MetaFilter posts tagged with Addiction

Learn.Genetics

netbros — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 16:35:03 -0800

grumblebee's post about cell size and scale the other day was quite fascinating. Pulling back to the home for that site, the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah delivers educational materials on genetics, bio-science and health topics ranging from stem cells to gene therapy, and from epigenetics to heredity. Explore the neurobiology of normal and addicted brains and the genetic contribution to this chronic disease.

A Few Strange Notes About Schizophrenia

mdpatrick — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 09:50:44 -0800

Here's a strange one for the books: Science has taken notice that a really, really LARGE proportion of schizophrenic patients smoke. In fact, Scientific American Mind reports that an average of 85% of schizophrenic patients smoke cigarettes compared to only 20% in the general population. Many schizophrenics also appear to have abnormal thermoregulation, an impaired ability to understand body language, an inability to perceive an optical illusion called "the hollow mask illusion," an impaired ability to produce a brain protein known as the muscarinic M1 receptor, and an abnormally large number of genetic mutations known as CNV's or "copy number variations."

the consumption renews the appetite

nickyskye — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 06:33:14 -0800

Seeking - How the brain hard-wires us to love Google, Twitter, and texting.

'Cos it makes me feel like I'm a man...

PeterMcDermott — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 15:13:22 -0800

The first ever North American study into prescribing diamorphine to addicts was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. And the outcomes are positive. This is the latest in a growing line of research studies into diamorphine prescribing. The Netherlands and Switzerland have both completed major studies that showed extremely positive outcomes in treatment resistant populations. Germany has recently begun a study along these lines, and a British study is about to report it's outcomes any minute now.

How often must a positive outcome be replicated before something becomes part of mainstream treatment provision?

Scotland's heroin problems

peacay — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 07:19:32 -0800

What happened to the Trainspotting generation? Heroin and Scotland: the relationship continues.

Hitting bottom

Kattullus — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:33:54 -0800

On 200 mg a day of baclofen, in an important meeting with several associate deans of my college and three new department chairs (I was made chair of my philosophy department just a few weeks before I tried to commit suicide), I fell asleep with my head on the conference room table and, for 40 minutes, everyone was too embarrassed to wake me. Somnolence is the most obvious and inconvenient side effect of baclofen. I reduced my dosage to 100 mg a day, and started taking it only at bedtime. A few days later, a colleague asked if I had changed my medicine. ‘Yes,’ I told her. ‘Why do you ask?’ She is German, an analytic philosopher, and therefore very direct: ‘You are drooling less than you were.’

My Life as a Drunk is a searingly honest essay by novelist and philosophy professor Clancy Martin about his experiences with alcoholism, AA, valium and baclofen.

He works odd jobs just to make ends meet

saturnine — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 17:37:54 -0800

"The 2000 census found that nearly 23 percent of families living in Letcher County, KY, fell below the poverty line. The median household income in most counties is at or below $25,000, with individuals making on average $12,000 a year." The White Family by Carl Kiilsgaard You can find more of the White family (without commentary) on the photographer's own website.

junkification

infini — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:54:58 -0800

Are US tobacco companies conspiring to make tobacco more addictive through additives or aren't they? Ever since the first reports published in 1999, this has been debated off and on for years as the tobacco lobby defended itself against allegations of racketeering and outright lies. Recently they lost the case. But the question of American cigarettes being more addictive than others still remains unsettled.

A Literary Response to a Son's Drug Addiction

andoatnp — Mon, 11 May 2009 07:49:46 -0800

What is the best way to respond to your son's drug addiction?
Write a book? No!
Write two books? Yes?

Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction
Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines Addiction - a father-son story

One of the unsettling themes in David Sheff's memoir, "Beautiful Boy," a wrenching tale about his son's drug addiction, is that even though Sheff was among what he calls the "first wave" of self-conscious parents who were hip enough to forge honest relationships with their kids, he was woefully unprepared for the vagaries of methamphetamine. ... But David's then-teenage son Nic took a detour. Despite his cultured, well-to-do Marin County upbringing, during which he shared dinners with writers like Armistead Maupin, Nic developed a meth addiction that led to heroin use. By 22, he was emaciated and roaming the Tenderloin in search of a fix. ... The latest unexpected turn: Last week, Sheff embarked on a national book tour with Nic, now 25, who's been sober for two years and lives in Savannah, Ga. The younger Sheff has his own memoir to promote, "Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines." After the father wrote about his son's slide in a November 2005 New York Times Magazine article, an editor from Simon & Schuster contacted Nic, who was then freelancing for the online magazine Nerve.

This NPR article has an audio interview with father and son and an extended excerpt from the father's book.

"this chattering-class version of Heat magazine"

paduasoy — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 00:55:33 -0800

The novlist Julie Myerson has written a book, The Lost Child, about her son's addiction to cannabis, the violent behaviour she says this caused and her tough love policy. Extract. Her son is angry that she's published it, and says his parents over-reacted: "I wasn't doing anything that most other teenagers do, but such was their naive terror of drugs they were acting like six-year-olds". It comes out through MumsNet that Julie Myerson was the anonymous author of a Guardian column, "Living with Teenagers," which described her children's behaviour candidly without their knowledge. Extract. Myerson first denied this. The Guardian discusses whether it was right to publish the columns. Myerson is interviewed about whether she was right to publish The Lost Child. Her partner, and son's father, Jonathan Myerson supports her: This is an emergency. Her son says she's addicted to writing. The tag line "this chattering-class version of Heat magazine" is from Libby Purves's comments. Many commentators consider Myerson was wrong to publish: Ian Jack in the Guardian, Tim Lott in the Independent, balanced by a positive review also in the Independent. The Daily Mail has dug up some more dirt from Myerson's sister. And here's an article by Myerson from 2001 about getting her son into the right school.

Stringer Bell goes legit?

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:14:01 -0800

In a recent report for the Abell Foundation, University of Maryland Criminologist Peter Reuter asks whether, in light of the evidence from Switzerland, The Netherlands and elsewhere, Baltimore might not be the best place to try the first US heroin maintenance programme?

Rat Park and Other Children's Stories

tybeet — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:21:57 -0800

Addiction: thousands of studies have been done claiming that it is a disease, often using rats in isolated cages with a bar-press system of delivery, showing they will repeatedly get high even if it means starving to death. Bruce Alexander was a skeptic, questioning the ecological validity of all such results: "They were said to prove that these kinds of dope are irresistible, and that’s it, that’s the end of the addiction story right there," and after delivering one particularly fruitless seminar in 1976, he decided to build Rat Park to conduct his own studies... Rat Park was "an alternative laboratory environment constructed around the need of the subjects rather than the experimenters. A colony of rats, who are naturally gregarious, were allowed to roam together in a large vivarium enriched with wheels, balls and other playthings, on a deep bed of aromatic cedar shavings and with plenty of space for breeding and private interactions. Pleasant woodland vistas were even painted on the surrounding walls. In this situation, the rats' responses to drugs such as opiates were transformed..." ⁽¹⁾ "The denizens of Rat Park overwhelmingly preferred plain water to morphine (the test produced statistical confidence levels of over 99.9 percent). Even when Alexander tried to seduce his rats by sweetening the morphine, the ones in Rat Park drank far less than the ones in cages. Only when he added naloxone, which eliminates morphine’s narcotic effects, did the rats in Rat Park start drinking from the water-sugar-morphine bottle. They wanted the sweet water, but not if it made them high... In a variation he calls “Kicking the Habit,” Alexander gave rats in both environments nothing but morphine-laced water for fifty-seven days, until they were physically dependent on the drug. But as soon as they had a choice between plain water and morphine, the animals in Rat Park switched to plain water more often than the caged rats did, voluntarily putting themselves through the discomfort of withdrawal to do so... Rat Park showed that a rat’s environment, not the availability of drugs, leads to dependence. In a normal setting, a narcotic is an impediment to what rats typically do: fight, play, forage, mate. But a caged rat can’t do those things. It’s no surprise that a distressed animal with access to narcotics would use them to seek relief." ⁽²⁾ Bruce Alexander recently finished a book synthesizing these findings into a much larger picture. "The Globalisation of Addiction" is his attempt to broaden the scope of this new understanding, applying it to the world at large. From the description, "[this] book argues that the most effective response to a growing addiction problem is a social and political one, rather than an individual one. Such a solution would not put the doctors, psychologists, social workers, policemen, and priests out of work, but it would incorporate their practices in a larger social project. The project is to reshape society with enough force and imagination to enable people to find social integration and meaning in everyday life. Then great numbers of them would not need to fill their inner void with addictions." More (related) Reading: Rat Park and Other Children's Stories "Effect of Early and Later Colony Housing on Oral Ingestion of Morphine in Rats" (the original Rat Park white paper). A related article by Dr. Alexander, "The Myth of Drug-Induced Addiction" Nthposition Online Magazine, Book Review of "The Globalisation of Addiction" The Walrus Magazine, "Rat Trap: Why Canada’s drug policy won’t check addiction"

When No One Understands You, Chocolate Is There

netbros — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:28:44 -0800

According to legend, Einstein was eating chocolate when he came upon the theory of relativity. These sites are all about chocolate and candy in general. Chocolate Obsession. Hyperbole? Maybe. Just a little. Ok, a lot. Chocolate does have a lot to offer, though. It is a one of a kind food characterized by a truly unique and intense flavor. The idea of Jim's Chocolate Mission came after a discussion with friends about the greatest chocolate bar. Was is the Wispa? Galaxy? Clark? The Chocolate Review is most likely to review English chocolate because that's where they're from, but they also do imports. No discussion of chocolate would be complete without a little history, so here's the Chocolate History Time Line. For 4000 years, chocolate… like gold, has had a universal appeal. Candyblog has meticulously photographed and documented reviews of candy from around the world. And the occasional other sweet adventures. Open your mouth, expand your mind. At Candy Addict you can find articles and reviews like the Top 10 Simpson's Candy Moments, or the 10 Grossest Candies. Just remember the 12-Step Chocoholic Program. Never be more than 12 steps away from chocolate. It's a helluva lot cheaper than therapy.

Cure for pain

Kattullus — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 13:10:25 -0800

In December 2003, Brent Cambron gave himself his first injection of morphine. Save for the fact that he was sticking the needle into his own skin, the motion was familiar--almost rote. Over the course of the previous 17 months, as an anesthesia resident at Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Cambron had given hundreds of injections.

- Going Under by Jason Zengerle of The New Republic [print version] is heartbreaking article about the high rates of drug addiction among anesthesiologists. It tells the story of Brent Cambron and his spiral into addiction. His live was also sensitively chronicled in The Boston Globe by Keith O'Brien in Something, anything to stop the pain [print version]. Don't pass up on reading the comments to Zengerle's article, the first few of which are by medical doctors. Here's the Boston Globe story about Dr. Cambron's death and his obituary from the Tulsa World.

Goodbye to the 12-Steps?

Azaadistani — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 13:06:42 -0800

French Doctor Finds Cure for Alcoholism in a Pill, Causing a Stir. Having himself suffered from dipsomania, Dr. Olivier Ameisen, claims in his book, Le Dernier Verre (The Last Glass), that the muscle relaxant bacloflen suppressed his craving for alcohol, curing his alcoholism. A top cardiologist in France, and doctor to a former French PM, Ameisen has called for clinical trials to verify his bold claim, while causing some in the field to accuse him of irresponsibility for suggesting alcoholism can be cured by a pill, although other pills are in the works.

Got to get that modem off my back

DiscourseMarker — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 17:50:54 -0800

Do you have a yearning to be online? Do you suffer from difficulty concentrating or sleeping, irritation, or mental or physical distress? According to doctors in China, you might have an internet addiction. Treatment can be pretty extreme, and some question whether there is a hidden motive behind this diagnosis. [Previously]

The scorched-birdfeeder response to information overload

ardgedee — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 08:57:19 -0800

"I'll argue for the sake of arguing that we as human beings have a finite supply of attention for ambient awareness of things around the world.... And the fact that I know just a little bit too much about popular television due to twitter has to be responsible for some other deficit in my life..." Twitter zero: One man's experiment in staying connected to the public-soundbite world without becoming overwhelmed by it.

Dopamine

homunculus — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:30:25 -0800

A New State of Mind. "New research is linking dopamine to complex social phenomena and changing neuroscience in the process."

