How to Identify the Enablers in Your Life Personal ResourcesBy Promises AustinMay 7, 2015You’ve been through rehab and done the hard work of getting sober. You’re back to the real world and striving to make real changes in how you live your life so that you can be healthy and happy while maintaining your sobriety. You have loving family and friends on your side to support you, but… Details
Marijuana Can Cause Hay Fever, Other Allergic Reactions MarijuanaBy Promises AustinMay 5, 2015New review findings from a team of American scientists indicate that people who use marijuana and other forms of cannabis have commonly overlooked risks for developing mild, moderate or severe allergic reactions to the addictive, plant-based drug. Marijuana use comes with a range of potential harms that contradict the drug’s widely accepted reputation as a… Details
Enjoying Life Without Drinking Alcohol 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 Story RecoveryBy 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 Stress Mental 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 Tolerance Relapse 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 Executive Alcohol 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 Differently DepressionBy 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 Cycle Personal 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 Disorders Eating 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
