What to Do If Your Friend Overdoses in Front of You
Drug overdoses can be very scary to see as overdoses always have the potential to be fatal. The symptoms of overdosing on stimulants or depressants can be not breathing, vomiting, convulsions, severe disorientation, high temperature, or going unconscious. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 64,000 people overdosed. If you see someone overdosing in front of you, [...]
Why Is It Bad to Mix Alcohol and Crystal Meth Together?
It is bad enough to abuse substances one at a time but some use combinations of different drugs for a higher effect called polysubstance abuse. According to DrugAbuse.com, 13 million Americans have combined crystal meth with alcohol. In 2008, 24% of meth-related emergency room visits had to do with alcohol intoxication. Combining two bad substances can lead to a deadly [...]
New Gene Variant Can Protect People From Alcoholism
Drinking alcohol involves breaking down the ethanol to get the chemical out of our body. If we drink too much alcohol, the body has a hard time breaking it down. This causes too much alcohol absorption which is how we experience the negative side effects of alcohol. Luckily, the University of Pennsylvania did a study to show how a certain [...]
Why Spring Is a Great Time to Do Step Four
Step four in the twelve steps is “make a searching and fearless written moral inventory of yourself.” This is the perfect step to complete in spring since spring is a season of new awakenings and beginnings. Step four is the time to take the fearless step in looking back on everything that caused you to drink in the first place [...]
How Do I Know If I Should See a Therapist?
There are people who experience negative feelings and anxieties and do nothing about them. According to The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, only 46-65% go to treatment. Experiencing troubled thoughts that interfere with your life is all the more reason why you need to see a therapist. You are experiencing intense emotions. Your emotions feel damaged and changes [...]
Nutrition and Addiction Recovery
We know that drugs can affect the way we think and cause a lot of damage to our lives mentally as well as physically, bringing a lot of stress. Substance abuse can also ruin our nutrition where users are left with depleted levels of vitamins, minerals, and essential amino acids and fats that we need to live. Going to treatment [...]
Can Alcoholism Be Cured?
Physical diseases like diabetes or high blood pressure can be cured since they are physical diseases that a doctor can see. Diseases that are more psychological like alcoholism cannot be cured as the brain does not forget the large amounts of alcohol that you consumed in your body. Because alcoholism is a brain disease, new behaviors must be learned in [...]
Somatic Symptom Disorder
When someone is obsessively worrying that any minor physical problem can be a serious illness, you might have somatic symptom disorder which used to be known as hypochondria. This is having excessive and unrealistic worries of your health. It is important to go to treatment if somatic symptom disorder if interfering with your life and you want to believe you [...]
How Can I Handle Criticism Better?
Criticism can be hard to take in because you are more concerned that someone found a flaw in you instead of trying to work through it. We are all trying to achieve perfection and we feel that when someone gives us criticism, no matter how constructive it may be, it can be an obstacle to being who we want to [...]
Dear Evan Hansen: A Musical That Tackles Mental Illness
Musicals have the power to get through an audience not just with their powerful dialogue but with songs that send a message of what the characters are feeling. If we can leave the show learning about mental illness, then we know we have left with newly acquired knowledge of seeing the world from a different perspective. Dear Evan Hansen is [...]