Topic: signs and symptoms

Of course, the drinker isn’t aware of having entered a blackout. Far as they’re concerned, things are proceeding as normal.

Her definition of social drinking was any alcohol consumed in the company of other human beings.

But if a community treats a correctional institution as a kind of locked flophouse, what else we can expect?

They qualify for the diagnosis, but have not yet experienced the sort of problems that are usually required to motivate a serious attempt to abandon drug use.

A reasonably good rule of thumb for differentiating results of substance addiction from other illnesses: When the substance use stops for an extended period, the symptoms improve dramatically or go away entirely.

Newcomers had a tendency to focus their attention on the drug that brought them to treatment, ignoring others they happened to have been using.

Perhaps 20% of users will experience withdrawal– evidence of their dependence on the drug– regardless of whether they have other symptoms.

The behaviors of alcoholics and addicts are so predictable because the disease follows a certain progression.

The experience of addiction routinely includes periods of reduced substance use, or abstinence.

For many, only age and health issues, or an unanticipated dip in that protective tolerance, were enough to finally motivate them to seek help.