People remember more while still intoxicated than they do a week later. A University of Gothenburg study recruited 136 participants and divided them into twogroups. One group drank vodka, while the other drank juice. Participants then watched ashort film that depicted a verbal and physical altercation. Half of the participants…
While many know that drugs and alcohol play a significant role in mental health, it isn’t as clear what that role is: can drug and alcohol use cause mental illness? Or does persistent drug/alcohol use merely signify a mental illness. As it turns out, the answer isn’t so black and…
It might already be universally understood that using alcohol and/or drugs to cope with mental illness is a bad idea, but the “whys” of it might be less clear. It’s a big topic and there’s a lot of information out there, especially with all the discussions around legalization. Coping or…
If you drink alcohol from time to time—even a couple glasses of wine or a few beers every so often—you’ve probably experienced its effects on your sleep patterns. Whether you just couldn’t fall asleep, you found yourself tossing and turning throughout the night, or you had some pretty frightening dreams….
Addiction doesn’t just change the individual suffering with the disease, but their loved ones—especially their chosen life partner. If your spouse is struggling with addiction, you must choose your actions carefully: it’s easy to confuse helpful and unhelpful interventions. First, don’t try to “make things easier” on your spouse—this can…
It is all-too-common for individuals living with a range of mental illness to use mood- and mind-altering substances to alleviate their experiences and help soothe their overall experienced psychological condition. It has long been known to experienced addictions therapists that there is an incredibly high degree of overlap between mental…
Many of us enjoy a cold beer or a tall glass of wine every now and again. It helps to “take the edge off,” to calm us down after a long week. But what we often fail to realize is that alcohol affects each one of us differently—and as tempting…
Lip (short for Phillip) is a strong young adult, who has overcome more than most of us experience in a lifetime. As a teen in high school, his primary concerns were putting food on the table, paying the bills, and taking care of his four younger siblings alongside his older…
Learning a new language is all fun and games until somebody asks you to speak it. Spanish class, 4th period, every day for three years. We started out with the basics, of course—I learned all of the colors and animals; then we moved on to elementary verbs; and then to…
Caroline has had a long, trying week at work. Her desk was overloaded with paperwork to complete, her boss threw an extra project onto her plate, and—on top of all that—she had to find time to study for her last college final. Needless to say, she was ready for Friday…
Dr. Frank Lawlis, co-founder of the Lawlis-Peavey PNP Center, explains how opioid dependency changes the brain on the latest episode of The Dr. Phil Show. Dr. Lawlis talks about everything from anxiety opioids to pain medications, and the effects they have on your brain and body chemistry are pretty shocking.
A lot of us associate the word serotonin—a neurotransmitter that allows brain cells to communicate back and forth—with sleep and with stress. And while it is partly responsible for how much sleep we got last night and how stressed we are at work today, there’s still much to learn about…
