Best Health » Addiction

How to Tell If You Are Addicted to Sugar

Oey Piu Hian — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 09:17:00 +0000

A dietitian, it is not uncommon for me to hear my clients say, "If there is a packet of chocolates in the house I will not be able to resist eating it until it is all gone".

The same behaviour is demonstrated with all other sweet things like sugar, honey, biscuits, cakes, sweet drinks and confectionary. You just CANNOT HELP YOURSELF!

In fact this urge or craving is so overwhelming that it takes on a life of its own, scares you death and generates a great deal of anxiety. Each time after demolishing all these sweets, you feel guilty and depressed.

You are at odds with the dark side of you and cannot logically imagine why you would do this over and over again and hurt yourself and harm your health.

You are addicted to the pleasure sensations that come from ingesting sugar-rich foods.

You enjoy having a party in your mouth and want this party to NEVER STOP because it feels so good! And your desire for this party is even more acute during times of stress or if you are in a crisis. You seek comfort to feel better ignoring the mental, emotional and physical cost of your actions.

Your sugar craving is literally consuming your life.

Simply put, if anytime there are sweet things within reach and you cannot leave them unfinished, then you are addicted to sugar.

This kind of addiction usually cannot be overcome simply by willpower.

Acknowledging this behaviour is the first step to recovery. Congratulations for facing up to yourself and instigating change. Beginning is half done!

Giselle Brand is an accredited practising dietitian and the founder of Concept Nutrition, an online resource for people interested in weight management and healthy living. Giselle is an expert in helping people take action to achieve their health goals.

To find out how to effectively stop sugar cravings and discover many more resources for healthy weight management, visit http://conceptnutrition.com.au/how-to-stop-sugar-cravings/.

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Opiate Addiction Symptoms and Signs

Oey Piu Hian — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 02:23:08 +0000

Opiate addiction is an insidious problem that has plagued society for centuries, but perhaps never more so than today. A two-edged sword, opiates can heal or destroy.

An opiate is any drug derived from the opium poppy plant. The main opiates are morphine, heroin, and codeine.

Thebaine and papaverine are also opiates. More commonly we see opiates in their synthetic forms: oxycodone (OxyContin, Percodan), hydrocodone (Vicodin), and hydromorphone (Dilaudid). Darvon, Demerol, and Methadone are other synthetic opiates. The majority of these drugs are used medically for pain management.

Opiates are particularly effective in suppressing pain and reducing anxiety. In sufficiently high doses, they can produce a euphoric state. For this reason, they are often used as recreational drugs. Psychological and physical dependence leading to addiction is common in frequent opiate users. The body quickly adjusts to the use of opiates such that increasingly larger doses are needed to produce the same euphoric effect. Overdosing, sometimes resulting in fatal respiratory failure, occurs when addicts take more than their body can handle.

Most opiates can be swallowed, snorted, smoked, or injected. Intravenous injection is the preferred method of longtime addicts as this method produces the quickest, most intense high. It is also a method accompanied by increased risk of infectious disease.

Physically, the effects of opiates include dry mouth; muscle spasticity; slow, shallow or labored breathing; pupil dilation; stomach and intestinal spasms; constipation; low blood pressure; and diminished mental capacity, drowsiness, and disorientation. A common behavior of the opiate addict is the nodding in and out of consciousness.

Opiate addicts are emotionally detached. Thus, dependents of addicts are often neglected and sometimes abused.

Addicts have a difficult time reporting regularly to jobs and even keeping them. Since they cannot function without the drug, looking for it, paying for it, using it, and enjoying its effects become first and foremost in their priority.

Other needs are a poor second. Since funds are usually not commensurate to the need and desire, stealing and other criminal behavior are often parts of the addict’s lifestyle.

Withdrawal from addiction to opiates can include hot and cold flashes, goose bumps, extreme restlessness, anxiety, muscle spasms, tremors, muscle and bone ache, insomnia, diarrhea, and vomiting.

Fortunately, there are many opiate dependency treatment programs available. Before anything else, detoxification is needed. In the opiate addiction detox center, a longtime user can begin the process of eliminating the toxins from one’s body in a regulated environment where medical practitioners are available to monitor any adverse effects of withdrawal.

Some opiate addiction rehab centers administer medications such as methadone or buprenorphine to ease the pain of withdrawal. After the physical cleansing, the tough work of self-transformation begins. Opiate addiction rehabs offer counseling and behavior modification strategies and techniques to enable the recovering patient to sustain a drug-free lifestyle long after he’s left the opiate addiction rehab center.

Through counseling sessions, the patient discovers the emotional and environmental factors that trigger his cravings, and he learns how to avoid these or control them. Realizing that the treatment for opiate dependency is far from over, even when the rehabilitated opiate addict returns to society, opiate addiction treatment centers connect him to support groups and family outreach programs to assist him and his family in rebuilding their lives.

Finding the best opiate addiction detox center is a necessity in today’s world. Realizing the fact the author of this article has analyzed the addiction to opiates. He knows how to find the best rehab centers. He has helped many people to find the best programs available out there.

