ADDICTION ON LINE

UK Jobseekers who reject help for alcohol and drug addiction face benefits cut

2012-05-23T01:19:00.001+01:00

Unemployed people suspected of suffering from alcoholism or drug addiction will have their benefits cut if they refuse treatment for their condition, the work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, will signal on Wednesday. In a sign of the government's new benefits regime, which lies at the heart of Duncan Smith's cost-cutting welfare changes, staff in Jobcentre Plus offices will be encouraged to cut the jobseeker's allowance of claimants who reject treatment for addiction. The new rules will come into place in October 2013 when the universal credit, which is designed to wrap benefits into one payment, is introduced. A new claimant contract lies at the heart of the universal credit reforms. Claimants will have to sign a contract in which they agree to look for work in exchange for an undertaking from the government to support them while they do so. Government sources said the contract would allow Jobcentre Plus staff to say that a suspected addict is in breach of their commitments if they refuse help for alcoholism or drug addiction. Duncan Smith will give a flavour of the new rules when he addresses an event in parliament organised by Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). He will say: "The outdated benefits system fails to get people off drugs and put their lives on track. We have started changing how addicts are supported, but we must go further to actively take on the devastation that drugs and alcohol can cause. "Under universal credit we want to do more to encourage and support claimants into rehabilitation for addiction and starting them on the road to recovery and eventually work. Getting people into work and encouraging independence is our ultimate goal. Universal credit will put people on a journey towards a sustainable recovery so they are better placed to look for work in future and we will be outlining our plans shortly." It is understood that the work and pensions secretary will not make a formal announcement on Wednesday of the powers that will be handed to Jobcentre Plus staff. Duncan Smith wants to use the event to focus on what he regards as the positive work AA does in helping to treat alcoholism. A government source said: "Iain wants to focus on the brilliant work Alcoholics Anonymous does in changing people's lives. He really wants to encourage people who have drink problems to go to AA for treatment. It will transform their lives and will help them into work." The source said Duncan Smith believes it is right to give jobcentre staff powers to cut benefits if an addict refuses treatment because they can detect signs of trouble. The source said: "The universal credit will allow staff in Jobcentre Plus offices to say: this person has been unemployed for some time. The staff know if people are addicted to alcohol. They know the people they are dealing with. "But we want this to be positive and to be about signposting people to superb organisations that can help them. This is about changing their lives. It is very important to support addicts into the workplace." But if claimants refuse they will have their benefits docked. "There will be sanctions," the source said, citing cuts to the jobseeker's allowance as an example. Ministers believe that one indicator Jobcentre Plus staff can use to see whether a claimant is an addict is the amount of times they apply for a crisis loan. "If you are applying for that up to 10 times a year then that is a sign of a chaotic life," one source said. Analysis by the Department of Work and Pensions shows that almost 40,000 people claim incapacity benefit with alcoholism declared as their "primary diagnosis". Of these, 13,500 have been claiming for a decade or more. There are about 160,000 "dependent drinkers" in England who receive one or more of the main benefits. There are 1m violent crimes a year that are related to alcoholism and 1.2m admissions to hospitals a year related to alcoholism. Universal credit is the most important element of Duncan Smith's welfare reforms, developed during his years in opposition through his Centre for Social Justice, which is designed to achieve his central goal of encouraging people into work. It will integrate tax credits and out-of-work benefits into one payment, with the aim of smoothing the transition to work. Labour has given the universal credit a cautious welcome, though it has taken issue with the scale of benefit cuts. Lord Low of Dalston, the vice-president of the Royal National Institute of Blind People who sits as a crossbencher, told peers this year: "Though it has some very sensible and progressive things at its core, in the shape of the universal credit, nevertheless it goes too far to most people's consciences in the way in which it takes vital support away from some of the most needy in our society."

What cannabis actually does to your brain

2012-04-21T00:30:00.001+01:00

Archaeologists recently found a 2,700-year-old pot stash, so we know humans have been smoking weed for thousands of years. But it was only about 20 years ago that neuroscientists began to understand how it affects our brains.

Scientists have known for a while that the active ingredient in cannabis was a chemical called delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC for short. Ingesting or smoking THC has a wide range of effects, from the psychoactive "getting high" to the physiological relief of pain and swelling. It also acts as both a stimulant and depressant. How could one substance do all that?

Meet the cannabinoid receptor

In the 1980s and 90s, researchers identified cannabinoid receptors, long, ropy proteins that weave themselves into the surfaces of our cells and process THC. They also process other chemicals, many of them naturally occurring in our bodies. Once we'd discovered these receptors, we knew exactly where THC was being processed in our bodies and brains, as well as what physical systems it was affecting. Scattered throughout the body, cannabinoid receptors come in two varieties, called CB1 and CB2 - most of your CB1 receptors are in your brain, and are responsible for that "high" feeling when you smoke pot. CB2 receptors, often associated with the immune system, are found all over the body. THC interacts with both, which is why the drug gives you the giggles and also (when interacting with the immune system) reduces swelling and pain.

Cannabinoid receptors evolved in sea squirts about 500 million years ago; humans and many other creatures inherited ours from a distant ancestor we share with these simple sea creatures. THC binds to receptors in animals as well as humans, with similar effects.

Tasty, tasty, tasty

Cannabis notoriously makes people hungry - even cancer patients who had lost all desire to eat.One study showed that cancer patients who thought food smelled and tasted awful suddenly regained an ability to appreciate food odors after ingesting a THC compound. There are CB1 receptors in your hypothalamus, a part of your brain known to regulate appetite, and your body's own cannabinoids usually send the "I'm hungry" message to them. But when you ingest THC, you artificially boost the amount of cannabinoids sending that message to your hypothalamus, which is why you get the munchies.

Understanding this process has actually led to a new body of research into safe diet drugs that would block those cannabinoid receptors. That way, your hypothalamus wouldn't receive signals from your body telling it to eat, and would reduce hunger cravings in dieters.

What you're forgetting

What's happening in your brain when smoking pot makes you forget what you're saying in the middle of saying it? According to the book Marijuana and Medicine (National Academies Press):

One of the primary effects of marijuana in humans is disruption of short-term memory. That is consistent with the abundance of CB1 receptors in the hippocampus, the brain region most closely associated with memory. The effects of THC resemble a temporary hippocampal lesion.

That's right - smoking a joint creates the effect of temporary brain damage.

What happens is that THC shuts down a lot of the normal neuroprocessing that goes on in your hippocampus, slowing down the memory process. So memories while stoned are often jumpy, as if parts are missing. That's because parts literally are missing: Basically you are saving a lot less information to your memory. It's not that you've quickly forgotten what's happened. You never remembered it at all.

A bit of the old timey wimey

Cannabis also distorts your sense of time. THC affects your brain's dopamine system, creating a stimulant effect. People who are stoned often report feeling excited, anxious, or energetic as a result. Like other stimulants, this affects people's sense of time. Things seem to pass quickly because the brain's clock is sped up. At the same time, as we discussed earlier (if you can remember), the drug slows down your ability to remember things. That's because it interferes with the brain's acetylcholine system, which is part of what helps you store those memories in your hippocampus. You can see that system's pathway through the brain in red in the illustration at left.

In an article io9 published last year about the neuroscience of time, we noted:

The interesting thing about smoking pot is that marijuana is one of those rare drugs that seems to interact with both the dopamine and the acetylcholine system, speeding up the former and slowing down the latter. That's why when you get stoned, your heart races but your memory sucks.

It's almost as if time is speeding up and slowing down at the same time.

Addiction and medicine

Some experts call cannabis a public health menace that's addictive and destroys lives by robbing people of ambition. Other experts call it a cure for everything from insomnia to glaucoma, and advocate its use as a medicine. The former want it to be illegal; the latter want it prescribed by doctors. Still other groups think it should be treated like other intoxicants such as alcohol and coffee - bad if you become dependent on it, but useful and just plain fun in other situations.

What's the truth? Scientists have proven that cannabis does have medical usefulness, and the more we learn the more intriguing these discoveries become. Since the early 1980s, medical researchers have published about how cannabis relieves pressure in the eye, thus easing the symptoms of glaucoma, a disease that causes blindness. THC is also "neuroprotective," meaning in essence that it prevents brain damage. Some studies have suggested that cannabis could mitigate the effects of Alzheimer's for this reason.

At the same time, we know that THC interferes with memory, and it's still uncertain what kinds of long-term effects the drug could have on memory functioning. No one has been able to prove definitively that it does or does not erode memory strength over time. Obviously, smoking it could cause lung damage. And, like the legal intoxicant alcohol, cannabis can become addictive.

Should cannabis be illegal, while alcohol flows? Unfortunately that's not the kind of question that science can answer. Let's leave the moral questions to courts, policymakers and shamans. I'll be off to the side, smoking a joint, thinking about my acetylcholine system and the many uses of the hippocampus.

Surf Air: Can an all-you-can-fly airline possibly work?

2012-04-14T07:28:00.001+01:00

SURF AIR, a Californian start-up, has a novel business model: for a monthly fee you can fly with the airline as much as you want. Is buffet-style air travel the wave of the future? JetBlue and Sun Country Airlines have both already tried offering all-you-can-fly passes, but so far no carrier has built its business model exclusively on a buffet plan. The idea isn't bad, but some scepticism is warranted. At $790 a month, Surf Air's flying plan will probably only appeal to business travellers who often go to the same places and rich Californians in long-distance relationships. Will that customer base allow Surf Air to make a profit? Maybe: 20m frequent flyers jetted between San Francisco and Los Angeles in 2011, according to the company's numbers. The airline plans to launch with service between Palo Alto, Monterey, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, but it still needs to secure regulatory approval, according to a company press release. Frequent flyers make up a huge portion of the business-traveller population, and almost every airline relies on business travellers to get (and stay) in the black. There is surely some group of private-jet-sharing business travellers who might be attracted to an all-you-can-jet airline as a cheaper alternative. A lot will depend on how many flights and how much convenience Surf Air can offer, and how quickly it can expand service. The company's promises certainly seem attractive: [Surf Air will offer] its members 30-second booking and cancellations, travel to and from uncongested regional airports, and an easy arrive-and-fly process with no hassle, no lines and no extra fees. It's easy to make promises, though. It's much harder to run a profitable airline. As Gulliver often notes, the American airline sector overall has never really made any money—in fact, total earnings over the entire history of the industry are minus $33 billion. That, of course, suggests that existing airlines might be doing it wrong. Maybe all-you-can-fly really is the way to go. It's at least worth a shot. I'll be eager to see what people think of the final product—assuming regulators give the go-ahead.

