Opiate Addiction & Substance Abuse Articles

Dealing with Acute and Chronic Pain While on Methadone
In addition to providing methadone to help people break their substance abuse addictions, methadone maintenance clinics serve a great many people who live with chronic or acute pain. Methadone, however, will not provide pain relief to those who take it for addiction treatment — these people need additional forms of analgesia.

Rapid Detox - Rapid Opiate Detox - What is it?
Also referred to as "ultra rapid opiate detox," rapid detox is generally conducted in a hospital setting and under general anesthesia for treating opiate based substances and addictions such as heroin, vicodin, methadone, or any prescribed narcotic pain killers.

What Effects Do Anabolic Steroids Have On Behavior?
In addition to out-of-control aggression, anabolic steroids have been reported also to cause other behavioral effects, including euphoria, increased energy, sexual arousal, mood swings, distractibility, forgetfulness, and confusion.

Binge Drinking: Too Often a Deadly "Game"
In recent national surveys about a third of high school seniors and 42 percent of college students reported at least one occasion of binge drinking within the previous 2 weeks. Alcohol poisoning – a severe and potentially fatal physical reaction to an alcohol overdose – is the most serious consequence of binge drinking.

Smoking and Pregnancy: What Are the Risks?
The adverse effects of smoking may occur in every trimester of pregnancy; they range from spontaneous abortions in the first trimester to increased premature delivery rates and decreased birth weights in the final trimester. The decreased birth weights seen in infants of mothers who smoke reflects a dose-dependent relationship: the more the woman smokes during pregnancy, the greater the reduction of infant birth weight.

Bingeing and Boredom
Western states like Wyoming, Montana and North and South Dakota have binge-drinking levels far higher than the national average, and local experts say that boredom plays a huge role in the problem, the New York Times reported Sept. 2.

Nicotine Withdrawal Starts Within Minutes of Smoking
According to researchers, nicotine withdrawal symptoms begin just 30 minutes after a smoker takes his last cigarette.

PTSD Can Lead to a More Severe Course and Worse Outcomes When Coupled With Substance Abuse
The first multi-center study of PTSD among individuals seeking treatment for an SUD has found a greater prevalence of PTSD among those who were drug- rather than alcohol-dependent, and that having PTSD was associated with a more severe course and worse outcome for an SUD.

Screening For Alcohol Abuse and Alcohol-Related Problems in College Populations
New-found independence can sometimes be dangerous: Alcohol use and abuse among college students is a serious cause for concern. Many students are under the legal drinking age and many engage in heavy episodic, or binge, drinking. There are a variety of simple screening methods that can help identify those students at greatest risk for alcohol problems so that preventative steps can be taken before it's too late.

Suicide Tied to Alcohol Intake
The more alcohol an individual drinks, the more the risk of suicide grows, according to a researcher at Canada's Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH).