Drinking and Driving: A Threat to Everyone

U.S. drivers got behind the wheel after drinking too much about 112 million times in 2010.

Whenever anyone drives drunk, they put everyone on the road in danger. Choose not to drink and drive and help others do the same.

Though episodes of drinking and driving have gone down by 30% during the past 5 years, it remains a serious problem. Alcohol-impaired drivers are involved in about 1 in 3 crash deaths, resulting in nearly 11,000 deaths in 2009.

Certain groups are more likely to drink and drive than others.

• Men were responsible for 4 in 5 episodes (81%) of drinking and driving in 2010.
• Young men ages 21-34 made up only 11% of the U.S. population in 2010, yet were responsible for 32% of all instances of drinking and driving.
• 85% of drinking and driving episodes were reported by people who also reported binge drinking. Binge drinking means 5 or more drinks for men or 4 or more drinks for women during a short period of time.

Some likely alcohol effects on driving

Adapted from The ABCs of BAC, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 2005, and How to Control Your Drinking, WR Miller and RF Munoz, University of New Mexico, 1982.

“When a child has substance abuse issues, the whole family needs support,” says Ken Winters, PhD, Director of the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research, Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota and member of The Partnership at Drugfree.org Science Advisory Board. “Parents may need a counselor to walk them through exactly what they will say to their teenager when they suspect substance abuse. If they have not already done so, parents need to establish rules about alcohol and other drugs, and consequences for breaking those rules. They may also need help figuring out whether their adolescent should get a professional assessment. These are some of the things that a counselor on the helpline can assist them with.”

Full story at; New Parent Helpline Provides Support, Resources For Teen Substance Abuse | The Partnership at Drugfree.org.

This time will be different I’ll just take it quiet ;

No yelling or shouting or looking for fight.

I’ll fix all my business, then have a few ales

And coast along steady and stick to the rails.

First perhaps’ just a couple my throat’s pretty dry

I think that clock’s wrong the time seems to fly.

By jove’ It’s peaceful and cosy in here

I know I’ll be right if I just stick to beer.

Look at that ape’ He’s trying to sing

The way he is acting he thinks he is Being.

I’ll give them something I know they’ll enjoy

A couple of verses of “Oh, Danny Boy.”

To Hell with the lot, no brains at all

I’ll drink on my own, at nobody’s call

Just meditate calmly and get things out straight

And attend to that business before it’s too late.

Hell’ Am I sick? I’m all of a shake

There the Devil am I? What a place to awake

Can’t seem to remember and the ground’s pretty hard

Fancy finishing up here in Bill’s Slaughter yard.

Half a bottle of rum that’s all I have got’

Not even a penny a man should be shot.

A week’s growth of whiskers and pants that are torn

What happened this time? !wish I’d never been born. ~:

The sun’s sinking redly behind the stark hills,

And dread night draws on slowly with It’s horrors and ills

Where will I finish? I don’t seem to know,

In the grip of the grog it’s downhill I’ll go.

Till desperate, lonely and poor as a crow

I heard of AA and gave it a go.

Now I live day by day, a new life’s begun

For an alcoholic misfit, who lived on the run

Ted G.

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Large decline in impulsivity in early adulthood related to decrease in alcohol consumption

Previous studies have found that the personality trait impulsivity, or a lack of planning and forethought regarding behaviors, is associated with alcohol use and alcohol-use disorders. For most individuals, impulsivity decreases during emerging and young adulthood. Some, however, do not "mature out" of impulsivity. Now, University of Missouri researchers have found that individuals who exhibited the largest declines in impulsivity from ages 18-25 also exhibited the sharpest decreases in alcohol consumption during this time frame. Understanding why some individuals "mature out" of impulsivity and others do not could lead to improved treatment for alcohol-use disorders.

"In the past, psychologists have viewed impulsivity as a consistent trait over a person’s lifetime," said Andrew Littlefield, a doctoral student in clinical psychology and lead author on the paper. "Now, there is growing evidence that there are pronounced changes during emerging and young adulthood, roughly from the ages 18 to 35. Our study found that there are substantial individual differences in personality change. These differences appear to relate to the range of alcohol use measures and alcohol-related problems."

Researchers used data from a longitudinal study of individuals at risk for alcohol dependence. The individuals were assessed at ages 18, 25, 29 and 35 using self-reported measures of personality and alcohol involvement starting their freshman year of college. From this information, researchers were able to measure the differences in level, stability and change in impulsivity and how it related to alcohol consumption. The researchers used the measures to cluster individuals who exhibited similar patterns of personality stability and change during the 17-year timeline.

