Tag Archives: Dr. Dalal Akoury

Stress and Addiction: Where’s the connection?

June 28, 2014

Relationship between Stress and Addiction

Addiction and stressDid you know that excessive stress could lead one to addiction? What is stress and what is addiction and how are they related to each other? Well, I will come to that later in my next paragraph. First and foremost, let’s talk about stress. In everyone’s life, one undergoes or experiences some stress of some kind. With the fast moving life of today one tends to find him or herself always trying to cope up especially since everything and everyone has evolved really fast for the past ten years or so. All this added up together can lead to one easily falling into what we call stress. Did you know that stress can also come from family, friends and peer pressure? These three elements especially the latter has caused lots of pressure in the world today that has been dubbed ‘digital’.

Now let us talk about what stress and addictions are. Well, for starters, stress is some kind of strain or tension felt when one is experiencing environmental, work or even family challenge. This could be as a result of death of a child, a lover and even of a close friend or relative, divorce, peer pressure and financial matters. To mention but a few. Addiction on the other hand is when one is devoted to something that could either be drug related or just devotion to something of some kind. Someone with an addiction problem always have the strong urge and need to always have that thing that they are addicted to. It’s almost if not a disease of some sort and can be treated if one seeks treatment in time.

We all know that a little push is good for everybody thus a little bit of pressure is not harmful. It’s dangerous only when it goes overboard. As the saying goes, too much of something is dangerous, so it stress and pressure. If you push yourself too much you will always get into stress, trying so hard to cope in your job, family or amongst your friends and feeling that you are not meeting their standard could also push one into stress because they will always be trying to fit in. well, trying is not bad but not to an extent that it affects you or drives you into stress and depression. It’s your life we are talking about here.

So how does stress result into addiction?

It’s actually not rocket science to relate the two. Though not all stress will always catapult into addiction, most of them usually do. Infect stress and addiction are almost synonymous. Synonymous in the fact that you can rarely get one without the other. Most or all individuals have their own ways of dealing with different kinds of stress in different ways. Some people will just need to take a few hours or days off from work or whatever stress is it that they are going through and it all goes away but there are some people who will turn to stronger things like alcohol, cigarettes or drugs like cocaine or heroin to relax them from the stress they are undergoing. In most countries, cigarettes and alcohol are legal so they are usually the most sort after as stress relievers. They are equally cheap, affordable and readily available.

One can start by just joining friends or relatives for a social drink over the weekend to put away or forget the stress he or she is went through during the week. It could just be an innocent get together that could start with one weekend then when you go home or is on your own, you will feel like the stress is has gone away or subsided. This trend may go on from weekends to daily because you will always seem to feel tensed during the week and after a few drinks later in the day or even on weekends you will feel better. By this time, you will have found or would thing you have a solution of getting rid of your stress. Is it me or does cigarette make a good companion of alcohol? These two go together very well just like stress and addiction. In fact, it’s almost impossible to separate the two. Most often your drink will be generously escorted with a cigarette. Some will also start with the hard stuff like heroin and cocaine.

  • Addiction

Well, remember we had mentioned earlier that addiction is too much devotion to something regardless of what it is? Now when one starts depending too much on something it becomes addiction. Please don’t get it twisted and start looking for comfort somewhere else as any form of dependency may lead to addiction. However there are many ways to know if you are addicted or headed there especially for the ones using drugs. We all know our body and can tell if there any weird changes. If you start losing weight, getting tremors then start getting worried. Honestly though, do we need to wait to experience all these and is it really worth it?

First avoid stress by always keeping away from whatever drives you into stress. It’s given that some stresses are inevitable like death or even family matters like divorce but it will help to know that we are not the only ones going through such calamities. Issues like peer pressure are avoidable. How? Simple. Keep away from anyone expecting too much from you at the expense of your health. All said and done, alcohol, cigarettes or any form of addiction will never be cure for stress.

If you fall victim of addiction from stress related causes, or suffering any form of addiction, we at New Frontier Medicine Academy.

Stress and Addiction: Where’s the connection?

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How Is Thought Field Therapy Helpful In Fighting Addiction?

June 27, 2014

Thought Field Therapy (TFT) and Its Relation to Addiction

thought field therapyIf you are a consistent reader of our blog, I say thanks a lot. We all intend to share knowledge that is accurate and useful in our attempt to help victims of addiction. Today, we are discussing a very important addiction treatment procedure that has been extensively used in the medical field. It’s very important to stress right from the beginning that addiction treatment is a very sensitive undertaking and thus is better done by professionals who aim to transform the individual’s situation in a holistic approach that targets the body, mind and soul. Ok, back to our topic.

Thought field therapy is a natural healing therapy through sequential tapping procedure. When one applies thought field therapy to their problems it will address all the basic or the nitty-gritty causes making the body’s energy system to balance. It will also aid one in eliminating all if not most of the depressing emotions or fears quickly. Thought food therapy is very efficient, very healthy and it’s an alternative to long term psychotherapy.

Thought field therapy is almost the last resort when no other therapy will work and it’s usually used in many ways. Others will use it help aid in cigarette quitting, others will use it to help them in weight loss, others for healing after a painful love breakup, death, phobia and even trauma relief. It has also been used for the elimination of stress, anxiety and fears. Its acupuncture but without the needles. It will also provide with a very good path to success. Thought field therapy tapping techniques usually have a significant impact on the decrease of one’s suffering.

Thought field therapy has helped and is still helping thousands of people around the globe to overcome their emotional and physical problems. The process is a blend of both eastern and western healing methods that uses energy points in human body to release emotional agony. Thought field therapy sessions usually lasts of no less or no more than fifteen minutes and usually a well qualified thought field practitioner will be able to easily diagnose which areas are out of balance. Once the thought field therapy has been established, the treatment will mostly involve having the patient tap on the various locations on their body in a specific order and all this time fully focusing on the emotional and psychological problems he is facing. One should also keenly and mentally tune in their problems during both diagnosis and treatment process as it is very vital.

thought field therapyPatients are usually delighted to be free from their emotional, mental and physical problems so easily and quickly since the process doesn’t always require touching of a patient’s body and it’s always completed in no time and this applies even in most complicated cases. Even though thought field therapy started fifteen years ago with Dr. Callahan as its founder, it is rapidly gaining recognition and attention in professional areas with many practitioners adopting it in their clinics.

Everyone in this world is affected by pain in one way or the other. Millions suffer from persistent, anxiety and depression. There are obviously many ways of dealing with such kind of stresses but do they really work? Well, some might work eventually but how long will it take to get your healing. Well the answer is simple….. Thought field therapy.

How does thought field therapy and addiction work together?

Remember in our first paragraphs where we spoke about thought field therapy aiding in cigarette quitting? Well, smoking is one addiction that is very hard to quit. Some even try hypnosis patches among other methods to quit smoking but it most cases does not work but when you try the tapping method, it will almost be impossible for you to get the craving back. The same case will apply for alcohol addiction or any other addiction for that matter

Get Help from medical experts and New Frontier Medical Academy

We all know the seriousness of addiction, from its effects on our loved ones and friends. For us to tackle addiction to ensure there are no relapses or severe withdrawal sufferings, it’s advisable to get treatment only from qualified professionals. That said, the New Frontier Medicine Academy boast of experts in addiction treatment who are ready to train you and treat you if you are a victim. Our treatment and training programs are certified and focus on a holistic restoration of the mind, body and soul. We train on all the genetics and epigenetics of addiction to ensure we save lives and equip the community with adequate knowledge through extensive addiction training….. Get in touch if you need help

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Alcohol and Breast Cancer

June 26, 2014

Influence Of Alcohol On Breast Cancer

BREAST CANCER. What comes to one’s mind when they hear of it? Eight out of ten people will probably give ‘DEATH’ as their answer. Breast Cancer is a very dangerous disease, perhaps even the number one killer disease globally after diabetes and hypertension or high blood pressure as it is known in lay man’s language. Cancer is a disease that comes as a result of cells that have grown out of control in our bodies. There are however many types of cancer and are classified in different ways mostly by the type of cell that was affected originally, breast cancer is just one of them. It usually damages the cell by separating it hysterically to form lumps or masses of tissues called tumor.

Breast Cancer

How about ALCOHOL? Well alcohol in simple terms, is a substance or drink that gives someone or some people some kind of a high that they term as ‘ out of this world ‘ but in real sense ii is an organic compound whereby the hydroxyl functional group (-0H) is bound to carbon atom. In essence, the carbon centre must be saturated, having single bonds to couple other atoms. Alcohol and cancer mixed together is near fatal. Mostly people take alcohol in order to reduce the pain they are having because cancer is very painful, especially during chemotherapy. But is it necessary to consume alcohol even if it some sort of pain reliever? Well, there has been mixed reaction towards this debate.

Ironically, new research indicate that alcohol taken moderately among breast cancer survivors will immensely reduce their risk of dying from heart related diseases. Heart related disease is very popular with breast cancer survivors. Alcohol should not be used with the thought that it will cure breast cancer. It is important to take note that it will only benefit the ones that have survived from this ordeal. It is also not one hundred percent guarantee that all or anyone diagnosed with breast cancer will be a survivor.

Alcohol consumption earlier in life between ages 18 to 40 or even later in life more often will have great impact on breast cancer. You can however decrease your alcohol or just stop it all together but considering the health benefits it has on cardiovascular on breast cancer survivors, alcohol needs to be balanced by the help of one’s physician so that it becomes a win situation. It has also been noted that every woman who drinks more than six or more bottle of beer weekly has a higher risk of invasive breast cancer compared to those who don’t drink at all. The risks gets even higher on those who drink more than thirty bottles weekly. And this is irrespective of the type of alcoholic beverage taken. One should also take a deep look at her family history.

Factors that can alter a woman’s risk of breast cancer can also include first full term pregnancy which will also include exposure to ionizing radiation. Many research have not dug into this overtime. Making alcohol intake a habit after surviving cancer especially in early stages can however cause recurrence compared to those who abstain. This risk will be higher particularly in people who are overweight or older.

How do we prevent breast cancer?

Any cancer leave alone breast cancer can be prevented. Human life style has become so modern that people are living very carelessly without putting their health first. They are doing this by eating the wrong foods like processed foods and also consuming alcohol excessively.

Alcohol though when taken in moderation is not bad but moderation has also been overrated. One should consider completely quitting to avoid issues of dependency. Remember also excessive intake of alcohol at an early age is what may accumulate in ones blood stream and later cause cancer in the body. As much as cancer can be good in cancer survivors hearts, it is proper that we understand that too much of it can be detrimental.

Breast Cancer

Apart from reduction of alcohol intake, please quit smoking if you are already at it or simply don’t start. It is also very important for one to control their weight for health purposes even if it not for the prevention of breast cancer. Weight will come with other health risks too. Weight control will come with physical activities. If you are a breast feeding mother then you are in luck as breast feeding decreases chances of getting cancer especially when done more often. Don’t take too much 0f hormonal drugs. Don’t also expose yourself to too much radiation like x-rays. Please avoid this procedures if your chances of getting breast cancer will be more.

All said and done. Do you know that breast cancer can be prevented or even cured? Many a people will give up hope when they discover that they have this dreaded disease. Well, just follow a healthy life style and we will leave in a CANCER free world.

Influence Of Alcohol On Breast Cancer

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Common Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms

June 25, 2014

Are you having an alcoholism Problem?

addiction withdrawaAlcohol withdrawal refers to an assemblage of symptoms that may occur from suddenly discontinuing with the use of alcohol after chronic or prolonged ingestion. Not everyone who stops drinking experiences withdrawal symptoms, but most people who have been drinking for a long period of time, or drinking frequently, or drink heavily when they do drink, will experience some form of withdrawal symptoms if they stop drinking suddenly.

What Is It?

Alcohol withdrawal is the fluctuations the body goes through when a person suddenly stops consumption after prolonged and heavy alcohol use. Symptoms include trembling (shakes), insomnia, anxiety, and other physical and mental symptoms. Alcohol has a decelerating effect (also called a sedating effect or depressant effect) on the brain. In a heavy, long-term drinker, the brain is almost continually exposed to the depressant effect of alcohol. Over time, the brain adjusts its own chemistry to compensate for the effect of the alcohol. It does this by producing naturally stimulating chemicals (such as serotonin or norepinephrine, which is a relative of adrenaline) in larger quantities than normal. If the alcohol is withdrawn suddenly, the brain is like an accelerated vehicle that has lost its brakes. Not surprisingly, most symptoms of withdrawal are symptoms that occur when the brain is over stimulated. The most hazardous form of alcohol withdrawal occurs in about one out of every twenty people who have withdrawal symptoms. This condition is called delirium tremens (also called DTs). In delirium tremens, the brain is not able to smoothly readjust its chemistry after alcohol is stopped. This creates a state of temporary confusion and leads to dangerous changes in the way your brain regulates your circulation and breathing. The body’s vital signs such as your heart rate or blood pressure can change dramatically or capriciously, generating a risk of heart attack, stroke or death.

  • Pathophysiology

Alcohol withdrawal syndrome is mediated by a variety of mechanisms. The brain maintains neurochemical balance through inhibitory and excitatory neurotransmitters. The main inhibitory neurotransmitter is γ-amino-butyric acid (GABA), which acts through the GABA-alpha (GABA-A) neuroreceptor. One of the major excitatory neurotransmitters is glutamate, which acts through the N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) neuroreceptor.

Alcohol enhances the effect of GABA on GABA-A neuroreceptors, resulting in decreased overall brain excitability. Chronic exposure to alcohol results in a compensatory decrease of GABA-A neuroreceptor response to GABA, evidenced by increasing tolerance of the effects of alcohol.

What causes withdrawal?

Alcohol thinning is a physical reaction to cutting down or discontinuing alcohol use. It is most common in people who are heavy drinkers because they have developed a tolerance to alcohol. Alcohol acts in the central nervous system by changing the balance of neurotransmitters, which are chemicals that send messages between nerves. Alcohol reduces the effect of excitatory neurotransmitters, and increases the effect of inhibitory neurotransmitters, altering the natural balance of the nervous system. Over time, the brain tries to fix this unevenness by increasing the activity of the excitatory neurotransmitters and reducing the activity of the inhibitory neurotransmitters. When alcohol is suddenly taken away, this compensatory effect keeps going, resulting in over activity of the excitatory neurotransmitters and under activity of the inhibitory neurotransmitters. This causes withdrawal syndromes.

What Are the Common Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms?

Withdrawal symptoms are hinged on the amount you were drinking and for how long. Some persons will have only mild symptoms while others will have severe, even life-threatening symptoms.

  • Mild to moderate symptoms

These can start from six to forty eight hours after people stop drinking or cut down, and usually last one to five days. They include: Shaking, Sweating, Racing heart, Feeling sick and vomiting, Headaches, Trouble sleeping, Feeling anxious or agitated, and Hallucinations

  • Very severe symptoms

Seizures -Usually occur within the first two days, it occur in about 2-9% of alcohol dependent people. Delirium tremens’ Usually occur 3-4 days after stopping drinking and typically resolves within 3 days, it occurs in about 5% of people admitted to hospital for alcohol problems Includes: Vivid hallucinations, confusion and disorientation ,agitation and hyperactivity, Insomnia, trembling, racing heart, sweating and fever.

Diagnosis

addiction withdrawal symptomsAlcohol withdrawal is easy to identify if you have distinctive symptoms that occur after you stop hefty, habitual drinking. If you have a past experience of withdrawal symptoms, you are likely to have them return if you start and stop heavy drinking again. There are no specific tests that can be used to diagnose alcohol withdrawal. If you have withdrawal symptoms from drinking, then you have consumed enough alcohol to damage other organs. It is a good idea for your doctor to examine you prudently and do blood tests, checking for alcohol-related damage to your liver, heart, nerves in your feet, blood cell counts, and gastrointestinal tract. Your doctor will evaluate your usual diet and check for vitamin deficiencies because poor nutrition is common when someone is dependent on alcohol. It is customarily difficult for people who drink to be entirely honest about how much they’ve been drinking. You should bang your drinking history straightforwardly to your doctor so you can be treated safely for withdrawal symptom.

Obtain Expert Help and Care at the New Frontier Medicine Academy

Our good and hardworking team of experts from New Frontier will toil with you persistently until you lastly heal from alcohol withdrawal symptoms. We treat all consumers in an exceptional manner after listening to their problems and assessing their conditions. Your well-being is our duty consequently we will not only help you from alcohol withdrawing symptoms but also get you back into a faultless shape. Heal your body, mind and spirit so you start a whole new life free of liquor and depression. Visit New Frontier for reliable results.

