Addiction not character flaw, Judy Collins says
Judy Collins says just saying "no" is just not that easy.
The folk singer says the famous anti-drug campaign wrongly looks at drug and alcohol addiction as a character flaw. "It assumes that those who are locked up because of it just didn't have the willpower to carry out their plan for the evening," Collins told the Tennessean in an interview published Sunday.
Did she often drink alone? Check. Did she often have several drinks in quick succession? Check. Did she often use alcohol as an escape from her troubles?
DEAR DR. WOLKOFF:
I am a 43-year-old alcoholic man. I drank every day for 24 years. Toward the end, my eyes were always yellow and my hands shook. I had to quit my job.
My parents and one brother are alcoholics, too, and two of my mother's three brothers died from complications of alcoholism.
I was brought up in an environment of poverty and fear in which my father would beat up my mother. Somehow, though, I finished university and received my teaching certificate.
Scientists edge toward finding genes linked to alcoholism
BY PAT RICH
The closer science comes to unravelling the genetic aspects of alcoholism, the more emphasis is being placed on the importance of environmental factors and individuals' ability to avoid their genetic destiny.
That was one of the main messages from a session on the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) at the American Society of Addiction Medicine annual meeting in San Diego this April. COGA was launched seven years ago by the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).
Three treatments for alcoholism equally effective, researchers say
A groundbreaking study of alcoholism treatment has reached the surprising conclusion that all three leading behavioral approaches work equally well for a wide variety of patients, regardless of sex, psychological condition, motivation or the extent of their drinking problem.
The findings undermine long-held beliefs about alcoholism. Treatment professionals have long thought that each of the three therapies was most effective on patients who showed certain traits.
