Alcoholism Facts: How Alcohol Affects Our Lives

Alcoholism can refer to alcohol dependence, addiction or abuse, which is generally an uncontrolled act of consumption of alcoholic drinks. In the medical field, alcoholism is considered as a disease, especially a neurological disorder. Based on the estimates from World Health Organization (WHO), the total number of alcoholics (people with alcoholism) has reached 140 million worldwide.
Not only affecting physical health, alcoholism also has a great impact on one's mental state. Continuous use of alcohol for long period can alter the structure and chemistry of one's brain, which creates a dependence or addiction towards the substance. This is why alcoholics show withdrawal symptoms when trying to stop drinking alcoholic beverages. Besides damaging the brain, this substance also attacks most of the parts in human body including blood, heart, liver, stomach, pancreas and others. Examples that are more concrete would be in the form of diseases such as pancreatitis, epilepsy, cirrhosis, peptic ulcers and heart disease. Inappropriate consumption of alcohol also increases a person's risk of getting mouth cancer, liver disease and damage to the nervous system. Female alcoholics have greater health risks such as the risk of breast cancer, decreased ovarian mass, irregular menstrual cycle and premature menopause. If the woman is pregnant, the baby is very much at risk.
Besides affecting mental and physical health, drinking problems can also ruin one's social life. At first, you might think that drinking is a shortcut to run away from your problems in daily life. Since this drug in particular amounts decreases your self-awareness, you will tend to do activities beyond your control. It is no secret that many criminal offences in society such as rape, burglary and assault are triggered while the alcoholic is under the influence.
Alcohol withdrawal during detoxification can be very painful and life-threatening if not managed properly. Therefore, several specific medications and treatments are prescribed to lessen the symptoms. Medicine commonly used for the detoxification, among others, includes vitamin supplements, calcium carbimide, disulfiram, naltrexone, acamprosate, odansetron and benzodiazepines. However, the use of these medications should be under a doctor's supervision as some medications such as benzodiazepines may be dangerous if used for extended periods.
When a person undergoes rehabilitation, he or she will be given not only treatments and medication to detoxify the dependency, but will also receive psychological therapy to deal with the psychological issues that might be the underlying cause of the person of becoming an alcoholic. Without appropriate therapy, it is common that the sobered person will relapse soon after completing his or her rehab. One of the most famous forms of psychological therapy for alcoholics is group therapy. Here, a group of people with similar problems provides mutual counseling and support to help each other with alcohol dependency.
Alcoholism affects the physical, mental as well as social state of a person. If you or one of your friends or family members has this problem, get professional assistance immediately before the condition worsens.

Consuming alcohol inappropriately may result in alcohol abuse and dependency. Learn more about alcoholism facts from our site.

Stress Help - How Important Is Perception?

Part of the definition of Stress is:
Stress can come from any situation or thought that makes you feel frustrated, angry, nervous, or anxious.
So this poses the question, what makes YOU feel this way?
The reason for the emphasis on "you" above is we all have our own reasons for being stressed. But if I was in your position would I be as stressed as you? Maybe not, but Possibly more so.
This simply means that depending on the persons thoughts or how they perceive the situation to be, depends on how stressed you would become in any given situation.
An easy way in this case to stop stress all together would be to take on the mindset or beliefs of the person that perceives that this particular situation is not stressful at all. And although easier said than done I do believe to be possible. This may not be ideal though as this relaxed person may not care at all and this is not a great attitude to have when dealing with certain situations, but does seem to help ensuring low stress levels.
The point of these words are not to encourage you not to care or to try and think in a way that is less than what you are doing now, but to highlight the massive importance of how perception is everything with regards to stress.
Your boss tells you that "you're not performing and need to increase your productivity or find a new job" is more stressful if you have a family to support and are up to your eyeballs in debt. But the person with one million in the bank may not mind so much. This is completely understandable as there is more to lose however, they are exactly the same situation just perceived in a different way.
The reason why this advice is so important is you will always find things in life to be stressful if you perceive them in a particular way. Stress is like a habit, first you only get stressed about major things and before you know it you are shouting at the coffee table for that edge you just walked into.
But the next time you are on the edge of losing your battle against stress ask one question:
Will I deal better with this situation stressed or calm?
There are not many times I would choose the stressed option, just remember when you are making your choice (and it is a choice I promise) your health is the most important thing in the world.