Common Alcohol Withdrawal Symptoms

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Seek Addiction Knowledge: Read Addiction Books

June 24, 2014

Get Equipped With Addiction Knowledge through Reading Addiction Books

addiction books

Free eBooks are also a better way to learn more about addiction

Our current population is experiencing a lot of health challenges and addiction rates are staggeringly scary. So I thought I could share with you about this thorny topic and inform you of some of the best books that you can get your hands on for in-house help and reading. Substance abuse and addiction have reached epidemic proportions in the United States. Every day, on average, about 8,120 individuals age 12 and over try drugs for the first time and 12,800 try alcohol. About 60 million people binge drink. Mortality rates from abuse of prescription pills are skyrocketing. All-in-all, in addition to destroying families, devastating inner cities, and causing crime and car accidents, substance abuse is responsible for more deaths than any other “non-natural” cause.

In Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy, David Sheff, the author of Beautiful Boy, a moving account of the addiction and treatment of his son, Nic, draws on research in psychology, neuroscience and medicine to present a new approach to dealing with what may well be our greatest social problem. Sheff insists that addiction is an incurable but treatable disease, not a moral failing. Since choice “has nothing to do with the disease,” he emphasizes, it is counter-productive to exhort young people to “Just say no” or dismiss addicts as dissolute or undisciplined. Treatment must be based on evidence, not urban legends, guilt or wishful thinking.

Providing a wealth of information and practical advice, Clean is the best book on drug abuse and addiction to appear in years. Sheff’s claims about choice, however, raise far more questions than they answer.

Clean busts a mountain of myths. People living below the poverty line, he reveals, are 100 percent more likely to abuse or be addicted than more affluent individuals. Sheff cites studies that show that the DARE program, which is used in 75 percent of the nation’s school districts, may actually raise rates of drug use. He demonstrates that addicts will not respond best if they’re allowed “to hit bottom.” He makes a compelling case that “no one really knows how often AA works and for whom,” and that we do know that AA retention is low and attrition is high. Although he cites no studies, Shef claims that “the science based approach rejects cold-turkey detox.”

Sheff also makes specific recommendations about management options and how to make informed selections. He sorts out types of accreditation and licensing for facilities; favors programs where psychologists, clinical social workers and family therapists are “full-time and don’t just stop by weekly” and psychological and physical examinations and medications (if necessary) are managed on site; and he advises nailing down ahead of time the assistance staff will provide with a transition to a new program when the patient is ready or he or she has been expelled.

Grounded in evidence of genetic predispositions and the effect of drugs on the brain, Sheff’s main theme — that addiction is a disease, not a character flaw — does counter a pervasive and pernicious tendency to “blame the victim” (or the parents of the victim). But it leaves us struggling to comprehend the role of “free will” in resisting the disease.

In our judgment, Sheff is neither consistent nor clear in distinguishing between drug abusers and addicts or in finding a way to understand or explain the choices users make. Hard put to explain “why some people do stop using on their own,” he speculates that members of this small group “aren’t as addicted in the first place.” His analogy, that “blaming an addict for relapse is like blaming a cancer patient when radiation and chemotherapy don’t work,” doesn’t seem entirely appropriate.

addicton booksThroughout his book, it is worth noting, Sheff acknowledges that choices are available to abusers and addicts. “Before a person can change his behavior,” he writes, “[he] has to want to change it.” Motivational interviewing “can help addicts understand the conflict between their life goals and their drug use.” Given “cues” during Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Sheff asserts, addicts can be trained to select alternative behaviors to defuse triggers — like going for a run — when they reach a “choice point.” When Luke Gsell took Dramamine and drank beer while in rehab to celebrate his 15th birthday, came down from it, recognized he was an addict and vowed “I’m done with this,” Sheff declares that “if he needed confirmation that his decision was a smart one, he received it the next day,” when his roommate OD’d after taking 36 pills. And in the appendix to Clean, Sheff concludes, “If kids are to make informed choices about drugs, they need to have facts about them. They need to know what they’re risking in order to get high.”

Free will is an elusive and enigmatic concept. Though philosophers have gone free will hunting for centuries, they have never really understood why people choose what they choose. Nor is free will yet amenable to measurement by scientists. We believe that choice, as it is commonly understood, and as Sheff himself uses it, is relevant to the scourge of abuse and addiction, and to the tactics, strategies, and policies his extraordinarily valuable book lays out to help us to overcome them. Contact NEW FRONTIER Medicine Academy for addiction help.

Get Equipped With Addiction Knowledge through Reading Addiction Books

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