Alcohol Abuse

© Photo Credit: Mugley

The FDA has served spiked energy drinks makers notice – prove within 30 days that adding caffeine to alcoholic drinks isn’t harmful – or we’ll shut you down.

• Banned Beverage: Alcoholic Energy Drink to Fuel Cars
• Alcoholic Energy Drinks: Michigan Bans the Sale of Alcoholic Energy Drinks
• Alcoholic Energy Drinks: Dangerous Marketing of Alcoholic Energy Drinks

© Photo Credit: anitacanita

HIV positive patients that drink alcohol are less likely to take their medications as directed, and as alcohol consumption goes up, medication regimen adherence goes down.

• HIV: Needle Exchanges Reduce HIV Rates
• Heroin Addiction: African Heroin Addicts Sharing Blood
• Crack Smokers Face Hugely Increased Risk of HIV

© Photo Credit: Yogma

With 21 students now infected, students at Rensselaer Polytechnic in New York State have been asked to stop playing the drinking game ‘beer pong’, which officials suspect may have spread the virus.

• Depression: Unrealized Academic Goals Don't Cause Depression
• UK Gov. Says Exercise Doesn’t Compensate for Binge Drinking
• Australian Police Limit Racing Fans to a Scant 24 Cans of Beer per Day

© Photo Credit: Native American Seals/Logos

Provincial health advisor, Dr. Evan Adams, calls for intervention from within the First Nations community.

• Incarceration: Calgary Police Chief Calls for Safe Jails for Those with Addiction and Mental Ilness
• Addiction: Native Canadians Offered Addiction Treatment or Eviction!
• BC Top Court Says Insite Safe Injection Clinic Can Stay Open

© Photo Credit: A Tai.

People who came of age in states with a drinking age of 18 are far more likely to have current day problems with alcohol and drug addiction than people who grew up in states that enforced a legal minimum drinking age of 21.

• Americans with Disabilities Act: Trucking Company Sued for Firing Alcoholic
• Anti-Smoking: In Iceland - Prescription Only Cigarettes?
• Sentencing: New Crack Laws: 12,000 Released Early

© Photo Credit: Dan Queiroz

Alcohol reduces the activity of a protein necessary for launching defensive immune system cytokines, leaving bingers at an increased risk of infection for up to 24 hours after heavy drinking.

© Photo Credit: Mark Sebastian

College students who met the criteria for harmful drinking behaviors drank 17% less one month after participating in an easy web based alcohol intervention.

• 500% Increase in Student Mental Illness over Last 70 Years
• Urine Tests for Smart Drugs before University Exams – Coming Soon?
• Too Much Virtual Play May Affect Real World Performance

© Photo Credit: Mariman

American colleges that dealt with problem drinking in 1993 had equally problematic drinking in 2005.

© Photo Credit: Loving Earth

Duke University researchers say that baby boomers and those 65+ are binge drinking in high numbers.

• Survey Reveals That Boredom Drives British Teens to Drink

© Photo by Rich Lem

According to the latest findings by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) 12% of binge drinkers admit to driving after their last binge drinking session. They say that more than half of these people got drunk at a bar or a restaurant and that by enforcing existing laws that limit alcohol service amounts, the numbers of drunk drivers on the roads could fall substantially.

© Photo Credit: Seanmcgrath

Chronic heavy drinking can cause brain damage in regions of the brain needed for emotional processing, leaving alcoholics in recovery less able to interpret the emotions displayed in facial expressions.

• Ecstasy: Ecstasy Linked to Brain Changes
• Heavy and Long-Term Marijuana Use Causes Brain Shrinkage
• Heavy and Long-Term Marijuana Use Causes Brain Shrinkage

© Photo Credit: Wakalani

Canadian researchers prove that heavy drinking increases your risk of liver and esophageal cancer by 700% and substantially increases your risks of stomach, colon, prostate and lung cancer.

• Oral Cancer up 25% in UK; Experts Blame Heavier Drinking
• Researchers Find a Genetic Link to Nicotine Addiction - and Lung Cancer

© Photo Credit: Helgasms

College students who drink heavily often wrongly believe that their peers drink equivalently, but when heavy drinking college students receive accurate information about the quantity consumed by peers; they reduce their own drinking.

• At College Bars - The Cheaper the Drinks the Higher the Average BAC
• Depression Doubles the Odds of Dropping Out of College: Depression Doubles the Odds of Dropping Out of College

© Photo Credit: Blind Grasshopper

Alcohol’s influence on early death has grown since the year 2000, attributable largely to an increase in drinking by women, and overall increases in developing countries such as India and China.

• Drug Use: 2009 Drug Use Increased Dramatically
• 50% of Jailed Scots Were Drunk While Committing Their Crime
• People Prescribed High Doses of Opiates are 9 Times More Likely to OD

© Photo Credit: Tambako The Jaguar

Despite research over the past number of years that has produced a greater understanding of the kinds of interventions that reduce excessive drinking on college campuses, the fatality and binge drinking rates continue to rise.