Worrying is good for you and reflects higher IQ

2012-04-14T07:10:00.001+01:00

It evolved in humans along with intelligence to make them more adept at avoiding danger. A study of 42 people found the worst sufferers of a common anxiety disorder had a higher IQ than those whose symptoms were less severe. Scientists say their findings published in Frontiers in Evolutionary Neuroscience, suggest worrying has developed as a beneficial trait. Psychiatrist Professor Jeremy Coplan, of SUNY Downstate Medical Centre in New York, and colleagues found high intelligence and worry are linked with brain activity measured by the depletion of the nutrient choline in the white matter of the brain. He said: "While excessive worry is generally seen as a negative trait and high intelligence as a positive one, worry may cause our species to avoid dangerous situations, regardless of how remote a possibility they may be. "In essence, worry may make people 'take no chances,' and such people may have higher survival rates. Thus, like intelligence, worry may confer a benefit upon the species." The researchers made the discovery by monitoring activity in the brains of twenty six patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and eighteen healthy volunteers to assess the relationship between IQ, worry and the metabolism of choline. In the control group high IQ was associated with a lower degree of worry, but in those diagnosed with GAD it was linked with more. The correlation between IQ and worry was significant in both the GAD group and the healthy control group. But in the former it was positive and in the latter negative. Previous studies have indicated excessive worry tends to exist both in people with higher and lower intelligence, and less so in people of moderate intelligence. It has been suggested people with lower intelligence suffer more anxiety because they achieve less success in life. Worrying has also been shown to lessen the effect of depression by countering brain activity that heightens the condition.

Eating nuts can help stave off obesity, says study

2012-04-14T07:01:00.001+01:00

Dieters often dismiss them because of their high fat content, but research suggests that snacking on nuts can help keep you slim. A study found that those who consumed varieties such as almonds, cashews and pistachios demonstrated a lower body weight, body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference compared to non-consumers. They were also at lower risk of developing heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Experts are now recommending a daily intake of 1.5 ounces, or three tablespoons of nuts as part of a healthy diet. Lead researcher Carol O'Neil, from Louisiana State University, said: 'One of the more interesting findings was the fact that tree nut consumers had lower body weight, as well as lower body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference compared to non-consumers. 'The mean weight, BMI, and waist circumference were 4.19 pounds, 0.9kg/m2 and 0.83 inches lower in consumers than non-consumers, respectively.' In the study, published in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, researchers compared risk factors for heart disease, type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome of nut consumers versus those who did not consume nuts.

Relationship Intimacy in the Age of Social Media

2012-04-06T10:36:00.001+01:00

These days, virtually everyone owns a computer, smart-phone, or mobile device. Digital interaction is an integral part of our everyday routine. We check emails and texts, update our Facebook page, fire off a tweet or two, and then finish our morning coffee. Digital interconnectivity provides endless new opportunities to support our very human need for community and social interaction. Innovations like Facebook, with over 500 million users, and Twitter, with over 300 million users, now allow real-time interactions with an increasingly wider and more diverse group of people. Best of all, friends and family too distant for regular contact just a few years ago can now be intimately folded into our lives. We make friends, we share our experiences, we celebrate, and we commiserate – one world, a growing interactive community. For partners, spouses, and families separated for long periods of time by work or military service, the tech-connect boom is a godsend. Couples, children, and parents are now able to bond long-distance in real time, sharing a growing child’s latest milestone, and even engaging in visual intimacy via the webcams now routinely incorporated into computers and smart-phones. And those not yet in a committed relationship can put technology to good use when home or traveling via e-dating, establishing and growing budding relationships with less of a focus on who lives where. Poke Me? For those unfamiliar with the term “poke,” allow me to enlighten you. In the online social media world of Facebook there is a button that allows you to poke someone. When you poke them, an icon appears on their Facebook page letting them know they’ve been poked, and by whom. The purpose of a virtual poke is the same as that of a real-world poke – to get someone’s attention without actually having to say anything, or, in the case of Facebook, write anything. If you’ve been poked, it means someone is thinking about you, likes you, thinks you’re a good person, thinks you’ve got a great new haircut, or whatever. It also means they have chosen not to engage you via more time-consuming methods like phoning, texting, emailing, instant messaging, or, heaven forbid, stopping by your house and knocking on the door. So what is a poke worth? Is a poke a meaningful social interaction? I know what you may be thinking, but this is a serious question, especially if you are under 25 and grew up with social media as an ingrained part of your daily interactions. There are other questions, too. Should a virtual relationship grow, as many do, beyond a simple poke? If so, how do you know which ones are healthy to maintain and grow? Can “virtual” intimacy be as healthy as a real-world relationship? Does it mean as much when Facebook reminds someone of your birthday as it does when someone actually remembers your birthday? These questions are particularly important for those already struggling with Internet or “real-life” social or intimacy deficits. Generally speaking, healthy, successful relationships of all stripes involve: Physical affection, such as hugging, kissing, and embracing Respect, shown by taking an active interest in others, having empathy for their challenges, and championing their successes Offering support and lending a helping hand when needed, giving advice when asked, and providing unexpected acts of kindness Quality time devoted to evolving our connection to those we care about Valuing, validating, and recognizing who another person is and what they bring to the table In at least a few of these areas, social media comes up short. Clearly there is no virtual equivalent to the warmth of a loving embrace, kiss, or intimate touch – though no doubt we will come to physically experience our loved ones’ embraces via electronic media in the days to come. It is also more challenging, though not impossible, to be a fully empathic listener and advisor online, as Internet interactions lack the full range of feedback that comes in the physical presence of another person (though webcams can help). As for quality time, research shows a mirror relationship between the increased use of technology and decreased levels of quality interpersonal interaction – even among family members. Facebook may just be the new television in this regard. Face-hooked? Perhaps it is no surprise that seemingly benign social media sites like Facebook can become problematic for those predisposed to compulsive, impulsive and addictive behavior. Social media sites have, in fact, become a new (and socially acceptable) place to peruse intimate photos, gain personal information, seek out hot chats, and hook up for virtual or in-person sexual encounters. Self-identified relationship and sexual addicts increasingly describe these networks as a primary location where they routinely “find themselves” lost in an obsessive search for sexual and/or romantic intensity. Consider Janelle, a 29-year-old housewife and mother of two young boys, who takes great pride in being a good mom and having married an engaged and loving man. Sadly, Janelle grew up in an emotionally abusive, addictive family, a situation that lead to her losing much of her early adult life to active drug and alcohol addiction. Thankfully, after several years of involvement and hard work in therapy and AA, Janelle got sober and remained so for nearly seven years. Recently though, feeling beyond bored and stuck at home with no one to talk to other than two toddlers, Janelle discovered Facebook. Initially she gratefully utilized this new media outlet to reconnect with old high school friends and distant family while at home with her kids. But one day – out of the blue – she received a poke and follow-up email from an attractive man she’d never met, asking her to chat online. This simple communication triggered a cascade of unanticipated excitement she’d not felt since prior to getting sober. Within a few weeks Janelle was impatiently waiting for her husband to leave each day so she could go online and connect. Within a few months she found herself involved in a string of online affairs, distracted from parenting and having strong fantasies of hooking-up with some of her new online buddies. A year and several anonymous sexual encounters later, Janelle relapsed with alcohol and cocaine while having a sexual encounter with a stranger met online. Today Janelle is in gender separate treatment for co-occurring addictions at The Ranch in Tennessee, working hard to understand how once again her life got away from her. Social Interaction: Reformatted Most people are familiar with Facebook. Twitter, however, is a newer form of social media that has taken the digital world by storm. On Twitter, users send social messages or “micro-blogs” up to 140 characters long. These messages are known as “tweets.” Tweets are read by “followers.” Followers are to Twitter what “friends” are to Facebook. Like it or not, Facebook, Twitter, and related social media have already begun to irrevocably shift age-old paradigms of social (and cultural) interaction. For those whose lives have become deeply entwined in social media, feelings of self-worth can be tied to the number of Facebook friends and/or Twitter followers they have. In therapy, they report feeling their emotional stability and self-esteem wax and wane in direct relation to how these virtual communities and individuals respond to each carefully phrased post and tweet. Losing a Twitter follower or having your numbers go down can feel devastating for some – the meaning of which can be undervalued or completely missed by an otherwise well-meaning clinician who is not well-versed in these media. Consequently, individuals suffering from depression or anxiety often find their conditions exacerbated by online interaction. And many an intimate relationship has ended badly because of one partner’s poor online boundaries and/or social media driven sexual acting out. Perhaps it is time to consider a few social media guidelines: For those in intimate partnerships it may well be worth utilizing a joint social media account. Sharing one online world will likely lead to lively discussions about how the couple mutually experiences social media. This can bring the pair together not only physically, but emotionally. They can jointly decide who to be friends with, what pages to like, who to follow, and what they want to communicate to the world about their lives together. This can also help reduce the fear that one or the other partner might be cyber-straying while on an individual account. Parents of young children and teens should strongly consider a joint or family social media account for reasons similar to those above and the fact that this can serve as a healthy way to monitor a child’s online interaction. Individuals concerned about their online vulnerability to sexual or romantic overtures should consider a commitment to only friending (adding people to their social network) people they already know and like in the real world. Facebook and social media accounts can readily be set up to allow interactions only with previously known individuals. And, by the way, the competition to see who can amass the most Internet friends is over. Lady Gaga and Oprah won. End of story. For those who sadly evaluate their Twitter follower numbers as if Twitter was a social stock market, it is best to be reminded that Twitter is about building community with like-minded people and exploring the lives of others without governmental or media influence. Unless you utilize Twitter for business purposes, who cares how many people follow you? What matters is what the people you follow have to say and how the people who follow you respond to your thoughts and experience. By taking this stance, the twitterverse becomes a place of social engagement and enlightenment rather than a high-school-like popularity contest. Don’t discuss or air any relationship or personal problems on Facebook or Twitter. Ever. If you’re struggling with your spouse or a friend, discuss it with them directly, or in therapy, or with a member of the clergy, or in some other suitable non-social media venue. A good filter for what to and what not to post is the following: if these are ideas or images you would not want associated with you on your local evening news, then these ideas or images are not appropriate for social media. If you’re sick of social media, experiencing information overload, or your involvement online is a source of ongoing anxiety or despair, QUIT. Try interacting with friends and loved ones in person. You might just find that while you were busy online they actually missed you. Ultimately, social media can enrich, enliven, and enlighten nearly every area of our lives from cooking tips to the Arab Spring. Maintaining contact with far-away friends and family, learning about new and interesting topics, and sharing our opinions and expertise are wonderful things. But social media has not as yet found a way to replace or fully replicate the social, physical, and relationship needs that are met when we engage face to face. A healthy life requires balance, and an overdose of social media for an extended period can bring about unnecessary emotional, financial, relationship, and career consequences. Robert Weiss is the author of three books on sexual addiction and Founding Director of the premiere sex addiction treatment program, The Sexual Recovery Institute. He is Director of Sexual Disorders Services at The Ranch and Promises Treatment Centers. These centers serve individuals seeking sexual addiction treatment, love addiction treatment, and porn addiction help. Specifically, the Centers for Relationship and Sexual Recovery at The Ranch (CRSR) offer specialized intimacy, sex and relationship addiction treatment for both men and women in gender-specific, gender-separate treatment and living environments.

