A National Directory of Drug Treatment Centers and Alcohol Treatment Centers, Therapists and Specialists. A free, simple directory providing assistance and guidance for those seeking help regarding alcohol addiction, drug addiction, dependency and many other conditions that affect the mind, body and soul.
Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

One in five men at risk of drinking problem

At least one in five men in developed countries are at risk of abusing or becoming dependent on alcohol during their lifetimes, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The risk is about half that for women, who have an 8 to 10 percent chance of becoming dependent on alcohol.

And despite the popular belief that nothing works, there is help in the form of several effective treatments, they said.

“This is a serious problem,” Dr. Marc Schuckit of the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System and the University of California said in a telephone interview.

He said men have roughly a 15 percent lifetime risk for alcohol abuse, and a 10 percent risk for alcohol dependence.

“Once you carry one of these diagnoses regularly, you tend to cut your life short by 10 to 15 years,” he said.

His findings, published in the journal Lancet, are meant to guide doctors on how to spot and treat their patients for alcohol dependence disorder.

This includes a range of problem drinking behaviors such as spending too much time drinking, having trouble stopping once started, skipping important life events to drink or recover from a binge, and setting and exceeding a self-imposed limit on the number of drinks a person plans to consume.

The definition also includes more classic signs of alcohol addiction such as withdrawal.

They said repeated heavy drinking increases the risk of a temporary bout of depression by 40 percent. And 80 percent of people who are dependent on alcohol are regular smokers.

Some 40 to 60 percent of the risk of problem drinking can be explained by genes, and the rest by environmental factors, Schuckit said.

That may explain why women have a lower lifetime risk.

“This is a cultural issue. More women than men are lifelong abstainers. A higher proportion of women than men never open themselves to the possibility of alcoholism because they never or very rarely drink,” Schuckit said.

He said heavy drinking raises the risk of heart disease and cancer, even in those who do not smoke.

And despite perceptions that treatments do not work, he said most patients with alcohol use disorders do well after treatment.

About 50 to 60 percent of men and women with alcohol dependence abstain or show substantial improvement in a year after treatment, which can include drugs such as Forest Laboratories Inc’s Campral or acamprosate, naltrexone, also known as Revia and Depade, and disulfiramacamprosate or Antabuse.

Schuckit said these should be used in combination with therapy aimed at helping people change their behaviors.

source: Reuters

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Boozing mothers affect babies’ response to pain: Study

Prenatal exposure to alcohol dulls the pain response in babies, according to a new study from the University of British Columbia. The research, which will be published in the April issue of the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, showed that even healthy babies whose mothers drank while they were pregnant were affected by the….

Continue reading

Drug Addiction

Drug addiction means an intense craving for the desire to have a drug at any time, regardless of place or time. You want to use it again and again. You will have unpleasant physical reactions if you stop it. It is not so that everyone who uses drugs becomes addicted to it. Addiction refers to….

Continue reading

Virtual world therapeautic for addicts: UH study shows

Patients in therapy to overcome addictions have a new arena to test their coping skills—the virtual world. A new study by University of Houston Associate Professor Patrick Bordnick found that a virtual reality (VR) environment can provide the climate necessary to spark an alcohol craving so that patients can practice how to say “no” in….

Continue reading

The Role of Patient Confidentiality in Drug Treatment Centers

For many patients, the role of patient confidentiality in drug treatment centers goes far beyond the scope of simply keeping their past problems and medical situation at bay. For some, patient confidentiality is more a matter of keeping everything about them a secret to assure that their privacy is respected 100%. In drug treatment centers,….

Continue reading

Where do calls go?

Calls to numbers on a specific treatment center listing will be routed to that treatment center. Calls to any general helpline will be answered or returned by one of the treatment providers listed, each of which is a paid advertiser: ARK Behavioral Health, Recovery Helpline, Alli Addiction Services.

By calling the helpline you agree to the terms of use. We do not receive any commission or fee that is dependent upon which treatment provider a caller chooses. There is no obligation to enter treatment.

I NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE NOWI NEED TO TALK TO SOMEONE NOW 888-647-0579Response time about 1 min | Response rate 100%
Who Answers?