Resurrected: Five addiction recovery tips from the original millennial

It isn’t out of reach to consider recovery from addiction as a sort of ‘rebirth’ or ‘resurrection’ of life within the man or woman challenged by substance abuse. No, we didn’t die. Some of us came gruesomely close – a lot closer than most acknowledge – as a result of dependence on chemicals human tissues don’t favor much.

Each Spring, Christians around the world commemorate the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth around 33 A.D. The man was executed in the Roman tradition of the time: Crucifixion. Christians believe Jesus rose from the dead three days later when the tomb was found empty. He then ascended into heaven 40 days after being put to death. By all historical accounts, he (He) really lived and really was put to a gruesome death.

Whether you fancy yourself to be a non-believer or just choose to believe something else, the Biblical story of Jesus’s resurrection carries a few lessons about the metaphoric resurrection addicts in recovery experience.

Don’t be afraid to come back

Jesus was slain. Martyred. The man’s body was nailed to a cross and pierced. The Romans at the time were a brutal cast of characters and this was their method of public infliction of pain for those who dared cross Rome, and creating stigma by terrorizing and shaming those who would ever think to run afoul of Caesar. Those crucified are nailed or roped to an elevated cross beam and left for dead. In reality, they died agonizing deaths from bleeding out, exhaustion, suffocation, exposure, or any combination of the four. The Romans did this for centuries. They got it from the Greeks: Alexander the Great humiliated his conquests with public crucifixions 300 years before Jesus lived.

When the Romans did it in Jerusalem it was because the Romans had the city within their empire. They lived there. Jesus came back to the same land where people KILLED him.

When we come back from our addictions, home awaits. Regardless of what transpired or who we hurt. Go back. You have a new life. Live it where you want.

Be humble

Look, nobody is going to build a shrine to any of us just because we got sober or got off the pipe. Recovery doesn’t work that way.

Jesus wasn’t revered and shrines weren’t built in his honor because he came back from the dead either. He embodied humility. Most martyrs throughout history are known for decent, humble lives of service, not for miracles. The lesson of Jesus life was simple: Although revered as the Son of God, he washed the feet of peasants and common folk. He helped others out of a willingness to do so, not for reward. Jesus saw a need and filled it without consideration of money or notoriety.

Be prepared to prove yourself

One great Biblical account of Jesus and his rising from the dead in the Christian New Testament is his encounter with one of his followers. His friend Thomas was notably absent when the resurrected Jesus first appeared to other followers. Thomas – throughout history known as Doubting Thomas – would not believe Jesus was for real unless he got to probe the crucifixion wounds. He needed proof.

There are people who will require proof from you of your sobriety or abstinence. Some people will require years of it. Some people will never be satisfied with your recovery no matter what evidence you present. Nobody says you have to prove them wrong. It’s not their lives you’re living, it is your new one. However, the worst possible scenario for your new life, is to prove the doubters right.

Even if you relapse, you’ve proven only that you have a chronic, relapsing, progressive, fatal disease. Go back to bullet point one. Face them another day.

Be visible

The main reason Jesus’s followers believed in the resurrection is that they saw Him alive after He was dead. Jesus hung around for 40 days after his come back. He presented Himself alive on a number of different occasions to His followers. This firsthand evidence is a powerful argument for the believers in Christ. It’s going to be a part of people believing in you once again once you’re done with your drug of choice.

Take your time in recovery. There isn’t a need to rush back out to every social event. However, the hard work of rebuilding your life means nothing if you don’t leave your living room.

In my third book, I wrote about becoming a PANonymous alcoholic: One who doesn’t hide the disease and is visible in recovery. It helps others to see that recovery is possible. And it helps reduce the ridiculous public stigma attached to addiction that all in its grip are forever hopeless degenerates.

Know when to leave

Jesus was visible for more than a month after dying. So isn’t it conceivable that He could’ve just gone back to what he was doing? Or stayed and lived a resurrected life indefinitely? Theologians will argue that because there is a huge worldwide following and an addiction recovery article mentioning him two millennia later, Jesus in fact lives today. Converting you to that mindset isn’t the point. The point is that Jesus knew when to leave.

