adolescent alcohol use at age 14 and more frequent intoxication at both 14 and 17.5. Likewise, increases in discipline are linked to more frequent use and intoxication but only when adolescents are 17.5."
"It is important to note that excessive discipline may actually have the unintended effect of conveying greater risk for alcohol-related behaviors among adolescents as they get older and are seeking a greater sense of autonomy," Latendresse added.
The research was published in the February 2008 issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research.
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Research has shown that heavy alcohol use clearly damages
A study in the June issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research uses Internet-based technology to find that heavy alcohol consumption has a negative impact on day-to-day memory.
Obviously we all forget things from time to time, however, heavy users of alcohol make noticeably more of these mistakes than either non- or low-users of alcohol.” Ling added that most of what is known about heavy drinkers’ retrospective memory function is based on laboratory research, and even less is known about alcohol’s effects on normal memory-related tasks that people perform from day-to-day.
For this study, researchers collected data from 763 participants (465 female, 298 males) using a specially created Web site. Memory was assessed using two self-report questionnaires: Respondents also self-reported their level of use of alcohol and other drugs.
The results indicate an amount-dependent effect of alcohol use on day-to-day memory function. “We found that heavy users of alcohol reported making consistently more errors than those who said that they consumed little or no alcohol,” said Ling.
More specifically, those participants who reported higher levels of alcohol consumption were more likely to miss appointments, forget birthdays and not pay bills on time. Deficits in everyday memory included problems with remembering whether they had done something like locking the door or switching off the lights, or forgetting where they put items like house keys.”
Colin Martin, said “This study is important because it extends our knowledge of alcohol-related memory impairment to everyday situations that most people can identify with, in contrast to laboratory-based memory tasks.”
“We also found a significant increase in reported memory problems by people who claimed to drink between 10 and 25 units each week in comparison to non-drinkers,” added Ling. One unit of alcohol is the equivalent of 10 ml of ethanol; roughly half a pint of beer or one small glass of wine. Current U.K. guidelines for maximum safe units per week are 21 units for women and 28 units for men. “This is an important finding, as it indicates that even if people are using alcohol within the limits suggested by U.K. government guidelines, these individuals still report experiencing memory problems.”
Martin concurred. “Interested readers may wish to reflect on the relevance of government recommended safe drinking limits, since decreased memory performance was observed even within what is generally acknowledged as safe drinking levels,” he said. “Recommended levels may be safe for the liver, but we can’t be sure that they represent safe limits for optimum brain function.”
Article is based on the following published research: Ling, J., Heffernan, T.M., Buchanan, T., Rodgers, J., Scholey, A.B., Parrott, A.C. (June 2003). Effects of alcohol on subjective ratings of prospective and everyday memory deficits. Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, 27(6), 970-975.
Alcohol abuse affects our health and our body in a variety of ways.
Several key organs and internal functions can be irreparably damaged because of heavy drinking over an extended period of time. Chief among those areas at risk is the liver – one of our body’s most crucial organs. Once the liver is damaged by alcohol, a number of serious health problems can ensue – many of which eventually lead to death.
The liver is “in charge” of processing the alcohol that enters your body. A healthy liver is able to properly process about one drink (one ounce of alcohol) per hour. If you drink more than this, the liver is unable to do its job and body starts to become saturated with alcohol.
What happens when your body becomes saturated with alcohol? The unprocessed alcohol goes straight to your brain and causes the kind of behavior commonly associated with drunkenness (impaired judgment, loss of inhibitions, etc.).
But over time, a much bigger problem begins to occur.
When someone engages in heavy drinking over a long period of time, the liver becomes swelled and fatty. A fatty liver causes several key internal problems:
Once cirrhosis of the liver occurs, the individual is no longer able to properly tolerate alcohol because the liver lacks the proper cells to process and metabolize it.
How likely is a person to get cirrhosis of the liver?
Genetics play a big role in whether or not someone is stricken with cirrhosis of the liver. If the drinker has a history of the problem in his family, then he might show symptoms relatively quickly (in as little as a year of consuming 3-4 drinks per day).
On the other hand, there are some people who drink heavily on a regular basis for their entire lives and never get cirrhosis.
What happens if the liver fails because of excessive alcohol consumption?
The results can be fatal. The liver is a crucial part of our how our body functions. It is responsible for so many vital operations that we cannot live without it. The liver is:
One of the most prominent warning signs of cirrhosis of the liver is jaundice. Jaundice is characterized by a yellowing of the skin and the eyes.
Not only older people are candidates for cirrhosis of the liver. Young people just out of their teens (who have already been drinking for years) have experienced liver failure brought on by cirrhosis of the liver.
Article Source: Author: Scott Briggs
Suggested reading
Many heavy drinkers, alcoholics, addicts, co-dependents and adult children of alcoholics have experienced good and bad counsellors. These guidelines may help next time you seek professional help.
Seeking a therapist? Here’s what the experts advise
To be effective, counselling needs to be provided in a way that meets a set of well-defined criteria. Condensing many hundreds of studies, psychologist Bruce Wampold, in a recent American Psychological Association symposium, boiled these ingredients down to this baker’s dozen.
1. Possession of a sophisticated set of interpersonal skills. Can your therapist communicate to you in language that you understand? Does your therapist talk about you, rather than him or herself?
2. Ability to help you feel you can trust the therapist. Clients of effective therapists believe that their therapists will be helpful because the therapist communicates both verbally and non-verbally that he or she is someone the client can trust.
