This is according to Dr. Robert Brewer, head of the CDC’s (Center for Disease Control) Alcohol Program. Brewer was a guest on the NPR program Talk of the Nation recently. “Binge drinking” is defined for this study, as 4 or more drinks for a woman and 5 or more for a man. And, perhaps surprisingly, “seniors who reported binge drinking did so more frequently, even than younger people.”

Brewer went on to say, “when we focused in on binge drinkers, we found that, on average, they reported consuming eight or more drinks on average during at least the largest episodes of binge drinking within the past 30 days. So that’s obviously well above the cut point that we use for defining this behavior and certainly a level of consumption that puts the individual, as well as others that they’re with, at substantially increased risk for a whole host of problems.”

Read a transcript of the radio program, or listen to it, HERE

Extrapolating from the results, the surveyors estimated that 23.5 million Americans can be described as “in recovery.”

Of course, “no longer have a problem” is an odd turn of phrase to use since it doesn’t mean “stopped using.” Still, it’s a pretty stunning number of people willing to admit that they ever had a problem with substance abuse.

See the article HERE

If you are interested in learning more about LifeRing’s Chat on-line meetings, visit the Chat Room on our website

Read more of Derek’s blog by clicking HERE

One takeaway? As counselor B.J. Davis mentioned at a Lifering Congress a few years ago … enjoying life early in sobriety is important in general. It has to be at the college lifestyle level, as a counselor at Rutgers points out on page 2. The story mentions specific ways to do that sober fun in college.

Having started my own sober life in AA, I can testify to this. My original AA group had people stay late on either Friday night, Saturday night, or both, almost every weekend. People would order a pizza or two and play cards or dominoes. Fun and camaraderie both got promoted.

Second takeaway? As younger Americans in general are more open-minded to new ideas and less religious than older Americans, they’re going to be more open to alternatives to 12-Step programs. How an organization like Lifering, in its size at this time, gets its foot in the door, I don’t know, but an opening is there, clearly.

Anyway, there’s plenty of food for thought here.

A University of Connecticut researcher known for his work on the benefits of red wine to heart health falsified his data in more than 100 instances, and nearly a dozen scientific journals are being warned of the potential problems after publishing his studies in recent years, officials said Wednesday.

UConn officials said their internal review found 145 instances over seven years in which Dr. Dipak Das fabricated and falsified data, and the U.S. Office of Research Integrity has launched an independent investigation of his work.

There’s no indication of the motive, but the university just turned down nearly $1 million in federal grants related to the fake research.

The article also discusses ongoing studies about differences between the brains of addicts of all kinds and non-addicts. The brain’s reward system, in which certain parts of the brain react to the presence of dopamine by imparting feelings of pleasure, is weaker in addicts. Some of that is an effect of drinking or using: too much stimulation of the system by addictive drinking/using causes a scaling back in the number of receptors, which in turn leads to the “need” for addicts to use more and more of the drug of choice as time passes. It’s possible, though not yet proven, that some individuals are born with a relatively weak brain reward system, predisposing them to being vulnerable to addiction.

Read more by clicking  HERE

“’It’s well-known that stress can lead to relapse in people who are trying not to drink. Until now, we have had very few interventions that showed potential as possible treatments,’ commented senior author Selena E. Bartlett, PhD, director of medications development at the Gallo Center.” The study was conducted by researchers from the University of California San Francisco and the Earnest Gallo Clinic.

Read the full article HERE

As is often the case with these sorts of study, the article does not make clear how much nicotine the mice were exposed to — were they massive doses or proportionate to a human smoker? Still, the article — from Nature.com — makes for interesting reading.