How Many Drinks Are In Common Containers ?

Problem drinking that becomes severe is given the medical diagnosis of “alcohol use disorder” or AUD.  AUD is a chronic relapsing brain disease characterized by compulsive alcohol use, loss of control over alcohol intake, and a negative emotional state when not using.

To assess whether you or loved one may have AUD, here are some questions to ask.  In the past year, have you:

• Had times when you ended up drinking more, or longer than you intended?
• More than once wanted to cut down or stop drinking, or tried to, but couldn’t?
• Spent a lot of time drinking? Or being sick or getting over the aftereffects?
• Experienced craving — a strong need, or urge, to drink?
• Found that drinking — or being sick from drinking — often interfered with taking care of your home or family? Or caused job troubles? Or school problems?
• Continued to drink even though it was causing trouble with your family or friends?
• Given up or cut back on activities that were important or interesting to you, or gave you pleasure, in order to drink?
• More than once gotten into situations while or after drinking that increased your chances of getting hurt (such as driving, swimming, using machinery, walking in a dangerous area, or having unsafe sex)?
• Continued to drink even though it was making you feel depressed or anxious or adding to another health problem? Or after having had a memory blackout?
• Had to drink much more than you once did to get the effect you want? Or found that your usual number of drinks had much less effect than before?
• Found that when the effects of alcohol were wearing off, you had withdrawal symptoms, such as trouble sleeping, shakiness, irritability, anxiety, depression, restlessness, nausea, or sweating? Or sensed things that were not there?

However severe the problem may seem, most people with AUD can benefit from treatment. Unfortunately, less than 10 percent of them receive any treatment.

 

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The $1,845 Urine Test

Her bill shows that Sunset Labs LLC charged $4,675 to check her urine for a slew of different types of opioids: $2,975 for benzodiazepines, a class of drugs for treating anxiety, and $1,700 more for amphetamines. Tests to detect cocaine, marijuana and phencyclidine, an illegal hallucinogenic drug also known as PCP or angel dust, added $1,275 more.

The lab also billed $850 to test for buprenorphine, a drug used to treat opioid addiction, and tacked on an $850 fee for two tests to verify that nobody had tampered with her urine specimen.

Total bill: $17,850 for lab tests that her insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, refused to cover, apparently because the lab was not in her insurance network. The insurer sent Moreno an “explanation of benefits” that says it would have valued the work at just $100.92.

Moreno’s father, in a complaint to the Texas attorney general’s office about the bill, identified the Houston surgeon who ordered the costly test as Dr. Stephen Esses. His office told Kaiser Health News the surgeon would have no comment.

Read more at KHN.org

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Meth, the Forgotten Killer, Is Back. And It’s Everywhere.

The scourge of crystal meth, with its exploding labs and ruinous effect on teeth and skin, has been all but forgotten amid national concern over the opioid crisis. But 12 years after Congress took aggressive action to curtail it, meth has returned with a vengeance. Here in Oregon, meth-related deaths vastly outnumber those from heroin. At the United States border, agents are seizing 10 to 20 times the amounts they did a decade ago. Methamphetamine, experts say, has never been purer, cheaper or more lethal.

Read more here .. 

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OxyContin maker will stop marketing the addictive opioid to doctors

Purdue Pharmaceuticals – In an open letter to the public that starts with .. “We manufacture prescription opioids. How could we not help fight the prescription and illicit opioid abuse crisis?”

Read the open letter from Purdue Pharmacy here.

The move comes after the company helped cause an ongoing drug overdose crisis that has killed hundreds of thousands.

http://www.purduepharma.com/healthcare-professionals/products/oxycontin/

 

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Sobriety gets the social treatment / Mobile Apps

It’s amazing what people will share through digital media that they wouldn’t discuss one on one or even over the phone, ” said Adam Leventhal, director of the University of Southern California Health, Emotion, and Addiction Laboratory. “Apps and other types of digital media platforms open up a whole new universe of ways to help clients stop. ”

Both the App Store and Google Play are loaded with social apps that aim to help people in recovery. These include I Am Sober, which describes itself as a motivational companion, and Nomo, which tracks days you’ve stayed straight. Social network Sober Grid connects recovering addicts, while A-CHESS aims to prevent relapses and to make it easy for counselors to reach out to patients. SoberTool shares motivational messages and features a community forum.

These software are intended to product in-person treatments, not replace them, though they can serve people who have no easy access to those treatments.

 

Original Source: Cnet.com

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USDA Regulation change to aid treatment of opioid addiction

The USDA recently changed regulations to boost opioid addiction treatment in rural areas where opioid prescriptions outnumber the population.

The change authorizes nurses and physician assistants to prescribe buprenorphine, an opioid medication used to treat addiction to morphine, hydrocodone, heroin and other opiates.

It will open up access to treatment of opioid addictions in rural America where there are fewer doctors, according to the National Rural Health Association, headquartered in Leawood, Kansas.

A 2017 study from NRHA found that 53 percent of rural counties had no physician able to prescribe medication to those addicted to opioids.

About 90 percent of physicians allowed to prescribe such medication live in urban counties, and 30 million people live in areas where the treatment is unavailable, NRHA noted in its report.

There are about 43,000 doctors authorized to prescribe buprenorphine in the United States. However, opioid addiction is claiming about 175 lives a day, and many addicts can’t find treatment.

Rusty Cooper, deputy chief of Kingman Police Department, has dealt with the prevalence of opioid addiction in Mohave County for years.

KPD was the first police department in Arizona to train its officers in the use of naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid overdose. They’ve saved five people since starting the training in August 2016, Cooper said.

“Our program was developed as a result of the increase in opioid overdoses occurring in our area,” Cooper said. “Local law enforcement has known for some time that Mohave County has been at the high end of opioid prescription, abuse and overdose for the state.”

KPD officers have gone through three hours of naloxone training in partnership with the Arizona Department of Health Services, Kingman Fire Department and Kingman Regional Medical Center.

Emergency medical services and paramedics have been using naloxone since the mid-1960s, and KPD’s program is being used as a model for other agencies in Arizona.

“Our naloxone program has gotten attention and recognition because it was the first in the state,” Cooper said. “The program was developed at the direction of Chief (Bob) DeVries in response to the exploding opioid epidemic in Mohave County in the last several years.”

Cooper emphasized the collaboration with the health department, fire department and KRMC with a shared goal of first responders providing the most effective level of aid to opioid overdose victims.

Rural advocates from across the country will explore solutions to the opioid epidemic at the Rural Health Policy Institute Tuesday through Thursday in Washington, D.C.

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Anti-Craving Therapy

We can help !

Psychiatrists have gradually developed a list of medications that are effective in the treatment of addictive disorders. Although alcoholism has received the most attention, nicotine, heroin, and cocaine have all been shown to be influenced by heredity. Of course, the immediate goal is the reduction of drug craving and the prevention of relapse to compulsive drug taking. A medication that can aid in the maintenance of the opiate-free state is naltrexone, a specific opiate antagonist.

Naltrexone is also a good example of an anti craving medication used in the treatment of alcoholism. Clinicians currently have two types of medication to aid in the treatment of tobacco use disorder, arguably the most important addiction. Bupropion and nicotine replacement can be given in a coordinated fashion to provide the best available results. At present, no medication is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the indication of cocaine addiction.

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