Food Can Be Addictive, Says Dr. Nora Volkow, Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse

2012-04-06T10:19:00.001+01:00

Can food really be as addictive as drugs? In an impassioned lecture at Rockefeller University on Wednesday, Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, made the case that the answer is yes and that understanding the commonalities between food and drug addictions could offer insights into all types of compulsive behavior. Volkow began by acknowledging that the idea is controversial. “This is a concept that is rejected by many people,” she said. “It has polarized the [addictions] field.” Many experts dismiss food as an addictive substance because it doesn’t lead to most people behaving like addicts — compulsively seeking food despite negative consequences. So, the reasoning goes, food can’t be as addictive as a drug like crack cocaine. What that fails to recognize, however, is that crack cocaine itself isn’t as addictive as is commonly believed. “If you look at people who take drugs, the majority are not addicted,” Volkow said. Indeed, even for drugs like crack and heroin, fewer than 20% of users become addicted. In contrast, if you look at the proportion of people who are currently obese — some 34% of adults over 20 — it’s a significantly larger group. Add in those who are overweight, and fully two-thirds of Americans clearly have significant difficulties controlling their food intake. So, measured by the proportion of those who behave in health-risking ways with each substance, food could actually be considered several times more “addictive” than crack.

Eating Berries Could Guard Men Against Parkinson's

2012-04-06T10:15:00.001+01:00

Eating strawberries, blueberries, blackcurrants and blackberries, which are rich in flavonoids, could reduce the risk of Parkinson's disease in men, finds a research. Men who ate the fruits along with other foods rich in flavonoids were found to be 40 percent less likely to develop the brain disease, Daily Mail reported Thursday. And those who ate berries at least once a week could cut their risk of developing the disease by a quarter compared with those who never ate them, the study by British and US experts has found. Flavonoids - also found in tea and red wine - are antioxidants which can offer protection against diseases like heart disease, some cancers and dementia. The research is the first large-scale study looking at the effect of flavonoids in protecting against Parkinson's disease. It causes tremors and muscular rigidity or stiffness, and affects all kinds of movement in the body. Xiang Gao of Harvard School of Public Health, one of the study leaders, said: "Given the other potential health effects of berry fruits, such as lowering risk of hypertension as reported in our previous studies, it is good to regularly add these fruits to your diet."

Tobacco display ban 'to curb young smokers'

2012-04-06T09:59:00.001+01:00

A ban on tobacco displays is coming into force in England - with ministers promising it will help curb the number of young people taking up smoking. The ban will apply only to large shops and supermarkets, with smaller outlets given an exemption until 2015. It means cigarettes and other products will have to be kept below the counter. Other parts of the UK are planning similar action as part of a concerted effort to drive down smoking rates. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley told the BBC he hoped the ban would prevent people from taking up smoking and also help those trying to give up. Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote I hope we can make a big difference” Andrew Lansley Health Secretary He said: "Firstly, it reduces the visibility of tobacco and smoking to young people. And, of course two-thirds of smokers started smoking before they were eighteen. "So, if we can, literally, arrive at a place where young people just don't think about smoking and they don't see tobacco and they don't see cigarettes - then I hope we can make a big difference." He said the government recognised the pressures on retailers to comply with the ban but added: "We want to arrive at a place where we no longer see smoking as a normal part of life. We're doing it by stages with constant active pressure." 'Colourful displays' A fifth of adults smoke - a figure which has remained steady in recent years after decades of rapid falls. A plan to force manufacturers to put cigarettes into plain packets is also expected to be put out to consultation later this year. The display ban will apply to shops of more than 280 sq m (3,014 sq ft). Continue reading the main story “ Start Quote It's essential that we create a culture that promotes and protects public health and tobacco legislation is a significant factor in making this happen” Jo Butcher National Children's Bureau Public health minister Anne Milton cited evidence from Ireland which suggested the measure could play an important role in discouraging young people in particular from smoking. "We cannot ignore the fact that young people are recruited into smoking by colourful, eye-catching, cigarette displays. "Most adult smokers started smoking as teenagers and we need to stop this trend." Jo Butcher, of the National Children's Bureau, agreed: "It's essential that we create a culture that promotes and protects public health and tobacco legislation is a significant factor in making this happen." Jean King, of charity Cancer Research UK, said the ban would help stop children who are attracted to brightly coloured tobacco packaging from taking up smoking but further action was still needed. "Of course we want to see the pack branding taken away as well. This is not a normal consumer product, it kills people. We want to protect the next generation of children," she said. Health Secretary Andrew Lansley: "We want to arrive at a place where we no longer see smoking as a normal part of life" However, the move has upset the tobacco industry. Moves by Scotland to introduce such a ban have been delayed by legal action taken by Imperial Tobacco. Meanwhile, a spokesman for British American Tobacco said: "We do not believe that hiding products under the counter or behind curtains or screens will discourage people, including the young, from taking up smoking. "There's no sound evidence to prove display bans are justified." He added if anything it could encourage the illicit trade of tobacco products. Andrew Opie, from the British Retail Consortium, said it was wrong to believe the legislation would have a major effect on young people and it was supermarkets and other shops which were bearing the brunt of the costs needed to comply with the ban. He said the organisation had calculated that it cost more than £15m to ensure everything was sorted out before the ban came into place. He said: "Children are more likely to smoke when they're in a household where parents smoke and also they tend to get their cigarettes from either parents, or older peers, not directly from supermarkets. "It's certainly caused a lot of disruption to retailers as they didn't actually get that much notice to comply - and if you think that this is 6,000 shops in England, there are only so many shop-fitters that can do the work." The display ban was announced by the government last year as part of its tobacco control strategy. Although the legislation allowing it to happen was actually put in place by the Labour government before it lost power in 2010. A number of countries, including Canada, Ireland, Iceland and Finland, have already introduced similar bans. Prof David Hammond from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, said the ban led to a decline in smoking - especially among the young - in Canada. "The declines were greatest in the provinces where the ban had been implemented the longest. And that's consistent with the idea that when you remove something like marketing, it takes some time for the residual marketing to wear out. "We would expect to see a stronger impact among younger people as they age in the absence of that marketing," he said.

Acceptance is key to transformation.

2012-04-06T07:52:00.001+01:00

We put so much energy into resisting what has happened in our lives. The more resistance, the greater the pain we experience. The more resistance, the stronger the ties are to a history that no longer serves your purpose. However, when you accept the past, you are not judging whether it is right or wrong, you are simply accepting it happened. At that moment, the tethers start to disappear and you begin to free yourself from this past pain. As the process of freeing ourselves evolves, amazingly our attitude begins to change as well and we perceive these things as not nearly as important as they once appeared. We start to see these past scenarios more as potential lessons rather than the cause of continued suffering.

Increase Spirituality, Decrease Alcohol Use

2012-04-06T07:49:00.001+01:00

The research team, headed by Kelly, studied 1,726 adults who were participating in a randomized, controlled trial of psychosocial treatments for alcohol use disorder. All the subjects were assessed at the start of the study and at 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15 months regarding their attendance at AA meetings, alcohol use, and spiritual/religious practices. The researchers found that attendance at AA meetings was associated with an increase in the participants’ spiritual practices. This increase was especially evident among people who measured low on spirituality at the beginning of the study. Another related finding was that AA attendance was linked to improved alcohol use, and this was partially mediated by increased spirituality. When it comes to rates of success or failure associated with AA, the “Alcoholics Anonymous Recovery Outcome Rates: Contemporary Myth and Misinterpretation” report released January 1, 2008, reported as of their 2007 Survey, 45 percent of AA members were sober more than five years, and that 33 percent could claim sobriety for more than 10 years. Keith Humphreys, a career research scientist with the Veterans Health Administration and professor of psychiatry at Stanford University, noted that “many people will be surprised that alcoholic patients with little or no interest in spirituality attended AA and seemed to change even more than did those who had a pre-existing, strong sense of spirituality.” That is, AA can work for agnostics and atheists as well as people who profess spirituality. Results of the new study on AA meetings, spirituality, and alcohol use suggest AA attendance leads to an improvement in alcohol use and that this improvement is, in part, due to an increase in spiritual practices.

The Priest who left his Religion in pursuit of spirituality

2012-04-06T07:43:00.001+01:00

The rejection of Vatican II by the Catholic Church 50 years ago did more than change the lives of millions of practicing Catholics, it also accounted for 80% of priests, who entered one seminary at the time, to leave the priesthood. In a startling and revealing memoir, one of these priests, John Shields, delves into the spiritual crisis caused by the Church at a time of promising reform and inclusion. The Priest Who Left His Religion is a stirring account of loss, and abandonment of religious faith at a time that held much promise and possibility. It's also a hopeful look at a new world-view and the dynamic shift of consciousness that a former priest undertook to find his way from religion to spirituality. Reflecting back on his time in the priesthood, John Shields sees an enormous opportunity that was lost. "At the time of the Vatican Council we were witnessing one of the greatest transformations in thinking in centuries. As Shields explains, "I saw the message of love replacing the emphasis on hell and damnation. Here was an ideal opportunity for the church to re-articulate its role in history, enter the modern world by endorsing a new interpretation of the bible and end its fixation on sin and sex." Instead, the Church, under the direction of new Pope Paul VI, rejected the 2nd Vatican Council's new theology. According to Shields, the Church reverted back to the dark ages of a catechism created by the Council of Trent in 1545. "To this day Catholics around the world have questioned the nullification of Vatican II even though the old views were not believable in the light of contemporary knowledge." Thus started Shields own journey from religion to spirituality and his quest to discover the truth through Science and Cosmic Spirituality. "Here you will find both a story of a passionate, sceptical, spiritual man, and a story of a culture in search of a new way of being." says Dr Paul Bramadat, Director University of Victoria Centre for Studies in Religion and Society. For John Shields the journey has provided not only spiritual development and a pathway towards a deeper understanding of the universe, but also a healthy curiosity for what could have been if the new theological insights had taken hold.

something very bad will happen if the right solution isn’t found.

2012-04-06T07:41:00.001+01:00

Ever since my first days as a doctor, forty years ago, people have asked for answers. A medical treatment was what they wanted, but the reassurance and comfort that human contact could bring was just as valuable, perhaps even more so. Unless he’s completely burned out, a physician sees himself as a rough- and- ready savior, yanking victims out of danger into a state of safety and well- being. I’m grateful for my years seeing patients, because I learned the difference between advice and solutions. People who are in trouble are rarely helped by advice. Crises don’t wait; something very bad will happen if the right solution isn’t found. I kept the same standard in mind when writing this book. It began with people writing me with troubles on their minds. Their letters were sent from around the world— at one point I was answering questions daily or weekly from India, the United States, and many other locales, mostly through the Internet. Yet in a sense everyone was writing from the same place inside, where confusion and darkness had overwhelmed them. These people were hurt, betrayed, abused, misunderstood, ill, worried, anxious, and at times desperate. Sadly, that is the human condition, almost permanently for some people, but these feelings are always possible for people who are happy and contented— for the moment. Read more Morning Joe book excerpts I wanted to give answers that were lasting enough so that when “for the moment” changes, when crisis descends and a challenge must be faced, solid solutions were at hand. I call them spiritual solutions, but the term doesn’t mean religious solutions, prayer, or surrender to God. Instead I envision a secular spirituality. This is the only way modern people will ever reconnect with their souls, or, to remove all religious overtones, their “true selves.” What has a crisis done to you personally? What ever the situation, you drew back, contracted inside, and felt the grip of anxiety. This state of contracted awareness is the enemy of finding a solution. Real solutions to a crisis come from expanded awareness. The inner feeling is no longer tight and fearful. Boundaries give way; fresh ideas have space to grow. If you are able to contact your true self, awareness has no boundaries. From that place, solutions emerge spontaneously, and they work. Often they work like magic, and obstacles that seemed immovable melt away. When that happens, the burden of anxiety and sorrow is lifted completely. Life was never meant to be a struggle. Life was meant to unfold from its source in pure awareness. If this book leaves only one lasting impression, that’s the one I’m hoping for. Deepak Chopra One What Is a Spiritual Solution? No one will disagree that life brings challenges, but step back for a moment and ask the deeper question, which is why. Why is life so difficult? No matter what advantages you are born with— money, intelligence, an appealing personality, a sunny outlook, or good social connections— none of these provides a magic key to an easy existence. Somehow life manages to bring difficult problems, the causes of untold suffering and struggle. How you meet your challenges makes all the difference between the promise of success and the specter of failure. Is there a reason for this, or is life simply a random series of events that keeps us off balance and barely able to cope? Spirituality begins with a decisive answer to that question. It says that life isn’t random. There is pattern and purpose inside every existence. The reason that challenges arise is simple: to make you more aware of your inner purpose. If the spiritual answer is true, there should be a spiritual solution to every problem— and there is. The answer doesn’t lie at the level of the problem, even though most people focus all their energies at that level. The spiritual solution lies beyond. When you can take your awareness outside the place where struggle is ever-present, two things happen at the same time: your awareness expands, and with that, new answers begin to appear. When awareness expands, events that seem random actually aren’t. A larger purpose is trying to unfold through you. When you become aware of that purpose— which is unique for each person— you become like an architect who has been handed the blueprint. Instead of laying bricks and fitting pipes at random, the architect can now proceed with confidence that he knows what the building should look like and how to construct it. The first step in this process is recognizing what level of awareness you are working from right now. Every time a challenge comes your way, whether it is about relationships, work, personal transitions, or a crisis that demands action, there are three levels of awareness. Become aware of them, and you will take a huge step toward finding a better answer. Level 1: Contracted Awareness This is the level of the problem, and therefore it immediately grabs your attention. Something has gone wrong. Expectations have turned sour. You face obstacles that don’t want to move. As resistance mounts, your situation still doesn’t improve. If you examine the level of the problem, the following elements are generally present: Your desires are thwarted. Something you want is meeting with opposition. You feel as if every step forward is a battle. You keep doing more of what never worked in the first place. There is an underlying anxiety and fear of failure. Your mind isn’t clear. There is confusion and inner conflict. As frustration mounts, your energy is depleted. You feel more and more exhausted. You can tell if you are stuck at the level of contracted awareness by one simple test: The more you struggle to get free of a problem, the more you are trapped in it. Level 2: Expanded Awareness This is the level where solutions begin to appear. Your vision extends beyond the conflict, giving you more clarity. For most people this level isn’t immediately available, because their first reaction to a crisis is to contract. They become defensive, wary, and fearful. But if you allow yourself to expand, you will find that the following elements enter your awareness: The need to struggle begins to diminish. You start to let go. More people connect with you. You allow them more input. You approach decisions with confidence. You meet fear realistically and it starts to lessen. With clearer vision, you no longer feel confused and conflicted. You can tell that you have reached this level of awareness when you no longer feel stuck: a process has begun. With greater expansion, unseen forces come to your aid. You move forward according to what you desire from your life. Level 3: Pure Awareness This is the level where no problems exist. Every challenge is a creative opportunity. You feel completely aligned with the forces of nature. What makes this possible is that awareness can expand without limits. Although it may seem that it takes long experience on the spiritual path to reach pure awareness, the truth is exactly the opposite. At every moment pure awareness is in contact with you, sending creative impulses. All that matters is how open you are to the answers being presented. When you are fully open, the following elements will be present: There is no struggle. Desires reach fulfillment spontaneously. The next thing you want is the best thing that could happen. You benefit yourself and your surroundings. The outer world reflects what is happening in your inner world. You feel completely safe. You are at home in the universe. You view yourself and the world with compassion and understanding. To be completely established in pure awareness is enlightenment, a state of unity with everything in existence. Ultimately, every life is moving in that direction. Without attaining the final goal, you can tell that you are in contact with pure awareness if you feel truly yourself, in a state of peace and freedom. Each of these levels brings its own kind of experience. This can be easily seen when there is a sharp contrast or a sudden change. Love at first sight takes a person without warning from contracted awareness to expanded awareness. Instead of relating in the normal social way, suddenly you see immense appeal, even perfection, in one other person. In creative work there is the “Aha!” experience. Instead of wrestling with a blocked imagination, suddenly the answer presents itself, fresh and new. No one doubts that such epiphanies exist. They can be life changing, as in the so- called peak experience, when reality is flooded with light and a revelation dawns. What people don’t see is that expanded awareness should be our normal state, not a moment of extraordinary difference. Making it normal is the whole point of the spiritual life. Listening to people tell their stories of problems, obstacles, failure, and frustration— an existence trapped in contracted awareness— one sees that reaching a new vision is critical. It is all too easy to get lost in particulars. The difficulties of facing each challenge are often overwhelming. No matter how intensely you feel your situation, which has its own unique difficulties, if you look to the right and left, you will see others who are just as caught up in their situations. Strip away the details, and what remains is a general cause of suffering: lack of awareness. By lack I’m not implying personal failure. Unless you are shown how to expand your awareness, you have no choice but to experience the state of contraction. Just as the body flinches when faced with physical pain, the mind has a reflex that makes it draw back when faced with mental pain. Here again, a moment of sudden contrast makes it easy to experience what contraction feels like. Imagine yourself in any of the following situations: You are a young mother who has taken your child to the playground. You chat for a moment with another mother, and when you turn around, you can’t see your child. At work you are sitting at your computer when someone casually mentions that there are going to be layoffs, and by the way, the boss wants to see you. You open your mailbox and find a letter from the Internal Revenue Service. While driving you approach an intersection when, out of the blue, a car behind you swerves past your car and runs a red light. You walk into a restaurant and see your spouse sitting with an attractive companion. They are leaning in toward each other, talking in low voices. It doesn’t take much imagination to feel the sudden change of awareness that these situations provoke. Panic, anxiety, anger, and apprehension flood your mind; these are the result of brain changes as the lower brain takes precedent over the higher brain, triggering the release of adrenaline as part of an array of physical responses known as the stress response. Any feeling is both mental and physical. The brain gives a precise representation of what the mind is experiencing, drawing on infinite combinations of electrochemical signals coursing through one hundred billion neurons. A brain researcher can pinpoint with ever- increasing accuracy exactly those regions that produce such changes. What cannot be seen on an MRI is the mental event that incites all these changes, because the mind functions at the invisible level of awareness or consciousness. We can take these two terms as synonyms, but let’s explore them a little. Spirituality deals with your state of awareness. It isn’t the same as medicine or psychotherapy. Medicine deals in the physical aspect where bodily changes occur. Psychotherapy deals in a specific difficulty, such as anxiety, depression, or actual mental illness. Spirituality confronts awareness directly; it aims to produce higher consciousness. In our society this is seen as much less real than the other ways of approaching problems. In times of trouble, people cope as best as they can with a swirling confusion of fear, anger, mood swings, and everyday struggle. It doesn’t even occur to them to pair the two words spiritual and solution in the same sentence. This points to a limited vision about what spirituality really is, and what it can do. If spirituality can change your awareness, nothing is more practical. Awareness isn’t passive. It leads directly to action (or inaction). The way that you perceive a problem will inevitably blend with how you try to solve the problem. We’ve all been in groups that are asked to accomplish a task, and when the discussion begins, each participant displays aspects of their awareness. Someone seizes the floor, demanding attention. Someone else hangs back silently. Certain voices are cautious and pessimistic, while other voices are the opposite. This play and display of attitudes, emotions, role- playing, and so on comes down to awareness. Every situation lends itself to expanding your awareness. The word expand doesn’t mean that awareness blows up like a balloon. Instead, we can break down awareness into quite specific areas. When you enter a situation, you respond through the following aspects of your awareness: Perceptions Beliefs Assumptions Expectations Feelings Once you change these aspects— even a few of them— a shift in consciousness occurs. As the first step to reaching a solution, it is critical to break down any problem until you reach the aspects in your awareness that are feeding the problem. Perceptions: Every situation looks different to different people. Where I see disaster, you may see opportunity. Where you see loss, I may see the lifting of a burden. Perception isn’t fixed; it is highly personal. So the key question, when you approach the level of awareness, isn’t “How do things look?” but “How do things look to me?” Questioning your perception gives you distance from a problem, and with distance comes objectivity. But there is no such thing as total objectivity. We all see the world through tinted glasses, and if you mistake the view for reality, it’s just the tint pretending to be clear. Beliefs: Because they hide beneath the surface, beliefs seem to play a passive role. We all know people who claim to be without prejudice— racial, religious, political, or personal— who act exactly like someone riddled with prejudice. It’s easy to repress your beliefs, but it’s just as easy not to recognize them. What psychologists call core beliefs can be the hardest to spot in yourself. In an earlier age, for example, it was a core belief that men were superior to women. The topic wasn’t even raised for discussion, much less doubt. But when women demanded the vote, and this grew into a broad, vocal feminist movement, men found that their core belief was exposed. How did they react? As if they had been attacked personally, because their beliefs were their identity. “This is me” sits very close in the mind to “this is what I believe.” When you react to a challenge by taking it too personally, with defensiveness, anger, and blind stubbornness, some core belief has usually been touched. Assumptions: Because they shift according to the situation you find yourself in, assumptions are more flexible than beliefs. But they are just as unexamined. If a police cruiser signals you to pull off the road, don’t you assume that you have done something wrong and will wind up defending yourself? It is hard to be open- minded enough to allow that the police officer may offer something positive. That’s how assumptions work. They leap in to fill a gap of uncertainty. Social encounters are never empty. When you meet a friend for dinner, you bring assumptions about how the evening will go that are unlike the assumptions you bring to a blind date. As with beliefs, if you challenge a person’s assumptions, the outcome is likely to be volatile. Although our assumptions shift all the time, we usually don’t like to be told that they need to change. Expectations: What you expect from other people is linked to desire or fear. Positive expectations are ruled by desire, in that you want something and expect it to come to you. We expect to be loved and cared for by our spouses. We expect to be paid for the work we do. Negative expectations are ruled by fear, as when people anticipate worst- case scenarios. Murphy’s Law, which says that if anything can go wrong, it will, provides a good example. Because desire and fear lie close to the surface of the mind, your expectations are more active than your beliefs and assumptions. What you believe about your boss is one thing; being told that your salary has been cut is another. Depriving someone of what they expect directly challenges how they live. Feelings: As much as we try to disguise them, our feelings lie on the surface; other people see them or sense them as soon as they meet us. Therefore we spend a lot of time fighting against feelings that we don’t want to have, or against feelings we feel ashamed of and judge negatively. For many people, simply to have a feeling is undesirable. They see themselves as exposed and vulnerable. Being emotional is equated with being out of control (which itself is an undesirable feeling). Being aware that you have feelings is a step toward greater awareness, and then there’s the next step, which can be much harder, of accepting your feelings. With acceptance comes responsibility. Owning your own feelings, rather than blaming them on someone else, is the mark of a person who has moved from contracted to expanded awareness. If you are able to examine your state of awareness, these five elements will emerge. When someone is truly self- aware, you can ask them a direct question about how they feel, what their assumptions are, what they expect from you, and how their core beliefs are being affected. In response you won’t get a defensive reaction. You’ll be told the truth. Healthy as that sounds, why is it spiritual? Self- awareness isn’t the same as praying, believing in miracles, or seeking God’s favor. The vision I’ve sketched in is spiritual because of the third level of awareness, which I’ve labeled pure awareness. This is the level that religious believers know as the soul or spirit. When you base your life on the reality of the soul, you hold spiritual beliefs. When you go further and take the level of the soul to be the basis of life— the very ground of existence— then spirituality becomes an active principle. The soul is awakened. In reality the soul never sleeps, because pure awareness infuses every thought, feeling, and action. We may disguise this fact from ourselves. One symptom of contracted awareness, in fact, is a complete denial of “higher” reality. This denial is based not on willful blindness but on the absence of experience. A mind blocked by fear, anxiety, anger, resentment, or suffering of any kind isn’t able to experience expanded awareness, much less pure awareness. If the mind worked like a machine, it wouldn’t be able to recover from the state of suffering. Like gears worn down by friction, our thoughts would get worse and worse until the day arrived when suffering was completely victorious. For countless people life feels just like that. But the potential to heal is never worn away completely; change and transformation are your birthright, guaranteed not by God, faith, or salvation, but by the indestructible basis of life, which is pure awareness. To be alive is to be caught up in constant change. When we feel stuck, our cells are still processing the basic materials of life continually. Feelings of numbness and depression can make life seem to stop. So can sudden loss and failure. Yet no matter how severe the shock or how stubborn the obstacle, the ground state of existence isn’t affected, much less damaged. In the following pages you will encounter people who feel stuck, numb, frustrated, and stymied. Their stories seem to be unique, as viewed by each of them, but the way forward isn’t unique. It consists of addressing their state of awareness. What refuses to move must be shown how to move. That’s another reason why the solutions being offered are spiritual: they first involve seeing, waking up, becoming open to new perceptions. The most practical way to reach a solution is spiritually, because you can only change what you first are able to see. No enemy is more insidious than the one you are blind to. We live in a secular age, and so the view of life I’ve just outlined is far from the norm. In fact, it’s almost the opposite, because although everyone would agree that buildings must have blueprints, life doesn’t. Life is viewed as a series of unpredictable events that we struggle to control. Who will be foreclosed on or lose their job? Which house hold will be struck with accidents, addiction, divorce? There is seemingly no rationale behind these events. Stuff happens. Obstacles arise of their own accord, or simply by accident. Each of us justifies our contracted awareness by accepting such beliefs, and they run deep. Human nature, we tell ourselves, is filled with negative drives, such as selfishness, aggression, and jealousy. At best we are in partial control of these drives as they rise up inside us. We have no control at all over the negativity in others, and so each day presents us with a struggle against random chance and against people who are out to get what they want, no matter that it causes problems, or even loss, for us. As a beginning to expanded awareness, you need to challenge this worldview even if it is the social norm. Normal isn’t the same as true. The truth is that each of us is entangled in the world we call real. Mind isn’t a ghost. It is embedded in the whole situation you find yourself in. To see how that works, first abolish the separation between a thought, the brain cells the thought stimulates, the body’s reaction as it receives messages from the brain, and the activity you decide to pursue. All are part of the same continuous process. Even among geneticists, who for decades preached that genes determined almost every aspect of life, there is a new catchphrase: genes are not nouns, they are verbs. Dynamism is universal. You aren’t floating in a mindless environment, either. Your surroundings are being affected by what you say and do. The words “I love you” have an entirely different effect on others than the words “I hate you.” An entire society is galvanized by the words “the enemy is attacking.” At the most expanded level, the whole planet is influenced by the global exchange of information; you are participating in the global mind by sending an e-mail or joining a social network. What you eat on the run in a fast- food restaurant has implications for the whole biosphere, as environmentalists are at pains to show us. Spirituality has always begun with wholeness. Lost in a world of specifics, we forget that isolation is a myth. Your life at this moment is an entangled process that involves thoughts, feelings, brain chemicals, the body’s responses, information, social interactions, relationships, and the ecology. So when you speak and act, you are causing a ripple that is felt in the flow of life. Yet spirituality goes beyond describing you; it also prescribes the most beneficial way to affect the flow of life. Because pure awareness lies at the basis of everything, the most powerful way to change your life is to begin with your awareness. When your consciousness changes, your situation will change. Every situation is both visible and invisible. The visible part is what most people fight against, because it’s “out there,” accessible to the five senses. They are loath to confront the invisible aspect of their situation, because it is “in here” where unseen dangers and fears lurk. In the spiritual vision of life, “in here” and “out there” are entangled with countless threads; the fabric of existence is woven from them. Two starkly contrasting visions are competing, then, one based on materialism, randomness, and externals; the other based on consciousness, purpose, and the union of inner and outer. Before you can find a solution to the challenge that faces you today, right this minute, you must choose at a deeper level which vision of life you are following. The spiritual view leads to spiritual solutions. The nonspiritual view leads to a host of other solutions. Clearly this is a critical choice because, whether you realize it or not, your life is unfolding according to the choices you have made unconsciously, dictated by your level of awareness. This sketch of what a spiritual solution can achieve will sound very foreign to many people, however. Most of us avoid confronting ourselves; we are unable to define a vision. Instead, we meet life as it comes, coping as best we can, relying on mistakes from the past, advice from friends and family, and hope. We wind up giving in when we must and clutching at what we think we want. So what would it take to adopt a spiritual vision of your own life? In this book we won’t be following the path of conventional religion. Prayer and faith, while not central to the vision that needs to unfold, aren’t excluded, however. If you are religious and find comfort and help by turning to God, you are entitled to your version of a spiritual life. But here we will be consulting a much vaster tradition than any of the world’s religions, a tradition that embodies the practical wisdom of sages and seers, in both East and West, who have looked deeply at the human condition. If there is one piece of practical wisdom that the following chapters are about, it is this: Life is constantly recycling itself and evolving at the same time. This must be true of your own life, then. When you can see that all your struggles and frustrations have kept you from joining the flow of evolution, you have the best reason to stop struggling. I am inspired by a famous Indian sage who taught that life is like a river fl owing between the two banks of pain and suffering. Everything runs perfectly when we stay in the river, but we insist on grasping at pain and suffering as we pass them, as if the banks offer us safety and shelter. Life flows from within itself, and seizing on any kind of rigid or fixed position is contrary to life. The more you let go, the more your true self can express its desire to evolve. Once the process is under way, everything changes. Inner and outer worlds reflect each other without confusion or conflict. Because solutions now arise from the level of the soul, they meet no resistance. All your desires lead to the result that is best for you and your surroundings. In the end, happiness is based on reality, and nothing is more real than change and evolution. It is with the hope that everyone can find a way to leap into the river that this book was written. The Essence Every problem is open to a spiritual solution. The solution is found by expanding your awareness, moving beyond the limited vision of the problem. The process begins by recognizing what kind of awareness you are working from, because for every challenge in life there are three levels of awareness. Level 1: Contracted awareness This is the level of problems, obstacles, and struggle. Answers are limited. Fear contributes to a sense of confusion and conflict. Efforts to reach a solution meet with frustration. You keep doing more of what didn’t work in the first place. If you remain at this level, you will be frustrated and exhausted. Level 2: Expanded awareness This is the level where solutions begin to appear. There is less struggle. Obstacles are easier to overcome. Your vision extends beyond the conflict, giving you more clarity. Negative energies are confronted realistically. With greater expansion, unseen forces come to your aid. You move forward according to what you desire from your life. Level 3: Pure awareness This is the level where no problems exist. Every challenge is a creative opportunity. You feel completely aligned with the forces of nature. Inner and outer worlds reflect each other without confusion or conflict. Because solutions arise from the level of the true self, they meet no resistance. All your desires lead to the result that is best for you and your surroundings. As you move from Level 1 to Level 3, life’s challenges become what they are meant to be: a step closer to your true self.

