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Teens with More Spending Money More Likely to Smoke
2008-04-11 12:47:00
University of Toronto researcher, Bo Zang wanted to investigate the role discretionary spending money played in teen smoking behaviors ? and the answer, not terribly surprisingly, is that teens with more money to spend tend to smoke more. Using data from the Ontario Student Drug Use Survey, of students from grades 7 to 12, Zang found that: Students with less that $10 per week to spend were unlikely to be smokersStudents with more than $20 to spend per week were far more likely to be experimental smokersStudents with more than $30 to spend per week were far more likely to smoke dailyStudents with more than $60 to spend per week were far more likely to smoke daily and heavily. Zang is quick to point out that the study does not prove that giving teens spending money causes smoking behaviors, merely that there is a correlation between increased pocket money, and heavier smoking. She recommends tobacco price increases as a way to limit teen smoking.
More About: Teens , Money , Smoke , Spending

The National Drug Intelligence Center's report on the state of prescription
2007-09-03 16:08:00
The National Drug Intelligence Center, in its 2007 drug threat assessment on the abuse of prescription drugs, reported a number of findings?and none of them can be considered positive. Firstly, the organization asses that the availability and supply of illegitimate (not taken or acquired in a medically prescribed manner) prescription pharmaceuticals is high and increasing. Secondly, the organization asserts that demand and use has remained stable over the last year despite law enforcement efforts at reducing supply. Thirdly, the organization reports that in some State s, where strict pharmaceutical chain of custody regulations have diminished the availability of diverted pharmaceuticals for illegitimate usage, there has been a significant increase in heroin usage. So there are lots of drugs around, the numbers of people using them has not decreased despite the best efforts of law enforcement, and in those areas where stringent regulations have limited local supply, addicts have bee...
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Alcoholism is causing brain damage earlier than ever before realized
2007-09-02 16:49:00
Long term heavy drinking may be doing even more damage to brain functions than previously realized. Addictions professionals and medical personnel have long witnessed the cognitive deficits and even premature dementia induced by years of chronic and heavy drinking, and no one disputes the harm that alcohol does to the mind. Magnetic imaging and autopsy testing has also clearly shown evidence of significant cell death, brain shrinkage, and structural damage in the brains of people who had lived with years of heavy abuse; but new research out of Japan indicates that permanent brain damage may be occurring even in those people who have yet to exhibit any signs of diminished cognitive functioning, or show any phsycial or structural changes in the brain. Researchers out of Keio University compared recovering alcoholics showing no signs of cognitive deficits and with no apparent brain damage, and with an average period of abstinence of 40 months; with a population of never alcohol depende...
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Repeat drunk driving stars get slaps on the wrist, and a 93 year old man he
2007-09-02 16:23:00
Durham North Carolina police got a dangerous offender off the streets this week?93 year old William C. Tinnen, arrested on cocaine trafficking charges, and held under $200 000 bond in jail awaiting trial. Also this week, repeat drunken driving stars Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Ritchie served a collective one day and 86 minutes in jail for a total of four DUI arrests. What is going on??? Firstly, in defense of the justice system, the 93 year old arrestee did also have firearms in the house, and he may well have been the meanest predator in the neighborhood, I just don?t know; and secondly, although people have been quick to blast prosecutors for preferential treatment in the DUI offences of the young Hollywood starlets, legal professionals assure the public that the sentences as issued were very much in line with customary sentencing for DUI's within the county's overworked justice system. Both the police and the courts have by all accounts acted within the confines of the laws and th...
More About: Stars , Driving , Drunk , Drunk Driving , Year

The dangers of alcohol advertising, and what we can do about it
2007-09-01 17:08:00
There is no doubt that alcohol marketing campaigns work, and beer and spirits companies would unlikely invest billions of annual dollars in intensive print and TV campaigns if they didn?t reap dividends. These same companies can (as far as I'm concerned) argue until they?re blue in the face that they advertise solely for market share and brand awareness, and while this motivation undoubtedly exists; they also advertise heavily as a recruitment tool, and to convince every emerging generation of prospective consumers about just how cool, handsome, beautiful, athletic and sexy alcohol can make you. I mean, just how much does a television commercial of bikini clad women and rippled torsoed men enjoying an (intoxicated?) beach volley ball game tell us about the taste of a drink? Alcohol advertising leans heavily on subliminal implications that using alcohol makes life more fun, and those people that use it live somehow more charmed lives than those that don't. And those subliminal mess...
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Completely preventable, fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of ment
2007-09-01 14:56:00
Completely preventable and tragic, fetal alcohol syndrome is the leading cause of mental retardation in America today. The term fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) is an umbrella term describing the facial and physical deformities, the cerebral deficits and the emotional and behavioral legacy of children born to women who drank during pregnancy. A less severe syndrome know as fetal alcohol effects (FAE), affects many thousands more children each year; and because at birth the characteristic facial deformities are not always recognizable, experts estimate that the prevalence rate of FAS and FAE is actually far greater then reported. Between 4000 and 12000 children are born each year with FAS, and FAE effects tens of thousands more. The disorder plagues the development and potential of children for life, and although the facial characteristics of the disorder may become reduced in severity after puberty, the emotional, cognitive and behavioral deficits actually become more pronounced with ad...
More About: Alcohol , Syndrome , Preventable , Leading , Lead

Forget vodka, whiskey or rum?beer is the most dangerous drink in America to
2007-09-01 13:22:00
A lot of people don?t consider that drinking beer is as serious or as harmful as drinking hard liquor, and this perception in reinforced by governmental legislation that allows for more intensive marketing of beer, for favorable taxation and for less regulation over its sale. Of course beer is simply alcohol just like any other form of alcohol, and if you drink 7 beers, or have 7 cocktails?you will be just as drunk; and if you drink a number of beers with regularity, you are just as at risk for addiction as you would be if you drank only bourbon or vodka. In fact, studies of binge drinking in America show that beer is the favored binge drink of choice, and because binge drinking creates such societal problems (drunk driving, violence, domestic abuse) and because binge drinking is a necessary stepping stone to dependency, it seems that beer is in fact the most dangerous alcoholic beverage consumed in America today. The breakdown of binge drinking has beer accounting for 67% of all bi...
More About: Drink , Beer , Forge , Vodka

The specific dangers of alcohol abuse for women. Alcohol hurts women more.
2007-09-01 13:09:00
It's well known that because of a reduced body weight and a reduced volume of water in the body to dilute the concentration of alcohol, women get drunk quicker than men, and are more at risk for the acute effects of binge drinking, including the risk of fatal overdose; but the dangers to women drinkers a not only acute in nature, and alcoholic women are at greater risk for a number of health disorders than are alcoholic men. Heavy drinking women are more susceptible to developing addictions, and they also seem predisposed to start feeling the negative effects of chronic alcohol abuse faster than men. A greater percentage of alcoholic women than alcoholic men will develop often fatal cirrhosis of the liver, and women are also more at risk for malnutrition, anemia and high blood pressure, particularly during very heavy drinking. Women alcoholics also suffer more cardiac damage than do men with equivalent drinking histories. Women alcoholics suffer proportionally more brain damage and...
More About: For Women , Abuse , Alcohol , Specific

The benefits of using acamprosate in the treatment of alcoholism
2007-09-01 12:53:00
There are few things as poorly understood as the remarkable complexity of the human brain, and addiction as a function of the brain is only very minimally understood at the neuronal level. Thankfully continuing research initiatives continue to uncover ever increasing pieces of this complicated puzzle, but for now, existing pharmacological interventions for addictions recovery remain imperfect. Three of the most commonly used medications in the treatment of alcohol addiction, are disulfiram, naltrexone, and the newest medication, acamprosate. Disulfiram works by making recovering alcoholics very ill if they consume alcohol concurrently with the medication, and naltrexone works by reducing the pleasurable rewards of drinking. Acamprosate works by stabilizing brain activity altered by abuse, and reducing the compulsions to abuse. Acamprosate has its mechanism of action within the GABA neurotransmitter systems of the brain, and it is this damaged GABA system that results in dangerous tr...
More About: Treatment , Benefits , Alcoholism

3 things grandparents can do to protect kids growing up in homes with subst
2007-09-01 12:32:00
Grandparents want to play with, enjoy and spoil their young grandkids, and they never want to be concerned about the stability of the home environment or worried about the safety of their young grandchildren. But with so many kids growing up in homes with alcoholic or drug abusing parents, too many kids, and by extension grandparents, have a lot more than normal to worry about. About a million and a half kids in America are being raised by grandparents?and substance abuse and addiction is a major casual factor for grandparents assuming the role of primary caregiver; and while grandparents surely never wished for the responsibility of parenting again, the stress and concern of leaving kids in questionable or dangerous environments can be even worse. The pains of addiction resonate through the family, and extend beyond the borders of the immediate family home, and nothing is worse than a feeling of impotence to effect change for the better and constant worry for the welfare of beloved...
More About: Kids , Homes , Things , Growing , Subst