"These findings provide clear evidence that at least some individuals undergo significant changes in impulsivity across time," Littlefield said.

In the future, the researchers hope to determine why individuals exhibit individual differences in impulsivity. By examining the relationships between the clusters and alcohol use, they hope to gain a better understanding of the other factors that might promote or inhibit impulsivity development.

"Future studies could examine why some individuals make significant changes in impulsivity across time whereas other individuals’ level of impulsivity remains relatively stable," Littlefield said. "Identifying factors that enhance or inhibit seemingly beneficial changes in personality may inform treatment approaches that could facilitate decreased impulsivity. Changes in personality have been previously linked to several life and work experiences, including relationship and work satisfaction."

The study, "Developmental Trajectories of Impulsivity and their Association with Alcohol Use and Related Outcomes During Emerging and Young Adulthood I," will be published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research in August.

From EurekAlert

Singer Amy Winehouse’s fame and infamy have now been forever linked to one word: rehab. She is only one of many recent high-profile cases in which attempts at rehabilitation from substance abuse failed. Amidst strange public outbursts earlier this year, actor Charlie Sheen asserted that it was not rehab, but rather he, himself, that had been his secret weapon against abusing cocaine and booze.

And celebrities are not the only ones with untreated substance abuse problems. More than 20 million Americans ages 12 and older needed—but were not receiving—treatment as of 2007, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

Full story @ Does Rehab Work as a Treatment for Alcoholism and Other Addictions?: Scientific American.

The US Centres for Disease Control  urges pregnant women not to drink alcohol any time during pregnancy.

• There is no known safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant.
• There is also no safe time during pregnancy to drink and
• There is no safe kind of alcohol to drink while pregnant.

Women also should not drink alcohol if they are planning to become pregnant or are sexually active and do not use effective birth control.

This is because a woman could become pregnant and not know for several weeks or more. In the United States half of all pregnancies are unplanned.

Why is Alcohol Dangerous during Pregnancy?

When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, so does her unborn baby.

Alcohol in the mother’s blood passes through the placenta to the baby through the umbilical cord. Drinking alcohol during pregnancy can cause miscarriage, stillbirth, and a range of lifelong disorders, known as foetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs).

Read more about the characteristics and behaviors of children with FASDs and how much alcohol is too much to drink during pregnancy.

FASDs are 100% preventable

If a woman doesn’t drink alcohol while she is pregnant, her child cannot have an FASD. Learn more about FASDs.

Watch a video about living with FASDs.

See also

• Chicken Soup for the Soul
• 10 Lame Condom Excuses
• Awakening to Mindfulness
• Diet & Health Books

Doctors Say Alcoholic Energy Drinks Dangerous

Some doctors say drinks that combine alcohol with caffeine should be banned because they’re dangerous, ABC News reported Oct. 20.

Marketed in large, colorful cans under names like Four Loko, Joose, and Torque, the drinks are popular among college students. The 23.5-ounce canned drinks can contain 12 percent alcohol and 156 milligrams of caffeine, and have encountered increasing criticism. Attorneys general in more than one state are concerned that they’re being marketed to minors, a New Jersey college banned them, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is deciding whether or not the drinks are legal.

Dr. Robert McNamara, who directs the emergency medicine department at Temple University, recently encountered his first-ever case of a healthy 19-year-old whose heart attack seemed to be linked to consuming alcoholic energy drinks. “This is a dangerous product from what we’ve seen,” McNamara said, who said other doctors had told him about similar cases. “It doesn’t have to be chronic use. I think it could happen to somebody on a first time use.”

“I’m mad as hell,” said Doctor Mary Claire O’Brien of Wake Forest University. “These drinks are not safe.”

O’Brien, who is a professor of emergency medicine and public health, recently completed a study that showed that consuming alcohol with caffeine was more harmful than drinking alcohol alone. Those who consumed both were at least two times as likely — compared to those drinking alcohol without caffeine — to be hurt, need medical attention, take sexual advantage of another, or accept a ride with someone who was inebriated.

“They can’t tell that they’re drunk,” O’Brien explained. “What this behavior gets is a wide awake drunk.”

The FDA has said that, under regulations governing food additives, caffeine can’t be mixed with alcohol. It is currently evaluating whether the drinks should remain legal, but no deadline has been set for a decision.

“FDA intends to evaluate the information submitted by the manufacturers and other available scientific evidence as soon as possible in order to determine whether caffeine can be safely and lawfully added to alcoholic beverages,” said Michael Herndon, a spokesman for the FDA.

Phusion Projects, which manufactures Four Loko, told ABC News, “No one is more upset than we are when our products are abused or used unlawfully. But Four Loko is neither the sole contributor to alcohol abuse, nor will additional restrictions on it solve the problem.”

See also

Power Drinks & Energy Tonics by Tracy Rutherford

Related articles

• Alcohol Poisoning (alcoholcoach.com)
• When Does Moderate Drinking Become A Problem? : NPR (alcoholcoach.com)
• What Drinking may do for You (recoveryissexy.com)
• Physical Effects of Alcohol on Women (recoveryissexy.com)

The following symptoms of alcohol abuse and alcoholism may indicate a problem. Not everyone will have all the signs, but if there are many present then it would be worthwhile to seek help from a therapist or Alcoholics Anonymous.

If some one you love has these signs seek help from Al-anon or a specialist alcohol family counselor.

• Withdrawing from family and friends.
• Lying about how much they drink.
• Drinking to “get going” in the morning.
• Drinking to calm down.
• Problems at work or school.
• Doing things they regret while drinking.
• Getting in fights while drinking.
• Engaging in risky behavior while drunk.
• Developing physical tolerance.
• Having “blackouts” while drinking.

See also;

• Al-Anon May be able to help
• Spiritual Health Blockages

Putting feelings into words produces therapeutic effects in the brain
University of California – Los Angeles

Why does putting our feelings into words — talking with a therapist or friend, writing in a journal — help us to feel better" A new brain imaging study by UCLA psychologists reveals why verbalizing our feelings makes our sadness, anger and pain less intense.

Another study, with the same participants and three of the same members of the research team, combines modern neuroscience with ancient Buddhist teachings to provide the first neural evidence for why “mindfulness” — the ability to live in the present moment, without distraction — seems to produce a variety of health benefits.

When people see a photograph of an angry or fearful face, they have increased activity in a region of the brain called the amygdala, which serves as an alarm to activate a cascade of biological systems to protect the body in times of danger. Scientists see a robust amygdala response even when they show such emotional photographs subliminally, so fast a person can’t even see them.

But does seeing an angry face and simply calling it an angry face change our brain response" The answer is yes, according to Matthew D. Lieberman, UCLA associate professor of psychology and a founder of social cognitive neuroscience.

“When you attach the word ‘angry,’ you see a decreased response in the amygdala, a part of the brain” said Lieberman, lead author of the study, which appears in the current issue of the journal Psychological Science.

The study showed that while the amygdala was less active when an individual labeled the feeling, another region of the brain was more active: the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. This region is located behind the forehead and eyes and has been associated with thinking in words about emotional experiences. It has also been implicated in inhibiting behavior and processing emotions, but exactly what it contributes has not been known.

“What we’re suggesting is when you start thinking in words about your emotions —labeling emotions — that might be part of what the right ventrolateral region is responsible for,” Lieberman said.

If a friend or loved one is sad or angry, getting the person to talk or write may have benefits beyond whatever actual insights are gained. These effects are likely to be modest, however, Lieberman said.

“We typically think of language processing in the left side of the brain; however, this effect was occurring only in this one region, on the right side of the brain,” he said. “It’s rare to see only one region of the brain responsive to a high-level process like labeling emotions.”

Many people are not likely to realize why putting their feelings into words is helpful.

“If you ask people who are really sad why they are writing in a journal, they are not likely to say it’s because they think this is a way to make themselves feel better,” Lieberman said. “People don’t do this to intentionally overcome their negative feelings; it just seems to have that effect.

Popular psychology says when you’re feeling down, just pick yourself up, but the world doesn’t work that way. If you know you’re trying to pick yourself up, it usually doesn’t work — self-deception is difficult. Because labeling your feelings doesn’t require you to want to feel better, it doesn’t have this problem.”

Thirty people, 18 women and 12 men between ages of 18 and 36, participated in Lieberman’s study at UCLA’s Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center. They viewed images of individuals making different emotional expressions. Below the picture of the face they either saw two words, such as “angry” and “fearful,” and chose which emotion described the face, or they saw two names, such as “Harry” and “Sally,” and chose the gender-appropriate name that matched the face.

Lieberman and his co-authors — UCLA assistant professor of psychology Naomi Eisenberger, former UCLA psychology undergraduate Molly Crockett, former UCLA psychology research assistant Sabrina Tom, UCLA psychology graduate student Jennifer Pfeifer and Baldwin Way, a postdoctoral fellow in Lieberman’s laboratory — used functional magnetic resonance imaging to study subjects’ brain activity.