Addictive painkiller sales surge in new parts of U.S.

2012-04-05T14:16:00.001+01:00

Sales of the two most popular prescription painkillers in the United States have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients' suffering is spawning an addiction epidemic. Drug Enforcement Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold. Meanwhile, the distribution of hydrocodone, the key ingredient in Vicodin, Norco and Lortab, is rising in Appalachia, the original epicenter of the U.S. painkiller epidemic, as well as in the Midwest. The increases have coincided with a wave of overdose deaths, pharmacy robberies and other problems in New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Florida and other states. Opioid pain relievers, the category that includes oxycodone and hydrocodone, caused 14,800 overdose deaths in 2008 alone, and the death toll is rising, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. Across the U.S., pharmacies received and ultimately dispensed the equivalent of 69 tons of pure oxycodone and 42 tons of pure hydrocodone in 2010, the last year for which statistics are available. That's enough to give 40 5-mg Percocets and 24 5-mg Vicodins to every person in the United States. The DEA data records shipments from distributors to pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners and teaching institutions. The drugs are eventually dispensed and sold to patients, but the DEA does not keep track of how much individual patients receive. The increase is partly due to the aging U.S. population with pain issues and a greater willingness by doctors to treat pain, said Gregory Bunt, medical director at New York's Daytop Village chain of drug treatment clinics. Sales are also being driven by addiction, as users become physically dependent on painkillers and begin "doctor shopping" to keep the prescriptions coming, he said. "Prescription medications can provide enormous health and quality-of-life benefits to patients," Gil Kerlikowske, the U.S. drug czar, told Congress in March. "However, we all now recognize that these drugs can be just as dangerous and deadly as illicit substances when misused or abused." Opioids like hydrocodone and oxycodone can release intense feelings of well-being. Some abusers swallow the pills; others crush them, then smoke, snort or inject the powder. Unlike most street drugs, the problem has its roots in two disparate parts of the country -- Appalachia and affluent suburbs, said Pete Jackson, president of Advocates for the Reform of Prescription Opioids. "Now it's spreading from those two poles," Jackson said. A few areas that include military bases or Veterans Affairs hospitals have seen large increases in painkiller use because of soldier patients injured in the Middle East, law enforcement officials say. Experts worry painkiller sales are spreading quickly in areas where there are few clinics to treat people who get hooked, Bunt said. In Utica, New York, Patricia Reynolds has struggled to find treatment after becoming dependent on hydrocodone pills originally prescribed for a broken tailbone. The nearest clinics offering Suboxone, an anti-addiction drug, are an hour's drive away in Cooperstown or Syracuse. And those programs are full and are not accepting new patients, she said. "You can't have one clinic like that in the whole area," Reynolds said. "It's a really sad epidemic. I want people to start talking about it instead of pretending it's not a problem and hiding."

Freedom near after years in hell but Schapelle Corby is too scared to hope

2012-04-05T07:47:00.001+01:00

CONVICTED drug smuggler Schapelle Corby last night said she was "too scared to get my hopes up" after Indonesia's Justice and Human Rights Ministry recommended her jail sentence be slashed by 10 years - meaning she could be back in Australia within weeks. Her family is now anxiously awaiting a decision by Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who will have the final say on whether Corby is released. From her cell at Bali's Kerobokan prison, Corby last night said she was waiting for more information about the ministry's recommendation. Her sister Mercedes, who was visiting Schapelle when the news broke, said that if Dr Yudhoyono did agree to cut 10 years from Corby's sentence, she would be eligible to go home immediately. "She will have done eight years in October, plus she's had two years reduced in good behaviour, so that's 10 years," she said. "So if another 10 years is cut, she should be pretty much eligible for release immediately." Mercedes said, if released, her sister planned to head straight back to Australia to live with her mother Rosleigh in Queensland. Corby was jailed for 20 years in 2004 for attempting to smuggle 4.1kg of marijuana into Bali in a body board bag. The announcement of the major breakthrough in the former Gold Coast beautician's drug saga came as a "pleasant shock" to Corby and her family yesterday when The Daily Telegraph told them of the ministry's recommendation. Mercedes was at the prison having a small birthday celebration with Schapelle for their younger sister Mele, who had just turned 22. "Oh wow, have they recommended clemency? I hope this is true. I better make some calls," she said. A few hours later Mercedes said the family was "too nervous" to get their hopes up and would await the President's ruling before they celebrated. Corby first launched her bid for clemency two years ago, appealing for an early release on the grounds she was suffering from mental illness which could endanger her life. "She's on anti-psychotics to keep her stable, but she goes up and down," Mercedes said. A Justice Ministry official yesterday revealed the recommendation to slash Corby's sentence was based on humanitarian grounds: "Our office agreed with her clemency. We recommended granting it." Corby's lawyer Iskander Nawing described it as a "huge development" and a breakthrough. The recommendation also includes an approval for clemency from the director-general of prisons. Dr Yudhoyono's decision will be based on the recommendation from the Justice Ministry, as well as advice from the Attorney-General's Department, Foreign Ministry and National Narcotics Board. Print

Whitney Houston 'Powdery' substance in hotel bathroom

2012-04-05T07:41:00.001+01:00

Drug paraphernalia and a white powdery substance were discovered in Whitney Houston's hotel room on the day she died, according to a coroner. The full report says the 48-year-old was found on 11 February lying face down in an overflowing hotel bathtub. Investigators said they recovered a rolled-up piece of paper, a small spoon and a portable mirror in the bathroom. The autopsy concluded that the singer had drowned due to the effects of cocaine use and heart disease. The report also indicated the singer had a perforated nose, a sign of long-term substance abuse. The 42-page document gave more details than an initial report released last month. Houston was found dead hours before she was due to attend a pre-Grammy party. One of the world's best known singers in the 1980s and 1990s, Houston had a long battle with drug addiction. Friends and family have said she appeared committed to a comeback, including a new film, during the time before her death.

New info about statin safety affects millions

2012-04-04T07:10:00.001+01:00

U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued new safety information about these cholesterol-lowering drugs that are prescribed to millions of Americans to lower the risk of heart disease. If you're among them, you should understand what the FDA's new guidance means for your health. "Before anyone gets too concerned, you should know that statins are so widely used because they have a long track record of safety and effectiveness," says Dr. Mark Taber, a cardiologist with SSM Heart Institute at St. Joseph Health Center. "All in all, statins have a very high benefit to risk ratio.Â The widespread use of the drugs, when indicated, probably accounts to a significant degree for the improvement in life expectancy in this country." The FDA called attention to the threat of liver damage as a rare side effect of statins and advised that regular liver enzyme testing is no longer considered useful in predicting or preventing liver injury. "Actually, in general they liberalized the follow up needed for liver function tests on patients taking statins, due to the very low incidence of true liver issues," Taber says. The main warnings related to a slightly higher incidence of developing diabetes while on statins, and a poorly substantiated claim that statins could result in cognitive impairment. Taber points out that cognitive problems, such as confusion or memory problems, were not documented in clinical studies, only by patient reports to the FDA website. "By stating these concerns, the FDA is raising awareness about the potential side effects of statins, but cardiologists already know that there are inherent risks, and we monitor patients appropriately to help ensure that side effects do not occur or are dealt with quickly," Taber notes. "If there is any evidence of a side effect that could be problematic, we can change the medication. But the fact remains that it's important to decrease risk of heart disease, and for many people statins are needed when diet and exercise alone don't result in acceptable cholesterol levels." Whenever a new prescription medication is started, you should look over the package insert to learn about potential side effects. Signs of liver damage, for instance, include fatigue, loss of appetite, right upper abdominal pain, dark urine and jaundice. Any of these symptoms should be reported to your doctor for evaluation. It is important to remember that you should not stop taking a medication without consulting your doctor first. Discontinuing use of a prescribed drug can be far more dangerous than the side effect you're worried about. "All the side effects listed by the FDA are rare, and the risk of heart attack is far more concerning," Taber says. "Some patients may need extra monitoring or may need to try more than one statin before we find the optimal choice, but in general statins are very well tolerated and don't cause problems for the people who take them." The advice above is universal when it comes to your health. Concerns should be discussed with your doctor, and decisions should always be made as part of a team approach to creating a healthy life.

Why don't GPS warn you that statins can harm your memory?

2012-04-04T07:01:00.001+01:00

John Holliday had been on a higher 40mg dose of cholesterol pills for only a few weeks when he started to lose his concentration. ‘I’d be watching TV and suddenly find myself unable to follow the plot of a drama,’ says John, 52, a telecoms project manager who lives in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, with his wife Jill, 51, and their two children Adam, 20, and Emma, 16. ‘I’d have to read the same page of a book over and over because I couldn’t take any information in. ‘I’d always been known for my amazing memory — I was great on trivia and had total recall of events that happened 20 years ago, but suddenly I couldn’t remember things and my brain felt fuzzy.’ Just like up to seven million other people in Britain, John had been prescribed a statin to lower his blood cholesterol levels. The drugs are credited by the British Heart Foundation as contributing towards the dramatic 50 per cent fall in deaths from heart attacks in the past ten years. But while there is consensus that statins are lifesavers for people who have previously had a heart attack, concern is growing over their debilitating side-effects. They include muscle weakness, depression, sleep disturbance, sexual dysfunction, muscle pain and damage, gastro-intestinal problems, headaches, joint pains and nausea. Now, official bodies here and in the U.S. have ordered that the drugs must carry warnings for cognitive problems, too. Worryingly, it’s claimed GPs are failing to warn patients of the effect statins can have on the mind — meaning they may mistake them for signs of ageing or Alzheimer’s. ‘When I went back to my doctor after six weeks for a blood test, I told him how dreadful I was feeling,’ says John. ‘But he just said all drugs had side-effects and didn’t mention reducing the dose.’ It's claimed GPs are failing to warn patients of the effect statins can have on the mind - meaning they may mistake them for signs of ageing or Alzheimer's Things came to a head when a friend showed John an electrical circuit he’d built for his car. ‘I’d worked with circuits since I was 16 but it made no sense,’ he says. So John insisted on seeing his doctor again and repeated his concerns about his rapidly declining memory. This time the GP told him he could start on another type of statin when he felt well enough, and so John stopped taking the drugs immediately. ‘It took a few months, but gradually my memory returned and I’ve got my concentration back. I can’t say for sure statins caused these problems, but it seems like too much of a coincidence.’ Earlier this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S. ordered statins must carry warnings that some users have reported cognitive problems including memory loss, forgetfulness and confusion. This followed a decision by the UK’s Medicines Healthcare Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to add memory problems to the list of possible statin side-effects in late 2009. The FDA said reports about the symptoms were from across all statin products and age groups. Those affected reported feeling fuzzy or unfocused in their thought process — though these were found to be rare and reversible. The FDA also warned, following U.S. research, that patients on statins had a small excess risk of developing Type 2 diabetes — but stressed that the benefits of taking a statin still outweigh this. The MHRA had 2,675 reports for adverse drug reactions connected with statins between 2007 and 2011. Officially, side-effects are rare —affecting only 1 per cent of people on the pills — but some doctors say they are under-reported. Dr Malcolm Kendrick, a GP and author of The Great Cholesterol Con, says he frequently sees patients suffering from mental confusion in his job in hospital intermediary care for the elderly. ‘Many of the patients I see will have been admitted to hospital after a fall or similar crisis,’ he says. ‘If they appear confused I’ll often advise taking them off statins to see if it has any effect — in my experience, about 10 to 15 per cent of people who appeared to have memory problems experienced an improvement in their memory symptoms after being taken off the drug. ‘I had one dramatic case where a lady was admitted to hospital on 40mg a day of simvastatin with such poor memory function her family asked me about power of attorney. 'I suggested taking her off statins and within a week her memory had returned to normal. She went home a fit and independent 83-year-old.’ Dr Kendrick says cholesterol is the main constituent of synapses (structures that allow signals to pass between brain cells and to create new memories) and is essential for brain function. ‘It is still not proven that statins have a significant effect on mortality — it has been calculated that a man who has had a heart attack who took a statin for five years would extend his life by only 14 days. 'Too many statins are being given to people at low risk. ‘Even in the highest risk group you need to treat 200 people a year with statins to delay just one death. 'One day the harm these drugs are doing is going to be obvious — the benefits are being over-hyped and the risks swept under the carpet.’ While Dr Kendrick’s controversial view is in the minority, one large review of 14 studies by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, published by the highly respected Cochrane Library last year, concluded there was ‘little evidence’ cholesterol-lowering drugs protect people who are not at risk of heart disease. This review has been criticised by other doctors who say side-effects are rare and that there are still benefits even for people at lower risk who do not have established heart disease. These defenders of statins include Professor Colin Baigent of the Clinical Trial Service at Oxford University, who published research in 2010 showing statins reduced deaths from all causes by 10 per cent over five years. ‘There is relatively little evidence of cognitive impairment — what evidence there is all comes from observational studies. ‘People read about side-effects and then put two and two together and blame the statins for their muscle pain or other health problems — it’s just not reliable evidence. ‘If you look at the best-quality randomised controlled trial where patients don’t know if they are taking a statin or placebo, there is no evidence of memory problems. 'Even the FDA says the risks of cognitive problems are very small and go away when statins are discontinued. ‘We’re in danger of forgetting just how effective these drugs are.’ Dr Dermot Neely of the charity Heart UK, and lead consultant at the Lipid and Metabolic Clinic at the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, agrees side-effects with statins are rare. ‘I’ve been dealing with patients on statins since 1987 and I can count on the fingers of one hand the number whose memory symptoms turned out to be caused by statins.’ However, he said he often saw patients who had not been told about side-effects. ‘It’s important GPs are clear about the drugs statins can interact with, such as certain antibiotics, as this can get overlooked. ‘If a patient notices an adverse effect after starting statins, they should discuss this with their GP —but not stop their drugs suddenly because this can be dangerous.’ Sonya Porter, 73, decided to stop taking statins after her memory problems became so bad that she walked away from a cashpoint leaving her money behind. ‘I was permanently fuzzy-headed and just couldn’t seem to concentrate,’ says Sonya, a retired PA from Woking, Surrey. Then I started to get scared I might have Alzheimer’s. After reading about memory problems associated with statins, I thought it was at least a possibility. I decided to come off the pills to see if it made any difference. ‘I didn’t ask my GP, I just did it — I’d rather die of a heart attack than Alzheimer’s disease. Within a month I felt normal again and didn’t have any problems with memory. ‘I’m terrified that I could have been misdiagnosed with Alzheimer’s.’ John Holliday is also reluctant to go back on statins. ‘I wouldn’t rule it out completely — my latest test showed my cholesterol levels have gone up,’ he says. ‘But on balance, I’d rather take my chances with heart disease than feel as confused as that again. It’s all very well living slightly longer — but it’s about quality of life, too.’

Salou, the northern Spanish town where thousands of British students flock every spring for four nights of drunken debauchery.

2012-04-02T14:23:00.001+01:00

It was a case of deja vu last night for the long-suffering residents of Salou, the northern Spanish town where thousands of British students flock every spring for four nights of drunken debauchery.

For the twelfth time, the Costa Dorada resort has been overrun by Saloufest, the notorious annual sports tour returning for another round of hard drinking, half-naked partying - and the odd day of volleyball or hockey.

The first pictures released from this year's event paint a familiar picture: packs of fresh-faced revellers in proudly ridiculous fancy dress, their flesh largely bare and arms aloft as they stagger and bellow through the streets.

On the march: British students wrapped in flags as they head out for the first night of parties at SalouFest in Salou, Spain

Fireman's lift: A British student makes off with a fellow reveller as the drunken Saloufest parties spill out on to the streets

Culture clash: Two young women match geisha-style makeup with pink bum bags for a night out in the Costa Dorada resort

The first 5,000 of a total 8,200 people are said to have made the trip from Britain's universities yesterday, marking an increase of 1,000 on last year.