You don’t need to show up for every event to which you’re invited. You never have to stay. Nobody has to participate in every argument brought to your doorstep. In fact, the greatest gift we learn from our walking away from a drug that once controlled us is that we can walk away. From anything.

Scott Stevens is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books.  Click Alcopocalypse for the author’s 2017 Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper. Image by Kevin Carden, used with permission.

Addiction recovery’s low, low admission price: Own your $#1+!

(originally posted to Addicted Minds)

Admission. Great noun. It means two related things when it comes to addiction recovery:  A) The right to enter, and B) a voluntary acknowledgment/concession of a fact or truth. There is no A) without B) in our family.

Caveat: Most normies – so called ‘normal’ people – have no clue how great we have it so they don’t bother with admission. Either definition.

Drug of choice doesn’t matter. Pills, weed, alcohol, meth, fill-in-the-blank. While active with a drug of choice addicts concede very few facts about their own condition. The reason, the drug alters the function of the same organ responsible for the voluntary acknowledgment of fact. The result, as expected, is the continued use of the same drug of choice until death. Sometimes it is the drug actually causing the death. Other times it just hastens the journey. Addiction is that way when it comes to choices. Addiction means lack of choices and you have exactly two: Admission. Or shorter life expectancy.

Owning your addiction begins to slam the door on the less desirable of the two choices.

Slam the door

You begin to admit other things on the path back to society once you’ve crossed addiction’s Rubicon by admitting your problem is your problem. “I did really crummy things when I drank. I’m sorry.” “I stole from you to get more because I am addicted to more. Let me make it right.”

Sounds quite 12-steppish (ninth, to be precise), so how about a history lesson. Stepping back to admit so you can move forward is much older. There’s a Latin phrase, ‘mea culpa.’ The literal translation from the Latin is ‘through my own fault.’ Yes, the Roman Catholics use it in their Mass, but don’t get your shorts in a knot over the AA connotation or the religious affiliation: Geoffrey Chaucer used it in Troilus and Criseyde, a poem, in 1374.  Six-hundred-plus years later, we just say, ‘My bad.’

In doing so an addict isn’t saying he or she is a bad person. Just flawed. (Guess what? Normies are flawed, too.) It’s a liberating moment. No longer does an addict blame his buddies or a crummy childhood or her despotic husband. He or she takes responsibility for his addiction being nobody else’s. We own our $#1+. We move on from that point. We become people in (or aspiring to) long-term recovery.

Own your $#1+. Admit it. Your admission gains admission to the prestigious and graciously welcoming recovery family. It beats the other choice. And you have only two.

Addicted Minds’ Editor-in-Chief, Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Get the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere you buy books. Image by Ivan Zamurovic, used with permission.

Alcohol: America’s elephant in the room

America's myopic view on alcohol, its unanimous drug of choice, unravels all efforts to make healthcare affordable. The view creates drug crises, like the opioid one the country is mired in. It shortens life expectancy, smothers productivity, and snuffs out lives.

The very problem originates with the last effort to rid the nation of alcohol harms: The failed American experiment of Prohibition. Once the country was back on the sauce and legit merchants replaced mobsters as the distributors, we gained a taxable commodity. Drunk on alcohol tax revenue and woozy from the Prohibition drama, no politician would throw his neck into the drug policy noose ever again when it comes to this drug. Laissez-faire defines our drug policy when it comes to alcohol.

The closest we came to reframing the view on the toxin was in the Lyndon Johnson administration. President Johnson declared the drug 'America's leading health and economic problem.' Then he went about talking to the paintings in the White House and was voted out. We didn't talk about this elephant in the room again until the U.S. Surgeon General's 2016 Report on Alcohol, Drugs and Health. This was the first time the office ever addressed the $250 billion in annual economic harm caused by alcohol. Not a hard thing to do when your party is getting voted out, but still a landmark moment in U.S. drug policy.

Changing the alcohol dialogue

Where society fears to tread is moving the dialogue beyond car wrecks and the disease of alcoholism. We know these are 'bad,' but generally, the alcohol business and our own experimentation tell us the drug is otherwise safe and it's capitol-F FUN. Reality – in the form of evidence-based science – has a funny way of changing that perspective.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) convinced America that alcohol-related car wrecks were going to be our legacy if we continued to pave our roads with the bodies of young motorists and pedestrians. And they were right. Their laudable movement recently reached its maximum potential, reducing alcohol-related road fatalities to 30 percent of all road fatalities. Eliminating the last 30 percent is possible with technology, but politically unacceptable. America loves alcohol. So we're stuck at around 10-11,000 alcohol-related traffic fatalities year in, year out.

There are 89,000 alcohol-related deaths every year. That's the elephant. Drinking and driving carves away on one in eight of those fatalities. Alcoholics die of cirrhosis, right? About 4,000 do. Yep, that's it. So we eliminate the alcoholics and the drunks behind the wheel and there are still more than 70,000 alcohol-related deaths every year because alcohol is 'safe in moderation.'

The numbers game

The numbers say otherwise. Twenty-to-forty percent of general-use hospital beds go to treating alcohol-related complications. Wounds heal more slowly under the influence. Blood pressure increases. Stroke risk doubles. Prediabetes throws blood levels out of whack. Alcohol causes heart disease. Alcohol causes cancer. Eight types to be precise. Drownings. Suicides. Household accidents. All of these consequences stem from even moderate use of the drug.

It's a toxin. Destructive to the point of altering DNA. And you're not alone for not hearing about that: Presently the alcohol industry directs the alcohol dialogue. They can get behind MADD because the product they make just got in the hands of all the wrong people. They can't very well go out and advertise that they are making a toxic drug with no health benefit. Nobody would ask the mom-in-law to come in and help resolve a marital dispute. So don't expect the industry creating the problem to highlight it.

Remember smoking? So glamorous. Some MadMen-era clown even professed smoking was healthy. Smoking used to be a numbers game. In 1964, 72 percent of adult men smoked. Profits tumbled in by the bale. The Surgeon General came out with a report on the health impact of tobacco smoke. Today, 72 percent of adult men don't smoke. What happened in between is that the big numbers of smoking related costs and deaths became more of a priority than tobacco profits. Tobacco companies even tried to dismiss their own data on the health hazards. 

They ran into a tide of education that turned Americans from dumb smoking sheep into informed consumers.

The takeaway here is that tobacco is still profitable today. And fewer people are killing themselves over its drug nicotine, but they still can choose to do so.

Starting from the start

The status quo with this drug has reached unsustainability. The $250 billion is half of U.S. military spending. It's the equivalent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the 40^th largest economy on the globe. The 89,000 deaths rank it third in preventable causes of death. The toxin, even in moderation, is clinically linked to more than 60 diseases. No alcoholic – and there are 20 million of them in the U.S. – ever became alcoholic without first taking a drink.

Reinventing the the alcohol dialogue begins before use. Would anyone take a swig of perfume or down a bottle of cologne? No. Not even the worst parent would model that for their kid. No TV commercial would tell them it's safe. No primary grade teacher would profess it to be ok so long as you didn't get behind the wheel on perfume or get hammered on it.

What's perfume got to do with it? The body breaks down alcohol by metabolizing first into acetaldehyde: A colorless flammable liquid used to manufacture... perfume. Acetaldehyde is too volatile to use straight-up in perfume or cologne so it is mixed with other ingredients in everything from cheap stinks like Hai Karate to whatever high-buck Euroscents the Kardashian clan pimps. Your body turns alcohol into the same rapid-evaporating fragrance carrier the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) lists as a group one carcinogen.

Get the picture? Your body can't not make acetaldehyde from alcohol. Alcohol intoxication just makes you do stupid stuff by lowering inhibitions, intelligence, and rational thought. Acetaldehyde. Damages. Tissue. It permanently alters DNA. You don't see that in a wine commercial, or many classrooms or doctor offices for that matter. When educating about alcohol, we need to get back to the basics on what it is we're drinking and point that out early and often.

Changing alcohol education solves several problems

Whether the approach to alcohol is laissez-faire, or just plain lazy, the vast and unwavering worship of the mind-altering, mood-altering elixir has become the proving ground for what we have in our treatment facilities today. Alcohol is a gateway drug, meaning people get their appetites for other drugs by experimenting with with this drug first. If, culture-wide, we're embracing a gateway drug as socially acceptable and 'safe,' we cannot realistically expect to keep any kid off drugs, especially other depressants like our current crisis-du-jour, opioids.

If we change the dialogue on this drug, do we cease creating more addicts or alcoholics-in-training faster than we create alcoholics-in-recovery? Nothing will stop a person who wants to use a drug from using that drug. Period. So we keep it legal, like tobacco… tax the hell out of it… and educate (or re-educate) America that what causes problems, is one.

Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Buy the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere books are sold. Stevens also heads up BlogTender LLC, a content marketing firm headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wis. Image by Luis Chumpitaz, used with permission.

Alcohol Awareness Month resources available at alcohologist website

The free Alcohol Awareness Month Alcopocalypse whitepaper is available for download at www.alcohologist.com. Paper copies for mailing to U.S. addresses are available for $1 each (includes postage) or $6 per 10 to a single address. 

Stevens's four books on alcohol and health are available on the website and everywhere books are sold. Of note for the 31st Alcohol Awareness month is the newest title, I can't see the forest with all these damn trees in the way.  His 2016 Alcohol Awareness Month educational DVD series, The A-Files: Alcohol A-Z is available on Amazon in a limited-stock re-release. In  2015, the author released the Alcohology app still available for Android devices.

Founded and sponsored by The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), Alcohol Awareness Month is recognized every April. It was established in 1987 to help reduce the stigma so often associated with alcoholism by encouraging communities to reach out to the American public each April with information about alcohol, alcoholism and recovery. Stevens points out the effort is great on informing the public about alcohol-related car wrecks and the disease of alcoholism, but "there is far more to this drug. It's a toxin and known carcinogen with no health benefit, for either gender, at any age, in any amount."


Addicted Minds’ Editor-in-Chief, Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Buy the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere books are sold. Stevens also heads up BlogTender LLC, a content marketing firm headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wis.

Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper foretells sea change for alcohol industry

A whitepaper called Alcopocalypse: Six signs the next 10 years for alcohol will look like the last 20 for tobacco is available for free download during Alcohol Awareness Month this April. The paper looks at how American opinion toward alcohol as a drug and the $250 billion it costs the economy each year signal a shifting future for the beverage alcohol business. “Don't worry,” says author Scott Stevens, “there isn't a second coming of Prohibition. Alcohol is going to remain a profitable industry the same way the tobacco industry remains solvent. The tide is turning however.”

April 2017's thirty-first observance of Alcohol Awareness Month is the first since the U.S. Surgeon General signaled a shift in alcohol policy. The Surgeon General's Nov. 2016 Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health was the first time the office took on the health impact of alcohol use in a manner similar to the way the same office took on tobacco smoke in 1964.

Stevens, an award-winning author of four alcohol/health best-sellers, says, “All alcohol use impacts health, healthcare costs, and the economy. Just like smoking does. With alcohol, it's no longer a dialogue exclusively concerning impaired driving or the disease of alcoholism. The dialogue on this drug is changing from what it does for the drinker, to what it does to the drinker.”

