Enjoying Life Without DrinkingAlcohol AbuseBy Promises AustinMay 4, 2015Getting sober doesn’t mean living a life that is always dreary and somber. Some of the best days of your life are still ahead, but it may not seem like a lot of fun at first. You may feel nostalgic when you think of some of the parties you’ve attended and the wild excitement of… Details
Video Game Addiction: A Recovery StoryRecoveryBy Promises AustinMay 1, 2015Andrew Doan, MD, PhD, is a trained eye surgeon, father of three, a professor — and a recovering video game addict. Astonishingly he made it through medical school at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine while playing a real-time strategy game like StarCraft for 7 to 14 hours a day. He’d started gaming at the… Details
Working Moms Need Strategies to Combat High StressMental HealthBy Promises AustinApril 30, 2015Balancing the demands of children and a career is extremely difficult, and recent research suggests that working mothers experience even more stress than working fathers. With all of the obligations involved in conducting a career and raising a family, it is easy for moms to put their own mental health on the back burner. However,… Details
How to Help an Addict Develop Frustration ToleranceRelapse PreventionBy Promises AustinApril 28, 2015No matter what they’re addicted to, all addicts lack the ability to tolerate frustration. They become easily dysregulated and are unable to self-soothe, which leads them to depend on substances, people, or processes (self-injury, cyber porn, video games, compulsive sex) to stabilize themselves. Because of this dependence, addicts don’t develop internal support and healthy coping… Details
Understanding the High Functioning Alcoholic ExecutiveAlcohol AbuseBy Promises AustinApril 26, 2015It’s not easy to make sense of the high-functioning alcoholic (HFA), but there are more of them than we think. People earning more than $75,000 per year drink more alcohol than any other economic group. About 81 percent of these high earners consume alcohol on, at least, a semi-regular basis. While the majority of them… Details
How Men and Women Experience Depression DifferentlyDepressionBy Promises AustinApril 25, 2015Depression is a mental illness and a mood disorder. It goes beyond the usual feelings of sadness, which are mild and short-lived for most of us. Someone with depression feels hopeless and lifeless. They go through periods of depression that last for days, weeks or even months. The symptoms of the illness are often so… Details
Stress and Addiction: A Vicious CyclePersonal ResourcesBy Promises AustinApril 23, 2015Around one in five Americans experience extreme stress, and stress has been closely linked to addiction in a multitude of studies. Stress Awareness Month aims to shine the spotlight on stress, to help us all think about ways to reduce our stress and, in the process, to help us move away from poor coping mechanisms… Details
Using Food to Relieve Stress Can Lead to Eating DisordersEating DisordersBy Promises AustinApril 22, 2015It’s the rare person who has never turned to food in times of great stress, be it the proverbial pint of ice cream after a bad break-up or some other soothing indulgence. But some people become too reliant on stress eating, to the extent that it becomes their only means of handling stressful situations. The… Details
Nightmares Have Unique, Damaging Impact on BPD SufferersBorderline PersonalityBy Promises AustinApril 21, 2015People with borderline personality disorder often have nightmare-related problems that are separate and distinct from other significant sleeping issues, according to new findings from a group of German researchers. People affected by borderline personality disorder (BPD) have an unusually high level of exposure to chronic sleeping problems that can substantially reduce their ability to remain… Details
Are You Texting More Than Talking?Other AddictionsBy Promises AustinApril 20, 2015When you’re together, you feel that you’re completely in sync. There’s never a lull in the conversation. He makes you laugh. He always gets the door. He helps his elderly neighbor bring in her groceries. And the sex? It’s amazing. You feel like he could be “the one.” But there’s just one thing: You rarely,… Details