How much drinking is too much drinking?
2007-08-31 15:13:00
When people search for information about alcoholism and problem drinking they universally desire concrete and hopefully reassuring facts?unfortunately, as with seemingly everything surrounding substance use and abuse, everything is relative, and what may be safe for one, completely dangerous for another. The National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism recommends no more than two drinks per day as a safe amount, and that for certain groups, such as pregnant women and people taking medications?and of course recovering alcoholics, abstaining is the only sound policy. These are very cautious and surely safe guidelines, but I'm not sure how helpful they really are to people wondering about their levels of consumption. People wondering about their drinking are very unlikely consuming two or less drinks in a sitting, and yet they may very well not have any real problem with alcohol. I don?t think that issuing a quantity based consumption guideline offers much assistance to those t...
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A Virginia study links alcohol abuse with a far greater likelihood of livin
2007-08-31 13:20:00
If you need one more reason to get help for problem drinking, you may find motivation out of a Virginia health care study examining the use of alcohol, and the kind of neighborhood you can expect to live in. Researchers examined hundreds of Caucasian men over a 12 year period, evaluated their alcohol use behaviors, and as well plotted their residences every three years during that 12 year period. They found that heavy use of alcohol over that time was significantly and casually related to a far greater likelihood of residing in a "bad neighborhood" (as defined by low socio economic status). Contrarily, those people who reversed heavy alcohol consumption were far more likely to move out into better neighborhoods as their length of abstinence progressed. Researchers explain that approximately 40 percent of experienced risk towards alcohol abuse seems to be environmental, and that continuing residency in low socio economic neighborhoods likely further contributes to abuse due to an inc...
More About: Abuse , Study , Links , Alcohol

Taking ecstasy in a hot club environment increases the risks of neural dama
2007-08-31 11:40:00
Spanish researchers at the University of Navarra have concluded that the ambient temperature at which ecstasy is taken influences the neural damage done by the drug. Using animal model studies in which rats were dosed with ecstasy at temperatures ranging from 15 to 30 degrees centigrade, and examining the resultant neural damage, researchers have causally linked the ambient air temperature during consumption with an increased risk for neural damage and deficits. They explain that if ecstasy were somehow dosed directly into the brain, there would be no risk of neural damage, and the damage caused seems to be induced by the bodily metabolism of the consumed drug. Higher ambient air temperatures increase the speed and extent of the metabolism, and the higher the ambient air temperature, the greater the risk of neural damage. The problem for drug users is that people most often take ecstasy in a club setting, in which many people may share a poorly ventilated and confined space, greatly...
More About: Environment , Club , Ecstasy , Iron , Neural

What to tell kids growing up with a drug or alcohol abusing parent. Three t
2007-08-30 17:39:00
It's too bad that children get drawn into the whirlwind of family substance abuse, but when one or more parents is abusing drugs or alcohol, the effects on kids in the home can be profound, detrimental and lasting. Kids , even young kids, know something is wrong, and there is no way to shelter them from the realities of the household, and no way to spare them from the pain of the truth. Children know there's a problem, but younger children especially very likely don?t understand what it is, why it's happening, or whose fault it is. The greatest risk is that children will internalize the pain of the abuse behaviors, and believe that they are somehow at fault for the behaviors of abusing parents. Children may accept any story given, but children will only truly believe and benefit from the truth, and by acknowledging the existence of a problem, and by letting kids know that it's not their fault, they have a far greater chance of growing up happy, healthy and less likely to develop ...
More About: Alcohol , Growing , Drug , Growing Up

Red Bull cocktails...you don't feel drunk but you are! Current club culture
2007-08-30 11:35:00
Two recent studies, one Canadian, and one Brazilian, when taken together paint a slightly ominous picture of current club culture, and its implications for impaired driving. The first study, out of the Federal University of Sao Paulo, investigated the effects both perceived and actual of mixing alcohol with energy drinks (such as red bull)?which are popular cocktails throughout the world's bars and clubs. The stimulant nature of the energy drinks seem to reduce perceptions of some of the alcohol's depressive effects, and people consuming red bull cocktails reported feeling less tired, less un coordinated, and stronger than those people who had consumed normal alcoholic cocktails. Popular for inducing an ability to dance all night, these cocktails seem to mask some of the perceived symptoms of intoxication, and people drinking energy drink cocktails underreport their level of intoxication as compared to people drinking conventional alcoholic drinks. But when university researchers ...
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No one needs to hit rock bottom... early intervention and treatment saves l
2007-08-30 10:48:00
An addiction to drugs or alcohol can fragment previously happy families, derail promising careers, and seriously damage health and well being; and left unchecked, addictions inevitably run their full course of destruction. There's a truism that people need to hit rock bottom before they can really see what a mess they've made of things, and really get motivated to seek and benefit from needed drug or alcohol treatment. Unfortunately, what's perceived to be true and necessary is not so, and people can benefit from intervention and therapy at any stage in the progression of addiction, and generally, the earlier drug treatment is sought, the easier the transition back to sobriety, and the better the ultimate prognosis of recovery. People do not need to admit to a problem to benefit from therapies and treatment, and if you can ever convince someone needing help to get it, their wall of denial may come crashing down under during the scrutiny of individual and peer group therapies. The...
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How important is it to share recovery group therapy sessions with people of
2007-08-30 09:55:00
People tend to benefit most from peer group therapies when involved with a group of people with whom they identify and sympathize; thus the closer in age, sexual orientation, gender and experience, the better.  Peer support and peer cognitive learning groups are a hallmark of drug treatment, and thus it makes some sense to search out treatment groups displaying as similar a cross section of members as is possible. Ultimately though, although we may differ in many ways, all of us entering into drug treatment share at least one major thing in common. In some situations shared and common experiences are of utmost importance, and an adolescent user is unlikely to benefit much from a group of older and experienced people, with very distinct issues and with a very different set of experiences and world views. Likewise, very elderly seniors often feel more comfortable within a group of like peers; and some gays, lesbians and bisexuals do not feel comfortable discussing their sexuality...
More About: People , Recovery , Share , Therapy , Group

Prescription Drug Abuse Rehab & Detox
2007-08-29 17:42:00
Drug treatment can be divided into two categories: behavioral and pharmacological. The first involves motivating the recovering addict to remain abstinent, teaching him/her how to overcome cravings, how to avoid people and settings that provoke the desire for drug consumption, how to prevent relapse and what to do if it takes place. Behavioral treatment, if administered properly?whether as individual counseling, family or group counseling, behavioral-cognitive therapies or contingency management?can assist the recovering person with personal relationships, coping with the workplace and better integration into the community. For some drug prescription addictions, for example, to opioids (prescription drugs used to relieve pain) the use of medication can be helpful. Pharmacological treatments seek to reverse the effects of prescription meditations on the brain. Medications are also employed to curb cravings, deal with an overdose and alleviate withdrawal symptoms. A few words about de...
More About: Abuse , Rehab , Detox , Drug , Prescription

A remarkable new way to detect drug use within a community...from our sewag
2007-08-27 18:48:00
Big Brother may soon be watching you?well, your sewage anyways. Remarkably, scientists at the annual meeting of the American Chemical Society presented a prototype of a technique that will soon be used to detect the level of drug metabolites passing through a certain area's sewage in real time. The testing will reveal levels of meth amphetamine, cocaine, marijuana and even legal opiates such as oxycontin or ephedrine. Although people lie?urine is apparently quite truthful, and researchers explain that this new methodology, once employed, will give both law enforcement and public health groups much better information about the true levels of substance abuse as it is occurring within our communities, and in real time. Currently drug taking estimates are conjured from a mixture of self reporting (people may be reluctant to admit to an illegal activity) medical records information and police reports, which together give us a somewhat vague notion of drug use as it?s happening in partic...
More About: Community , Drug , Drug Use , Unit

Researchers gain insight into why drug addicts can't just say no...It's not
2007-08-27 18:03:00
Will power isn?t enough?anyone who has really struggled with addiction can tell you this; and it's hard to explain to people who have never endured the trials of addiction why we can?t simply just choose not to use. Some new research coming out of the University of Melbourne in Australia is helping somewhat to better explain why this is so. The university researchers wanted to better understand why drug addicted people, even those in recovery, have such a difficult time controlling drug taking impulses even in the face of adverse consequences to continuing use. The area of the brain that we use to control impulsive behaviors is the frontal cortex, and this is also the area of higher order thinking and problem solving; and this is the area of the brain that Melbourne researchers investigated for its relationship to drug taking behaviors. The researchers looked at two groups of people, both opiate using and non opiate using participants, and had both groups perform a task in which th...
More About: Insight , Drug , Addict

