A man was killed by family members on Monday over his addiction to marijuana and alcohol. (Representative Image)
Photo : iStock
Jalna: A man was killed by his family members in Ambad taluka in Maharashtra’s Jalna district, over his liquor and marijuana addiction. The accused later set his body on fire.
Police on Wednesday said all the accused have been arrested, according to PTI.
The 35-year-old man was killed by his father, brother and son as they were fed up with his addition to liquor and marijuana.
On Monday, the man was attacked in his field by his family members following an argument with them. Realising that he had succumbed to his injuries, they burned his body to escape police action, a police officer said.
A case of destruction of evidence and murder was registered against the accused family members for killing the man.
In another unrelated case, an 18-year-old man was axed to death by his father on Monday in Ambagaon village in Odisha’s Koraput district, over his addiction to alcohol.
The father, identified as Samara Budia, was arrested by the police on Tuesday and was charged of killing his son, Surendra. The matter came to light when Surendra’s mother returned to the house and saw her son laying in pool of blood. Surendra’s relatives registered a complaint with the police on Monday night.
Rob Lowe marked the milestone of 33 years of sobriety this week, sharing an image worthy of an inspirational office poster on his Instagram. In the photo, the shirtless Lowe is submerged in the ocean up to his collarbone, a sunset beaming through clouds behind him.
“[Thirty-three] years ago today I found recovery and a tribe that has sustained me on my incredible, grateful journey,” Lowe captioned the pic. “My life is full of love, family, God, opportunity, friends, work, dogs and fun. If you or someone you know is struggling with any form of addiction: hope and joy are waiting if you want it, and are willing to work for it!”
Instagram content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
Lowe’s struggle with alcohol peaked in the late ’80s, after he’d broken out with a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders. While promoting his 2011 memoir, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, Lowe told NPR that beer was provided on the Outsiders set, even to underage actors.
Soon enough, Lowe told NPR, drinking had become a major part of his life. “Without even knowing it, it became just a big part of my life to the point where…I decided that I needed to go and get help,” he said. His troubles hit the national spotlight when a tape of Lowe having sex with an underage girl and a woman surfaced. The incident happened while Lowe was attending the 1988 Democratic National Convention to support Michael Dukakis. Lowe, who denied knowing the girl was underage, settled a lawsuit with her family and was not charged with a crime. He once called the sex tape “the best thing that ever happened to me,” due to that scandal’s role in forcing him to change his life. Just less than two years later, he entered rehab. “It got me sober,” he said.
“One of the great gifts of recovery is that you start living your authentic life. You start living your actual values and living as who you truly are,” Lowe told Variety in 2021. His true rock bottom, he told the magazine, actually came when he got a phone call from his mother.
“My mother called me, and I could hear her voice on the answering machine. I didn’t want to pick up because I was really, really hungover and I didn’t want her to know. She was telling me that my grandfather, who I loved, was in critical condition in the hospital and she needed my help,” he said. “And I didn’t pick up. My thought process in that moment was, I need to drink a half a bottle of tequila right now so I can go to sleep, so I can wake up so I can pick up this phone.”
The term “detox” gets a bad rap. To be clear, we’re not talking about laxatives or supplements that “cleanse” your body. By “detox supplement,” we mean a well-rounded blend of ingredients that promote natural detoxification and support overall liver health.
Look for plant bioactives with scientific backing for their ability to support liver health. Such ingredients can protect liver cells, assist in the filtering and removal of unwanted toxins, and stimulating bile production.
The following ingredients are all generally safe, but you should still talk to a health care professional before taking one or more to ensure they don’t interfere with your health regimen (e.g. medications).
Authorities are monitoring the impact of a trial ban on the sale of cask wine in Adelaide’s city centre, which has been introduced to curb alcohol-fuelled violence.
Key points:
Liquor restrictions are being trialled in Adelaide’s CBD
The month-long trial includes bans on takeaway cask wines and some restrictions on spirits
Authorities will this coming week discuss extending the ban
The month-long trial includes a ban on sales of casks of fortified wine, and of all wine in casks of four or five litres, at CBD liquor outlets, including pubs and bottle shops.
Caps on the sales of spirits have also been imposed to limit customers to a 1 litre-bottle — or two, 700-millitre bottles — per day.
The trial began on Good Friday at the behest of the liquor and gambling commissioner, Dini Soulio, who said it was intended to reduce “anti-social behaviour as a result of excessive liquor consumption”.
“The four-week trial was introduced with the support of the state government’s safety and wellbeing taskforce, and is currently being evaluated,” he said in a statement.
“The restrictions — which most bottle shops had already implemented voluntarily — limited the sale of takeaway liquor.”
The commissioner will this week meet with senior police and the Australian Hotels Association (AHA) to discuss whether the ban should continue and, potentially, be strengthened.
Botanic Tonics, a Santa Monica-based beverage company, is facing a class-action lawsuit after a man claimed that one of its drinks caused him to relapse after seven years of sobriety. The lawsuit alleges the tonic contains a powerful ingredient that has similar effects on the brain to opioids.
Romulo Torres, a recovering alcoholic, began receiving targeted ads for Botanic Tonics’ Feel Free Wellness Tonic in 2020. It was advertised as a beverage featuring kava and “other ancient plants” to aid productivity, focus and relaxation.
However, the drink upended Torres’ life and sobriety after he purchased Feel Free at a 7-Eleven in December 2021. Within three months, Torres developed a “strong addiction” to the product, drinking 10 Feel Free Tonics a day and spending $3,000 a month on the drink, the lawsuit states. After attempting to quit the beverage, Torres experienced severe withdrawal symptoms and began drinking alcohol again in 2022 to ease the worsening effects of Feel Free’s withdrawal.
Over the course of his Feel Free consumption, Torres was also admitted to the emergency room after experiencing symptoms associated with opioid use, including vomiting, lapses in consciousness, psychosis and delirium.
“His symptoms were attributed to the ingredients in Feel Free,” the lawsuit claims.
Although Botanic Tonics markets Feel Free as a kava-based beverage, the lawsuit alleges that the main ingredient is actually kratom, a plant that can have similar effects on brain receptors to opioids and “appears to have properties that expose users to the risks of addiction, abuse, and dependence,” according to a 2022 FDA warning.
“There are no FDA-approved uses for kratom, and the agency has received concerning reports about the safety of kratom,” the warning states.
The lawsuit claims that Botanic Tonics manipulated its formula of Feel Free to enhance the effects of kratom and ignite a long-lasting and magnified “high.”
In a statement to the Los Angeles Times, Botanic Tonics’ attorney Brett Schuman refuted the claims and said that the brand intends to defend its product in court.
“Botanic Tonics products are safe and manufactured, marketed and distributed to the highest industry standards,” Schuman told the outlet.
It was almost midnight on St. Patrick’s Day at the University of Michigan, and the party was in full swing. Inside, college students were stumbling and falling to the ground as the Killers’ “Mr. Brightside” pulsated through the room. A line ran out the door, filled with eager faces looking for a good time.
No, this wasn’t a fraternity mixer. This was Sober Skate.
And people weren’t falling onto a sticky wood floor, but a skating rink at the Yost Ice Arena. The event was so popular that within the first 30 minutes, the rental desk had already leased 300 of its 350 pairs of skates. The 45 large pizzas that organizers ordered were gone in an hour, as were the cases of Faygo and Diet Coke.
Each year around St. Patrick’s Day, Sober Skate — co-hosted by Michigan’s Collegiate Recovery Program and the Washtenaw Recovery Advocacy Project — offers local college students and community members a dry alternative to the holiday’s liquor-soaked festivities. Not all attendees identify as sober, but they’ve all chosen to abstain from alcohol on one of the highest-risk drinking nights of the year.