3. Willingness to establish an alliance with you. Though the therapist is obviously the expert, do you feel that the therapist cares about your goals in therapy and is willing to work with you to set goals that both of you agree on?
4. Ability to provides an explanation of your symptoms and can adapt this explanation as circumstances change. Clients want to know why they’re experiencing their symptoms. Effective therapists provide explanations that clients can understand.
5. Commitment to developing a consistent and acceptable treatment plan. Effective therapists conduct an assessment very early in treatment and share the treatment plan with you.
6. Communication of confidence about the course of therapy. An effective therapist keeps clients in therapy by communicating to clients the feeling that therapy will be worthwhile.
7. Attention to the progress of therapy and communication of this interest to the client. Good therapists are interested in finding out how their clients are responding to treatment. They show that they want their clients to improve.
8. Flexibility in adapting treatment to the particular client’s characteristics. A good therapist doesn’t follow a rigid schedule of treatment- a “one size fits all” approach.
9. Inspiration of hope and optimism about your chances of improvement. Hope is a terrific motivator. Feeling that something is going to work is often a large part of the equation in successful treatment.
10. Sensitivity toward your cultural background. Therapists adapt treatment to their client’s cultural values. This includes showing respect for your background and being aware of attitudes within your culture or community.
11. Possession of self-insight. An effective therapist is self-aware and is able to separate his or her own issues from those of clients.
12. Reliance on the best research evidence. Therapists should stay abreast of the latest developments in clinical psychology, particularly in their areas of expertise.
13. Involvement in continued training and education. Licensed mental health professionals must participate in continuing education to maintain their credentials.
The outcome of therapy depends on many factors, but researchers have evidence to show that these 13 qualities in a therapist play a key role in increasing the odds of a successful outcome. Therapy can occur in many types of situations, ranging from marital counselling to employee assistance. Each therapist may not meet each of these 13 criteria, but as long as you are aware of them all, you can decide whether you or a loved one are getting the best possible treatment.
All these points are fully explained at; Qualities of Good Counsellors
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In Recovery—Steps to Overcoming Addiction.
Seek treatment. The first step to recovery is to decide to seek treatment. It’s hard for people to recognize or admit they have a problem, even when they are putting their lives – or the lives of others – at risk. It doesn’t help that the brain’s decision-making center is impaired when under the influence of drugs or alcohol. Treatment may mean medications, behavioral counseling, or a combination of the two.
More at In Recovery—Steps to Overcoming Addiction.
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More than 80 percent of alcohol problems that occur following disasters are among people with a pre-existing or ongoing drinking problem, Internal Medicine News reported Oct. 4.
Researchers examined data from 10 disaster studies and identified nearly 700 survivors who had undergone both pre- and post-disaster alcohol assessments. All subjects had been directly affected by the disaster: More than one-third had been injured, and 20 percent had disaster-related post-traumatic stress disorder.
The researchers found that 83 percent of survivors who drank after the disaster had a prior alcohol use disorder, while only 0.3 percent of those without a predisaster drinking problem developed an alcohol use disorder. Overall, survivors with a prior drinking problem were four times more likely than those without to turn to alcohol to cope with feelings related to the disaster.
"The preexisting nature of most post-disaster alcohol problems identified in this study would suggest that efforts to identify alcohol problems after disasters should focus on those with preexisting problems," the authors concluded.
The study was published online in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
From Join Together
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A group of British scientific experts has concluded that when combining its effects on the individual and on society, alcohol far outpaces other substances as the most harmful drug, the Associated Press reported Nov. 1.
The Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, meeting via an interactive workshop, used multicriteria decision analysis to evaluate drugs’ effects on the body and their impacts on society, including effects on families and on costs in areas such as health care and corrections. Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine were ranked in the analysis as the most lethal drugs to the individual, but alcohol, heroin and crack were judged most harmful to others.
The combined harm score for alcohol was the highest, at 72 out of a possible 100, followed by heroin (55) and crack (54).
The authors explained that the rankings, based on 16 criteria, do not correspond to how drugs are currently classified in the United Kingdom. For example, last year the British government increased penalties for possession of marijuana, a drug that ranked far below alcohol and other illegal drugs in the experts’ assessment of overall harm.
“What governments decide is illegal is not always based on science,” said Wim van den Brink, professor of psychiatry and addiction at the University of Amsterdam.
Yet study co-author Leslie King, an adviser to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs, urged against interpreting the results as a call for alcohol prohibition. “Alcohol is too embedded in our culture and it won’t go away,” King said.
The findings were published online Nov. 1 2010 in The Lancet.
From Join Together
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It’s Your HealthAlcohol is a drug: a depressant that slows down your body’s central nervous system. Depending on how much you drink, alcohol can affect your concentration, speech, balance, vision, coordination, judgment and overall health.
The effects of alcohol depend on many factors:
Short-term effects of too much alcohol
If you have too much to drink you may experience many short-term effects, including:
Long-term Effects of Too Much Alcohol
You may be drinking too much on a long-term basis if you notice any of the following:
The health risks of too much alcohol
Long-term heavy drinking can cause many chronic health problems, including:
Fetal Alcohol Spectrum
Recent studies have suggested that drinking even a moderate amount of alcohol when pregnant may damage the fetus, causing a range of health problems including Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder. The bottom line is, the safest option during pregnancy, or when planning to become pregnant, is to not drink alcohol at all.
Of the estimated 3,000 deaths each year from motor vehicle crashes, approximately 40 per cent are attributed to alcohol. Heavy drinking can also lead to serious professional, family, financial and legal problems, any of which can affect your health.
Additional tips:
