According to new reports, Oxycontin is quickly becoming a drug of choice for Manitobans.

Due to geographic location and socio-economic similarities, many once feared the invasion of methamphetamines into Canada’s heartland. But, today, according to new reports, Oxycontin has quickly become the drug of choice throughout the province, wreaking havoc on many lives.

According to officials, Oxycontin, often referred to as “hillbilly heroin”, invaded Manitoba without warning, press coverage or public hype.

Law enforcement officials and addiction treatment workers, those most often of the frontlines of drug life, have been reporting:

• continuous police raids
• an increase in the number of addicts seeking drug addiction treatment 
• an increase in the number of overdoses 
• addiction treatment programs being overrun with Oxycontin addicts

The profile of the typical Oxycontin addict, they say, is a young male either in school or working who comes, most likely, from in intact suburban family.

Furthermore, they are asking for education programs on the risks and signs of Oxycontin abuse and addiction before the problem worsens, and the need for more beds in addiction treatment facility, especially for women.

Oxycontin is a powerful opiod, much like heroin, which has also been growing significantly in Winnipeg.

Treatments for Oxycontin addiction include:

• residential addiction treatment or 
• methadone therapy, for the short and medium-term

both in combination with individual psychotherapy to treat the root problems of addiction.




Source: The Winnipeg Sun

According to the Center for Addition & Mental Health (CAMH), online interventions can be effective for alcohol addiction.

In the first evaluation of its kind, CAMH, Canada’s premier research center for addiction and substance abuse, determined that online resources help to change problematic or dangerous drinking behaviours, and be greatly beneficial to public health.

In a recent survey, CAMH found that approximately 80% of problem drinkers have Internet access, a third of whom indicated that they would seek intervention help online.

Upon launching CheckYourDrinking.net, a short web-based intervention service, CAMH found that when problem drinkers, those at risk of alcohol addiction, were given access to the online screener, they reduced their consumption of alcohol by 30%, or six to seven drinks a week.

The reduction in alcohol consumption was also sustained at both the three-month and six-month follow up.

Results, published in Addiction, are, according to CAMH, comparable to face-to-face intervention services.

CheckYourDrinking.net leads to an anonymous online survey, which provides a comprehensive report on your alcohol use habits. The report compares your intake against the national average, lists the health and physical risks associated with your drinking habits, the amount of money spent in the last 12 months, as well as the number of calories and pounds associated with your alcohol intake.

Finally, it calculates the number of hours you’ve spent over the last year under the influence of alcohol and provides you with safer drinking guidelines allowing users to evaluate and judge their or their loved one’s drinking safely and privately.

CAMH hopes that the online resource will reduce alcohol consumption and help problem drinkers to seek out appropriate and necessary alcohol addiction treatment.

CheckYourDrinking.net hopes to fill a gap in alcohol addiction intervention services currently available. Seeking professional help, such as a residential addiction treatment center, is always optimum. However, there are often barriers, including the stigma of alcohol addiction and access to resources.

For a great majority of alcohol addicts, they have yet to recognize or acknowledge that their drinking has become a problem. Alcohol addiction can be hard to reconcile for both the functioning alcoholic and the family—there is always an excuse and justification for the excessive drinking. Thus, addiction treatment is left on the wayside.

A discreet, anonymous resource that provides a dry assessment of behaviour, without judgement, can be the impetus needed.

If you or your loved one is having difficulty with alcohol addiction , please call one of our experienced cousellors today. 1-866-330-9818

Source: ScienceDaily

Scientists in the UK are working on a synthetic alcohol to substitute alcohol, its negative effects, and consequences.

Alcohol is quickly becoming a top priority for the UK, a country synonymous with pubs and pints. Recently the NHS, the UK’s health department, released its annual study, Statistics on Alcohol: England, 2009, and found that there was more than 80,000 alcohol-related hospitalizations in 2007-08 and more than 6,500 alcohol-attributed deaths.

Now, synthetic alcohol is currently being developed by a team of scientists at the Imperial College London, led by Professor David Nutt.

Prof. Nutt is searching for a way to drink without getting drunk, where one could get and remain pleasantly and mildly inebriated and nothing more; where one could enjoy going out for a few pints without negatively impacting one’s health and society.

And what’s more, he envisions a world where one could simply pop a pill and be instantly sobered, able to drive home or continue on with the day.

The substitute alcohol mimics the feelings of slight inebriation, the “buzz”, without the drunkenness or hangover. What’s more, researchers are suggesting that this new alcohol could essentially be switched off with an instantaneous antidote pill.

The synthetic alcohol works like alcohol in the brain, targeting the same areas of the brain that triggers the feelings of wellbeing and relaxation. However, it does not affect the other areas of the brain—those that control mood swings and lead to addiction.

The synthetic alcohol is also, researchers say, much easier to flush from the body.

Because the synthetic alcohol is so focused in its effects on the brain, they argue, it can be easily controlled and even switched off instantly with the popping of a pill—one that renders the drinker immediately sober.

Synthetic alcohol, currently, is manufactured from benzodiazepines, specifically diazepam, the main ingredient in Valium.

Benzodiazepines, or benzos, are a family of prescription drugs. Most commonly known among them are Xanax, Rivotril, Valium, and Ativan. Benzos are depressants, reducing activity in parts of the brain resulting in a calming effect.

They are most commonly used to treat anxiety and sleep disorders, but have also been known to be used as a muscle relaxant and to treat alcohol withdrawal. Benzos have become safe and effective replacements for barbiturates, another family of highly addictive sedatives, although physical and psychological dependence remains a risk.

With the physical addiction, withdrawal symptoms will appear if the drug is stopped drastically and quickly. With the psychological addiction, a person will be compelled to seek out and use the drug despite no longer feeling its physical effects.

Benzo-derived synthetic alcohol, therefore, could be very controversial on many fronts. Although it appears to “cure” society’s ailments—the drunkenness, impaired driving, alcohol-related violence, alcohol-attributed deaths, and so on—it does not seem to take into account the individual’s ailments—the alcohol addiction.

Furthermore, many of these societal ailments are often the result of the individual’s addiction and substance abuse, neither of which is addressed by the “solution”. There needs to be consideration of the individual and an assessment of what drives their behaviour—what drives them to alcohol, where does the seeking derive from, what is at the root of consistent overuse or drunkenness. And with that some form alcohol addiction treatment.

A clinical trial for the alcohol substitute has yet to be sponsored, nor have any of the traditional alcohol makers shown any interest in the product, according to Professor Nutt.

Source: The Telegraph