Visit http://www.projectstress.com/ - your free Stress Management download is waiting for you

Personal Development and Empowerment

"Empowerment: having some autonomy of action, having the courage to act, and taking responsibility for one's action." ~ Austin, W., & Boyd M.A. (2008). Psychiatric Nursing for Canadian practice.
What is empowerment? What does it mean to be empowered? What does the process of personal empowerment involve? Personally what does empowerment mean to you?
There are many different definitions and meanings of empowerment. In this post I want to explore the meaning of empowerment from personal development and recovery point of view.
"Empowerment is promotion of the continued growth and development of strength, power, and personal excellence." ~ Austin, W., & Boyd M.A. (2008). Psychiatric Nursing for Canadian practice.
We all have problems, obstacles, and challenges we face in our lives. Sometimes we find ourselves in situations and circumstances we do not have control over. An example of that would be the environment in which we are born in to or our genetic make up. Those things have great influence in our lives, but we do not have a say in the matter. That said at some point we can overcome the effects of environment and make a choice to change our environment.
Overcoming the effects of negative environment whether that was a difficult, abusive childhood, a toxic family or romantic relationship, addiction, or low self esteem requires courage. Empowerment involves becoming aware of the painful situation you're in, but taking the necessary steps to make changes. The biggest step is recognizing there is a problem and being willing to accept it. Once you do that then the next step is to seek solutions and take the steps to overcome your challenge.
Regardless of what happened in the past you have a choice today to move forward. Yes those things that have happened in your past can and will affect you. That said, your past does not define who you are or determine your future. You have the power to make decisions for yourself and determine your own destiny.
We all have "stuff" that happened in our past. It is part of being in the "human family". My childhood was one of the most difficult times in my life and there were things that happened in my family that affected me for a long time. However, I realized at a young age I had choices. Some of the choices were very difficult and painful, but I did what I had to do to survive and thrive. Then I took the steps I needed to find hope, and healing.
What you need to realize is that whatever it is that has happened in your past that you are struggling with know you're not alone. If you have the desire to make changes and move forward you can do so. This is a time where there are so many tools and resources to support you in your efforts. Seek help and guidance in the areas you need. There is no shame in asking for help. Personal empowerment comes from taking responsibility for your life and for your actions.
Fear and shame are the biggest factors that hold people back from moving forward in their lives. If you can overcome those two things then what is on the other side if freedom. Freedom to be yourself and accept all part of yourself. Freedom to learn, change, grow, and become all you can become. It is being able to turn your weaknesses and challenges in to strengths. Ultimately that is what empowerment is all about. We are all capable of overcoming the challenges in our lives, growing and changing.
Please feel free to share what empowerment means to you. Also share your story of overcoming challenges and becoming empowered in your life.

Neseret Bemient is a Personal Health and Wellness coach, speaker, author. She helps women and mothers on their journey to healing, health and wholeness. If you would like to learn more about Neseret and her work follow this link http://www.NeseretBemient.com

Mental Health Counseling and Stress Management

Mental Health Counseling and Stress Management

Both for counselors and clients involved in mental support, increased levels of physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual stress can make challenges worse. It is fairly common knowledge that anxiety, panic, fear, anger/rage, loss of focus, PTSD, chemical dependency and other forms of addiction, and compulsive behaviors are either created, or made worse, as a response to stress. I believe that depression or depressive episodes are often the back side of anxiety (and over stimulation.) With the physiologic response to stressors/anxieties at least partially shutting down the higher function of the decision making neo-cortex, stress can lead to poor problem solving, reduced abilities to communicate, and increased psycho-pathologies.
If you can see the role stress plays in relationship to increased mental health challenges, then the contrary, the practice of stress management, can lead to reduced demonstrations of symptoms. Forms of stress management, biofeedback, "desensitization," "mindfulness," and other anxiety reducing practices (like yoga, meditation, diet, exercise, etc) can prove very therapeutic in helping to control the causes of anxiety/stress related symptoms. Beyond symptom control, for the motivated client, I feel that using these techniques until mastered and then regularly, and preventively, can benefit a person by "empowering" them with body awareness, present living mindfulness, and new skills to control stressed out physiologies.
Empowerment of the individual is the key! Self-awareness and then self-control (of habitually held stress) enables a person to feel better in control of available time and energy and better able to self-minimize, if not eliminate, psychological symptoms and emotional/spiritual pain & conflict. Spending time in a "positive" way, in the present moment, leads to reduced fear and anxiety. This new self-control can often lead to reduced needs for psycho-active medications, alcohol, or street drugs.
Stress management, biofeedback, other behavioral techniques, and other stress reducing practices are not difficult to learn, but finding the time and motivation to use these effective techniques often requires support and counsel.
For therapists, counselors, teachers, and concerned family members, these same techniques are essential in minimizing the potential for "burn-out," "over-load," and reduction in the ability to care for your client, student, or family member. To be a positive role model by regularly practicing stress management, seems an obvious self-care strategy that serves all parties in therapeutic relationships.
I may be "preaching to the choir" but even the obvious needs to be restated. Basic stress management is a necessary element to psycho-therapy. The extra element of simple biofeedback practices is a beneficial feature offering personal awareness that leads to better levels of self-control.
Since 1978, the Stress Education Center has offered coaching, training and products for stress management.

