Alcohol

Six Weeks Until Christmas by Simon Tait Chapter 5: Nerves, Sickness, Lies, Loneliness For the first time in October 2006 I suffered what became a constant thorn in my flesh while in Toronto on vacation. Living back home in the UK, my drinking zig-zagged between consistent and out of control. During this vacation, it was…

Six Weeks Until Christmas by Simon Tait Chapter 4: Detox A new day and an afternoon taxi ride into the unknown wilderness of rehab. Hazy sleep brought some levity as my emotions stopped bouncing like a pinball. I set out hoping my destination would result in improvement on yesterday’s fiasco. I had no alternative. Pity…

Six Weeks Until Christmas by Simon Tait Chapter 3: Drinking I didn’t become an alcoholic overnight. My journey, if you can call it that, into dependency began in my mid-twenties. I started drinking at fifteen and despite finding it as attractive as swallowing sludge, my worn down taste buds lost the fight. Gradually, it became…

Six Weeks Until Christmas by Simon Tait An Introduction During his first couple of weeks sober, Simon Tait began journaling some of his immediate thoughts and experiences. Moving from rehab to outpatient treatment, the writing assignments at the latter challenged him to dig a little deeper into his twenty-year alcohol addiction and he enjoyed the…

8 to 9% of adults in the United States have some form of alcohol use disorder, according to the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. If someone you love is one of the millions struggling, you’re probably concerned and looking for answers. Helping an alcoholic to stop drinking is never easy… but we’ve put…

Most of us have heard by now that alcohol can have detrimental effects on our health, but did you know that it significantly raises the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes?   How is blood sugar regulated? The cells in your body use glucose, a simple sugar, as fuel to survive and function. Normally, the…

What is binge drinking? Binge drinking is a popular form of excessive alcohol use, which the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above.” For a typical American adult male, this translates to drinking 5+ servings…

Substance use is problematic and extensive in its many forms: alcohol use, cocaine use, hallucinogen use, heroin use, inhalant use, marijuana use, methamphetamine use, sedative-hypnotics, anxiolytics use, etc. Different types of drugs are being synthesized on a regular basis and users are finding more and more creative ways to use and conceal them. How can…

“Alcohol withdrawal” is the term given to the symptoms one experiences after sudden cessation of excessive and regular alcohol consumption. The more (or longer) you’ve been drinking, the more severe the withdrawal symptoms are likely to be. Alcohol withdrawal can be extremely dangerous; if you or a loved one are experiencing symptoms, even if you…

Six Weeks Until Christmas by Simon Tait Chapter 2: Alcohol Test It had all the hallmarks of a typical Monday morning. Feeling lethargic from a weekend dominated by alcohol consumption—sweats, shakes, sickness and paranoia of how I looked and felt. Nothing new there. In fact, I felt okay because I stopped my binge at 8:00pm…