Immediately after the Surgeon General's “unprecedented” report Stevens released I can't see the forest with all these damn trees in the way: The health consequences of alcohol. Alcopocalypse also appears as an appendix in the book. “Alcohol use is a cost driver for the health system because more long-term health consequences from moderate drinking are coming to light… while more ‘benefits’ of 'responsible' drinking are being debunked.” The cost and the health impact are two of his six topics in Alcopocalypse. “I was born in 1967. Then, 72 percent of adult men smoked. Today, 72 percent don't, because America changed that dialogue following the Surgeon General's direction.”

Among the other 'signs' in the whitepaper is the prevalence of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASDs). They carry a lifetime cost of $2 million for each individual and FASDs are now more common in the U.S. than autism. “Autism isn't preventable. FASD is 100 percent preventable. People have been Madison-Avenued into a way of thinking that tells them this is a 'safe' drug. It's anything but safe, even in moderation, especially for the unborn.”

Stevens also notes data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that indicates 20-40 percent of hospital resources go to treating alcohol-related complications. “It's easy to see what causes the problem, is the problem. It's not just about alcoholism or drinking and driving. It's about taking a drug, a toxin and carcinogen in any amount. People routinely complain about healthcare costs and sagging productivity… over a beer or a shot. They’re not seeing the forest. Just the trees.”

The free whitepaper is available for download at the author's website www.alcohologist.com. An option to order printed copies is also available, as is ordering information for the four books from Stevens and his 2016 Alcohol Awareness Month educational DVD series, The A-Files: Alcohol A-Z. For 2015, the author released the Alcohology app still available on Android devices.

Stevens says “Alcopocalypse encourages informed decisions about using alcohol based on evidence-based science. Informed decisions don't come from advertising, observational studies and wishful thinking.”

Alcohol Awareness Month whitepaper foretells alcohol industry challenges news release on PRBuzz.

Addicted Minds’ Editor-in-Chief, Scott Stevens, is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Buy the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere books are sold. Stevens also heads up BlogTender LLC, a content marketing firm headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wis.

NEWS RELEASE: Upcoming Alcohol Awareness Month about more than alcoholism, drunk driving

Orignal post on PRBuzz.com

April 2017's thirty-first observance of Alcohol Awareness Month is the first since the U.S. Surgeon General signaled a shift in alcohol policy. The Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health marks the first time the office took on the health impact of alcohol use in a manner similar to the way the same office took on tobacco smoke in 1964. Award-winning alcohol and health writer, Scott Stevens, says, “All alcohol use impacts health, healthcare costs, and the economy. It's not just about impaired driving or the disease of alcoholism anymore. The dialogue on this drug is changing from what it does for the drinker, to what it does to the drinker.”

Stevens released I can't see the forest with all these damn trees in the way: The health consequences of alcohol December 2, immediately after the Surgeon General's “unprecedented” report. “Alcohol use is a cost driver for the health system because more long-term health consequences from moderate drinking are coming to light… while more ‘benefits’ of 'responsible' drinking are being debunked,” Stevens says. “I’ve championed this theme since my first book in 2010 and in each of the two books that followed.”

Among the scientific findings on alcohol use:

The carcinogen alcohol causes eight types of cancer. It is the only dietary link to increased breast cancer risk and the second-leading cause of oral cancers.

...Stroke risk doubles immediately on a single drink and remains elevated two hours later.

...Heart disease is not prevented by alcohol: It is caused by and worsened by alcohol use.

...Plus 60 more pages on the evidence-based health fallout from so-called moderate use.

Twenty-to-forty percent of hospital resources go to treating alcohol-related complications according to the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence, Inc. (NCADD). The economy takes a $250 billion annual hit from alcohol costs, mostly lost productivity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Stevens adds, “It's easy to see what causes the problems, is the problem. Alcohol's consequences aren't just for hard drinkers and certainly aren't limited to alcoholism or drinking and driving.This is a drug, a toxin, and a carcinogen in any amount. People routinely complain about healthcare costs and sagging productivity… over a beer or a shot. They’re not seeing the forest. Just the trees.”

The book is available at Amazon, other online and bricks-and-mortar booksellers, and the author's website www.alcohologist.com. It is the second release by the author in the past year, preceded by an educational DVD series, The A-Files: Alcohol A-Z.

