Friday, December 25th, 2009 at
11:19 am
The American National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has announced a ‘Five Year Strategic Plan’ titled ‘Alcohol Across the Lifespan’
The Lifespan Perspective
Investigators traditionally have pursued solutions to the wide range of alcohol-related issues through studies of alcohol’s effects on biological systems, the genetic factors underlying these biological effects, and the environmental and cultural factors that influence alcohol use.
This Plan applies a new organizing principle – the lifespan perspective – to these diverse areas of alcohol research.
Scientists now recognize that human biology and behavior continues to change throughout life and changes occurring throughout the lifespan affect individuals’ drinking patterns as well as the decisions they may make to change their drinking habits or to seek help for alcohol use problems.
A lifespan perspective will allow researchers to identify how the emergence and progression of drinking behavior is influenced by changes in biology, psychology, and in exposure to social and environmental inputs over a person’s lifetime, and vice versa.
This approach should help researchers discover life stage- appropriate strategies for identifying, treating, and preventing alcohol use disorders.
Full story at NIAAA
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Sunday, November 8th, 2009 at
6:06 am
The concept of spirituality in relation to addiction recovery and general psychiatry.
This chapter is directed at defining the nature of spirituality and its relationship to empirical research and clinical practice.
A preliminary understanding of the spiritual experience can be achieved on the basis of diverse theoretical and empirically grounded sources, which will be delineated: namely, physiology, psychology, and cross-cultural sources.
Furthermore, the impact of spirituality on mental health and addiction in different cultural and clinical settings is explicated regarding both beneficial and compromising outcomes.
Illustrations of its application in addiction and general psychiatry are given: in meditative practices, Alcoholics Anonymous, and treatment programs for addiction singly and comorbid with major mental illness.
Given its prominence in Alcoholics Anonymous and related Twelve-Step groups, spirituality plays an important role in the rehabilitation of many substance-dependent people.
The issue of spirituality, however, is prominent within contemporary culture as well in the form of theistic orientation, as evidenced in a probability sampling of American adults, among whom 95% of respondents reply positively when asked if they believe in “God or a universal spirit.”
Responses to a follow-up on this question suggest that this belief affects the daily lives of the majority (51%) of those sampled, as they indicated that they had talked to someone about God or some aspect of their faith or spirituality within the previous 24 h.
Research report; Galanter M. The concept of spirituality in relation to addiction recovery and general psychiatry. Recent Dev Alcohol. 2008;18:125-40.
See also;
The American National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has announced a ‘Five Year Strategic Plan’ titled ‘Alcohol Across the Lifespan’
Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality
