An Alcohol Awareness Class Can Turn on the Light

How much alcohol do you consume? I ask this question not for general thought, but for many, mathematical calculation. You may find that statement funny, but the fact remains, there are a lot of people consuming a lot of alcohol and really not disclosing the amount they drink to anyone!

How can they possibly not disclose the amount they drink to themselves, you ask? One word - denial!

You may have heard that there are three primary stages to uncovering and overcoming an addition (denial, anger, acceptance). Stage one is "denial." This can take anywhere from two weeks or until the end of life to get past. Some people recognize their addiction to alcohol or other drugs quickly. They decide they do not want to be an addict and they consciously decide to give up booze or drugs for good.

Others on the other hand can take months or forever to get past the denial of their addiction issues. An alcohol class can help teach you that it is one thing to admit it to yourself, but it is another to go public with your addiction issues. Once you go public, you open yourself to greater likelihood of success in quitting.

An alcohol class helps give you the confidence to take that step of bringing your problem out into the open. While we deny our addiction issue, we also are able to keep ourselves believing that those close to us do not know about our addiction. They do, and they will applaud your admission and step in the right direction.

As a counselor for both in-class and online alcohol classes I often ask my students if they think they have a problem with alcohol. Basically, I am asking them to come out of the closet and admit they are alcoholics (if they are).

How do you think they usually respond? Keep in mind that 99% of my students are in class or taking the course as an online alcohol class because they have been cited for an alcohol-related offense. It may surprise you that less than 10% admit they have a problem.

Perhaps this is because they are in a public setting and fear the embarrassment of the situation. I can tell you that of the 8.2% of my students who admit to being alcoholics, they fall into two precise categories. A small percentage of admitters are under the age of 25 and really did not drink much in the first place and seem committed not to repeat their behavior.

The second group is the vast majority of admitters. This group are seasoned alcoholics who are committed to heavy drinking despite the fact they continue to have problems as a result of their alcoholic behavior. This group needs to take strong steps to rid themselves of their drinking behavior. They need a series of alcohol classes, combined with counseling and perhaps even detox.

Alcohol is really bad for the human body. While infrequent moderate consumption will not do irreparable harm to most, abstinence is still the best policy for the quality and longevity of your life. If you or someone you care about has a drinking problem I urge you to seek help immediately. If you prefer to maintain total anonymity, there are online alcohol classes too.

Dual Diagnosis Treatment for Women

Mental Illness and Substance Abuse Treatment: Different for Women?

Dual diagnosis treatment in the field of recovery is a common situation where the treatment plan addresses both substance abuse and mental illness. It can be a chicken and egg situation to determine which diagnosis is primary, so substance abuse treatment centers often aim to treat both. Substance abuse for women often coincides with physically or emotionally dangerous situations, so it is extremely important to treat the mental illness and the substance abuse at the same time.

Dual Diagnosis: Men vs. Women

Until recently, it was assumed that there were no differences in treating men and women with substance abuse or mental health issues. Gender specific dual diagnosis treatment has become somewhat of a buzz word in the recovery and addiction field, but is it necessary?

Research has shown that women are more likely than men to be targets of physical abuse and rape. Women are also more likely to be supported in their abuse by a partner, who may also be addicted to drugs or alcohol. This may seem to put women with abuse problems as higher risk for mental illness and thus dual diagnosis.

The truth is that there is no evidence to support that dual diagnosis is more common in women than in men. In fact, treatment programs often see the same number of male and female patient's diagnosis with both mental illness and drug abuse. What is different is the type of disorders. Women are more likely to suffer from anxiety disorders while men are more likely to suffer from antisocial personality disorders.

Given that there is no difference in the rate of dual diagnosis in women, we come to the issue of treatment. Treatment for men and women may be very different. That is because mental illness may be caused by a traumatic event. By defining trauma as a situation that over powers an individual's ability to cope, we find that the situations and events that create feelings over powerlessness and dependence are different between men and women.

Dual diagnosis treatment programs for women often include steps towards empowerment. Supporters of recovery programs find that empowering women to become emotionally stronger, economically independent and in control of a positive self-image leads to a more successful and effective recovery.

Because of the cultural context in which mental illness and substance abuse occurs, dual diagnosis treatment programs that are gender specific often carefully control the treatment setting. For example, individual therapy sessions may take into account the gender of the therapist and client (female therapist/female client), fitting recovery into the context of a woman's life.

Mental and Physical Deterioration Continues Through the Three Stages of Dementia

Dementia is a progressive disease. It cannot be cured, so once an individual has it, they will gradually lose more and more of their faculties throughout the rest of their lives. Although the stages of the disease can vary from person to person, there are three basic stages all patients pass through. During this time, they will experience severe memory loss, a decrease in their mental abilities, increasing difficulty in reasoning and speaking, and possibly even the ability to care for themselves. As hard as the condition is on patients, it can also be quite debilitating for those caring for them, and it helps to understand what you can expect.

You may not notice when a person starts suffering from dementia, because the symptoms are so similar to those you expect as a person ages. Most patients are diagnosed after the age of 65 and will start out having mild memory lapses and bouts with forgetfulness. In the early stage, which may take months or even years to play out, comes such non-alarming symptoms as absentmindedness, apathy, loss of interest in normal pursuits, personality change, mood swings, and irritability. These changes come on gradually, and you may not be able to tell that the person is suffering from dementia until they reach the second stage of the disease.

The second stage is known as moderate dementia. By this point in the progression, you will be able to identify the symptoms for what they are. Individuals in this stage exhibit a decline in their cognitive abilities, the inability to know where they are and the time, short-term memory, difficulty identifying even close family members, and may struggle to perform personal activities, like eating, taking care of their personal hygiene, or bathing themselves. You can expect that the person will be increasingly anxious, frustrated, and irritated. You may also begin to see evidence of auditory or visual hallucinations.

The advanced stage of dementia is when all the severe symptoms show up. Advanced stage dementia patients require constant care due to the serious nature of their symptoms. By this point they will have significant memory loss, be unable to identify anyone as well as possessions they use on a daily basis, and maybe even be unable to walk without assistance. You will find them to be restless, not capable of taking care of their personal needs, unable to sleep, and incontinent. Due to the amount of supervision and help that a person with this degree of dementia will need, this is the point where many loved ones place them in a nursing facility that specializes in dealing with dementia patients.

Dementia isn't pleasant in any of it's stages, but it's becoming a reality for more and more Americans and their loved ones all the time. Even though every patient may not show the symptoms in exactly the same way, all of them will become progressively debilitated until such a time when medical science can uncover a way to more effectively treat the disease.

How To Control Panic Attacks And Stop Your Suffering For Good

Trying to control panic attacks isn't exactly easy, but it can be done within a few tries or so. Too often, people get so stuck into thinking that it can only be avoided, but once they start to come, you can also control the attacks and slowly avoid them once they do. The tips in this article are going to really help you out on controlling those attacks and getting rid of them once they already come. It is definitely easy to prevent them, and the nice thing about these tips is that they work during and before a panic attack occurs.

How to control panic attacks

- Count To 20

The next time an attack starts to come, command that you can overcome it. This can be done by simply counting to 20, but before you do this, say to yourself "If I reach 20 and nothing happens to me, then this panic attack will disappear". This is a powerful way to control the attack and slowly remove it out of your mind and body. Sometimes all you need to do is command for the panic attack to be removed and it slowly will. If you try this method more than once and you practice it often, you will find that it can work at any time of the day.

- Do Not Fear It

Sometimes people can hold onto the fear of an attack. So often they simply try to avoid it. This only causes you more problems, with the attack coming to you even more. Do not fear the attack because fearing it the most, brings it to you more-so. If you keep thinking about it and trying to avoid it, you will find that it comes to you even faster. The next time you feel a panic attack coming, allow it and it will disappear more easily by letting it flow out of you.

What you need to know is that an attack is really a harmless event that really doesn't do anything to you. It is something that simply happens to you and it cannot really harm you in any way. This is the reason why you do not need to fear the event at all. Simply let it flow out of you completely and you will find the anxiety will be removed from you.

A panic attack cannot break you apart in any way. It is impossible for it to hurt you in any way shape or form, so when you try the counting technique, you will find it much easier to control panic attacks as they come. They are all in your subconscious mind, and the counting technique helps you to have authority over it.

If you are really struggling right now with panic and anxiety attacks, why not take a look at a resource you can find details about at the end of this article?

Trying to control panic attacks is tough, but the two very powerful tips above can do so much for you than you think. They can help you out a lot with overcoming the attacks as soon possible, and your mind will soon be freed from the bondage of the panic attacks. With those tips, you can be sure to feel better and overcome those attacks.

Understanding Mental Illness

In order to understand mental illness, you have to start by asking the question: What is mental health? Unlike other diseases of the body like cancer, diabetes, or hypertension, all of which can be measured and analyzed by looking at tissue or blood cells, mental illness is a disease of the brain that usually cannot be measured or analyzed by looking at tissue or blood cells. Consequently, mental health is often described as the absence of mental illness.

Confusing? You could say that. Even so, we've come a long way in our understanding of diseases of the brain in the last few centuries. From the 16th century and into the 19th century, people who suffered from various forms of mental illness were referred to as insane, idiotic, histrionic, disturbed, loony, and even possessed. As if the labels weren't bad enough, the treatments ranged from drilling holes in the affected person's skull to release the evil spirits, to the ritual of bloodletting (withdrawal of blood from the brain to return balance to the bodily fluids), to the later development of "madhouses" where people were confined under the auspices of safety, both for the individual and society. The early madhouses are what eventually evolved into "insane asylums."

Today, most medical professionals understand mental illness to be a physical disorder of the brain involving the various chemicals, also known as neurotransmitters that trigger the firing or inhibition of the neurons depending on the need of brain and body at the time. Mental illnesses like depression have come to be understood as resulting from a chemical imbalance in the brain. The development of the category of anti-depressant medications known as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) were ground breaking in that they successfully treat many cases of depression by making available more of the neurotransmitter known as Serotonin. This small adjustment in the chemicals of the brain, make the difference between someone suffering from depression and someone who can live a happy and fulfilling life. The other beauty of SSRIs is that the side effects are minimal compared to earlier forms of anti-depressant medications.

The difficulty of most mental illnesses is that they are much more complicated than the scenario described above. Rather than thinking of mental illness as resulting from the over abundance of or lack of a single chemical, it is better to think of the brain as a complex system involving multiple chemicals that interact with each other and vary in their function according to the location of the brain in which they are present. It was once thought that the neurotransmitter called dopamine was the primary chemical involved in cases of schizophrenia. This belief arose because patients who are being treated for Parkinson's disease (a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system resulting from the death of dopamine-generating cells) develop schizophrenic-like symptoms (specifically hallucinations) if the dosage for dopamine replacement medication is too high. More recent research shows that the neurotransmitters known as GABA and glutamate are involved in the cause of schizophrenia.

So far, mental illness has been described solely from the perspective of certain physical conditions of the brain. But to understand mental illness completely, we have to address the psychological and environmental factors. By their very nature, they are much more vague and hard to pin point than the biological chemical imbalances. Some of the known psychological and/or environmental causes of mental illness include severe emotional trauma experienced in childhood (E.g., physical or sexual abuse), exposure to violence or other traumatic events in childhood or adulthood leading to post-traumatic stress disorder, early loss of a parent, death or divorce, or being raised in a household where there is alcohol or drug abuse. This list is endless and the effects vary by individual.

Perhaps the most harmful misunderstand of mental illness occurs when it is reduced to the myth that it is simply a case of emotional weakness. Such belief systems are not uncommon. They are rooted in the misguided understanding of mental illness that led to the cultural taboos discussed above as well as the subsequent mistreatment of patients in the prolific insane asylums of the early 19th century. Because this thought is still more common than most of us would like to believe, it might seem as though we've made little progress as a society-at-large in the understanding of mental illness. In reality, we've made huge progress in the understanding and treatment of mental illness, which has resulted in large numbers of individuals leading happy and mentally healthy lives.

The month of May was designated Mental Health Awareness month in 1949. We can only hope that our understanding of mental health continues to progress until the cultural myths around mental illness are eradicated.

Why I Believe My Panic Attack Is Real

I'm having a panic attack so it must be real - or is it?

Let me start by saying I sympathise with chronic panic attack sufferers and I do not wish to offend you in any way. I have suffered to some degree myself, albeit for only a small period of time in my life.

When you are having an attack, nobody else or what they say matters because it is you who is experiencing it and you are convinced of the worst - right?

Here are some of the more common mis-beliefs associated with this condition.

"I'm going to die from suffocation"

You may well feel like you are suffocating, but you will more than likely be breathing fast during your attack, so the reality is you are taking in plenty of air. Myth busted!

"I'm having a heart attack"

If you are really worried about this, then of course see your doctor. Often the symptoms associated with a heart attack are very similar to those experienced by a panic attack. It is only by learning to recognise the difference you can take control.

"I'm having a stroke"

When your body is making you feel totally out of control and you are experiencing symptoms that are unnatural to you, then you may well believe you are having a stroke. It is more a case of report your symptoms to a doctor and let him/her reassure you that you are fine.

"I'm going mad"

Think about this one rationally for a minute or so. If you were truly going mad, you wouldn't really care anyway - would you? I don't mean any harm by that, but I imagine if you were losing your mind it would be a gradual slide towards insanity and caring less anyway.

"I think I am going to pass out"

If you are in the fight or flight mode, then fainting or passing out does not seem an option, and if you are wrong so what? Passing out would put an instant end to the panic attack because you would not be in control anymore anyway.

Often you will be hyperventilating during a panic attack so you will very likely feel very dizzy. It's this dizziness that your brain will use to convince you that you are going to pass out or faint

"I've lost control"

You think you have lost control because the sub-conscious part of your mind has taken over your though control temporarily and you feel detached from what's happening. Therefore you fee out of control

"I'm going to be so embarrassed by this"

Nobody likes to look daft or stupid, especially when we believe that it's of our own making. Naturally we tell ourselves that we are going to be humiliated and cause embarrassment to our self and others around.

When you look back after a panic attack, was it so bad? Did you do what you had convinced yourself you would - probably not?

In reality the worst part of a panic attack will be over in a few short moments. The associated feeling with an attack may last longer as you try to analyse it.

Having a good book or guide with you can be a tremendous help in a panic attack situation. You could dive into it if you feel an attack bubbling away and even after one to help you focus again on what is true. In all things associated with the symptoms of this piece, if you are unsure about your health, seek medical advice always.

Health and Fitness: Mental Health Article Category

A mental illness test is a test designed to help one determine whether they are mentally healthy. It can also be prescribed for a person who is suspected to be mentally unstable. A person who is mentally healthy is able to make good judgments, is able to reason normally with people and has his emotions under control. A persons' mental health status is put under question when his behavior becomes erratic and questionable, his moods change erratically and is unable to recover from psychological problems that he may be facing in his personal life.

Unlike other tests, mental illness tests are very unique. How unique are they? Other health tests involve taking specimens or samples of body fluids such as sputum, feces, urine, e.t.c in order to have them examined for any disease. With this test, the other personality attributes of a person are put to test. Attributes like behavior, the attitude of a person, the way one dresses, emotions, his moods, cognition abilities of the individual and finally how he thinks. All these are used to determine whether one is mentally stable or not. These tests are done by a qualified physician. The persons' history also is used to determine mental status.

However, there are many tests that are not conducted online without one actually visiting the doctor physically. Normally, one visits a physician to have the mental status determined by being asked questions and depending on the answers given, the physician is able to determine whether the person is healthy or not. Nowadays one can evaluate himself or herself if they are mentally unstable. This has been made possible by existence of online mental illness tests that are conducted online and answers questions by filling in a questionnaire-kind form. Then depending on the answers he is given a result as to his mental status. Most of these tests are not paid for and so I encourage one to try this online testing. The advantage of this method is the privacy accorded by the test. An example of an online test I would recommend to one is the Bricklin perceptual scales. This is a very popular test and can be relied upon to give a fairly accurate result as to ones' mental health.

The online mental illness tests are however not complete by themselves. After being given the results or after the results are generated, one is to visit a physician who will accurately interpret the results and give a conclusive answer to the person. The person may as well be required to undergo more tests to determine the health status. Taking a walk to a physician is a rather involving affair. It entails being ready to talk and be as open as possible to the doctor. Answer all the questions that the doctor may have regarding your behavior and activities. It a rather uneasy test to undertake because of the dread of one being shunned by the community for being mentally unstable. It is still important to have the test done.

People are not aware of the importance of taking care of themselves mental-wise. People mostly take care of the physical part only neglecting the mental health and it starts to deteriorate slowly until it goes out of control. So I would recommend one to take a mental readiness test to be self-aware of their mental status.