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Addiction Induced by Tobacco

Oey Piu Hian — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:05:35 +0000

Probably, one of the worst addictions people have is the one that they have towards tobacco cigarettes and smokeless tobacco products. Tobacco induces a slightly different kind of addiction when compared with addictions such as gambling. These are all addictions that come up mostly from the addictive personality of a person itself. Tobacco, in fact, is a little different because the substance itself is addictive in nature. The last thing a person in his teens would want would be to have his peers laugh at him, call him chicken or whatever daily abuse these so-called peers dish out, the moment he tells them ‘No, thank you,’ to the cigarette they hand over to him. So in order to avoid being teased and pushed into oblivion he accepts the cigarette and takes his first puff.Sadly, the hacking that follows, which is in fact the body’s way of telling a person that it does not want tobacco cigarette’s smoke in its lungs, is ignored by the youth. It will take a brief period of time, but eventually the smoker’s body will become accustomed to the tobacco cigarette’s smoke itself. The coughing may not be as severe and eventually that too will stop. Pretty soon, the person in his youth will gain the ability to smoke a whole good cigarette without showing any outward signs that the tobacco cigarette itself is doing him any kind of harm; to his body.

It is exactly at this point in time that the very simple act of smoking tobacco cigarettes becomes an addictive activity; not just because of the smoke emitted by it, but due to a substance in it called nicotine. Nicotine is classified as a drug. And, like any other drug, if it is taken for long periods, the body will begin to develop cravings for it. All of a sudden, the person will find that if he does not smoke a cigarette he begins to feel irritated and nervous. It is not just a matter of getting hold of a tobacco cigarette to impress the friends, but it is something that is done to satisfy a craving that would not go away easily.

In some people, this addiction to tobacco products can turn so bad that they become what are called hard core or chain smokers. These are the kind of folk who need to have a cigarette at all times. These chain smokers can burn three or four packets of cigarettes a day very easily. There is no use advising them regarding the harm that this kind of tobacco cigarette smoking does to the human body. Cigarettes have already reached the peak of their popularity and enough research has been done to prove beyond doubt that smoking tobacco products causes cancer, respiratory diseases and heart and coronary problems. In short, smoking kills a person bit by bit. Even with the knowledge of what tobacco cigarette smoking can do to the smoker, these smokers find it almost impossible to stop the habit.

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Yes, Alcoholism is Another Drug Addiction

Oey Piu Hian — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:56:00 +0000

In today’s world alcohol is not seen as a drug. This is due to the fact that once you are over 21 years old you can get it in just about any bar or shop. However, alcoholism should be seen as an addiction as any other drugs. Even though it is easy to obtain it and the government has not established any bans on it it too should be seen as an harmful drug.

Alcoholism can be defined as a drug addition in which some feels an excessive need to drink and keep on drinking. This behavioral pattern is not random, but a frequent tendency to consume alcoholic beverages. Someone that is addicted to alcohol cannot separate it from their life and see it as their ‘medicine’ to happiness. However, one must not be mislead to believe that this is casual drinking because people with alcoholism are drug addicts just like any other addicts.

However, an alcoholic can get help if they look for a reputable drug and alcohol rehab that deal with this type of addiction. They will undergo many counseling sessions with the aim for them to see and accept that they have a problem and also to outline a plan to achieve change. Being in a drug rehab can be intimating at first, but after some time the alcoholic will see that he is in an environment that will help him on the road towards change.

People with alcoholism suffer from withdrawal symptoms just like any other addict too. They may experience fits of rage, headaches, aggressiveness, insomnia, etc. If they are not treated for their addiction in the correct manner they will slip right back into drinking with the aim to minimize the withdrawal effects that they are feeling.

It is therefore important that family members seek help as quickly as possible when they find that a loved one is an alcoholic. They may feel shame t o think that they have someone on their family that suffers from this sickness, but hundreds of homes worldwide experience this type of challenge. Turning one’s back and walking away from alcoholism is not the solution, because it can lead into more devastating consequences.

If you know someone that is addicted to alcohol then try to approach them about it an a loving and caring way. You should be prepared to hear them deny their alcoholism and this is where you will have to get the help of a drug and alcohol rehab to offer their interventions services.

It may take months or years for an alcoholic to overcome their cravings. The recovery period will depend on the professional care that they receive and also their own will power to have a clean life. They should be surrounded by family while they are in a drug and alcohol rehab because support and love help to make the recovery process a lot easier.

Mountainside Drug Rehab is a comprehensive and innovative provider of treatment for individuals suffering from drug addiction and alcoholism. The Mountainside treatment team and staff are dedicated to providing an unsurpassed treatment experience to its clients. With diverse areas of expertise, the treatment team works collaboratively with each client and their family to ensure that an individualized treatment plan is designed that will treat not just the symptoms, but the whole individual.For more information about Mountainside Treatment Center visit http://www.mountainside.com or call 1-800-762-5433

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