Police say the first night of the tour passed without any arrests being made - but past form suggests they won't be holding out much hope for an easy ride.

Last year's event saw officers launch a crackdown on any students caught drinking in public, putting an end to the days when the locals would turn a blind eye to those flouting Salou's alcohol bylaws.

The town also decided to uphold rules preventing the Saloufest partiers from roaming around town half-naked.

The 2011 tour saw two toga-wearing students hauled off to a police station and fined £265 for breaking the alcohol laws.

This year the local authorities have handed out leaflets warning British visitors not to drink on streets and beaches, while those found stumbling around shirtless can expect to face the consequences.

Riot of colour: There's no missing these Brits abroad as they pull on garish tones and leggings for a debauched night in the Catalan village

Rowdy: Four students holler from the terrace of a nightclub during the first night of booze-soaked parties

Sitting comfortably? A show of bravado sees one British student doing a press-up as another sits on his back

Spanish media reports that ILoveTour, the firm that organises the festival, has some 30 supervisors on hand to babysit the horde of 18-to-23-year-olds.

One account, from Spanish newspaper El Pais, talks of streets streaked with vomit and urine, disoriented youths, deafening noise and riot vans on standby.

Despite local opposition, hoteliers in the area support Saloufest because it extends the holiday season and is timed so as not to interfere with the influx of Easter tourists.

In an effort to keep the peace, some of the seven hotels set aside for the event have opted to separate their British guests from other holidaymakers.

The basic festival package sees students shell out £189 for coach travel and four nights in two-star accommodation, with optional extras including day trips to nearby Barcelona and Port Aventura.

Shameless: A passerby cheers as two partygoers get up close and personal outside an Irish-themed bar

In the gutter: The week-long tour has barely begun, but Saloufest seems to have taken its toll as these two huddle on the pavement outside a nightclub

Sin city: Dog collars and a novelty cross pass for fancy dress on the streets of Salou

Tribes: Clusters of UK students stagger through the village in fancy dress. A vague cavewoman theme finds this pair draped in animal print

Bookish? A mob of Saloufest drinkers in 'geek' fancy dress, one of the go-to costume themes for student union club nights up and down the UK

Amy Winehouse 'spent £1 million on drugs in three years`

2012-04-02T08:42:00.001+01:00

Amy Winehouse had reportedly squandered £10 million during her lifetime, which included £1 million on drugs in three years, a £500,000-hotel bill and £1,000-a-month on her kittens. The tragic singer who was 27 when she died, left an estate worth £4,257,580, which was reduced to £2,944,554 after debts and taxes were paid. Since the Rehab hitmaker did not leave a will, that money will, by default, be divided between her divorced parents Mitch and Janis. According to the Sunday Times Rich List, she was worth £10 million but a friend of her manager claimed that the singer may have been worth closer to £15 million. A friend connected to her management company said that she spent it all on drugs, on men, and on “friends” who said they needed her. “Before Amy died, money was being leeched off her left, right and centre,” the Daily Mail quoted the friend as saying. “It was like taking money off a baby when it came to Amy — she couldn’t stop giving it away. Mitch knew that most of it had probably been spent already,” the friend added. If Winehouse wanted to give £2,000 to a friend who had a hernia, for example, as she once did, she’d just ask her father to turn up with an envelope of cash. When she wanted to keep kittens, she would simply ask Mitch to take out some money from her trust to pay the enormous bills she ran up: according to him, she managed to spend more than £1,000-a-month on them. She would blow £20,000 in an afternoon at Selfridges on dresses, for instance, but in Winehouse’s world this counted as fairly small change. And her lifestyle, with a permanent retinue of bodyguards, was very expensive. The bodyguards cost £250-a-day each and she had up to half a dozen of them. An extraordinary ‘working’ holiday in St Lucia three years ago — which stretched to about a year and a half — cost her £2,000 a night during the five months of it she stayed in the luxury resort of Le Sport. The bill for spa treatments alone was £6,000. A record company source said he thought that hotel stay cost her at least £500,000, and she didn’t just spend money on herself. Her former husband Blake Fielder-Civil was apparently adept at milking her for money, asking for £150 “for a cab” whenever she called and said she wanted to see him. It is widely assumed she funded both their drug habits for years, too. Within three weeks of their marriage in 2007 she had a near-fatal overdose. Her heroin and cocaine habit in the days when she was using drugs, which she stopped around 2008, was in the nature of £1,000-a-day. It is assumed she might have spent £1 million or more on drugs alone between 2006 and 2008. Fielder-Civil, meanwhile, was given a £250,000 pay-off in their 2009 divorce.

nine million Pakistanis drug addicts

2012-03-29T07:18:00.001+01:00

FORMER IG Punjab Police and Project Director Drug Free City Altaf Qamar has said that over nine million Pakistanis are drug addicts among whom two to 2.5 million are 15 to 25 years old, 200,000 are women, 60 percent are literate and 40 percent have been found illiterate while annually 500,000 are becoming addict to various types of drugs. He was addressing a seminar organised by the Department of Applied Psychology in collaboration with the Anti Narcotic Force at Undergraduate Study Centre on Wednesday. Prof Dr Rukhsana Kausar, faculty members and a large number of students participated. Qamar stated that all substances, including cigarette, alcohol, hashish, heroin, Gutka and Sheesa, were injurious to health and caused high blood pressure, heart diseases, mouth and throat cancer. He said the people started smoking as a fashion and then became addict to it. He said drug addicts also committed social crimes. Prof Dr Rukhsana Kausar said the drug abuse also known as substance abuse referred to the excessive and harmful use of psychoactive substances including alcohol and illicit drugs. She said psychoactive substance use could lead a cluster of behavioural, cognitive and physiological phenomena that developed after repeated substance use. She said drug abuse led to wide range of problems and significant distress among the sufferers, family, community and society.

Famous Families Plagued by Addiction

2012-03-29T07:14:00.001+01:00

Lindsay Lohan's struggles with drugs and alcohol have been front page tabloid fodder since 2007. (To recap: Two DUIs, one charge for cocaine possession.) In that regard, she's her father's daughter. Michael Lohan began using cocaine at 20 and started drinking shortly after that. In 2005, after brawling with his brother-in-law at a first communion party and driving away from the scene drunk, he was sentenced to prison. After getting out in 2007, he checked into a Christian-based rehab center in his native Long Island. Through his daughter's multiple rehab stints and relapses, he's urged her daughter to do the same. She's due to finally put her 2007 havoc behind her this week, at what could be her final probation hearing.

Bobby Brown, the ex-husband of the late Whitney Houston, was arrested for driving under the influence on Monday.

2012-03-29T07:13:00.001+01:00

His lawyer said Monday that while Brown "has not been convicted of anything associated with this incident," he is "taking this matter seriously and an investigation is underway." Brown has been convincted of DUI and charged with drug related offenses before, and in a 2010 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Houston memorably detailed the cocaine and marijuana she and Brown did together. Cocaine was also linked to Houston's sudden death in February. Whether their penchant for substance abuse will plague their daughter, Bobbi Kristina, remains to be seen.

Facebook App Lets You Add Enemies Online

2012-03-27T07:58:00.001+01:00

Forget friending. A new Facebook app allows users of the social network to identify and share people, places and things as “enemies” for all to see. The app, called EnemyGraph, lets you list anything with a Facebook presence — ranging from “friends,” to foods, to products, movies or books — as an enemy. Since the app launched March 15, it’s seemed to appeal especially to users with a liberal bent. Some of its most-selected nemeses so far include Rick Santorum, Westboro Baptist Church and Fox News. The app was developed by a professor and two students at the University of Texas at Dallas. Dean Terry, who directs the school’s emerging media program, helped conceptualize the project, while graduate student Bradley Griffith and undergraduate Harrison Massey built the app. Griffith said EnemyGraph has so far accumulated some 400 users. But more importantly, its creators say, press coverage has helped meet the team’s goal of sparking a larger conversation about the nature of social media and Facebook in particular. “One thing that has always struck me is the enforced niceness culture,” Terry told Mashable. “We wanted to give people a chance to express dissonance as well. We’re using the word enemy about as accurately as Facebook uses the word friend.” But the app has utility beyond simply sparking a philosophical debate, Terry adds. Researchers and marketers have long gathered information on social media users based on what they support, but at the expense of possibly overlooking another valuable data source. “You can actually learn a lot about people by what they’re upset about and what they don’t like,” Terry says. “And the second thing is that if you and I both don’t like something, that actually creates a social bond that hasn’t been explored in social media at all, except with Kony and some big examples like that.” Terry and Griffith teamed up last year to create Undetweetable, a service allowing Twitter users’ deleted tweets to be uncovered posthumously. That project gained some attention as well but Twitter quickly forced it to shut down. Terry wouldn’t be surprised if EnemyGraph meets a similar fate from Facebook. “My guess is it goes against their social philosophy and purpose,” he says. “It is a critique of their social philosophy for sure.” Do you like the EnemyGraph idea? Let us know in the comments.

socially disruptive narcissists More Facebook Friends You Have, the More Unhappy You Are

2012-03-26T10:39:00.001+01:00

A study has discovered a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and how much of a “socially disruptive narcissist” you are—giving us one more reason to tone down our Facebook addictions. Researchers at Western Illinois studied 294 college students and found that those with more friends on Facebook tended to score higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire. They tended to respond more aggressively to comments, change their profile pictures more often, and updated their news feeds more regularly than others. This may not be all that surprising, but it does provide a bit of motivation to re-evaluate what Facebook does for you, if you fit into one of these categories (and if not, at least you can stop feeling bad about not having very many Facebook friends—it’s probably a good thing). None of this is to say Facebook is inherently bad, of course. It’s still a great way to keep in touch with family and friends, especially after you’ve fixed all of its annoyances—you might just want to dial back on all the photo tagging. While you’re at it, you can also move some of those friends to your Acquaintances list using Facebook’s new tool, which will hide them from your news feed more often.