Each of Stevens's three books includes a chapter on the health fallout of drinking alcohol. “It's not about discouraging drinking, except for the alcoholic. It's about making informed decisions about using alcohol based on evidence-based science. Informed decisions don't come from observational studies and wishful thinking.”

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About the Author

The noted journalist on alcoholism is a founding influencer of the world's largest medical portal, HealthTap.com. His books on the disease include 2010's What the Early Worm Gets, 2012's Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud, which earned finalist honors in the Indie Book Awards and USA Best Books Awards in 2013, and Adding Fire to the Fuel, a 2015 USA Best Books Awards Finalist and 2016 Book Excellence Award winner. He also created the Alcohology mobile app.

An addiction is anything you have to hide

(Originally posted on AddictedMinds.com)

A many-faceted challenge for families, interventionists, and other addiction pros alike is defining an addiction. We have textbook definitions. We have tests. But when it comes down to addressing the addiction with an addict in denial that he or she has one, we are consistently challenged with breaking down denial.
Signaling the problem, we turn to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). The latest version is October 2016’s DSM-5. Its 11-part impersonal analysis for any substance use disorder:

1. Taking the substance in larger amounts or for longer than the you meant to
2. Wanting to cut down or stop using the substance but not managing to
3. Spending a lot of time getting, using, or recovering from use of the substance
4. Cravings and urges to use the substance
5. Not managing to do what you should at work, home or school, because of substance use
6. Continuing to use, even when it causes problems in relationships
7. Giving up important social, occupational or recreational activities because of substance use
8. Using substances again and again, even when it puts the you in danger
9. Continuing use, even when you know you have a physical or psychological problem that could have been caused or made worse by the substance
10. Needing more of the substance to get the effect you want (tolerance)
11. Development of withdrawal symptoms, which can be relieved by taking more of the substance.

Signs, signs, everywhere signs

The DSM 5 allows clinicians to specify how severe the addiction is, depending on how many of the 11 signs are present. Two or three symptoms indicate a mild substance use disorder, four or five symptoms indicate a moderate substance use disorder, and six or more symptoms indicate a severe substance use disorder.

BOOM! That was easy.

Now tell the addict he or she is one and needs help. The 947 pages of the American Psychiatric Association’s ‘bible’ do little for that discussion. Assume very few people under the influence of a mind-altering drug have the capacity to use that same mind to analyze (honestly) the symptoms.

A simple pair of personal questions gets at the a-ha moment the impersonal DSM can’t get at eyeball-to-eyeball:
Are you hiding your use? Why?

The answers are C-R-I-T-I-C-A-L to making change. You can get at any of those 11 DSM criteria with those two questions. We hide use because we don’t want anyone to see. Or judge. Or evaluate us on a DSM scale. We don’t want them to see because we don’t want to hear that it’s “wrong” or “shameful” or fill-in-the-blank. Yet, family sees. Counselors see. The addict needs that vision and it comes from that introspection. And very few – if any – are ever asked directly what they are hiding, and why are they hiding it.

Scott Stevens is the author of four alcohol books including the December 2016 release, I Can’t See The Forest With All These Damn Trees In The Way: The Health Consequences of Alcohol. Buy the new BookLocker title now on Amazon (viewbook.at/prehab), alcohologist.com, and everywhere books are sold. Stevens also heads up BlogTender LLC, a content marketing firm headquartered in Lake Geneva, Wis.

Photo by Vasilisa Karpova, used with permission.

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: ZERO Health Benefit

(See online video and article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' ran throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. The final segment, Episode Z, elaborates on the fact there are zero documented, evidence-based health benefits tied to the consumption of alcohol. Since 2010, there have been numerous articles on alcohologist.com challenging the junk science people were willing to believe regarding health benefits related to alcohol use.

There are zero health benefits. Not from wine, not from moderate drinking. There is no evidence that drinking a toxin will make you prettier, healthier, funnier, smarter, immune to disease, improve your sex life or extend your years on the planet. Even the notion that alcohol improves quality of life isn't realistic. Four things to consider when reading a study promoting alcohol.

1) Many of the studies compared ‘moderate’ drinkers with ‘current’ abstainers. These abstainers could be people who had, for example, stopped drinking alcohol because of poor health, the disease of alcoholism, legal issues or common sense. When a 2016 study from the University of Victoria adjusted for these sorts of abstainer biases, only 13 of the 87 studies didn’t bias the abstainer comparison group, and none of these 13 showed any health benefit associated with moderate alcohol consumption anyway.

2.) In 2013, the journal Addiction ran a critical analysis of observational studies vs. evidence-based ones, concluding, “For almost all the diseases, we do not know of any plausible biological mechanism explaining a preventive role for alcohol. Alcohol's possible ability to prevent diseases should probably not be considered as an established fact. The absence of definite knowledge leaves plenty of room for wishful thinking, which we observe frequently on this topic.”

3.) Common sense does not support the notion that a drug that causes a disease can also help prevent the same disease. Alcohol increases blood pressure in the lab and is claimed to protect the heart in pro-alcohol studies. Alcohol use is a documented carcinogen, but pro-alcohol studies claim some prophylactic effect. Alcohol use visibly shrinks the brain in MRIs and cadaver studies, but pro-alcohol studies claim it helps stave off dementia.

Fourth, and not the least, is to ask 'does this study pass the smell test?' What would cause a reputable physician or scientist to expend the time and resources – and risk reputation – to look for a health benefit of consuming a toxin and known carcinogen? Health or otherwise, what causes problems, is one.
The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Younger Strokes

(See the video and online article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode Y looks at strokes, especially those at younger ages than anticipated. Strokes, and strokes at earlier ages, have been linked to alcohol misuse in a study by the University of California at San Francisco. "When a young person has a stroke, it is probably much more likely that the cause of their stroke is something other than traditional risk factors," according to one of the lead researchers in the 2013 study reported in the journal Stroke.

The UCSF researchers identified long-term changes in the heart as a result of alcohol abuse or the disease of alcoholism may put younger users at higher-than-average risk earlier in life.

Stroke disables more people in the United States than breast cancer. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), every year close to a million people have a stroke – either ischemic or hemorrhagic. A study of 2007 data found that almost five percent of people who had a stroke that year were between ages 18 and 44.

"Substance abuse is common in young adults experiencing a stroke,” according to the research team. "Patients aged younger than 55 years who experience a stroke should be routinely screened and counseled regarding substance abuse. One in five of strokes involves drinking.”

The study does not offer evidence that patients' drug or alcohol use directly caused their strokes. It's possible, for example, that people who drink also see their doctors less often.

A separate study in the journal Stroke in Jan. 2015 found that people who average more than two drinks a day have a 34 percent higher risk of stroke compared to those whose daily average amounts to less than half a drink. Midlife heavy drinkers were likely to have a stroke five years earlier in life, regardless of genetic and lifestyle factors. The stroke risk in those two studies, of course, is long term, but there's immediate danger as well. According to a 2010 Canadian study, one drink instantly doubles stroke risk. Two hours following that drink, the stroke risk remains 1.6 times higher than someone who isn't drinking. When it comes to stroke risk, drinking is like walking out into the road, waiting for the truck to hit.

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: X and Y Chromosomes

(see video and online article)

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode X is on the X and Y Chromosome (gender) differences in the way we handle alcohol. If you start from the perspective that alcohol damages tissues regardless of gender, you're on the right track. Drinking over the long term is more likely to damage a woman’s health than a man’s, even if the woman has been drinking less alcohol or for a shorter length of time. First and foremost, women have a greater concern for breast cancer. Alcohol is the only documented dietary connection to an increased breast cancer risk.

