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Most people who use drugs don’t become addicted. For those that do, it doesn’t happen overnight. It might take weeks, months, or years depending on the person and the drugs of choice. Heredity, gender, access to drugs, and socioeconomic status all play a part. It’s different for everyone. I started out as a binge drinker […]

Addiction is destructive and anyone who has an actively addicted loved one knows the pain and devastation that it causes. With opioid addiction specifically, more than 115 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids every day. With statistics like these, chances are that almost everyone within the US knows someone who has […]

Alcoholism and drug addiction are the same disease. Alcohol is a drug just like every other substance under that broad umbrella. So why do drugs and alcohol always seem to be classified differently? Why do opiates, pills, stimulants, and marijuana get lumped together as drugs but alcohol does not? People that I meet in recovery […]

Marijuana is a complex drug and affects users in a variety of ways. Marijuana at times can act as both a depressant and a stimulant depending on the strain and the chemical reaction it has in a user’s body. In general, however, marijuana affects the user’s attention span, long-term memory storage, and psychomotor skills involved […]

Anyone can become addicted to drugs or alcohol and like the complex nature of the disease itself, there are many different aspects that put people at risk. Many of these factors are out of our control. Genetic predisposition, preexisting mental disorders, anxiety, and depression are all common among addicts. There are also environmental risk factors. […]

My grandmother passed away yesterday morning. She had just turned 97 years old. Her mind was still sharp but her body had been deteriorating pretty rapidly during the last few years. She had macular degeneration in her eyes to the point of not being able to read or watch TV anymore. Her hearing was significantly […]

Cocaine is a stimulant drug that increases dopamine production in the brain for short periods of time, creating a sense of euphoria and a burst in energy. This can be an extreme high, but the side effects can be exponentially worse, and permanently detrimental to your happiness. Depression is a mental illness frequently co-occurring with […]

Many people can have a hard time understanding why drug addicts have difficulty in quitting drugs, despite the major life consequences that follow from their use. It would seem logical that if the use of a substance is causing a lot of issues in someone’s life that they should just stop using the substance. However, […]

Schema Therapy (Schema-Focused Cognitive Therapy) was developed by Dr. Jeffrey Young and is best defined as an integrative approach to mental health treatment that combines the most productive aspects of cognitive-behavioral, psychoanalytical, interpersonal, and experiential therapies into one collective model. Schema therapy is most known for helping people to change pervasive negative or maladaptive thinking […]

Marijuana is probably the most commonly used drug in America today. It is still illegal federally but as of June of this year, it is now medically legal in thirty states across the country. In nine of those states, it is legal recreationally as well. A Gallup poll done in 2017 showed that 64% of […]