8 Reasons why You should stop Drinking Alcohol Immediately

If you are an alcoholic who consciously wants to stop drinking but can’t; a heavy drinker who never gives any thought to whether or not you are drinking too much, or a social drinker who believes that drinking is important, compelling you to continue with the addiction – these 8 reasons will convince you to …

Source: 8 Reasons why You should stop Drinking Alcohol Immediately

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By Vandita

March 27, 2016

If you are an alcoholic who consciously wants to stop drinking but can’t; a heavy drinker who never gives any thought to whether or not you are drinking too much, or a social drinker who believes that drinking is important, compelling you to continue with the addiction – these 8 reasons will convince you to quit drinking the poison right away, come what may.

Alcohol Causes Cancer

American Cancer Society says the amount of alcohol consumed over time, not the type of alcoholic beverage, is the most important factor in raising cancer risk. Alcohol is a known cause of cancers of the Mouth, Throat (pharynx), Voice box (larynx), Esophagus, Liver, Colon and Rectum, Breast, and Pancreas. For each of these cancers, the risk increases with the amount of alcohol consumed.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer of the World Health Organization has classified alcohol as a Group 1 carcinogen. In its Report on Carcinogens, the National Toxicology Program of the US Department of Health and Human Services lists consumption of alcoholic beverages as a known human carcinogen.

Every year, alcohol causes 4% of cancers in the US and the UK.

Alcohol Contributes To Vitamin D Deficiency

Alcohol interferes with the pancreas and affects the liver – both of which are important to absorb and activate calcium, and vitamin D, which amongst other things, helps build and maintain strong bones.

According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, alcoholism can lead to malnutrition [because alcohol suppresses the appetite], which leads to inadequate intake and absorption of food and nutrients. For this reason, even heavy drinkers who consume high levels of nutrient-rich food, fail to get the full benefit of those nutrients.

Alcohol Affects B-12 Absorption

Drinking alcohol, even in moderation, can have profound effects on the way your body absorbs vitamin B-12, the deficiency of which leads to heart attack and stroke, megaloblastic anemia, fatigue, shortness of breath, tingling and numbness in the extremities, headache, dementia, disorientation, loss of concentration and memory, and even death.

Alcohol Destroys Liver – Forever

Between 10 and 20% of heavy drinkers develop liver cirrhosis – severe scarring and disruption of the normal structure of the liver not reversible with abstinence. Alcohol abuse is one of the three most common causes of cirrhosis of the liver in the US; according to the National Institutes of Health, liver cirrhosis is the 12th leading cause of death by disease.

Alcohol Is A Depressant

Some people use alcohol to calm their nerves, to soothe their anxiety and to relieve stress. But alcohol is not a medication. Alcohol is a depressant, which actually worsens anxiety by changing the levels of serotonin and other neurotransmitters in the brain; that’s why some people feel more anxious after the alcohol wears off.

Alcohol Impairs Memory

Blurred vision, slurred speech, slowed reaction times, impaired memory, and black-outs – these are some of alcohol’s damaging effects on the brain. Men drinking 2.5 or more alcoholic beverages daily at midlife, are more likely to experience more rapid mental losses over the next decade, than light or moderate drinkers.

Alcohol Irritates Digestive System

Alcohol can damage the inner lining of the stomach, the pancreas, liver, and gallbladder; alter the structure and function of the gastrointestinal tract; and lead to abdominal discomfort, stomachaches, heartburn, and acid reflux.

Alcohol Affects Sleep Quality

While many drinkers would argue that alcohol helps them fall asleep a little faster, researchers at the University of Melbourne have found that alcohol just before sleep can lead to poorer quality slumber.  You’re more likely to wake up during the night, and may not feel as rested following your sleep.

“People tend to feel that alcohol helps them fall asleep a little quicker, and therefore people associated that with helping them sleep. But when you actually go and look at what is happening while they sleep, the quality of that sleep isn’t good.”

And, just so you know, lack of good quality sleep can mess with your genes – insufficient sleep and circadian rhythm disruption are associated with negative health outcomes, including obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cognitive impairment.

Know Your Limits, BUT Be Sensible

According to the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, moderate drinking is up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men. But with alcohol, the line between “moderate use” and “dangerous use” can be a thin one.

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Alcohol Companies Are Funding Research To Convince You Drinking Is Healthy

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http://www.huffingtonpost.ca

By Anna Almendrala

04/14/2018

We don’t trust nutrition studies funded by soda companies. Why would we trust alcohol studies funded by the booze industry?

kokouu via Getty Images

If you’ve ever seen headlines about how red wine is good for your heart, or how moderate alcohol use is linked to longer life, you’ve seen the alcohol industry’s influence on health science at work.

Officials at the government agency tasked with studying the health effects of alcohol aggressively courted alcohol executives to fund a $100 million clinical trial on “moderate drinking,” according to recently published investigations by The New York Times, Wired and Stat.

 

The executives complied, according to the Times, with the understanding that this research would probably conclude alcohol is safe and lowers the risk of disease.

Together, these reports paint a disturbing picture about the way alcohol companies are trying to influence scientific understanding, and thus public perception, of alcohol as a health tonic.

 

If you’ve ever seen headlines about how red wine is good for your heart, or how moderate alcohol use is linked to longer life, you’ve seen the alcohol industry’s influence on health science at work. And Americans seem to be swallowing that message. A 2015 Gallup poll found that 1 in 5 Americans believe “moderate” drinking is good for health, and that this was especially true among those who drink alcohol.

 

This belief is a boon for the alcohol industry for at least two reasons: It links alcohol consumption to a healthy lifestyle that can improve heart health, and it relies on the concept of “moderation,” a squishy term that in practice ends up meaning whatever drinkers want it to mean.

 

Alcohol executives were allowed to help pick the scientists and preview the trial’s design, reports the Times, while Wired reported on how dependent the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) is on industry funding to complete the expensive, long-term study. Finally, Stat has a story about how scientists who published unflattering research about the alcohol industry were verbally abused by NIAAA officials and cut off from funding.

It’s kind of the whole reason we have an independent science sector ― to wall it off from conflicts of interest like this. David Jernigan, Boston University School of Public Health.

Even though the scientists involved in these studies, all from prestigious universities, may insist that they have independence in their work, studies show that research funded by the food industry is four to eight times more likely to conclude something that financially benefits the sponsor. Industry-funded research also tends to suppress negative data. When pharmaceutical companies fund studies, the findings are less likely to be published than research funded by other sources.

“The obvious conflict of interest is that the funder of this research stands to benefit when the research comes out with findings that encourage more people to use its products,” said David Jernigan, a professor at the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. “It’s kind of the whole reason we have an independent science sector ― to wall it off from conflicts of interest like this.”

Why food and drink companies love the word ‘moderation’

Research on the concept of “moderation” reveals that the more a person likes a food or drink, the bigger their definition of what a “moderate” serving is. And food and beverage companies may be using that to their advantage, said Michelle vanDellen, an expert in self-control and eating behaviors at the University of Georgia.

“I don’t know if food and beverage companies have done research on moderation,” she said. “I have, and I know that moderation messages are poorly defined, they increase the scope of what is considered healthy and they lead to increased intended consumption.”

When it comes to alcohol, at least, there is a seemingly objective unit of measurement for moderation: up to one drink a day for women, and up to two drinks a day for men, as defined by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. These amounts form the basis of claims that alcohol may have a positive effect on health.

But careful analyses have debunked the association between moderate alcohol consumption and health by taking the “abstainer bias” into account. People who currently abstain from alcohol include those who have never consumed it and former drinkers. But many former drinkers have quit alcohol for health reasons, so the “abstainer” group is already biased toward worse health overall than a group of people who are still moderate drinkers and haven’t had to quit because of their health.