L. John Mason, Ph.D. is the country's leading stress management expert and the author of the best selling "Guide to Stress Reduction." Since 1977, he has offered Success & Executive Coaching and Training.
Please visit the Stress Education Center's website at Stress, Stress Management, Coaching, and Training for articles, free ezine signup, and learn about the new telecourses that are available. If you would like information or a targeted proposal for training or coaching, please contact us at (360) 593-3833.
If you are looking to promote your training or coaching career, please investigate the Professional Stress Management Training and Certification Program for a secondary source of income or as career path

Understanding Drug Addiction And Mental Health Problems

By Jill M Cohen

Drug addiction, is not generally considered a mental health disorder, even though some consider it a shortcoming. The facts have shown that drug addiction has both physical and psychological dimensions. The body craves the effects that the drugs have on the brain. Some people with addictions develop later on severe depression or anxiety. On the other hand, some people that are bipolar or have a psychological issue utilize drugs to try to attain an equilibrium. The lines between the two are often blurry.

When a person exhibits symptoms of addiction, there's probably some type of stress to begin with. However, this can vary in intensity. Although emotional problems differ from person to person, teenage addicts tend to exhibit signs of social anxiety or depression. They also can show signs of performance anxiety and other behavioral problems. Other social problems that can be seen along with addiction are schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. There are also issues of mental health problems with some people who are addicted to nicotine and alcohol. Some people have a very low tolerance for any discomfort and self-medicate using drugs.

Some medical studies are revealing that if certain areas of the brain are damaged, it can cause people to have a higher risk of developing addictions. That is not to say that these drugs and substances don't have natural addictive properties, but it does explain why certain people are more likely to develop addiction than others.

A number of patients addicted to drugs state that external issues caused them to abuse illicit substances. Several of those mentioned reasons were very similar to triggers that cause mental illness. With the understanding that psychological conditions lead to substance abuse, there is little reason to doubt that people with genetic predisposition towards a mental illness can easily develop addictions.

In many treatment facilities and rehab centers, dual diagnosis is part of the program so that both the substance abuse and mental health issue are addressed properly.

Learn more about Teenage Anxiety and Coping With Bipolar Disease

Pain And Suffering

There are two levels to your pain: the pain that you create now, and the pain from your past that still lives on in your mind and body.

As long as you are unable to access the power of the Now, every emotional pain that you experience leaves behind a residue of pain that lives on in you. It merges with the pain from the past, which was already there, and becomes lodged in your mind and body. This, of course, includes the pain you suffered as a child, caused by the unconsciousness of the world in to which you were born.

This accumulated pain is a negative energy field that occupies your body and mind. If you look on it as an invisible entity on its own right, you are getting quite close to the truth. It's the emotional pain-body." ~ Eckhart Tolle, Practicing The Power of Now - Essential Teachings, Meditation, and Exercises from The Power of Now, page 75

Do you experience feelings of anger, depression, rage, jealousy, and hatred often? Is this affecting your intimate relationships and your life in general?

Most people experience pain at one point or another in their lives. Pain and suffering is typically created when you are resistant to what is. Pain can also be caused by other people as in something traumatic that happened when you were a child.

Unless pain is resolved it stays with you as a 'negative energy field' and it accumulates. This means you could still be caring pain from ten, twenty, or thirty years ago. Overtime this can become a huge baggage and burden to carry. The pain will also be heavy and intensified.

Eckhart Tolle describes this as 'an invisible entity' and calls it the 'emotional pain body'. This is an interesting name, but quiet fitting. Have you ever started to feel irritated and then before you know it you have totally 'lost it'? Almost felt like you were taken over by something or someone else? Looking back you can say 'That was not me!' Well, you were temporarily taken over by your emotional pain body.

How do you know it is your emotional pain body? When you experience any type of intense negative emotional pain and you do things to perpetuate the pain then you know you're taken over by the pain body.

Now, when I say you're taken over by the pain body I don't mean that you are helpless and possessed by this entity. It does not mean that you have no control to do something to help the situation and to stop the pain. It just means you have become unconscious. In this state you will do things that will cause you and others suffering.

Eckhart Tolle offers many suggestions on how to dissolve the pain body. There is a lot you can do to eliminate pain and suffering from your life.