Drinking dreams...why a night of drunken dreaming always gets me to a meeti
2007-08-25 20:23:00
Most people well into sobriety will know what I'm talking about, and although commonplace and seemingly normal, these drinking dreams still scare the heck out of me; and I wake up after each vivid drinking dream filled with this overpowering guilt and fear, and it takes me good moment before I realize that it was all a dream. Drinking or drugging dreams are reoccurring experiences for many people in recovery, and they are almost universally scary and unsettling experiences. My dream is usually the same; and it's pretty mundane sounding?just me sitting on the couch with a few quarts of beer watching TV. Doesn?t sound too scary, but I can always taste the slightly bitter cool of the beer as if it were real, and that dream buzz feels pretty close to the real thing too. These dreams haunt me throughout the day, and leave me unsettled and pensive. Intellectually, I don?t believe that these dreams signify anything particularly disturbing; but emotionally they always get to me; and one t...
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Executive recovery...continuing to work as you work at better health
2007-08-25 18:48:00
For recovering addicts like myself, the thought of maintaining access to work colleagues and fulfilling necessary business requirements while sequestered in a rehab facility is perplexing, and a bit concerning as well. A residential drug rehab treatment program should be intensive to the point of the exclusion of anything extraneous but the focus on recovery and sobriety?and contact to the outside world should be as minimal as possible to heighten the focus on an internal recovery. An executive rehab runs a little bit differently. Firstly, an executive rehab offers complete confidentiality, and strives through elaborate means to respect the need for secrecy of its sometime powerful and well known alumni. While all rehabs are medical facilities, and are by nature confidential to outside inquiries, an executive rehab will go so far as to never telephone or even mail information to the recovering addict's residence or workplace without prior consent, to minimize the risk of unwanted d...
More About: Health , Recovery , Work , Executive , Conti

Using exercise to beat marijuana withdrawal
2007-08-24 16:13:00
The active ingredient in marijuana (THC) is fat rather than water soluble, and as such much of the legacy of a marijuana addiction remains trapped within the fat cells of the body, and can linger for a period of weeks. People didn't used to consider marijuana addictive, but addictions professionals now recognize that the cessation of regular marijuana smoking can result in a very strong withdrawal syndrome, and as the potency of marijuana gets increasingly stronger with each passing year, so does the strength of the withdrawal symptoms. Some of the symptoms experienced by regular marijuana smokers after quitting use are insomnia, a lack of appetite, nausea, irritability, anxiety and even aggression. One theory in the betterment of marijuana withdrawal symptoms espouses regular and intense exercise as a way to accelerate the removal process of lingering marijuana metabolites from the body. Through intense sweating, some say that the marijuana metabolites can be removed far more quic...
More About: Exercise , Marijuana , Beat , Mari , Withdrawal

Early interventions save lives...how can we accomplish interventions before
2007-08-24 15:12:00
The best way to deal with drug or alcohol dependency and abuse is never to let it occur in the first place. While we are very unlikely to curtail trans-cultural human urges towards the consumption of mood altering substances, through better prevention and intervention, we may be able to limit the numbers of people who progress from use to abuse. A lot of people can use alcohol and even illicit drugs recreationally and never develop dependency issues. What makes those people difference from the rest of us who are susceptible to abuse remains obscured, and it's believed that genetics, personality and environmental factors all interact to complete the picture. We'll never get people to stop indulging, but if we can minimize the danger to those of us at risk to develop substance abuse issues, we could prevent a lot of heartache. None of us like to get involved into the business of others, and although we may have concerns about associates or coworkers and their level of substance use,...
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Why we need to use medications in drug rehab...and why we should be suspici
2007-08-23 20:07:00
The rehab philosophies that call for a complete abstinence from all drugs and medications during recovery are to my thinking ridiculous. There are hundreds of rehab facilities throughout the U.S. that follow a philosophy of either natural alternative treatment or other alternative quasi scientific ideals of recovery; and as a result many thousands of people endure un medicated drug treatment each year. Firstly, the use of certain medications during rehab can make more humane and comfortable an already very difficult transitory period to sobriety?and what possible harm can a couple of ibuprofens do to a person suffering the pains of opiate withdrawal? Secondly, certain withdrawals can induce acute and even chronic conditions that are either dangerous or even life threatening. Until alternative therapies are clinically proven to reduce the incidence of dangerous convulsive episodes during sedative or alcohol withdrawals, I certainly can?t imagine recommending that anyone I loved endur...
More About: Rehab , Drug Rehab , Drug , Medications

Why increasing spending on addictions research is the only way to reduce ba
2007-08-23 20:06:00
There are tens of millions of Americans with substance abuse problems requiring professional intervention, and only a small percentage of these people are getting the help that they need. While undoubtedly a significant percentage of these people have the means to afford drug treatment, and for whatever reason choose not to get it; it is estimated that about 30% of these people, or many millions of Americans, have no health insurance coverage nor have the financial capabilities to afford comprehensive drug treatment expenses. The fact that so many millions of Americans are slipping through the health coverage cracks in our Country should appeal to our humanitarian natures and induce a desire to enact change; but even if we view the issue callously and economically, we still come out far ahead by reducing the barriers to treatment entry. Substance abuse cost's Americans hundreds of billions of dollars a year in criminal and justice, health care and reduced productivity costs; and co...
More About: Research , Spending , Reduce , Addictions , The O

Heavy drinking can speed up the pace of HIV symptoms progression
2007-08-22 20:15:00
Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine have shown that what animal and cellular studies have indicated remains true within human populations, and that alcohol use in certain HIV positive populations increases the pace of disease progression. Researchers suspect that heavy alcohol use decreases immunologic capabilities in HIV positive patients, and that it may achieve this lessening of immune response through accelerated HIV replication in the lymphocytes. The researchers examined the case files of almost 600 alcohol dependent HIV positive patients, and did statistical analysis on the data (controlling for significant variables) and they determined that alcohol plays a significant role in accelerating the progression of the disease, particularly through reducing CD4 cell counts amongst people not using retro viral therapies. Patients that were using retro viral therapies did not show the same CD4 cell count decreases. The researchers call for greater therapeutic interven...
More About: Drinking , Speed , Pace , Heavy , Symptoms

ADHD kids using Ritalin are less likely to develop substance abuse problems
2007-08-22 19:51:00
I've got two kids, and thankfully neither of them has ADHD, and if they did I know that I would agonize over whether to give them powerful stimulant drugs for symptoms control. I'm not an expert on the pharmacology of drugs such as Ritalin, and I can?t say conclusively whether these drugs do more good than harm?but at the very least, in the area of substance abuse, the research is now overwhelmingly clear that medicated ADHD sufferers are far less likely to develop substance abuse and dependency problems later in life. Clinical studies funded out of the National Institute for Drug Addiction (NIDA) have pretty conclusively shown that ADHD patients given stimulant medications for symptoms control end up developing far fewer problems with addiction and substance use than unmedicated sufferers. Unmedicated ADHD teens use drugs earlier and they use them more often; and they may even be using stimulant style drugs such as crystal meth and cocaine or crack for symptoms relief as self med...
More About: Abuse , Kids , Problems , Develop , Subs

Remembering how to pray through AA
2007-08-22 18:51:00
I was born and raised a Christian, but once I started using and abusing in my teens and through young adulthood, my relationship with my Faith all but disappeared within the haze of intoxication. Other than a few "stoner" talks about the meaning of life, I really didn?t think about God just as I really didn?t think about much other than getting high or getting drunk. One of the most surprising aspects of my recovery away from addiction and abuse was a re awakening of my Faith, and the development of a very personal belief and reliance on God as I understand Him. I still don?t go to church nearly as often as I should, but Faith has become important in my life, and it influences all that I do?and it was in AA after really hitting rock bottom that I discovered that God remained a part of me, and that I could use His strength to get better. Remembering how to pray with AA In AA we begin each meeting with a serenity prayer, and we pray to improve our relationships with God, to have God r...
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The Christian 12 steps
2007-08-22 18:38:00
The founding fathers of Alcoholics Anonymous wanted to reduce any barriers to entry into their lifesaving spiritual program; and so although devout Christian s, these men decided to organize their recovery group as a spiritual but secular recovery organization. Which considering the religious climate of the time, was a remarkably inclusive and modern act of forethought; and has allowed millions of non Christians to benefit from an organization of hope, guidance and sobriety. But although the terms God or Jesus are replaced with higher power, the philosophies and Faith based teachings are all very Christian in nature, and AA does mandate a belief in a higher power to follow the 12 steps to recovery. Because the roots and philosophies are so closely linked to Christianity and a belief in God, the use of AA in Christian rehab programs is not much of a stretch; and when used in a Christian facility, instead of praying to a higher power, prayer is directed as a group towards a Christian G...
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