Drug and Alcohol Rehab

1. 88,000 deaths are annually attributed to excessive alcohol use. 2. Every day, almost 30 people in the United States die in motor vehicle crashes that involve an alcohol-impaired driver. This amounts to one death every 51 minutes. http://www.covenanthillstreatment.com/blog 3. Long-term alcohol use can cause serious health complications affecting every organ in your body, including your brain. Additionally, it can damage your emotional stability, finances, career, impact yo...ur family, friends and the people you work with. 4. Women who binge drink are more likely to have unprotected sex and multiple sex partners. These activities increase the risks of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. 5. 100,000 persons die each year from alcohol-related causes: drinking and driving crashes, other accidents, falls, fires, alcohol-related homicides and suicides. 6. Excessive alcohol consumption increases aggression and, as a result, can increase the risk of physically assaulting another person. 7. Of the 3.9 million Americans who received treatment for a substance abuse problem in 2005, 2.5 million of them were treated for alcohol use.

The federal government recently approved a new powdered form of alcohol but a number of states, including Florida, are taking steps to block its sale. http://www.covenanthillstreatment.com Approved on March 10 by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, the powdered alcohol, known as Palcohol, is expected to hit the market this summer. It is manufactured by Lipsmark, an Arizona company. The company says consumers can take a one-ounce packet of powdered rum, vodka or a drink mix, like a Cosmopolitan, and add it to 6 ounces of water to produce a drink, which has an alcohol volume of about 10 percent. Facing an outcry that the powder could be abused, particularly by minors, Florida legislators hope to make a pre-emptive strike before it goes on sale.

People who take drugs before getting behind the wheel of a car believe it is a much more acceptable thing to do than driving while drunk, according to a Government study. http://bit.ly/1F6sdM0 Drug drivers believe their abilities behind the wheel are not seriously impaired by taking substances such as cannabis, cocaine and MDMA and that in any case they are unlikely to be stopped by police, the research found. The scale of drug driving is difficult to calculate as statistics are not always recorded, but research suggests that levels are similar to drink driving.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday that a drug-resistant strain of shigella - a bacteria that causes the watery and bloody diarrhea-inducing illness shigellosis - is spreading around the country through international travelers. http://www.covennathillstreatment.com/blog Shigellosis, which usually lasts five to seven days but can trouble one's bowels for months, afflicts around 500,000 Americans each year, according to a study released by CDC on ...Thursday. But the new strain beats ciprofloxacin, the prescription drug known commonly as Cipro that is employed by medical professionals as a first-line treatment against shigellosis, the study says. Only about 2 percent of shigella detected in the U.S. showed resistance to Cipro previously, but a raft of new cases of the nasty bug overcame the drug nearly 90 percent of the time, according to the agency. CDC officials counted 243 Cipro-resistant cases of shigellosis in 32 states and Puerto Rico between May 2014 and February 2015, they said.

These states contrast Alaska, which at 13.5 percent, has the lowest drug/medication use, according to the survey. http://www.covenanthillstreatment.com/blog However, according to the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services, Alaska has one of the highest per capita alcohol consumption rates in the nation with roughly 14 percent of the population claiming alcohol dependence or abuse, which according to another Gallup survey, is twice the national average.

This Good Friday we never forget the true meaning of Easter ‘For he was on the cross, I was in his mind. ‘ http://goo.gl/UtJXRp

A drug-resistant intestinal illness called Shigellosis is spreading in the US for the first time, according to a CDC report released today. http://bit.ly/1F6sdM0 The drug-resistant bacteria that causes the illness has infected 243 people across 32 US states and Puerto Rico between May 2014 and February 2015. As a result, the CDC recommends decreasing the use of antibiotics to treat mild forms of Shigellosis. If health care providers fail to reduce the number of cases, we could end up seeing "large, protracted outbreaks," the CDC report says.

Data were taken from 561 students enrolled in an ongoing prospective web-based study on alcohol initiation and progression (55% female; 25% White non-Hispanic). http://goo.gl/UtJXRp Based on a combination of monthly and semiannual surveys, we coded whether participants sipped alcohol before sixth grade and examined associations between early sipping and alcohol consumption by fall of ninth grade, as well as other indices of problem behavior. Participants also reported on the context of the first sipping event.

Children often see their parents crack open a bottle of wine or beer or mix a drink at some point early on in life when they're too young to understand what alcohol is. Kids are inquisitive and curious, so of course many eventually ask their parents for "just a sip" of what the grown-ups are drinking. Seems harmless enough, right? http://www.covenanthillstreatment.com But a new long-term study finds kids who had "sipped" alcohol by sixth grade were more likely to start drinki...ng earlier and to abuse alcohol. The researchers found those who tried an alcoholic beverage by sixth grade were five times more likely than other kids to consume an entire drink by the time they reached high school. They were also four times more likely to have gotten drunk or binged. "Parents may rationalize that they are teaching their children to drink responsibly, thereby reducing risk of alcohol-related consequences," the researchers write in their study. "However, permission to drink at home and explicit provision of alcohol are prospectively associated with greater levels of adolescent alcohol use, heavy use, drunkenness, and drinking intentions." The study, published Tuesday in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, involved 561 students. The researchers found beer or wine were usually a child's first taste of alcohol. (Prior similar studies had reported early introduction was most likely to be a sip of hard liquor.) Though parents often provided their child with the "sip," a small percentage tried alcohol in their home without their parents' knowledge. At the beginning of sixth grade -- around age 11 -- almost 30 percent of students said they'd already sipped alcohol at some point. In most cases, their parents provided it, typically at a party or other special occasion.

Random drug testing in schools may sound like a good way to keep kids off drugs, but there is little evidence it works. http://www.covenanthillstreatment.com/blog In a new report, the nation's leading group of pediatricians reaffirms its stance against random drug testing in schools. The group suggests schools redirect their limited resources toward helping students avoid or overcome drug problems. Alcohol use among young people between the ages of 12 and 17 dropped to 11.6 p...ercent from almost 13 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, rates of binge drinking in the past month fell to about 6 percent from around 7 percent. The SAMHSA reported noted however, that almost 25 million young people aged 12 and older are current illegal drug users, or they had used drugs within the past month. Marijuana is the drug most commonly used by teens. In 2013 alone, almost 20 million (7.5 percent of Americans aged 12 and older) were marijuana users -- a jump from about 6 percent in 2007. Abuse of other drugs, such as cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and prescription painkillers, was relatively unchanged from 2012 to 2013, the researchers added.

The shocking, meteoric rise in prescription drug abuse in this county demands community action, and an ordinance being considered by Marin County supervisors is a good start. http://bit.ly/1F6sdM0 Marin just last week celebrated its sixth straight year of being proclaimed the healthiest county in California by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. But despite the lofty title, all’s not well. When it comes to prescription drug abuse in Marin County, the numbers are startling. ...There were 27 unintentional poisoning deaths here in 2012, up from nine in 2009, 15 in 2010 and 13 in 2011. Non-fatal opiate-related visits to Marin emergency rooms have more than doubled, from 198 in 2006 to 471 in 2012. In fact, there are more overdose deaths from prescription drugs in Marin than from heroin and cocaine combined. The epidemic has even spread to our children, where 17 percent of 11th-graders in Marin report having used prescription pain killers recreationally, the county board declared in a resolution dubbing March prescription drug abuse awareness month.

"First we stayed sober because we have to...then we stay sober because we are willing to...then we stay sober because we want to." http://goo.gl/p48TsN

With drug overdoses skyrocketing across the USA, a growing number of states are expanding access to a fast-acting rescue drug called naloxone, which can revive a dying addict in minutes. http://www.covenanthillstreatment.com But while these new laws have broad support in the public health community, some doctors and drug-treatment professionals say they are just Band-Aids for an overwhelming addiction problem requiring a much broader solution.