Word: addictions
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That could all be about to change. During those same 10 years, researchers have made extraordinary progress in understanding the physical basis of addiction. They know now, for example, that the 20% success rate can shoot up to 40% if treatment is ongoing (very much the AA model, which is most effective when members continue to attend meetings long after their last drink). Armed with an array of increasingly sophisticated technology, including fMRIs and PET scans, investigators have begun to figure out exactly what goes wrong in the brain of an addict--which neurotransmitting chemicals are out of balance...
...individual and the species survive. Drugs of abuse capitalize on this ready-made programming. When exposed to drugs, our memory systems, reward circuits, decision-making skills and conditioning kick in--salience in overdrive--to create an all consuming pattern of uncontrollable craving. "Some people have a genetic predisposition to addiction," says Volkow. "But because it involves these basic brain functions, everyone will become an addict if sufficiently exposed to drugs or alcohol...
...After all, Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda, 61, who preached before several hundred followers and a clutch of more conventional Christian protesters at an Orlando-area amphitheater last weekend, would seem to be a true original. By his own account a former heroin addict and thief, he still imbibes hard liquor ("Jesus drank wine because he didn't have Dewar's," he told ABC's Primetime in March), surrounds himself with beautiful women despite being married, wears a $11,000 Rolex and drives a BMW, and says that for members of his Miami-based Creciendo en Gracia (Growing in Grace...
...medicinal purposes, and that patients can receive similar effects from synthetic drugs such as Marinol.“People who want to smoke pot use medicine as an excuse to smoke pot,” Pettigrew said. “I don’t know a heroin addict that didn’t start by smoking a joint. The DEA has never targeted the sick and dying. But as long as marijuana exists as a schedule one drug, we will enforce federal regulations and arrest anyone using or cultivating marijuana.”Grinspoon calls the federal government?...
...Board, hoping that it would do for me what Nicorette does for smokers. I could get small, weekly doses of sports at the writers’ meetings, write an article here and there, and then turn my focus to something else. I soon realized that a being a sports addict on Crimson Sports is like going to an AA meeting with an open bar.With no patch or 12-step program to cure me, I was left to try to reconcile my borderline religious sports zeal with the notion that a Harvard man should be passionate about something more significant...