“Hundreds of people come out,” said Matthew Statman, manager of the recovery program, which supports students healing from substance-use issues. “And most of them are just young people who are not interested in drinking green beer.”
This year’s Sober Skate was the most popular yet. Statman said he is always surprised by how many students “come out of the woodwork” to attend the program’s substance-free events.
Emily Elconin for The Chronicle
A sober skating event hosted by the Collegiate Recovery Program at Yost Ice Arena in Ann Arbor, Mich.
“They’re everywhere,” Statman said. “Most students are not using substances heavily or frequently, but they’re just in the libraries and in the dorms. And you wouldn’t see them otherwise.”
For as long as the modern campus has existed — as long as films like Animal House and She’s the Man have primed expectations for campus life — administrators have tried to curb dangerous drinking. While students’ participation in drinking has fallen in the past 40 years, high-risk binge drinking has remained a stubborn problem.
Yet recently, there’s been a shift in many students’ attitudes toward drinking. Instead of seeing alcohol as a fact of college life, more students are questioning its presence in their lives. Many are deciding they don’t want it to be in their lives — or at least not as much.
Drinking remains widespread on campuses, and other substances are only becoming more popular. Still, students who choose sobriety are facing less social shame and judgment than in years past.
That’s great news for administrators who have long worked toward this end. But now they must figure out how to help students lead fulfilling social lives without alcohol — a substance which, like it or not, is entangled with many colleges’ bottom lines.
The sober movement’s roots formed long ago. It might not feel like it, but student drinking has been on a downward turn for the last four decades.
In 1981, 82 percent of students reported drinking in the previous 30 days. In 2021, that figure was less than 60 percent. The data come from the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s Monitoring the Future survey, which experts say is a reliable measure of students’ alcohol consumption. Students’ participation in drinking trended downward until about 1997 and has continued to decline slightly since then.
About 44 percent of students in 1981 self-reported binge drinking in the previous two weeks, according to the survey. In 2020, when many college students were home because of the pandemic, the binge-drinking rate fell to 24 percent, but it bounced back to 30 percent in 2021. Binge drinking is defined as having five or more drinks in one sitting.
Duncan B. Clark, a psychiatry professor at the University of Pittsburgh and an expert on adolescent substance use, said there was a significant drop in alcohol use in the 1980s after Congress made 21 the minimum drinking age. Since then, “a lot of the rates have been fairly stable,” he said.
“Seven years after most states increased the legal drinking age to 21, college officials are still wrestling with how to respond,” The Chronicle declared in 1990. “Some are trying to stamp out underage drinking on their campuses, while others say a more realistic approach is to acknowledge that students use alcohol and to encourage them not to abuse it.”
Over the past 40 years, colleges have poured millions of dollars into alcohol-education programs, health-promotion centers, and collegiate-recovery communities. They’ve invested time and money into hiring staff to oversee these efforts.
These interventions have worked to an extent. Recovery programs continue to pop up all over the country to support students healing from substance-use issues. At the same time, alcohol-education programs are a mixed bag, with the benefits wearing off over time.
And while binge-drinking behavior has slowed, it remains a major concern of college leaders, who fear that students will die from alcohol poisoning. Each death brings renewed calls for institutions to crack down on alcohol culture and hold the groups that cultivate it accountable.
These administrators may be relieved to learn, then, that there’s a nascent movement of college students turning down the red Solo cup.
While young people have many personal reasons for making the choice, confluent forces — a more inclusive society, a stronger safety net for those struggling with addiction, and increased skepticism toward alcohol — have made it easier than ever to be a college student who doesn’t drink.
Emily Elconin for The Chronicle
Students converse as they lace up their skates during a sober skating event
That cuts against the conventional campus wisdom that students who abstain are just alcoholics. The substance-free community is made up of people with various reasons for not using alcohol and drugs, said Lindsay Garcia, who oversees Brown University’s Donovan Program for Recovery and Substance-Free Initiatives.
“Some people just want to study really hard,” Garcia said. “Some people have family history of addiction; some people are in recovery. People have religious reasons or personal reasons or medical reasons.”
Society has, in recent years, become more willing to embrace and organize around the sober lifestyle, Clark, of the University of Pittsburgh, said. He pointed to Dry January, a popular health campaign that encourages people to take a break from drinking in the new year.
More bars are offering “mocktails,” or nonalcoholic cocktails. Headlines declare that alcohol just isn’t cool anymore. The “sober curious” movement has spawned a cottage industry of podcasts, books, and social groups designed to uplift people who are questioning their relationship with alcohol.
People are also more attuned to the research on the negative health effects of alcohol, said Lynsey Romo, an associate professor of communications at North Carolina State University who studies how people talk about alcoholism and sobriety.
“All of a sudden, everything is ‘sober curious,’” Romo said. “Every single news outlet is writing about this.”
On campus, demographic shifts may be amplifying the sober wave.
Students today are more diverse, and research shows that students of color and first-generation students are less likely to drink excessively. Today’s college students are also more open-minded toward people who are different from them, and that’s reflected in the greater acceptance of those who choose not to drink.
“A lot of students coming in are really seeking to align with their values, seeking activities that allow them to grow,” she said. “This incoming student population is reflecting a lot more about that, and there’s a lot more awareness of the adverse effects of alcohol and consequences.”
One of the largest shifts in higher education over the past 20 years has been the increasing pressure on colleges to offer full services to their students. Many students today arrive on campus with the expectation that their institution provides not only academics, housing, and food, but also medical care, security services, and mental-health support.
In that vein, collegiate-recovery programs have sprouted across the United States. They offer sober housing, social events, and connections to community services. According to its website, the Association of Recovery in Higher Education has 152 member institutions worldwide.
At Michigan, most of the recovery program’s events are only for students in the close-knit group. But in addition to St. Patrick’s Day skating, the program hosts an annual sober tailgate, which is open to the public. For students who don’t enjoy drinking or partying, events like these prove that they’re not alone.
“I don’t really like parties,” said Wencke Groeneveld, a Michigan student who attended Sober Skate. “I prefer physical activity, and I am a big fan of ice-skating. Even when I go to parties, I don’t drink. But it’s a little bit weird because other people are drinking.”
And for students who do enjoy going out, the prospect of free pizza and ice-skating may be enough to lure them away from the party scene.
“Without alternatives like this, people will just get drunk,” said Maya Castleberry, a Michigan graduate who attended the event. “There’s a huge turnout. People see that ice-skating is more fun than drinking.”
Recovery programs only serve a subset of students who abstain, and those students’ needs are different. But just the presence of a collegiate-recovery program on campus helps normalize the experience of being a college student who doesn’t drink, Statman said.
Emily Elconin for The Chronicle
Matt Statman, manager of the Collegiate Recovery Program at the University of Michigan
“Campuses that really are invested in collegiate recovery and raise up students in recovery do something to help normalize sober students, whether they’re in recovery or not, or need to be in recovery or not,” Statman said.
Some campuses have student-run clubs that host alcohol- and drug-free activities, like Bucknell University’s C.A.L.V.I.N. & H.O.B.B.E.S. and Brown University’s SoBear.
Madhu Subramanian, a senior at Brown and president of SoBear, said that while club events are designed for people who are substance-free, it is not a requirement.
“You just have to remain sober right before, and during,” Subramanian said. “I think we provide a really good avenue for people who, for whatever reason, might just want a space that doesn’t have substances for a night.”
SoBear’s spring 2023 schedule includes bookmark weaving and tote-bag decorating. Events typically draw between 20 and 30 students, Subramanian said. Once, a mocktail-and-movie night attracted 180 people. “Last week we created potted felt succulents,” he said. “Last semester we went to Dave & Buster’s.”
Sober students at Brown gather in several different ways, including through substance-free housing.
Requests to live in first-year substance-free housing have tripled since the beginning of the pandemic, Garcia said. When she assumed the position, in January 2021, participation in the collegiate-recovery program had dwindled to three or four active members. Now, it’s between 30 and 40.
Subramanian lives in Donovan House, a 17-bed residence for sober students.
“Everyone in the house is there for different reasons, but all of us completely respect each other’s reasons for not wanting to interact with substances,” he said.
“I wanted to create a space and awareness that binge-drinking culture is not required to have a good college experience,” said Julie Lawton, a sophomore at the University of Connecticut who runs a health-and-fitness TikTok account.
Emily Elconin for The Chronicle
Natalie Christian, a recovery-support assistant and graduate of the University of Michigan
Lawton said social media helps people who choose not to drink feel less lonely.
“If people didn’t have social media, they’d look around in college and think everyone’s drinking,” she said. “The only reason people know that I don’t drink is because of my social media.”
When Lawton started college, she noticed how normalized drinking was at Connecticut. There wasn’t much to do in Storrs, she said, besides drink and party.
So she’d drink, but it didn’t make her feel good. Lawton said she’d get really bad “hangxiety,” which she defined as the anxiety one feels the morning after drinking, when you can’t remember who you talked to or what you said.
At the beginning of her sophomore year, Lawton decided to try going out sober. She didn’t tell anyone and made sure to have a nonalcoholic drink in her hand. “I felt like I had a lot more confidence sober,” she said.
But the frat parties aren’t clearing out just yet.
While sober students have found support and community, they still struggle to navigate their peers’ expectations around drinking.
“I am comfortable talking about it,” said Claire Fogarty, a junior at the University of Southern California, of her sobriety. “People don’t know my relationship with it. But it isn’t something you’re supposed to ask people about.”
Colleges are still playing catch-up on creating better sober spaces that work for students. Campus-sponsored events often end before the weekend-night revelry even begins.
“The administration can only do so much when it comes to student culture, because that’s something that takes years to change,” said Kacey Lee, a sophomore at Cornell University. “But I do wish they would implement night events or concerts or open-mic nights, low-key things at night so that there’s things for students to do without alcohol.”
Not having alternatives is especially difficult for students in recovery, who often have to choose between going out sober and staying in.
“College is not a recovery-enhancing environment,” said Katie Carroll, a Michigan senior and member of its Collegiate Recovery Program. “I’d love to say it’s as common to find sober activities as it is ones where drinking is involved, but it isn’t.”
At Michigan, part of the success of the skating event was that it was so late, running from 10 p.m. to midnight. When asked what their plans were for the rest of the night, most attendees said they would go to bed.
“I’ve come to college to study and get a degree, so it’s better that there’s an event that doesn’t involve alcohol,” said Pranav Varshney, a Michigan freshman. Ice-skating is “not going to make me feel bad the next day, and I can go back to studying.”
Hosting better substance-free events is one thing; changing attitudes and behavior around drinking is another.
Alcohol consumption is so entrenched in the public imagination of college life that its absence is newsworthy; we question why students do not drink, not why they do. And the functioning of the college relies, financially and otherwise, on the assumption that students will drink.
Institutions attract students by promising both academic and social nourishment, but the responsibility of engaging students often falls to Greek-life organizations and other student clubs where booze reigns supreme. Colleges reap the benefits: In 2021, a Gallup poll commissioned by the National Panhellenic Conference and the North American Interfraternity Council found that fraternity and sorority members were much more likely to report donating to their alma mater than unaffiliated alumni — 54 percent versus 10 percent. Former fraternity and sorority members were also more likely than unaffiliated alumni to recommend their institution to others.
These groups remain embroiled in alcohol-related hazing scandals. About 1,500 college students between 18 and 24 die from alcohol-related causes each year, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
“Although alcohol use has decreased over time, it still remains — by far — the most prevalent substance used on college campuses,” said Megan Patrick, a research professor at the University of Michigan and principal investigator on the Monitoring the Future study, in an email to The Chronicle.
And a recent TikTok trend that recommends mixing water, liquor, flavoring, and electrolytes in a gallon jug is a new stressor for administrators. Advocates of the borg (“blackout rage gallon”) argue that the concoction reduces harm, because drinkers control what goes in their jug. That’s not so reassuring to colleges.
Photo by Michael Theis, The Chronicle
A borg — “blackout rage gallon” — is a cocktail of spirits such as vodka, Kool-Aid, and electrolyte solutions drank from a repurposed gallon jug.
In March, during the annual “Blarney Blowout” binge-drinking event, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Town of Amherst released a joint statement alerting the community to the use of borgs. The Amherst Fire Department received 28 requests for ambulance transport during the event. Officials planned to “assess this weekend’s developments and consider steps to improve alcohol education and intervention.”
Marijuana use, meanwhile, has been rising steadily since the mid-aughts. In 2021, 24 percent of college students said they had used marijuana in the last month, according to Monitoring the Future data.
Statman, at the University of Michigan, said he has noticed an uptick in cannabis use as Michigan has legalized recreational use and dispensaries have opened within walking distance of campus.
“That’s affected the culture for sure around substance use,” he said. He said he didn’t have the numbers, but “I think it’s safe to say that more people are using cannabis than they were before you could go buy it at the store.”
There’s reason to be optimistic, though, about the trajectory of alcohol-free life on campus.
“All the positive trends that we’re seeing point to a safer campus in terms of alcohol use,” said Julia Martinez, an expert on college drinking and an associate professor of psychology at Colgate University.
Clark, the Pitt psychiatrist, said he welcomes the greater acceptance of sobriety on campus and the shift toward a more expansive definition of college fun.
“What is fairly ingrained in our culture is that being a college student is associated with alcohol and other drugs,” Clark said. “That’s proven to be a problematic expectation.”
Instead of embracing these expectations, college students today are charting their own paths.
Emily Elconin for The Chronicle
Students at a sober skating event
“People talk about this current generation like they don’t take on any risks,” Martinez said. “I would really want to emphasize that younger people are putting their foot down and are saying, ‘We don’t have to do the status quo.’”
In the lobby as the Michigan event waned, Bella Nuce, who graduated in 2021, reflected on the four years she has attended Sober Skate. When the 25-year-old first started going, it was much smaller, mostly fellow students in recovery. Now, it’s everyone.
She credited “a younger generation that’s more mature than me” for increasing Sober Skate’s popularity.
Meanwhile on the ice, Justine Sedky, who earned her master’s from Michigan in 2020, danced in anticipation of midnight. At that time, she would celebrate her fifth sober anniversary. Her peers whooped as the minutes counted down.
Of course, there would be no clinking of glasses when the clock struck midnight. Statman, the recovery-program manager, made just one request, tongue in cheek, as Sedky’s big moment approached: “Don’t drink.”
Jason Ritter got emotional while speaking about the changes he implemented to feel worthy of marrying his wife Melanie Lynskey.
The couple appeared on Wednesday’s episode of The Drew Barrymore Show during which the Parenthood star opened up about his struggles with alcohol during their early days of dating. Host Drew Barrymore asked Ritter, “What was your moment when you knew [Lynskey was the one],” to which he replied, “I knew how incredible Melanie was early on.” He continued, “It’s not as cute of a story as you would like to think. It was messy and interesting and weird. But mixed in the mix, [I was] dealing with some alcoholism issues.” Getting choked up he added, “At a point, I knew how amazing she was, and I thought she would be incredible for someone who deserved her, basically.” Lynskey reached for his hand while whispering “Aw.”
Ritter explained, “I didn’t feel like I was that person. I thought [I was] a little bit too crazy. So it was only after like maybe a year into not drinking where I started to go, ‘Oh, maybe I can promise some things to someone else. Maybe I can be this person.’ It’s been like a slow burn. I knew she was incredible. It was working on myself enough to feel like maybe I can be the one for her, too.” As she wiped around tears, Lynskey added that her husband had done “so much work on himself. I’m so proud of him.” In response to the look of shock on Barrymore’s face following this confession, Lynskey apologized and joked, “It’s gonna get more fun.”
Barrymore then shared her own experience with sobriety, revealing, “I haven’t had a drink—and I’m not sober, I don’t work a program—but alcohol was my poison. And I haven’t had a drink in almost four years.” Earlier this month, Barrymore told the Los Angeles Times that she leaned heavily on alcohol following her 2016 divorce from Will Kopelman. The talk show host told Lynskey and Ritter, “The narrative that one creates is that I can’t be with someone, and I haven’t been in a relationship since I stopped drinking, and I’m really looking forward to, one day, not having that ‘bad girl’ narrative, the instability, the ‘I’m not someone who’s right to not be with someone for their sake.’”
After the couple’s interview aired, Ritter retweeted the clip of them on the show, writing, “Thank you @DrewBarrymoreTV for having us!! And for the space to talk about things like this! And thank you @melanielynskey for having me in the first place.”
When I was growing up in Scotland, drinking was a rite of passage — and, as it did with me, typically started around age 13. During my teenage years, I associated alcohol with the good times: birthdays, house parties and summer holidays.
It wasn’t until I left home for college that my drinking took a dark turn.
In the U.K., the student experience is centered heavily around going out to the pub and getting drunk. I stayed in the dorms during my first year, living with other students in a culture of binge drinking. If you wanted to make friends, then you had to be comfortable with drinking.
While many enjoyed their nights out and still made their way to class the next day, I was often still drinking. Alcohol stopped being about the social aspect for me — in fact, I preferred drinking alone.
My time at university was very isolating. I was socially awkward, found it difficult to make friends, and used alcohol to escape loneliness and provide comfort as I sat alone in my room. Drinking began to take priority over everything else in my life.
As my alcohol abuse worsened, I dropped out of university and moved back to my hometown with a girl I had met while working a bar job. It was my first relationship, but looking back, I think we mostly found comfort in each other.
We had been together for five years when she found out that she was pregnant.
When I learned I was going to be a dad, I felt genuine happiness, something that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
We stayed together during the pregnancy, and I helped her out — when I was sober enough. By that point, I was drinking a liter of vodka a day. I only left the house to go to work, which was in a dingy restaurant across the road where no one cared that I smelled like booze. I had cut off the few friends I had, and drinking myself into unconsciousness became the norm. When my wages were spent, I turned to my parents for money. I would lie about why I needed the extra cash, telling them that my shifts had been cut at work or that I needed help with bills.
However, the single biggest consequence of my drinking was the way I treated the mother of my child. I would get irritated, start arguments over nothing and call her terrible names. It was inexcusable behavior, but that’s what addiction does — it turns us into the very worst versions of ourselves.
When Neil was born, his mother and I were still together, but things between us deteriorated quickly after his birth. I developed postnatal depression — which was, of course, exacerbated by my drinking — and she had to look after our newborn child almost entirely alone. Instead of using those first few months to bond with my son, I chose to sit in our bedroom drinking myself into oblivion.
Neil’s mum had finally had enough and left me when Neil was about 6 months old. She told me that I could see Neil whenever I wanted, but she urged me to get help. However, at the time, I refused to accept that my drinking was a problem.
When he was 2, Neil was over one day and amusing himself with his toys on the living room floor. I playfully asked him, “Do you love Dad?”
He stopped, locked his eyes on me and clearly replied, “No.”
I had always struggled to deal with my emotions and usually resorted to suppressing the hell out of them. But at that moment, I couldn’t stop the tears from pouring. I wasn’t just crying because I had failed my son, but I was also ― for the first time — accepting the fact that I was an addict, and I needed help.
As much as it pains me to say, Neil’s response to my question didn’t come as a total shock. So far in his life, his dad was someone who was always yelling ― because I was either hungover or still drunk from the night before — and showed him almost no affection.
I rarely cuddled him, hardly ever said “I love you,” and I almost never played with him because I was usually lying on the couch, nursing a splitting headache.
On one occasion, Neil was supposed to be getting dropped off by his mom, but I had gotten blackout drunk the night before and didn’t answer the door. I eventually came to when I heard an even louder knock, which was enough to get me on my feet to stagger over and see who it was.
When I opened the door, I saw two police officers. They had been asked to do a wellness check after receiving a worried call from my mother. As it turned out, I had been drunk-calling people all night in some sort of cry for help.
I have no recollection of that night. And yet, I still carried on drinking.
Children learn what love is from their parents, and today when I think back to that moment when Neil said he didn’t love me, I realize that it’s because he wasn’t sure if I loved him. His mom had shown him what it meant to be loved, and he knew he wasn’t getting that from me.
After accepting that I had a drinking problem, my mom was the first person I reached out to. She told me that she had been waiting for this call for a long time, and was so pleased I was finally accepting that I had an addiction and needed help. As well as my weekly 12-step meetings, my mum has been my crutch during recovery.
Seeing Neil for the first time after getting sober is a moment that will stay with me forever because I was finally able to give him something that he deserved from the start: a dad. I was no longer an empty shell of a person, focused only on feeding my habit. I was sober and ready to be a dad that my son could love.
Today, my son looks forward to staying with me, running into my arms with a smile on his face when he’s dropped off. I take him on days out, we play with his toys together, we laugh, we cuddle, I read him bedtime stories, and I kiss him good night. Neil now tells me that he loves me because he knows that I love him, and I tell him so every day.
After only months of sobriety, I know there’s a long road ahead, and recovery hasn’t been without its challenges. But focusing all my efforts on rebuilding my relationship with my son and being the best dad I can be has given me a purpose in life that alcohol had deprived me of for too long.
There’s one thing, more than any other, that is keeping me sober, and that’s having a son who says, “I love you, Dad.”
Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch.
LONDON — After four months of intense talks (and plenty of squabbling before that), the EU and U.K. have a deal to resolve their long-running post-Brexit trade row over Northern Ireland.
But as U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak works to sell the so-called “Windsor framework” on the Northern Ireland protocol to Brexiteers and unionists, lawmakers on both sides of the English Channel and of the Irish Sea are getting to grips with the details.
From paperwork to plants, let POLITICO walk you through the new agreement, asking: Who has given ground, and how exactly will the deal thrashed out by EU and U.K. negotiators aim to keep the bloc’s prized single market secure?
Customs paperwork and checks
For businesses taking part in an expanded “trusted trader scheme,” the Windsor framework aims to considerably cut customs paperwork and checks on goods moving from Great Britain but destined to stay in Northern Ireland.
These goods will pass through a “green lane” requiring minimal paperwork and be labeled “Not for EU,” while those heading for the EU single market in the Republic of Ireland will undergo full EU customs checks in Northern Ireland’s ports under a “red lane.”
Traders in the green lane will only need to complete a single, digitized certificate per truck movement, rather than multiple forms per load.
Sunak has already claimed that this means “any sense of a border in the Irish Sea” — deeply controversial among Northern Ireland’s unionist politicians — has now been “removed.”
However, it’s by no means a total end to Irish Sea red tape. An EU official said that although the deal delivers a “dramatic reduction” in the number of physical food safety checks, for example, there will still be some — those seen as “essential” to avoid the risk of goods entering the single market.
These checks will be based on risk assessments and intelligence, and aimed at preventing smuggling and criminality.
U.K. public health and safety standards will meanwhile apply to all retail food and drink within the U.K. internal market. British rules on public health, marketing, organics, labeling, genetic modification, and drinks such as wines, spirits and mineral waters will apply in Northern Ireland. This will remove more than 60 EU food and drink rules in the original protocol, which were detailed in more than 1,000 pages of legislation.
Supermarkets, wholesalers, hospitality and food producers are likely to welcome the new arrangements. Many had stopped supplying to Northern Ireland because the cost of filling out hundreds of certificates for each consignment was deemed too high for a market as small as Northern Ireland.
Export declarations have been removed for the vast majority of goods moving from Northern Ireland to Great Britain.
The EU’s safeguards: While offering to drastically reduce the volume of checks carried out, the EU has toughened its criteria to become a trusted trader under the expanded scheme. The EU will now have access to databases tracking shipments of goods between Great Britain and Northern Ireland in real time. The system was tested through the winter, helping build trust in Brussels, and is being fed with data from traders and U.K. authorities. The European Commission will be able to suspend part or all of these trade easements if the U.K. fails to comply with the new rules.
The timeline: The U.K. government said it will consult with businesses in the “coming months” before implementing the new rules. The green lane will come into force this fall. Labels for meat, meat products and minimally-processed dairy products such as fresh milk will come into force from October 1, 2024. All relevant products will be marked by July 1, 2025. “Shelf-stable” products like bread and pasta will not be labeled.
Governance
A key plank of the deal is the bid to address complaints by Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) — currently boycotting the power-sharing assembly in the region in opposition to the protocol — that lawmakers there did not have a say in the imposition of new EU rules in the region.
Under the terms of the new agreement, the Commission will have to give the U.K. government notice of future EU regulations intended to apply in Northern Ireland. According to Sunak, Stormont will be given a new power to “pull an emergency brake on changes to EU goods rules” based on “cross-community consent.”
Under this mechanism, the U.K. government will be able to suspend the application in Northern Ireland of an incoming piece of EU law at the request of at least 30 members of the assembly — a third of them. But if unionist parties in Northern Ireland want to trigger the new “Stormont brake,” they must first return to the power-sharing institutions which they abandoned last May. The EU and the U.K. could subsequently agree to apply such a rule in a meeting of the Joint Committee, which oversees the protocol.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said this new tool remains an emergency mechanism that hopefully will not need to be used. A second EU official said it would be triggered “under the most exceptional circumstances and as a matter of last resort in a well-defined process” set out in a unilateral declaration by the U.K. These include that the rules have a “significant and lasting impact on the everyday lives” of people in the region.
If the EU disagrees with the U.K.’s trigger of the Stormont brake, the two would resolve the issue through independent arbitration, instead of involving the Court of Justice of the EU.
Meanwhile, Northern Ireland’s courts will consider disputes over the application of EU rules in the region, and judges could decide whether to consult the CJEU on how to interpret them. In a key concession, the Commission has agreed not to unilaterally refer a case to the CJEU, although it retains the power to do so.
The EU’s safeguards: The CJEU will remain the “sole and ultimate arbiter of EU law” and will have the “final say” on EU single market disputes, von der Leyen stressed. Whether Brexiteers and the DUP are willing to accept that remains the million-dollar question.
Tax, state aid and EU rules
The U.K. government will now be able to set rules in areas such as VAT and state aid that will also apply in Northern Ireland — two major wins for Sunak that were rejected by the Commission in previous rounds of negotiations with other U.K. prime ministers.
It will, Sunak was at pains to point out Monday, allow Westminster to pass on a cut in alcohol duty that previously passed Northern Ireland by.
But London has had to give up on its idea of establishing a dual-regulatory mechanism that would have allowed Northern Ireland businesses to choose whether they would follow EU or British rules when manufacturing goods, depending on whether they intended to sell them in the EU single market or in the U.K. The whole idea was deemed by Brussels as impossible to police.
The EU’s safeguards: Northern Irish businesses producing goods for the U.K. internal market will only have to follow “less than 3 percent” of EU single market rules, a U.K. official said. But the nature of these regulations remains unclear, and there will be increased market surveillance and enforcement by U.K. authorities to try and reassure the EU.
The timeline: The U.K. government will be able to exercise these powers as soon as the Windsor framework comes into force.
Parcels
The EU and the U.K. have agreed to scrap customs processes for parcels being sent between consumers in Great Britain to Northern Ireland.
The EU’s safeguards: Parcels sent between businesses will now move through the new green lane, as is the case for other goods destined to stay in Northern Ireland. That should allow them to be monitored, but remove the need to undergo international customs procedures. Parcel operators will share commercial data with the U.K.’s tax authority, HMRC, in a bid to reduce risks to the EU single market.
Timeline: These new arrangements will take effect September 2024.
Pets
Residents in Great Britain will be able to take their dogs, cats and ferrets to Northern Ireland without having to fulfill a requirement for a rabies vaccine, tapeworm treatment and other checks.
Pets traveling from Northern Ireland to Great Britain and back will not be required to have any documentation, declarations, checks or health treatments.
The EU’s safeguards: Microchipped pets will be able to travel with a life-long pet travel document issued for free by the U.K.’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Pet owners will tick a box in their travel booking acknowledging they accept the scheme rules and will not move their pet into the EU.
The timeline: The new rules will take effect fall 2023.
Medicines
Drugs approved for use by the U.K.’s medicines regulator, the MHRA, will be automatically available in every pharmacy and hospital in Northern Ireland, “at the same time and under the same conditions” as in the U.K., von der Leyen said.
Businesses will need to secure approval for a U.K.-wide license from the MHRA to supply medicines to Northern Ireland, rather than having to go through the European Medicines Agency. The agreement removes any EU Falsified Medicines Directive packaging, labeling and barcode requirements for medicines. This means manufacturers will be able to produce a single medicines pack design for the whole of the U.K., including Northern Ireland.
Drugs being shipped into Northern Ireland from Great Britain will be freed of customs paperwork, checks and duties, with traders only being required to provide ordinary commercial information.
The EU’s safeguards: Medicines traveling from Great Britain to Northern Ireland will do so via the new green lane, which will have monitoring to protect the single market built in.
The timeline: The U.K. government said it will engage with the medicines industry soon on these changes.
Plants
The deal lifts the protocol’s ban on seed potatoes entering Northern Ireland from Great Britain, and its prohibition on trees and shrubs deemed of “high risk” for the EU single market. This will enable garden centers and other businesses in Northern Ireland to sell 11 native species to Great Britain and some from other regions.
The Windsor framework also removes sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks on all these plants, and ditches red tape on their shipment into Northern Ireland.
The EU’s safeguards: Supplying businesses will have to obtain a Northern Ireland plant health label, which will be the same as the plant passport already required within Great Britain, but with the addition of the words “for use in the U.K. only” and a QR code linking to the rules.
The timeline: The new scheme and the lifting of the bans will all come into force in the fall.
When Emily, my 4-year-old, was diagnosed with stage IV high-risk cancer, I kept two water bottles filled with vodka in my hospital suitcase. Every night at 7 o’clock, I pulled one from my bag and rested it next to the stack of books that my daughter and I read before bed. In between pages of “Goodnight Gorilla,” I took little sips.
Drinking was magic. After a few sips, the worry of Emily’s chemo, blood counts, line infections, organ trouble and unexplained rashes drifted from my mind. For the first time all day, I could breathe.
As if I needed a reason, drinking was easy to justify. My kid had neuroblastoma, an aggressive disease with 50-50 odds of survival. A tumor the size of a softball rested on her adrenal gland and cancer cells floated from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
For most minutes of the day, I beat myself up for not realizing Emily had cancer sooner. I scrolled through old pictures and thought, How did you not know? When I couldn’t take it anymore, I became fixated on Isabelle, my healthy 6-year-old daughter, who asked me, “Is Emily going to die?” after a boy in her class told her his grandfather died from cancer and that Emily would, too.
Drinking allowed the thoughts to stop ― or at least slow down. It helped me sleep and be a better mother. My edges softened and the wild thoughts of Emily living and dying subsided. I liked myself better. For an hour or two, I forgave myself.
To keep myself in check, I established ground rules: not drinking before 7 o’clock, only having enough to get a buzz, and not telling anyone what mingled with my Diet Coke in the plastic hospital cup. It was a system that worked.
Every parent on the pediatric oncology floor had a system. I watched a mom chain-smoke by the valets and a dad eat McDonald’s three times a day. We all needed something to get us through ― without it, we’d crash.
“Healthy” alternatives to cancel out the drinking weren’t lost on me. When my father came to the hospital to relieve me, I ran the city streets. Midday, I rolled my yoga mat onto Emily’s hospital room floor and went through a sequence from a yoga class. Movement distracted my mind during the day and booze allowed it to be still at night.
I had no desire, nor the time, to go to my doctor and tell her that I was struggling. She’d write me a prescription for something and tell me to talk to a therapist. Unless a therapist could promise me that Emily wasn’t going to die, I didn’t want to talk to her. Vodka was taking good care of me. My dose of three capfuls, twice nightly, was doing the job.
Like any relationship, there were a few bumps. On the Fourth of July, in an act of rebellion, I didn’t measure out capfuls ― I swigged from the bottle. The “supposed tos” of the day took over my mind. Instead of watching the parade, going to the beach, making s’mores and waving sparklers, we were locked in hospital jail watching bad cartoons.
That night, I fell asleep reading books to Emily. When I woke up, an infomercial for skin cream was playing on the television. My head throbbed and my throat was dry and scratchy. Sunlight poked through the curtains.
I sat up and swung my legs off the side of the bed. A wave of nausea and the spins made me grab the bedside rail. My water bottle was half-empty and made my heart sink. Did I really drink all of that?
The author with her husband, Shane and daughters Isabelle (left) and Emily at Boston Children’s Hospital in 2010.
When Emily was discharged early a few hours later, I popped four ibuprofen and ate a bag of pita chips. On the way home, I pulled over and threw up on the side of the highway. At 7 o’clock that night, after lying on the couch and struggling to make my girls macaroni and cheese for lunch, I drank ― and it made me feel better.
A few days later I Googled, “What is an alcoholic?” A million results generated with links to AA and charts with alcohol guidelines. One asked me to rethink my drinking. But I didn’t want to rethink my drinking, so I closed my laptop and walked away. I’d stop when Emily was better and my life was easier.
But at the end of 18 months, when Emily was better, life wasn’t easier. Doctor’s appointments and navigating our new normal kept my mind racing. I worried about her relapsing and the occasional rogue bruise on her body. I’ll stop later… later… later, I told myself. This went on for years.
On hard days, which most of them felt like, I asked myself, Why do I have to stop? My life was hard, drinking was easy, and I didn’t have the bandwidth to muster the strength to stop. Plenty of people drank every night and their kids weren’t recovering from cancer. I was going to work and showing up at my girls’ soccer games. Who cared if I drank at the end of it all?
But slowly over time, I started to care. I had complete control and no control. I loved the way drinking made me feel and hated the way it made me feel. It took up a lot of space in my head. The dependency and secrecy started to weigh on my Irish Catholic guilt.
I kept waiting for “the thing” to show up that would make my life easier. An epiphany or some sort of promise that Emily wouldn’t die so I could unclench my jaw and stop complaining that my back hurt. “The thing” that would give me strength at night and allow me to say, “I’m good. I don’t need to drink” ― and actually mean it.
While I waited for it to show up, tiny things put me back together, ones so small I didn’t notice. A passage in a book, a conversation with a friend and laughing at things that once infuriated me all settled deep into the part of me that yearned for something more than vodka.
Acupuncture, off-the-grid healers and keeping a gratitude journal (which I wanted to discount the merit of, but worked when I woke up and hated the world) helped too. The good days started to beat out the bad days. When the dog pooped in the house, I didn’t scream in the backyard that I hated him.
On my drive to work one day, I thought, You have the choice to drink or not drink. I scrunched my eyes. I had a choice. Something had shifted. I felt slightly powerful. Not enough to stop drinking that night, but enough to consider it before I pulled the bottle from the freezer.
Around the holidays, eight years after Emily was diagnosed, I got sick. The reasonable voice in my head told me that drinking wasn’t going to help me feel better. I wanted it to be wrong, yet knew it was right.
That night in the shower, I was filled with rage. The anticipation of not drinking set off a battle between the two mes: one adamant that it was the night to stop and the other insisting that one more day was best.
Just for tonight, I told myself. If it’s awful, I can drink tomorrow. I couldn’t stand to be around myself, so I ate a pint of Oreo cookie ice cream and went to bed. I read a book and fell asleep. When I woke up, my first thought was I fell asleep without vodka. My second thought was Do I want to try this again?
For me, quitting cold turkey was the only way. Moderation and I have never been friends. I’m either all in or all out. That mindset is what kept me drinking and what I knew was my only way out.
For weeks, I hated taking a shower because I had nothing to look forward to afterward. With nothing to distract me, I had to pay attention. I was convinced it might kill me.
The author with Isabelle and Emily on Cape Cod in 2019.
With all of me present, I realized I left my kids all alone when I escaped with vodka. To be with them, really with them, I had to be still and allow feelings to flood my body. A mess of joy and grief, anger and angst, fear and gratitude swirled from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. It took all of my strength to not race downstairs for a drink to make them stop. Surrendering felt dangerous, but it also felt like the most loving act I could give myself. I was tired of fighting myself.
While my feelings did their job and informed all of the parts of me, I stayed and waited. Sometimes it took two minutes, sometimes 20. Eventually, the discomfort passed.
At night, I listened to my older daughter tell a story about a squirrel at recess or helped my younger one study for a spelling test. I wasn’t consumed by how much vodka was left in my glass. I didn’t nod off while they read books to me. Little moments of joy sustained me enough to keep me sober.
But don’t let me fool you, some days I hung on by a thread. In hindsight, I wish I’d joined a group. Being seen and heard by others would have made me feel less alone. I reasoned that getting help made me an alcoholic, a label I didn’t want. Now I realize that my ego and fear kept me from reaching out. It was foolish.
Online support and other modalities like counseling, medications, support groups, cognitive behavioral therapy, motivational enhancement therapy, and/or brief interventions offer clear-cut steps and a range of options, according to Alcohol Screening. A baseline quiz can be a great first step.
I still think about drinking. The early days of the pandemic tested all of my strength. More than once I justified why it would be OK to drink.
