News Blog
Email Newsletter Signup - Get the LifeRing Newsletter, news blog posts, and invitations to LifeRing events.
Obamacare has Much to Offer Addicts
You may be tired of hearing about Obamacare (properly known as the Affordable Care Act), but there are some important provisions that will have a major impact on the treatment of addiction. For example, federal law requires, starting with 2014, that health insurance treat mental health and addiction treatment in the same way it treats…
100 Americans Die Every Day from Drug Overdose
Phillip Seymour Hoffman, the widely admired and award winning actor, died recently from a drug overdose. That got a lot of publicity and millions of people asked themselves how such a thing could happen to someone like that. Meanwhile, on that same day if it was average, 99 other people died in the same way…
Does AA Have a Problem? An Article Says Yes
An interesting article entitled “After 75 Years of AA, It’s Time to Admit We Have a Problem” appears in the current issue of Pacific Standard magazine (original title, “Kicking the Habit”). The article points to what appear to be unbridgeable gaps between AA doctrine and reality. For example, AA holds that recovery requires reliance on…
Video: Alcohol and Your Brain
Here’s a seven minute video covering the basics of how alcohol affects the brain. It’s simple and straightforward, making up in clarity what it lacks in detail:
Summary of current medical treatment for Alcohol Disorders
Here is a link to an article from Psychiatric Times, an online publication, summarizing current medication usage in the treatment of alcohol disorders. The article covers drug treatments for intoxication, withdrawal and relapse prevention. There’s nothing earth-shattering in the article, but it does provide a concise look at current treatment procedures.
Former Heavy Weight Boxing Champ Mike Tyson Writes About His Addiction
Mike Tyson, the famously fearsome heavyweight boxing champion, wrote an op-ed for the New York Times recently that offers a wrenching look into his life and reveals insights about addiction from an unexpected source. Tyson was champion from 1986 to 1990. Throughout the 1990’s he fought to regain his crown, finally retiring for good in…
Stigma and the Language we Use
Here’s an interesting article about stigma and the language often used when talking about addiction. Gil Kerlikowske is the U.S. “Drug Czar” (director of the office of National Drug Control Policy). He has generally been seen as a breath of fresh air in that role, dispensing with the “War on Drugs” outlook, viewing addictive behavior…
Predicting the Chances of Relapse
Dick Sprague, a Colorado LifeRinger, forwards an interesting article that deals with predicting relapse. The academic article stems from the distressing fact that more than one-third of liver transplant recipients — most of whom, presumably, need the transplant because of damage from drinking — relapse after the transplant. Pause and think about that — you’ve…