Advances in alcohol & substance abuse最新文献

When data from interviews with 301 alcoholic women, drawn from 21 treatment facilities, are compared with interview responses of 137 age-matched nonalcoholic control women, differences in report of early life experience appear. The two groups of women do not differ significantly in report of painful early life events, but they do differ significantly in reports of response to these events and their affective reactions during their early years. Clinic and Control women also differ significantly in report of impulsive childhood and adolescent behaviors. Comparison of Clinic women of different ages with nonalcoholic age peers suggest that childhood and adolescent impulse control problems are more likely to be associated with earlier onset of alcoholism. Present data are based on retrospection and self-report. Assuming that alcoholic women introduce no more memory distortions than nonalcoholic women in evoking early life memories, the consistent finding is that early life emotional/behavioral problems are reported to a significantly greater extent by women who will later become alcoholic than by those who will not.

A survey was conducted to determine which socio-cultural and psychosocial variables had the ability to discriminate adolescent drinking behavior at four different age groups. A total of 3,017 sixth, eighth, tenth, and twelfth grade students in the Southeast participated in the study. Those students who were classified as moderate to heavy drinkers were more likely to be White, male, had higher scores on an alcohol knowledge test, were more liberal in their attitudes toward alcohol use, drank at an earlier age, and had friends who drank. When all predictor variables were considered as a group, the two most predominant characteristics for explaining student drinking behavior were peer behavior and attitudes toward alcohol. Parental drinking behaviors were significant for the younger students, but compared to the peer and attitude variables, their contributions to group separation were minor. Efforts to curb moderate or heavy drinking among adolescents should focus on the peer influences of adolescent drinking and related risk factors associated with problem drinking.

Since drug problems continue to produce health problems in our society, it is important to understand world-wide issues favoring the continued existence of drug abuse. National decisions to attack the problem at the production end outside the U.S. have been viewed as being more efficient, more effective, less disruptive and less expensive than approaches to reduce consumption within our own boundaries. This review aims at clarifying the issues involved in national versus international strategies against drugs.

Travel for both business and pleasure can be a risk factor for substance abuse problems, for clinical deterioration in those with chemical dependence, and for relapse when an addiction has been in remission. Sedatives, opioids and alcohol can complicate many of the physiologic adjustments mandated by modern jet travel, such as adaptation to different altitudes, climates, and time zones. Additionally, substances of abuse can result in a deterioration of many clinical conditions during travel, and they can precipitate other medical problems while underway, including motion sickness, heat-related illness and diarrheal disease. Drugs and alcohol are crucial factors in both serious accidents and legal difficulties while traveling. Finally, involvement with drugs as well as close and intimate liaison with drug abusers and their consorts has associated with it a high degree of risk for exposure to serious infectious diseases worldwide.