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Red, white and booze: 37mn Americans are ‘binge drinkers,’ CDC study says

“They found that binge drinking was most common among adults aged 18 to 34, but more than half of all binge drinks consumed were from adults ages 35 years and older. In other words, older drinkers don’t binge drink as often, but they tend to really hit the bottle when they do.”

RT.com

17 Mar, 2018

© Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters

Americans are no strangers to boozing it up, according to a new study that found that one in six US adults are binge drinkers. Alcohol enthusiasts in the US are chugging a collective 17.5 billion “binge drinks” per year.

The study, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, found that 37.4 million Americans, or one out of every six adults, binge drink about once a week. They drink an average of about seven drinks per binge, meaning they chug a collective 17.5 billion drinks each year. That boils down to about 470 binge drinks, per binge drinker, annually.

“This study shows that binge drinkers are consuming a huge number of drinks per year, greatly increasing their chances of harming themselves and others,” study co-author Robert Brewer, lead researcher in the CDC’s alcohol program, said in a statement.

The results came after Brewer and his team examined CDC data from the center’s 2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). The team used the data to calculate annual estimates of binge drinking, which is defined as men drinking five or more drinks over the course of two hours, or women drinking four or more drinks over the same period. A single drink is defined as a shot of hard liquor, a five-ounce glass of wine, or a 12-ounce glass of beer at five percent alcohol.

Once the team examined the data, they divided the findings by age, sex, education, race/ethnicity, household income, and state. They found that binge drinking was most common among adults aged 18 to 34, but more than half of all binge drinks consumed were from adults ages 35 years and older. In other words, older drinkers don’t binge drink as often, but they tend to really hit the bottle when they do.

When males and females were compared side-by-side, it was revealed that men are much more likely to be binge drinkers. In fact, four out of five binge drinks were found to be consumed by males. Income also played a role, as the researchers found that people with lower household incomes (less than $25,000 annually) and lower educational levels (less than high school) “consumed substantially more” than those with higher salaries and education levels.

Comparing the race of binge drinkers, the researchers found the biggest drinkers were non-Hispanic whites (19.2 percent) and American Indians/Alaska Natives (17.9 percent). Most binge drinkers were located in Arkansas, Mississippi, Kentucky, and Hawaii. Meanwhile, Washington DC, New Jersey, New York, and Washington had the fewest numbers of binge drinkers.

The results demonstrate there is a need to focus on the prevention of excessive drinking, according to Brewer. “The findings also show the importance of taking a comprehensive approach to prevent binge drinking, focusing on reducing both the number of times people binge drink and the amount they drink when they binge,” he said.

It is worth noting that America’s binge drinking is likely worse than the study implies, as the BRFSS relies on self-reported data from a phone survey, and study respondents are thought to underreport their drinking habits. The CDC study, which was published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine on Friday,was based on a survey from 2015 that asked around 400,00 Americans over the age of 18 about their alcohol consumption “in the past 30 days.”

Binge drinking is responsible for more than half of the 88,000 alcohol-attributable deaths in the US each year, according to the CDC. It is also the cause of 75 percent of the $249 billion in economic costs associated with excessive drinking in the US.

The single biggest preventable risk factor for developing dementia is overuse of alcohol, according to major new study

“WHO identifies alcohol consumption as the root cause of more than 200 diseases and injuries, including mental and behavioral disorders.”

Natural News

by: Edsel Cook

Thursday, March 15, 2018 

A major Canadian observational study identified alcohol use disorders as the biggest risk factor for the onset of dementia. It’s also the most preventable factor, so people wary of early-onset dementia can avoid it by controlling their alcohol intake, reported a ScienceDaily article.

Implemented by the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) and published in The Lancet Public Health journal, the study took a very close look at the effect of alcohol use disorders. To this end, it canvassed the health records of more than a million French citizens.

The study included patients with mental and behavioral disorders or chronic diseases caused by chronic heavy drinking.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “chronic heavy drinking” is defined as the daily consumption of more than 60 grams of pure alcohol for men and 40 grams for women. WHO identifies alcohol consumption as the root cause of more than 200 diseases and injuries, including mental and behavioral disorders.

For their study, CAMH researchers viewed 57,000 cases of early-onset dementia, where the patient developed dementia before turning 65. They found that 57 percent of these cases were linked to chronic heavy drinking.

The significant association between chronic heavy drinking and dementia led the authors to suggest several actions that would reduce the burden of dementia attributed to alcohol. They believed screening, brief interventions for heavy drinking, and treatment for alcohol use disorders would be highly effective in curbing the onset of dementia.

“The findings indicate that heavy drinking and alcohol use disorders are the most important risk factors for dementia, and especially important for those types of dementia which start before age 65, and which lead to premature deaths,” remarked Dr. Jürgen Rehm, the co-author of the massive study and Director of the CAMH Institute for Mental Health Policy Research.

He warned that alcohol use disorders have been proven to reduce life expectancy by more than 20 years. He identified dementia as a major cause of death for people who suffered from alcohol-related disorders.

“Alcohol-induced brain damage and dementia are preventable, and known-effective preventive and policy measures can make a dent into premature dementia deaths,” Dr. Rehm proposed. (Related: Majority of people consider alcohol more harmful than marijuana, according to recent survey.)

More women suffer from dementia, but more men get early-onset dementia

Dr. Rehm and his team identified a major gender split for early-onset dementia patients. Women comprised the majority of dementia patients, but two out of every three early-onset dementia patients turned out to be men.

Other independent risk factors for the onset of dementia included smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, depression, and hearing loss. These factors are also linked to alcohol use disorders.

The data from the study imply that alcohol use disorders can increase the risk of dementia in more ways than one.

“As a geriatric psychiatrist, I frequently see the effects of alcohol use disorder on dementia, when unfortunately alcohol treatment interventions may be too late to improve cognition,” said Dr. Bruce Pollock, co-author and Vice-President of Research for CAMH.

Much like his colleague, Dr. Pollock advised treating the alcohol use disorder ahead of time before dementia takes over.

“Screening for and reduction of problem drinking, and treatment for alcohol use disorders need to start much earlier in primary care,” he said.

One limitation of the study was that it only covered the most severe cases of alcohol use disorder. The authors explained that they focused on cases that required hospitalization.

Patients are often reluctant to report alcohol-related problems due to social stigma regarding alcoholics. The correlation between alcoholism and dementia could be even higher than the study has shown.

More health-related news can be found in Health.news.

Sources include:

ScienceDaily.com

WHO.int

Canada: We can’t just tell drug addicts to buck up and get their lives together

Canada: Stop listening and electing the right-wing troglodytes, Conservatives, as they don’t know what they are talking about and they hurt people with their ignorance.

‘It’s a disease where some element of personal responsibility must still play some role’

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for CBC News

By Jen Gerson

Mar 11, 2018

A person prepares a needle at a supervised injection site in Toronto. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

There is a reason the Alberta NDP announced it was opening up “supervised consumption sites” in Calgary late last year.

There’s also a reason they avoided the more commonly known term: safe injection sites.

It’s because while there may, indeed, be a plethora of evidence to suggest that these sites save lives and reduce the spread of disease for people suffering from addiction, they also raise concerns among people who feel we’re moving more toward enabling addicts, than helping them live free of their demons.

While many of us have come around to the idea of drug addiction as a disease — it’s a disease where some element of personal responsibility must still play some role.

Medical research supports the use of safe injection sites. (Darryl Dyck/Canadian Press)

Some never try drugs.

Some try, but never get addicted.

Some addicts try to get off drugs, and fail.

Some addicts try and succeed.

There is some combination of genetics, upbringing, trauma and, yes, choice, that we’ve yet to fully unravel in all of this.

But we are more than rats pulling a lever.

‘Helping addicts inject poison’

Safe injection sites don’t appear to raise the public ire as they once did — particularly now that the opioid epidemic sweeping Alberta is collecting exponentially more lives every year.

Or, rather, they didn’t seem to be terribly controversial until United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney decided to make them so.

In a lengthy Facebook post last week, he wrote, “We absolutely need to show compassion for those suffering with addiction, and we need to help them get off drugs.

“But helping addicts inject poison into their bodies is not a long-term solution to the problem.” And there’s the dilemma.

Jason Kenney drew fire for saying he doesn’t believe safe consumption and injection sites work. (Zoe Todd/CBC)

Kenney was roundly lambasted for his comments.

But while the public outcry was apparent, the inner gut wrench was not.

An NDP MLA with more moral authority on the subject than Kenney responded: “He depersonalized anybody with an addiction and labelled them as this horrible person who was bent on doing this awful behaviour,” Debbie Jabbour told Postmedia.

Her daughter died of an overdose in 2017.

Then, Kenney seemed to walk back his comments a few days later, acknowledging a Supreme Court case against the Harper government, which ensures consumption sites can’t be denied a license by the government.

If this back-and-forth is indicative of all the deftness Kenney can muster to outmaneuver the NDP on social issues — well, bub’s still got some work to do.

“I’m not saying I’m opposed to reasonable harm reduction efforts, but I am saying that we need to be realistic about this,” Kenney told Global News.

But he did raise some fair questions about where the logic of such an approach will inevitably takes us.

A moral divide

If we are going to treat drug addiction as a chronic disease — no different in its moral dimension to other lifestyle-impacted illnesses like diabetes or hypertension — then the path becomes clear.

We should offer prevention and abstinence where possible, and ongoing treatment where it is not.

And this will mean providing some chronic addicts lifelong access to clean, regulated drugs so they can manage their addiction.

This, just as someone with a faulty pancreas injects insulin.

Lest anyone accuse me of slippery-slope fear mongering — it’s currently happening.

There are already pilot programs in place to provide taxpayer-funded opiates for severe and chronic addicts.

And there’s a reason.

We can’t just tell drug addicts to buck up and get their lives together.

Nobody can kick a drug habit if they’re dead.

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Harm-reduction programs help alcoholics one drink at a time

I live here. I am glad we are attempting to help instead of judging.

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Richard Watts / Times Colonist

March 11, 2018

Tim Stockwell says managed-alcohol programs have largely operated “under the radar.”

Photograph By Adrian Lam, Times Colonist

 

 

Just because alcohol is legal doesn’t mean it should be disqualified from harm-reduction programs, says a University of Victoria psychologist.

“Alcohol can kill you in more ways than heroin can,” said Tim Stockwell, director of the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research.

“But somehow it doesn’t deserve the same level of respect in harm-reduction treatments as other substances.”

Stockwell, a psychology professor, and Bernie Pauly, associate professor in the UVic department of nursing, edited a special issue of the international, peer-reviewed Drug and Alcohol Review that includes four papers from the Canadian Managed Alcohol Program Study.

The study examined programs in which participants are provided daily, regular and measured doses of alcohol to cope with their addictions. The doses, usually equivalent to one standard drink, are usually offered at intervals, such as every hour or 90 minutes. Housing, food and other supports are typically provided, as well.

Stockwell said managed-alcohol programs are a radical idea being pursued seriously only in Canada. One of the first arose 25 years ago after three people froze to death in Toronto. They had been denied shelter spaces because they were drunk.

Data for the papers were collected from about 380 people in 13 programs across Canada, including two in the Lower Mainland.

Susan Alexman, director of programs for PHS Community Services Society in Vancouver, said her agency is offering two managed-alcohol programs, one as part of a subsidized-housing project.

The other PHS service is community-based. Clients are expected to show up at the PHS centre for drinks, in some cases getting them in exchange for things such as non-beverage alcohol, which includes mouthwash and rubbing alcohol.

Don Evans, executive director of Our Place in Victoria, said his group has considered managed alcohol in the past but gave up because it didn’t have the space or resources.

