Alcohol contributes to close to 90,000 deaths a year. Because repeated binge drinking damages the brain, it’s hard to know when we’ve developed a problem. Here are some things to consider.
Regardless of how they are consumed, alcohol and other drugs eventually make their way into the brain via the bloodstream. Once there, they affect how messages are sent through the brain.
Thousands of Australians go to residential drug and alcohol rehab programs every year. But is there evidence rehabs, as well as the group therapy they often rely on, actually work?
Jessie Schanzle, The Conversation y Aviva Rutkin, The Conversation
More Americans died from drug overdose in 2014 than any year on record and six in 10 of those involved opioids. How did we get here and what to do about it?
There is no doubt that virtual reality is the next big thing. But for families with young children, it may be wiser to wait a little before leaping headlong into this new reality.
Some think labelling it a disease is a helpful way to think about addiction; others think this makes the addict helpless in their fight against addiction. Two academics debate both sides of the coin.
The nation is still in the grip of an opioid addiction epidemic, but there is some good news. Treatment options are expanding, as professionals learn more about the illness.
The Pokemon GO craze has tapped in to our desire to seek out rewards. But there different types of rewards in life, each designed to capture our attention, even train our behaviour.
Awareness of social factors, such as society’s perpetuation of masculinity, are critical to understanding the interconnections between trauma, disadvantage and substance abuse in young men.
Lina Begdache, Binghamton University, State University of New York
College students who take stimulants such as Adderall to get an academic edge might be setting themselves up unknowingly to a vicious cycle of substance abuse and addiction.
What exactly is addiction? What role, if any, does choice play? And if addiction involves choice, how can we call it a “brain disease,” with its implications of involuntariness?
We don’t know enough about the people who use painkillers non-medically to make the judgement that there is a natural transition from legal to illicit drug use.