Richard Jenson

thisisdrew — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 15:45:35 -0800

Getting Off The Mat - After losing 15 years of his life to drug addiction and prison, Richard Jensen was reborn as a 36-year-old college wrestler.

The Breakfast Manifesto

The Card Cheat — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:21:25 -0800

The Coffee Junkie’s Guide to Caffeine Addiction. Caffeine's a hell of a drug. In fact, it's the world's most popular psychoactive drug. And more and more of us are getting hooked on the stuff. From the first link: "In a relatively short amount of time, we have become a nation of caffeine addicts. Science has barely had time to study the effects of consumption at this volume. New research does, however, suggest that caffeine may not give us the instant jolt of productivity, alertness, and happiness we think it does. And most of us, it turns out, are using the drug all wrong."

The Comeback

dw — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 16:47:56 -0800

Josh Hamilton was destined to be an all-star baseball player, selected by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays as the #1 draft pick in the 1999 MLB draft. By 2002, though, he was a bust, beset by injuries, spending his days downing an entire bottle of Crown Royal and snorting cocaine. Eventually, he was suspended for two years due to his cocaine use. He hit rock bottom, got clean and sober, and did not play baseball for nearly 4 years. In 2006 attempted a comeback. A Rule 5 draft gamble for the Reds, he made the 2007 team and made his major league debut to a standing ovation. Within weeks he was their starting centerfielder. Dealt to the Texas Rangers in the offseason, he made a thunderous debut and soon led the American League in homers. He currently leads the league in RBI. Today, he was selected as a starting outfielder for the 2008 AL All-Star team, nine years after he was drafted, six years after he was suspended for drug use, and three years since he returned to organized baseball. He remains thankful for his climb from addiction.

Lost Souls

chuckdarwin — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 02:24:37 -0800

According to a new report, children in Sweden are becoming increasingly concerned by their parents' internet habits. "This summer she has been sitting up all day and all night and she forgets what's important to me. And when she's not at the computer she's like a lost soul. She just looks straight ahead and says nothing. I'm not doing so well." Dr Jerald Block from Oregon Health and Science University in Portland is pushing for internet addiction (and its three subtypes: excessive gaming, sexual preoccupations and e-mail/text messaging) to be included as a common disorder in the next update of the DSM (DSM-V). "The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer... It's much more acceptable for kids to talk about game use, whereas adults keep it a secret. Rather than having sex, or arguing with their wife or husband, or feeding their children, these adults are playing games..."

All Our Favorite Toxins

wendell — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 03:30:28 -0800

The Drug Addiction Paradox "The plants should never have developed toxins that reward animals for eating them, and humans should never have developed a reward mechanism for toxic plants"... De-evolution or Idiotic Design? If this turns out to be as bogus as the German Kid vs. NASA story, I promise I will never do science posts again, OK?

How else are we supposed to grade all these papers?

anotherpanacea — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 19:42:51 -0800

"By their drugs shall ye know them." I always thought that nootropics would change the face of the academy, but it turns out scholars are getting high on Adderall. Is that so bad? Well, it's an addictive amphetamine, and it's supposedly cheating when students to take advantage of chemical assistance. Plus, boredom is good for you. From the NYTimes article:

“I’m talking about being able to take on twice the responsibility, work twice as fast, write more effectively, manage better, be more attentive, devise better and more creative strategies.”

Is it cheating if it helps us cure cancer?

Crap. No Snake Eyes!

ericb — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 12:13:59 -0800

Arelia Margarita Taveras “made a name for herself representing the families of victims of American Airlines Flight 587, which crashed in New York City's borough of Queens in November 2001, killing 265 people.^#⁺ Her practice had 400 clients and earned her $500,000 a year.” She claims that she sought to relieve the pressures of her work by gambling in Atlantic City and Las Vegas over the past few years. She lost $1 million and was disbarred as a result of stealing money from clients [PDF] in order to support her gambling addiction. Taveras also lost her own home and that of her parents (who mortgaged it to support her debt). Taveras owes the IRS $58,000. In response she has filed a $20 million racketeering lawsuit in federal court against six Atlantic City casinos and one in Las Vegas, “claiming they had a duty to notice her compulsive gambling problem and cut her off.”