Ever struggle with your work-life balance? Most people have, especially now. Whether you worked from home, a socially-distanced office or in the trenches of the service sector, your work habits probably changed in some very radical ways. Hopefully, your self-care routine didn’t. You know the usual advice: Get up and stretch once in a while or go for a walk. Try to eat […]
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A tale of two pandemics: As of late September 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) COVID Data Tracker reported nearly 700,000 deaths in the U.S. from the coronavirus outbreak. Coronavirus has taken a terrible toll globally, and it is easy to see why the pandemic has been at the forefront of public attention since the first shutdowns happened in March 2020. The other pandemic? Every year, nearly 100,000 people in the U.S. die from the effects of alcoholism. Unfortunately, most people […]
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Opioid Prescription Abuse: Studies Show Possible Alternatives To Common Gateway For Opioid Addiction
One patient was a legal secretary for one of the US’s biggest corporate lawyers. Another was a suburban mother in New Jersey who died in her sleep. Then there was the internationally recognized photographer who had an exhibition at the Louvre Museum in Paris. None of these were the type of person who usually comes to mind when most people think about opioid abuse. Far removed from a figure hunched in a corner of an […]
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“Why?” Anyone who’s ever personally experienced addiction has asked that question. Why am I doing this to myself? Why can’t I stop that person from harming themselves? Why is this happening? It’s a tough question to answer. If you’re strictly talking about the chemical aspect (and that label applies to alcohol, too), the question is a bit more straightforward. People develop addiction in part because of the way […]
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Here’s a situation that may be familiar: Say an office worker is feeling especially stressed one day. Their co-worker shares a quarter bar of a Xanax pill with them as a gesture. Or how about this: a traveler decides to borrow a Klonopin from their spouse/friend/parent before a long flight so they can sleep better. Both of these situations qualify as drug abuse. Prescription tranquilizers […]
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Equality still has a long way to go. Take paychecks. Although it’s narrowed somewhat since the 1980s, the gender pay gap is still with us: Pew Research’s May 2021 report found women only earned 84% of what men made. For anyone who values gender equity, it’s frustrating news made even more so by the events of 2020. However, there is one area in which the gender gap has narrowed considerably: alcohol use. […]
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After July 1st, Virginia the 16th state to legalize recreational marijuana. The Old Dominion joins a steady procession of states who in recent years have rapidly changed their laws governing marijuana’s sale and use, with some states considering full decriminalization of all drugs. With increased legality comes popularity: according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), marijuana is second to alcohol as the most used psychotropic drug in the U.S. […]
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When we call addiction a “family disease,” what are we really talking about? Some researchers think there’s a genetic component to drug & alcohol addiction. NIDA, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, cites studies of siblings, twins and even adoptees showing nearly half of the risk of developing a substance use disorder depends on an individual’s genetic makeup. Of course, […]
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It’s truly a chicken-or-the-egg question: Do people abuse alcohol and other substances because they’re depressed, or do the effects of substance abuse make people depressed? It’s been known for years a link between mental health and substance use exists. The National Bureau of Economic Research estimates people with an existing mental illness tend to be active consumers of substances, consuming 38% of alcohol and 44% […]
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Things are getting back to normal again, and it’s about time. Great. Awesome. So why do you feel so tense? It might be because you’re faced with the prospect of going back to work. We don’t mean returning to whatever home office you’ve been using since the 2020 lockdowns. We mean the office. The commute, parking, the whole bit. […]
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