On those days, I got a little excited, then annoyed. And then I read the note my acupuncturist made me write:
Thank you for your service. You helped me through an unimaginable time. Without you, I wouldn’t have been able to show up and care for myself and family. It’s time for me to move on. I will be ok without you.
I’d sit on the edge of my bed and say, “You are OK. You are OK. You are OK,” until I grew tired of it and myself. Sometimes I thought the note was crap. On those nights, I didn’t allow myself to go downstairs. I stayed in my room to wait it out. There was no magic. Just waiting for the wild thoughts to grow tired.
Over and over, I’ve had to make the choice not to drink. For many of us, we always will. Yoga, acupuncture, walking, cold plunging, binging series on Netflix, reading, texting, baking banana bread and eating ice cream have helped me keep the voices at bay. I remind myself to feel my feelings and realize I’m not going to die.
Now water, not vodka, rests on my bedside. It sits next to a sound machine that drowns out the noise of the world and allows me to surrender.
Amy McHugh is a freelance writer on Cape Cod. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Oprah Daily, NBC News and Shondaland. She is writing a memoir about parenting, mental health, and new beginnings. You can see more of her work at www.amymchughwriter.com.
Do you have a compelling personal story you’d like to see published on HuffPost? Find out what we’re looking for here and send us a pitch.
Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
Milk thistle’s detoxifying actions can also help counteract the effects of unwanted toxins—like environmental toxins, pollutants, and chemicals.* Essentially, this powerhouse botanical helps regulate and buffer liver enzymes to help the body’s detox system stand up to modern environmental toxins.*
“Milk thistle aids in eliminating toxins that have built up in the liver, in addition to helping restore liver cells that have been affected by increased toxin exposure,”* functional medicine practitioner William Cole, IFMCP, DNM, D.C. previously shared with mindbodygreen.
According to a 2015 Antioxidants review, a phytochemical powerhouse in milk thistle called silymarin also supports glutathione production2 (the body’s “master antioxidant“), which is an absolutely critical antioxidant for proper detoxification.* What’s more, silymarin largely supports and helps protect the liver by acting as a toxin blockage agent (i.e., inhibiting toxins from binding to liver cells), per a Phytocology Research review.*
In order to properly revive your skin, you should first know exactly how drinking affects your complexion. “Alcohol dehydrates the body, creates inflammation, lowers immunity, and interferes with nutrient absorption, all of which directly affect the health of your skin,” organic esthetician Katie Sobelman tells mbg.
So first and foremost, your goal should be to rehydrate the skin from the inside out and decrease inflammation. But that’s not all: “If you happen to fall asleep with your makeup on, that increases your risk for breakouts and further disrupts skin health,” Sobelman says.
If you can, do your very best to cleanse your skin before falling asleep. While this isn’t always possible, it’s worth the friendly nudge. To set yourself up for success, consider laying out your skin care products before going out or placing a note on your pillow to remind yourself—you’ll be glad you did.
MONDAY, Dec. 12, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Before you toast the holiday season with too much alcohol, here’s a sobering thought.
Folks who get injured severely enough while intoxicated to require hospital treatment are five times more likely to die in the coming year, according to new research published in Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The same is true of folks with alcohol use disorders.
“Injuries are one of the most immediate hazards of problematic drinking behavior,” said lead researcher Sidra Goldman-Mellor, an assistant professor of public health at the University of California, Merced.
“In addition to getting injured from things like car accidents and falls, some people may get injured in fights or even engage in self-harm after they’ve been drinking,” she said in a journal news release.
“However, we actually know very little about what happens to people with an alcohol use disorder after they’ve had a serious injury,” Goldman-Mellor said. “So, we wanted to investigate the most important outcome of all: How likely they were to die?”
For the study, she and her colleagues looked at 10 million visits to emergency rooms between 2009 and 2012 by California residents ages 10 and older.
Of those, more than 262,000 had an injury that wasn’t fatal initially and either had a diagnosis of alcohol use disorder or were intoxicated at the time.
In all, close to 77% of the injuries were unintentional, according to the records. Another 13.2% were due to assault; 7.9% to self-harm, and 2.1% with undetermined intent.
More than 13,000 of these patients died within 12 months of their hospital visit — 5% of the group. The death rate was nearly 5,205 per 100,000.
This was more than five times the rate for the rest of the California population, matched for age, gender, race and ethnicity.
“Injuries associated with alcohol use disorders are a public health problem in their own right, but now we know that they’re also associated with a substantially increased risk of death,” Goldman-Mellor said. “Most people who struggle with alcohol misuse don’t get the help they need.”
Problematic alcohol use has increased over the last several years, especially during the pandemic, she noted.
Researchers suspect that many of the patients were already quite sick when they first visited the hospital and their health declined after that.
Emergency departments are one place where folks with alcohol problems might be able to get additional help, Goldman-Mellor said. Some hospitals may be able to connect patients to resources such as outpatient programs integrating substance use treatment with care for their other chronic health conditions.
“Hopefully, studies like ours can be used to increase resources for getting all such patients connected with comprehensive care, both for their substance use and general health,” she said.
More information
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism has more on alcohol use disorder.
SOURCE: Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, news release, Dec. 12, 2022
FRIDAY, Dec. 2, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Alcohol increases the risk of cancer, but some Americans think it does the opposite, a new study shows.
Researchers set out to understand people’s awareness of the links between alcohol and cancer, finding that many would benefit from further education on the issue.
“All types of alcoholic beverages, including wine, increase cancer risk,” said senior study author William Klein, associate director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute’s Behavioral Research Program. “This study’s findings underscore the need to develop interventions for educating the public about the cancer risks of alcohol use, particularly in the prevailing context of national dialogue about the purported heart health benefits of wine.”
Using data from a government survey that included responses from more than 3,800 adults, the researchers analyzed answers to questions that included “In your opinion, how much does drinking the following types of alcohol affect the risk of getting cancer?” The investigators also asked the participants about their own alcohol intake.
About 31% of participants were aware of the cancer risk for liquor, followed by nearly 25% for beer and just over 20% for wine.
Some actually thought that alcohol reduced cancer risk, including 10% of participants who said wine reduced risk, 2.2% who thought beer lowered risk and 1.7% who said that liquor did, the findings showed.
More than 50% of people reported not knowing the impact of these beverages on cancer risk.
The study also asked participants about heart disease and alcohol. About 39%, 36% and 25% of U.S. adults said they believed that liquor, beer and wine, respectively, increased heart disease risk.
Older adults were less aware of alcohol’s association with cancer risk. This may be due to more longstanding drinking habits among older adults, said Andrew Seidenberg, who led the study while serving as a cancer prevention fellow at the cancer institute.
Awareness about alcohol and cancer risk was not associated with drinking status. Nondrinkers, drinkers and heavier drinkers all had similar awareness rates.
Alcohol contributed to an average of more than 75,000 cancer cases and almost 19,000 cancer deaths each year between 2013 and 2016, according to the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
“Alcohol is a leading modifiable risk factor for cancer in the United States and previous research has shown that most Americans don’t know this,” Seidenberg said in an AACR news release.
Any beverages that contain ethanol increase cancer risk, including wine, beer and liquor. Alcohol consumption has been linked to cancers of the breast, mouth and colon.
Interventions to educate the public could include mass media campaigns, cancer warning labels and patient-provider communications, the authors said. Tailored messages could help increase message relevance, Klein noted.
“Educating the public about how alcohol increases cancer risk will not only empower consumers to make more informed decisions, but may also prevent and reduce excessive alcohol use, as well as cancer morbidity and mortality,” Klein said.
