Alcohol Help

Few parents would dream of getting behind the wheel of a car with their children in the back seat after they’d had a few drinks. To do so would clearly indicate an alcohol dependency problem capable of over-riding all concern for their kids’ safety.

Most would fiercely argue that they’d never do such a thing – but what about those who drive on the morning after a big night out? According to a December 2008 survey by the AA, four out of five UK drivers believe they may have driven the morning after a night’s drinking when the level of alcohol in their blood was still too high.

Parents may be at particular risk of falling into this trap. Many abstain from alcohol during the week in order to fulfill weekday family commitments and only drink on Friday and Saturday nights.

But if they overdo it on these evenings, they may be putting their kids at serious risk as they ferry them to and from their various weekend activities: swimming lessons, ballet, mini rugby and so on. It’s easy to underestimate how long it takes blood alcohol levels to return to safe limits after a night’s drinking. Even fewer people recognise that driving when hungover vastly increases the chances of being involved in an accident – by up to four times, according to researchers at Brunel University.

The risks to their health and family’s welfare are far graver than that, however. Abstaining in the week but indulging in weekend ‘benders’ is a path that leads many to ultimately seek alcohol dependency help, says Sue Allchurch, research director with Linwood Group. "Bargaining and negotiating with yourself are all part of the alcoholic’s mindset. Parents may be able to forgo alcohol during the week, but if they ‘need’ to drink at weekends, that’s a clear warning sign that alcohol dependency is developing."

And those that only drink to excess at weekends shouldn’t fool themselves that this is healthier for them or their families. "Short periods of heavy consumption, followed by longer periods of abstinence, can have a disastrous effect on blood sugar levels, putting the body under tremendous strain," she says.

The message is clear: if you’re a mum or dad who finds an escape from the stresses of parenthood in a weekend tipple, think carefully about both the short-term and long-term risks. And if that weekend session has become a necessity to you, it may be time to think about seeking alcohol dependency treatment – for your own sake and that of your children.

Linwood Manor

Orange County Treatment Facility Helps Alcoholics with Alcohol Rehab

Currently, fifty-three percent of all Americans report that one or more of their close relatives have binge drinking patterns or are heavy drinking on a regular basis.

With nearly fourteen million people – one out of every thirteen adults – abuse alcohol, and several million more engage in risky drinking that could lead to alcohol problems. For most people though, the facts are unclear on what alcoholism is and how it compares to alcohol abuse and when treatment should be sought. Four of the primary symptoms of alcoholism, or alcohol dependence, are: having a strong need, compulsion or craving to drink alcohol, the inability to limit drinking during any occasion, withdrawal symptoms after a period of heavy drinking, such as; nausea, sweating, and anxiety, or the need to drink a large amount to achieve the same ‘high.’

“People who are not alcoholic do not understand why an alcoholic cannot just stop drinking,” states Phil Allen, CEO of the Pat Moore Foundation in Costa Mesa, California. “Most wonder why the alcoholic doesn’t just use a little ‘willpower,’ but the truth is that it has little to do with willpower. Alcoholics are in the grip of a powerful craving, and the majority of them need the assistance of an alcohol rehab.”

The sooner a person accepts the fact and seeks assistance, the better the chances are for a successful recovery, and being surrounded by a staff and facility versed in alcohol rehab treatment increases that chance even more.

Pat Moore Foundation

Two of London’s leading substance misuse agencies, ARP and Rugby House, merged on 1 February to form Rugby House-ARP, one of the largest alcohol service providers in Britain. Sally Scriminger, formerly Chief Executive of ARP, takes over as head of the new charity.

With nearly 65 years experience between them, ARP and Rugby House already had strong track records in the alcohol and drug sector. As Rugby House-ARP they will continue to lobby for increased support for those who need their services.

Paul Jenkins, the new Chair of Rugby House-ARP described the merger as "…a great opportunity" and added that while it was not simply a question of bigger is better "….combining resources and experience will enable us to strengthen and extend our highly respected services, which can only benefit service users and other stakeholders".

Rugby House-ARP works creatively with individuals, communities and policy makers to reduce the harm caused by problem alcohol and drug use. Our integrated care, support and housing services help people achieve positive change and freedom from the harmful effects of alcohol and other drugs. We respond to emerging needs, using action research to pioneer innovative service solutions and push the boundaries of best practice.

Rugby House-ARP now runs 30 distinct services in 18 London boroughs. The new organisation has 200 staff, a turnover of over £11m, and provides substance misuse, training and supported housing services to more than 6,500 people each year.

Rugby House-ARP

There’s a way to relax and be as stress free as possible while undergoing alcohol treatment in Malibu California.

And yes, it’s the same Malibu that’s home to many celebrities and those seeking a California beach lifestyle.

Many strolls through the beachside location will help focus thoughts on the changes ahead. Chefs prepare terrific meals which you may eat in the airy and light dining room. Guest rooms are spa-like and refreshing. There’s a new buzz going around about addiction treatment, and you’ll find the answer right here at Sunset Malibu. Relaxing in the lovely gardens or taking in a Pacific sunset, or perhaps talking with new friends also undergoing treatment, or just being alone in your guest suite reading a book, will help you focus on addiction treatment and getting better.

Alcohol addiction is a monster of a disease and it’s often chronic. But, how do you even contemplate breaking out of the mold of this treacherous path? Trying to make a go of getting better on your own is, to quote an old cliché, a great uphill battle. Once you have decided for yourself that life must get better, contact the professionals here at Sunset Malibu. Just making that first decision to call and receive any information you need, will relieve a lot of stress that you may be feeling.

Undergoing an alcohol rehab program is not easy. The thing is about any kind of addiction treatment – it must be personalized to be effective. While advice from a friend may be of help in some ways, why not save yourself a lot of time and wasted energy – energy not directed towards getting better – by going direct to the source for one of the best in Southern California. The huge number of programs offered here at this facility helps ensure that each person that needs help gets it and can be sure that the treatment is a perfect fit.

The kinds of programs offered at Sunset Malibu are called holistic. They treat the whole person here instead of focusing on just the drug-caused problems. It is like, at most rehab places, they are treating just your hand or perhaps maybe just a foot or leg. And honestly, how good would that be? A whole human being with an addiction problem has to be treated as a whole person, hence the holistic approach.

People from every ethnic group and background can suffer from the disease of alcoholism. Best results are obtained when a recovery program is tailored to each individual’s needs. And why not undergo this recovery in a facility that offers luxury amenities and a smaller number of guests? How can recovery and the experience itself be very effective if there are few undertrained staff, many people trying to get help at the same time, and a mediocre organization that is merely “doing their best”? Sometimes in literature, addiction is almost glamorized. It is not glamorous. It is a disease and what’s glamorous about a disease?

When you sign up for addiction treatment at Sunset Malibu the cliff side vista and blue Pacific vistas will help you to relax and concentrate. They have two acres of wonderful grounds, gourmet chefs, five star-like guest rooms, even a personal trainer for the gym. The fitter you are mentally, the better you will be able to concentrate on recovery from your addiction. Someone you know may have descended into the living purgatory that can be addiction. Don’t let it happen to you when help is close at hand.

So, if you have decided to “give it a go” and begin your recovery to health and a sense of wellbeing, try the new approach at Sunset Malibu. After your stay is over here, and as you are driving away, you know deep inside that whenever you pass by Sunset Malibu, at whatever time of the day, you will always think of this place as your sunrise, and never your sunset.

Sunset Malibu Professional staff offer the most gentle and effective care for alcohol, drug and food addictions, plus depression.

Sunset Malibu

New research from the University of Virginia Health System could help explain why some alcoholics are more severe drinkers than others. A UVA team has found strong evidence that the serotonin transporter gene, SLC6A4, plays a significant role in influencing drinking intensity among alcohol-dependent individuals.

The study, published in the February 2009 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, analyzed the associations between six different DNA sequence variations, or single nucleotide polymorphisms, of the serotonin transporter gene with the levels of drinking intensity among 275 alcohol-dependent individuals seeking treatment. Drinking intensity is measured by the amount a person consumes each day he or she drinks.

“Of the six variants examined in the study, we found that one variant at the 3′ end of the gene showed a significant association with drinking intensity,” says study co-author Ming D. Li, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences in the UVA School of Medicine. “Specifically, we found that individuals with the ‘G’ allele of this variant drink less than individuals with the ‘T’ allele."

Previous studies have shown that the neurochemical serotonin mediates the rewarding effects of alcohol and, therefore, may be a key contributor leading to alcohol abuse. Studies also show that the brain’s serotonin system plays an important role in alcohol preference and consumption.

“Acute drinking increases serotonin release and signaling in brain regions involved in controlling consumption of alcohol,” explains study co-author Professor Bankole Johnson, D.Sc., M.D., Ph.D., M.Phil., FRCPsych., chairman of the Department of Psychiatry and Neurobehavioral Sciences in the UVA School of Medicine. “But chronic drinking reduces serotonergic function, leading to a serotonin-deficient state. One hypothesis is that alcoholics drink to alleviate this serotonin-deficient state.