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Hitting Rock Bottom Frees Us From Negative Emotions

preventdisease.com

April MCCarhty

Feb 22, 2018

We’ve all heard it said, “When you hit rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.” This can prove especially true in business, where bottoming out as a result of job loss can be necessary before finding the radical solution that will lead to a new work identity, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame.

“Hitting Rock Bottom After Job Loss: Bouncing Back to Create a New Positive Work Identity,” was published this month in Academy of Management Review by lead author Dean Shepherd, the Siegfried Professor of Entrepreneurship in Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, and Trenton Williams of Indiana University.“On the way down, we frantically do all sorts of things to try and repair the situation, and suffer as they fail,” Shepherd says. “Bottoming out frees us from the misconception that the problems can be fixed, and in the process, frees us from other constraints and negative emotions and provides the conditions necessary to find a viable solution.”

Individuals who eventually hit rock bottom come to realize their identity has been lost, and that realization can lead to one of two paths: toward recovery or toward dysfunction.

“Using ‘identity play’ provides a safe environment to escape the situation and try new things, discarding bad ideas or finding and refining a new identity and returning stronger than before.”

Play provides an opportunity to both withdraw from the mental anguish and to be creative in generating alternative new work identities and then trying them out to see how they feel without having to commit to them, which can be fun.

Once the individual finds a potential identity that feels right, they then begin to refine the job to make sure it’s a good fit for both their needs and the reality of the situation. Without hitting rock bottom, the individual would not have been freed from the past to enable them to creatively explore different alternatives for the future.

“A failed corporate executive might consider a variety of other potential roles,” Shepherd says, “For example, sitting on the board of a nonprofit organization that is desperate for experienced managerial guidance, exploring government positions or running for office, working with startups, and so forth. Similarly, a failed entrepreneur might explore how skills learned in starting a business could be applied in a corporate setting, take standardized exams to be considered for law school or engage in other low risk exploration activities. In these cases, hitting rock bottom opens up myriad new opportunities.”

Former NFL players Jermichael Finley, Mike Utley and Tony Boselli all suffered career ending injuries and have refocused on other business ventures. Finley, in his 20s suffered a spinal cord injury while playing as a tight end for the Green Bay Packers. He is now coaching and invested in a gym. Utley played guard for the Detroit Lions when a game injury left him paralyzed. He started the Mike Utley Foundation. Boselli was a defensive tackle for the Jacksonville Jaguars who retired early due to a nagging shoulder injury. He’s now 45 and admits he still suffers from an “identity crisis” but continues working with the Jaguars on their Sunday radio show as well as other radio shows including Westwood One. He also coaches high school football and started a small healthcare company.

The less desirable path involves using fantasy as a means of escape and can include alcohol and drug use.

Along this less desirable path, “people will oscillate between no emotion and severe negative emotion and make no progress toward building a new identity, which can eventually lead to even worse outcomes like suicide,” Shepherd says.

Recent studies have explored the impact of career-ending injuries for musicians and soldiers-injuries that generated intense negative emotions as they approached rock bottom. In both studies, some of these individuals were fixated on the loss of a former identity, paralyzed by the realization that they could no longer perform or continue in an established role. Some sought escape through cognitive deconstruction, including the use of drugs.

“A failed executive might resort to a numb state that involves abusing alcohol, engaging in menial tasks at home or becoming a couch potato,” Shepherd says. “However, when friends offer job suggestions or ask why the executive has yet to land a new position, it could launch the individual from the numb state into extreme negative emotions leading to destructive behavior.”

A deeper understanding of why some recover and others languish provides an opportunity to develop interventions that facilitate recovery from work identity loss.

Shepherd hopes the research helps people realize that hitting rock bottom can be an opportunity to let go of a broken and unrepairable life and begin anew to develop a new life, as well as avoid the negative path of fantasy that obstructs recovery.

A research leader in the field of entrepreneurship, Shepherd specializes in entrepreneurial cognitions, new venture strategy, opportunity recognition and learning from failure.

Mindfulness Is More Effective Than Drugs For Both Anxiety and Depression