Second, in 2011, the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor studied alcohol, sleep and genders. According to the lab readings, compared to men, the women slept nearly 20 minutes less and awoke more often for longer periods when they drank. Sleep is underrated in its regenerative value and how it sets up overall health.

Third, women generally are smaller, so the same amount of alcohol will be more impairing – and more damaging. But even if a man and woman are the same weight, the woman is at greater risk because they have less of the enzyme that helps break down alcohol in the body. Fourth, pound for pound, women have less water in their bodies and water is what dilutes alcohol in the bloodstream. Men are 61 percent water, women 52 percent. And that also means alcohol metabolizes slower in women, lingering longer to do more damage. This means, fifth, women are more likely than men to develop alcoholic hepatitis or die from cirrhosis, sixth, that women are more vulnerable than men to alcohol-induced brain damage, and seventh, women are more susceptible to alcohol-related heart disease. Eighth, drinking increases a woman’s risk of becoming a victim of violence and sexual assault. Lastly, there are obvious risks to an unborn child from drinking.

Drinking and drinking problems have increased in every generation of women born after World War II, according to Columbia University. Women in their early 20s are most at risk, but affluent, fit women over 50 may be particularly prone to heavy drinking, according to a 2015 study published in the medical journal BMJ. In one, single health statement, men and women are created exactly equal: Sobriety is better to have than to lack.

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles
Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com 

The A-Files, Alcohol A-Z for Alcohol Awareness Month: Weight Control

Twenty-six episodes of 'The A-Files' air throughout Alcohol Awareness Month on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Alcohologist.com and AddictedMinds.com, among other web and social media sites. Episode W looks at weight control, fat loss and the futility of dieting while drinking.

A third of men and nearly one in five women drank on a daily basis. Twenty percent of men and eight percent of women consumed more than 300 calories in alcohol per day. That's from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a study looking not at alcoholism, but a separate American pandemic, obesity. Pilsener or lager beer usually comes in at around 148 calories in 12 ounces. Drinking light beer, offers about a third fewer. Dry wine contains fewer calories than sweet: 106 calories for five ounces of dry wine and champagnes… double it for sweeter wines. If you drink a glass of wine before dinner, another glass with dinner and one for dessert, that’s more than 400 calories in addition to the meal. Liquor calories depend on the proof for whiskey, tequila, gin, rum and vodka. Eighty proof contains 97 calories per shot. One hundred proof has 124 calories. How you mix the hard liquors will add calories faster. A whiskey sour will have 122 calories and a gin and tonic has 171 calories, a pina colada, 262 calories, and a large margarita can have as many as 400 calories.

The body uses as fuel macronutrients stored from the things you eat. Macronutrients are carbohydrates, fat and protein. Pure alcohol has none of those. It's calorie dense, at seven calories per gram but has no nutrient value. The macronutrients in alcoholic beverages come from what carries the alcohol or the mixer used. These carbs do not get burned and no stored body fat is going to get burned until the body first gets rid of the toxin, alcohol.

Alcohol is the first fuel to get burned in other words. Fat burning is postponed for alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike because fat won't burn when there's alcohol in the body.
Adele. Zack Galifinakis. Megan Fox. Three celebrities who in recent months dropped weight, all three crediting a zero-alcohol diet for the pounds lost. Doesn't matter if they're alcoholic or not, and I would suppose not. They wanted to look and feel better. And who doesn't?

The entire 26 episode HD series is available on disc, along with fact sheets, for helping professions. See the preorder special at tr.im/AFiles

Visit alcohologist.com for a replay of CBS Sports' Power Up Your Health featuring Scott Stevens.  Another interview is on Alcohol Awareness.  Syndicated radio program Savvy Central Radio did this interview, too. Lucy Pireel's "All That's Written" included a feature called "When alcohol doesn't work for you anymore."  Details on the third literary award for Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud and the first for Adding Fire to the Fuel also can be found on www.alcohologist.com. Download the FREE Alcohology app in the Google PlayStore today. Stevens also is the public relations officer with AddictedMinds.com