The first thing you want to do is to become aware of your emotional patterns. Become aware of your thoughts and emotions before or as they happen. Ideally you would want to catch yourself before it happens but initially you may become aware while you're in the midst of feeling anger or rage or depression or whatever you happen to be experiencing.

Here is the challenging part - observe, feel the feeling, and be present. It is one thing to be present when things are going well and you're feeling great. However when you're feeling intense emotional pain to stay with the feeling without becoming destructive will be difficult. This is where most people will get in to self medicating or perhaps cause damage to their relationships by saying something terrible or where violence happens.

"The truth is that the only power there is, is contained within this moment: It is the power of your presence. Once you know that, you also realize that you are responsible for your inner space now - nobody else is - and that the past cannot prevail against the power of the Now." ~ Eckhart Tolle, Practicing The Power of Now - Essential Teachings, Meditation, and Exercises from The Power of Now, page 84

It is a wonderful thing to know that you are not condemned to feeling emotional pain and suffering for the rest of your life. You can choose to stop the pain and suffering. You can also decide to not create pain and suffering for yourself. There is a way out if you're willing to do the work.

Becoming aware of your thoughts and emotions and being present while you're experiencing them may at first be difficult if you're not use to doing it. However the more you do it the easier it will become. Be patient.

PLEASE share your comments down below! I'd love to hear from you! And please also share this post on Twitter or FB if you liked it! Thanks so much for spending time with me here today!

Blessings and Peace,

Neseret

Neseret Bemient is a Personal Health and Wellness coach, speaker, author. She helps women and mothers on their journey to healing, health and wholeness. If you would like to learn more about Neseret and her work follow this link http://www.NeseretBemient.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6405131

Peace and Serenity

The heavy is the root of the light. The still is the master of unrest. Realizing this, the successful person is poised and centered in the midst of all activities; although surrounded by opulence, she is not swayed. ~ from verse 26 the Tao ~

"In this 26th verse, you're being advised to maintain a sense of serenity regardless of what you may see taking place around you. Moreover, you're being told that the true master knows that the ability to stay calm is always located within. From this perspective, there's no need to assign responsibility to others for how you feel.

Even though you may live in a world where blame and fault-finding are endemic, you will own your own feelings and actions. You will know that circumstances don't determine your state of mind, for that power rests with you. When you maintain a peaceful inner posture, even in the midst of chaos, you change your life." ~ Wayne Dyer ~

How easily we're buffeted to and fro by the ebb and flow of our lives. In a world where there is so much change occurring at an overwhelming speed life becomes a blur. We are all going through so much transition in our own person lives and humanity as a whole.

It is a time  of emotional, environmental, political and economical upheaval. It is easy to lose your calm. It is so easy to become distracted and even caught up in the drama of it all. How do you keep your sanity? How do you find peace and serenity in these crazy times?

I like to read, write, meditate and do Yoga:-) I like to spend time with my little girl and my partner. I like going for nature walks and seeing the ocean. Sometimes even simple things as watching the sunset and sipping on a cup of tea brings me so much joy. I've realized all I have for sure is this moment I am going to enjoy it! Savour it! Live it.

What about you? What brings you joy? What fulfills you? What do you love most? Dwell on those things...

It is easy to remain calm when things are going well in life. However nothing remains the same for too long. Life will bring challenges to us continuously in so many ways to help us grow spiritually. One of the biggest lessons we can learn is to know that we can maintain our peace within regardless of what's happening outside of us.

When things go wrong and we feel so anxious and afraid we need to stop and focus. Look within and realize no matter how bad things may appear there is always a way through and out. There is a solution for every problem. Our mind will always make a big deal out of everything.

Ultimately what matters is that you're still here to face the challenge. You're still alive and going through  this experience of being human. It is one hell of a ride. Feel the joy, feel the pain, feel the excitement and everything else in between that comes from being here.

I've stopped worrying about tomorrow. I've stopped worrying about even what is happening later today. I am living in the moment and it is so freeing. To let go of the past and the future is true freedom. It is liberating. It is also where you will find peace and serenity. The present moment is precious.

Whatever challenges you maybe facing right now trust that you will find the answers and the solutions. Of course you do all that you can to help yourself and the situation. Once you do what you can, then learn to let go. The universe/God/the Creator will take care of the rest.

Thank you for taking the time to visit with me here at this moment. Please leave me your comments below. I'd love to hear what brings peace and serenity to your life. What helps you stay calm in chaos? What renews and strengthens you?

Peace, Love & Gratitude,

Neseret,

Neseret Bemient is a Personal Health and Wellness coach, speaker, author. She helps women and mothers on their journey to healing, health and wholeness. If you would like to learn more about Neseret and her work follow this link http://www.NeseretBemient.com