Substance use disorders occur when an individual continues using the substance, whether it’s alcohol, cocaine, prescription pain pills or other drugs, despite significant substance-related problems. A person who has a moderate or severe substance use disorder may put substance use before family, relationships and career. He or she will continue to drink or use drugs, […]
Physicians have long recognized that different types of drugs affect people differently. Nonetheless, drugs may be categorized or classified according to certain shared symptomatologies or effects. The DRE categorization process is premised on these long-standing, medically accepted facts. DREs classify drugs in one of seven categories: central nervous system (CNS) depressants, CNS stimulants, hallucinogens, dissociative […]
Introduction Alcohol and drug abuse is an equal opportunity affliction. As a universal phenomenon, the abuse of mood-altering substances manifests multiple and related problems across cultures, ages, gender, races, and religions. Although the thread of addiction is traceable throughout the history of humankind, progress toward identification of a root cause continues to elude the scientific […]
Overview Drug addiction, also called substance use disorder, is a disease that affects a person’s brain and behavior and leads to an inability to control the use of a legal or illegal drug or medicine. Substances such as alcohol, marijuana and nicotine also are considered drugs. When you’re addicted, you may continue using the drug […]
Overview Alcohol use disorder is a pattern of alcohol use that involves problems controlling your drinking, being preoccupied with alcohol or continuing to use alcohol even when it causes problems. This disorder also involves having to drink more to get the same effect or having withdrawal symptoms when you rapidly decrease or stop drinking. Alcohol […]
Recent advances in psychosocial research and neurosciences have provided new avenues for prevention of substance abuse at the individual and community level. A series of risk and protective factors affecting the likelihood of using and abusing substances have been identified. The scope of prevention has been broadened, allowing the prescription of different interventions for individuals […]
Part 1: Statistics Alcohol Use Disorder: Adults Ages 18 and Older According to the 2023 NSDUH, 28.1 million adults ages 18 and older (10.9% in this age group) had AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder) in the past year. This includes: 16.6 million men ages 18 and older (13.2% in this age group) 11.5 million women ages […]
