Alcoholism

Like many other substance abuse disorders, alcoholism presents strong emotional and behavioral aspects intertwined with neurochemical anomalies. For many alcoholics, the moment of clarity happens when they realize they hate the way they feel and act when they’re under the influence or going through withdrawals. This is when they say to themselves, “I detest who I am at this point in my life. Why am

The complex disease most people refer to as alcoholism is classified as alcohol use disorder (AUD) by the medical community. In the 21st century, addiction recovery specialists and neuroscientists have been forming a consensus to treat AUD on a spectrum. Instead of generally mild and severe AUD, physicians and counselors are leaning toward a modern classification that reflects behavioral patterns in Western societies. In 2019,

In the history of Hollywood stars whose careers were impacted by alcoholism, a few leading men tragically stand out as having lost their good looks just as their careers were taking off. Errol Flynn and William Holden are examples from the Golden Age of Hollywood. More recent examples include Macaulay Culkin of Home Alone fame and the late Matthew Perry of the iconic ’90s television

When actor Matthew Perry passed away in November of 2023 at the age of 54, he left behind a set of business plans to form a charitable organization that would provide mental health advocacy to addiction patients. Perry had struggled with addiction and relapse since he was a teenager. His 2022 memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, surprised many of his relatives and

The year 2023 has been significant for American medical researchers who specialize in the science of sleep as it relates to substance abuse. At the University of Missouri, Dr. Mary Beth Miller was awarded a $2.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to continue her research into developing cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) strategies that may alleviate insomnia and alcoholism simultaneously.    At the MRI Global

Certain Hollywood actors can carefully manage their stardom so it doesn’t seep into their private lives too much. Sir Patrick Stewart, the British actor famous for his franchise roles as Captain Picard in Star Trek and Professor Xavier in X-Men, recently published a memoir titled Making It So in which he goes into painful detail about his struggles with alcoholism and painkiller addiction in the