“When you attach the word ‘angry,’ you see a decreased response in the amygdala,” Lieberman said. “When you attach the name ‘Harry,’ you don’t see the reduction in the amygdala response.

“When you put feelings into words, you’re activating this prefrontal region and seeing a reduced response in the amygdala,” he said. “In the same way you hit the brake when you’re driving when you see a yellow light, when you put feelings into words, you seem to be hitting the brakes on your emotional responses.”

As a result, an individual may feel less angry or less sad.

This is ancient wisdom,” Lieberman said. “Putting our feelings into words helps us heal better. If a friend is sad and we can get them to talk about it, that probably will make them feel better.”

The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex undergoes much of its development during a child’s preteen and teenage years. It is possible that interaction with friends and family during these years could shape the strength of this brain region’s response, but this is not yet established, Lieberman said.

One benefit of therapy may be to strengthen this brain region. Does therapy lead to physiological changes in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex" Lieberman, UCLA psychology professor Michelle Craske and their colleagues are studying this question.

Combining Buddhist Teachings and Modern Neuroscience

After the participants left the brain scanner, 27 of them filled out questionnaires about “mindfulness.” Mindfulness meditation, which is very popular in Southeast Asia and elsewhere, originates from early Buddhist teachings dating back some 2,500 years, said David Creswell, a research scientist with the Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA.

Mindfulness is a technique in which one pays attention to his or her present emotions, thoughts and body sensations, such as breathing, without passing judgment or reacting. An individual simply releases his thoughts and “lets it go.”

“One way to practice mindfulness meditation and pay attention to present-moment experiences is to label your emotions by saying, for example, ‘I’m feeling angry right now’ or ‘I’m feeling a lot of stress right now’ or ‘this is joy’ or whatever the emotion is,” said Creswell, lead author of the study, which will be featured in an upcoming issue of Psychosomatic Medicine, a leading international medical journal for health psychology research.

“Thinking, ‘this is anger’ is what we do in this study, where people look at an angry face and say, ‘this is anger,’” Lieberman noted.

Creswell said Lieberman has now shown in a series of studies that simply labeling emotions turns down the amygdala alarm center response in the brain that triggers negative feelings.

Creswell, who conducted the mindfulness research as an advanced graduate student of psychology at UCLA, said mindfulness meditation is a “potent and powerful therapy that has been helping people for thousands of years.”

Previous studies have shown that mindfulness meditation is effective in reducing a variety of chronic pain conditions, skin disease, stress-related health conditions and a variety of other ailments, he said. Creswell and his UCLA colleagues — Lieberman, Eisenberger and Way — found that during the labeling of emotions, the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex was activated, which seems to turn down activity in the amygdala. They then compared participants’ responses on the mindfulness questionnaire with the results of the labeling study.

“We found the more mindful you are, the more activation you have in the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and the less activation you have in the amygdala,” Creswell said. “We also saw activation in widespread centers of the prefrontal cortex for people who are high in mindfulness. This suggests people who are more mindful bring all sorts of prefrontal resources to turn down the amygdala. These findings may help explain the beneficial health effects of mindfulness meditation, and suggest, for the first time, an underlying reason why mindfulness meditation programs improve mood and health.

“The right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex can turn down the emotional response you get when you feel angry,” he said. “This moves us forward in beginning to understand the benefits of mindfulness meditation. For the first time, we’re now applying scientific principles to try to understand how mindfulness works.

“This is such an exciting study because it brings together the Buddha’s teachings — more than 2,500 years ago, he talked about the benefits of labeling your experience — with modern neuroscience,” Creswell said. “Now, for the first time since those teachings, we have shown there is actually a neurological reason for doing mindfulness meditation. Our findings are consistent with what mindfulness meditation teachers have taught for thousands of years.”

The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.

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How Long to Form a Habit?

Want to change your excessive alcohol / drinking habits? This article can help you plan how long it may take.

In the experience of our Alcohol Coaches changing drinking habits takes longer than drinking more or less water.

The article says;

Although the average time to change a habit was 66 days, there was marked variation in how long habits took to form, anywhere from 18 days up to 254 days in the habits examined in this study. As you’d imagine, drinking a daily glass of water became automatic very quickly but doing 50 sit-ups before breakfast required more dedication. The researchers also noted that:

• Missing a single day did not reduce the chance of forming a habit.
• A sub-group took much longer than the others to form their habits, perhaps suggesting some people are ‘habit-resistant’.
• Other types of habits may well take much longer.

Full story at;  How Long to Form a New Habit?

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