"But it’s important to remember that alcoholics differ significantly in their drinking patterns, social backgrounds and disease etiology," says Johnson. "All of these factors may affect both treatment outcomes and medical complications resulting from heavy drinking.”

One of the main goals of treatment, Johnson points out, is to reduce the intensity of drinking. “A known genetic marker could be used to sub-type alcoholics and better determine treatment methods that can target specific underlying molecular mechanisms. We hope to determine whether this particular genetic variant can be used as a marker to predict treatment outcomes for different serotonin agents," says Johnson.

University of Virginia Health System

While many people are aware that drinking during pregnancy can lead to a range of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs), including the serious Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), linkages between maternal-drinking measures and child outcomes have been inconsistent. Researchers have now designed a "metric" or combination of measures that appear better able than individual measures to predict prenatal neurobehavioral dysfunction and deficits in children.

Results will be published in the April issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

"The number of children being born with FAS remains unnecessarily high," said Lisa M. Chiodo, a researcher at Wayne State University and corresponding author for the study. "In part this is because it is difficult to identify patterns of drinking during pregnancy that put women’s children at risk for FAS and other FASDs."

Chiodo said that although there are several measures of maternal drinking during pregnancy, their ability to predict child outcomes – particularly cognitive and behavioral problems – has been inconsistent. "We thought that combining many of the clinical and research measures of alcohol drinking into a single metric might help us find every child in our study who had been exposed to levels of alcohol that put them at risk," she said.

Only one other group has constructed a composite metric meant to identify women who were at risk of having a child with FASDs, Chiodo added, and the current metric differs from that one by focusing on problems related to alcohol drinking and not including other health concerns or risky behaviors.

The author of that other metric was Claire D. Coles, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Emory University School of Medicine. "It is imperative that health-care professionals ask pregnant women about their alcohol and drug use in order to provide appropriate care for the women, and to provide anticipatory guidance for their children," she said. "Knowing that a woman has a substance-abuse problem or is an alcoholic is likely to be highly related to later developmental problems in the children."

Researchers examined a sample of 75 African-American mothers as well as their four- to five-year-old offspring. The mothers self-reported peri-conceptional and repeated in-pregnancy maternal drinking in response to a number of semi-structured interviews and standard screening instruments, which were then used to construct a metric of "maternal prenatal risk drinking." The offspring were tested for IQ, attention, memory, visual-motor integration, fine motor skills, and behavior. The metric was then assessed against these outcomes.

The metric identified more than 62 percent of the mothers as drinking at risk levels; 23 percent more than the individual selection criterion identified.

"We had good reason to think that risk drinking was more common than thought," said Chiodo, "so detecting more risk drinkers was not that surprising. The real surprise was how successful the metric was in predicting deficits and problems in the children. In fact, our metric predicted poor child cognition and behavior problems better than any of the individual measures of maternal alcohol consumption or screens for problem drinking alone."

"These combined measures of substance abuse were more predictive than alcohol-volume metrics," observed Coles. "Generally, alcohol-volume measures are less effective probably … due to self-reporting issues. I think that the strength of this paper is its reinforcement of the idea that alcohol use, particularly at levels that would define a woman as an alcohol abuser or alcoholic, is dangerous during pregnancy. For the clinician, it reinforces the idea that pregnant women should be questioned about their drug and alcohol use and that there are reliable and quick methods for identification of those at risk."

"Clinicians must be able to identify risk levels of drinking in their pregnant patients because that is a critical time for possible treatment and prevention," said Chiodo. "After the children are born, we also need to be able to identify which children were exposed to ‘risky’ alcohol levels during pregnancy to allow correct diagnosis of, and early intervention with, children with FASDs. We do not know how or if our current metric might be adapted in practice for clinicians. However, our results suggest that it might be useful for health-care providers to use more than one measure of drinking in a more thorough examination of risk patterns and problem drinking."

Alcoholism Clinical and Experimental Research

For the first time, young people and their parents will have clear medical guidance on alcohol consumption. The guidance, will be announced today by Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, to be published for consultation. It will recommend that young people up to the age of 15 should avoid alcohol altogether.

The five-point guidance document will form part of a consultation on alcohol and young people launched by Children Schools and Families Secretary, Ed Balls, Health Secretary, Alan Johnson, and the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson.

The guidance was a commitment in the Youth Alcohol Action Plan, launched in June last year and responds to calls from parents for clear messages on the health effects and risks of young people drinking alcohol.

The Chief Medical Officer’s Guidance on the Consumption of Alcohol by Children and Young People advises:

1. an alcohol-free childhood is the healthiest and best option – if children drink alcohol, it shouldn’t be before they reach 15 years old;

2. for those aged 15 – 17 years old all alcohol consumption should always be with the guidance of a parent or carer or in a supervised environment;

3. parents and young people should be aware that drinking, even at age 15 or older, can be hazardous to health and not drinking is the healthiest option for young people. If children aged 15 – 17 consume alcohol the should do so infrequently and certainly on no more than one day a week;

4. the importance of parental influences on children’s alcohol use should be communicated to parents, carers and professionals. Parents and carers need advice on how to respond to alcohol use and misuse by children;

5. support services must be available for children and young people who have alcohol related problems and their parents

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, led the development of the guidance, following extensive research and work with a panel of experts who reviewed the latest available medical evidence and data from across the UK on the impact of alcohol and young people.

Sir Liam Donaldson, the Chief Medical Officer for England, said:

"This guidance aims to support parents, give them the confidence to set boundaries and to help them engage with young people about drinking and risks associated with it.

"More than 10,000 children end up in hospital every year due to drinking and research tells us that 15 per cent of young people think it is normal to get drunk at least once a week. They are putting themselves at risk of harm to the liver, depression and damage to the developing brain. Resulting social issues can lead to children and young people doing less well at school and struggling to interact with friends and family."

Children, Schools and Families Secretary, Ed Balls, said:

"Parents have told us that they lack the health information and advice they need to make decisions about whether or how their children should be introduced to alcohol. So I hope the Chief Medical Officer’s advice will help them with the tricky task of deciding the best way of doing that.

"We want this advice and information to be a success and really help families. That’s why we’re asking young people, parents and all those interested for their views. I think all of us as parents need to look at this advice, see whether it’s right for us and ask whether we are doing the best thing for our children.

"Alcohol is a part of our national culture and if managed responsibly can have a positive influence in social circumstances. However when it is not managed responsibly it can cause real problems.

"That’s why the Chief Medical Officer’s guidance is important and why it is vital that we now discuss it in detail with parents and young people.. We hope that it will help parents to set realistic boundaries for their children and help them to introduce alcohol to young people in a safe and sensible way as they get older."

Alan Johnson, Secretary of State for Health said:

"The decision about when young people should first drink alcohol is clearly best taken by their parents or carers. But we know that parents want more information about the harms associated with drinking to help them make this decision. Government has a responsibility to provide straightforward information and guidance, which is exactly what we are doing."

Home Office Minister Alan Campbell said:

"Young people who drink too much put their own health at risk, and are more likely to get involved in antisocial behaviour and crime.

"As part of the Youth Alcohol Action Plan the Government is working in partnership with parents, industry, police and communities to tackle underage drinking which damages community safety and the health of young people.

"This includes giving police the powers to disperse under 18s who are drinking and behaving anti-socially from any location and cracking down on irresponsible retailers who persistently sell alcohol to those under 18."

The consultation will run for 12 weeks and will seek the views of young people, carers, parents and other interested parties.

Department of Health

Alcohol treatment is best administered by specialized alcohol treatment experts. As obvious as that sounds, many of Southern California’s most high-priced treatment facilities fail to put the principle into practice. In fact, most alcohol rehabs offer what amount to generic addiction treatment programs—which is an enormous mistake, and which does a tremendous disservice to those clients whose lives are at stake.

The truth of the matter is that alcohol addiction is fundamentally distinct from drug addiction, however, both still require going through a detox program. Alcoholism is rooted in a unique set of physiological conditions, and recovering alcoholics face a unique set of emotional challenges. Under these circumstances, it should go without saying that alcohol treatment can only be successful to the extent that it meets the individual needs of individual clients. Any alcohol treatment center which fails to adhere to that standard can’t ever expect to promote meaningful or lasting healing.

Sunset Malibu is recognized throughout California and all around the world for the effectiveness of its alcohol treatment program. That’s no accident. Sunset’s alcohol rehab experts are leading figures in the field, with a profound understanding of the nuances of alcohol recovery. In the end, you can’t win the fight against alcoholism unless you get the right kind of alcohol treatment. At Sunset Malibu, you’ll find the best allies on the planet. All that remains, now, is for you to make the right choice.

Sunset Malibu