Potential study limitations include the unconditional structure of some survey questions, the authors said. Some data were also collected during the pandemic, when many Americans reported drinking more than usual.
The findings were published Dec. 1 in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.
More information
The American Cancer Society has more on the causes of cancer.
SOURCE: American Association for Cancer Research, news release, Dec. 1, 2022
Reality star Lala Kent is getting personal about her experience having sex while abstaining from alcohol.
While appearing on the latest episode of the “Intimate Knowledge” podcast, the “Vanderpump Rules” star dished details about a new romance she struck up over the summer sans alcohol.
Kent — who was previously engaged to Randall Emmett in 2018 — admitted to the show’s host, Meghan King, that she was “terrified” to get intimate without indulging in a pre-coitus drink to gain “liquid courage.”
Looking back on her post-engagement dating, the 32-year-old told King: “I was so terrified to have sex sober because I had never done it before.”
“I got into a relationship when I was in my alcoholism, and then I got sober with this person, so I was already comfortable. But as far as being out there in the world sexually with nothing to, like, numb what’s happening — not like I wanna be numb — but at least you got some liquid courage,” she added.
Nonetheless, Kent said, the clear-headed encounter with her new romantic partner was a success, and she gushed that she and the guy “were coming back for more, a lot.”
The TV personality then quipped, “Whoever taught him needs some sort of award because it was mind-blowing.”
In a conversation with Cosmopolitan about her drinking back in 2019, Kent confessed that she “was falling into a pattern” and using alcohol to self-medicate.
“Drinking for me was medication instead of celebration. Instead of going and talking to somebody about losing someone extremely important to you, we turn to things to medicate,” she shared.
Last month, Kent ― who shares a daughter, Ocean Kent Emmett, with her ex-fiancé — honored her fourth year of sobriety with a celebratory Instagram post to mark the occasion.
“Today marks 4 years of sobriety. The weekend was full of love & support. Being present for my daughter… that part is priceless,” she wrote in the caption. “I’m grateful, & extremely humbled by each birthday that passes. But y’all, I am proooooud! Hell yessss, Lala. You better work, girl,” she wrote alongside pictures of her and her family.
Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
England captain Harry Kane will not wear a pro-LGBTQ+ armband Monday, during England’s opening match against Iran at the 2022 Qatar World Cup.
Along with six other European countries, England dropped plans for the captain to wear a “One Love” armband due to FIFA’s threat of “sporting sanctions” — likely yellow cards for offending players. Homosexuality is illegal in Qatar.
“We cannot put our players in the situation where they might be booked or even forced to leave the field of play,” a joint statement from the Football Associations of England, Wales, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland reads. The group of teams added that they are “very frustrated” after a letter sent to world football governing body FIFA in September informing about the wish to wear the armband went unanswered.
Over the weekend, the German and Danish teams had vowed that their captains would wear the armband, but those countries have now reversed their position.
Qatar has faced criticism ever since it was awarded the tournament in 2010 for its treatment of migrant workers, as well as its stance on the LGBTQ+ community and women’s rights.
The armband row follows other debates over strict rules at the Qatar World Cup, including a controversial last-minute decision to ban the sale of alcohol in match stadiums.
On Saturday, FIFA President Gianni Infantino blasted Western critics of Qatar’s hosting of the World Cup, accusing them of “hypocrisy” before the start of the global football tournament.
Slamming FIFA and Qatar’s critics for double standards, Infantino said: “I think for what we Europeans have been doing in the last 3,000 years around the world, we should be apologizing for the next 3,000 years, before starting to give moral lessons to people.”
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
When asked about the initial success of Cincoro Tequila, co-founder and CEO Emilia Fazzalari says, “I credit my four teammates, my co-founders. Together it feels like we can accomplish so much, and we are.”
Cincoro Tequila
Calling them “teammates” makes perfect sense because they are four NBA owners, including all-time basketball great Michael Jordan of the Charlotte Hornets, Jeanie Buss of the LA Lakers, Wes Edens of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Wyc Grousbeck of the Boston Celtics. “Our group brings friendship, competitiveness, and commitment to everything we do. We love doing things for the sheer satisfaction of it. And that is how we created Cincoro.”
In just three years from its market introduction, Cincoro Tequila has sold 1.5 million bottles and won 23 awards in accredited spirits competitions, including multiple double gold medals at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. The brand is now available in all 50 states, Canada, the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic, and Duty-Free throughout the Americas.
Origin story
“We were in New York City for NBA Owners meetings in the summer of 2016 and got together for dinner,” says Fazzalari, a veteran of the financial services industry. “Michael really taught us how to appreciate sipping high-end tequila. Right then, we realized that we loved tequila and we should make our own — hopefully the best anyone had ever tasted. That was the birth of Cincoro.”
“We realized there was an opportunity in the market to create a new tequila, a delicious approachable tequila, one more akin to a fine cognac or bourbon,” Fazzalari continued. “The five of us love doing things the right way, so we took that commitment when we created a family of amazingly smooth and delicious tequilas. It took us a while, as we weren’t willing to settle until we got the taste profile just right. We created about 1,000 different tequilas before we landed on what became our four award-winning Cincoro expressions.”
For nearly 30 years, Fazzalari worked in financial services, starting at Moody’s Investor Services and then, at Bloomberg L.P. She had several jobs of increasing responsibility, including overseeing the development of information platforms for the energy sector. That fast-paced work environment served as a terrific training ground for her responsibilities as CEO of Cincoro.
“While my previous jobs could be summarized as intense, they underscored the importance of a laser focus on execution and the need to promote teamwork. I reflect on both as I constantly strive to do better and really aspire to lead,” said Fazzalari. “Developing and marketing a brand is so much more than just filling a beautiful bottle with liquid. It’s considerably more nuanced. I have a real appreciation for the hard work that goes into every stage of bringing a tequila brand to market.”
Fazzalari says that all of the founders play an important role in the success of the brand. The founding group weighs in on the innovation, design, and liquid. To this day, the founders taste-test every batch created to ensure total quality and extraordinary flavor.
“The founders are fierce competitors who don’t like to lose. We are authentic, sharing a passion for creating and enjoying the world’s most delicious tequila,” said Fazzalari. “The five of us take the brand very seriously, especially given the brand’s potential and the category’s appeal.”
The company recently announced the launch of its fifth expression, Cincoro Gold. This barrel-aged blend of Cincoro Blanco, Reposado, Añejo, and a generous proportion of Extra Añejo, a rare addition to the award-winning portfolio. The new product reflects the signature hallmark of all four Cincoro tequilas, namely richer blends with delicious, toasted oak profiles and incredibly long, complex finishes.
Cincoro Gold joins only a handful of 100% de Agave Gold tequilas. All Cincoro expressions are uniquely made with 100% Weber Blue agave from private farms in both the highland and lowland regions of Jalisco, Mexico. The agave is hand-selected and slow-cooked in a small batch process, distilling the highland and lowland tequilas separately before blending them together to create the Cincoro signature taste profile. The distilling process is also consistent for all Cincoro expressions, with each of the brand’s tequilas beginning as Cincoro Blanco and then aging in American whiskey barrels.
An exploding category
According to IWSR, total volume grew by almost 17% and value grew by more than 27% in 2021. Super premium-and-above tequila brands, like Cincoro, are experiencing even larger growth, with volume growing by 36.5% last year and by almost 40% in value. By the end of next year, tequila is poised to become the largest spirits category in the U.S. in terms of value. Further, the overall tequila category is predicted to grow to $15 billion by 2025.
“The tequila market is on fire and there’s a tremendous opportunity for Cincoro, especially given our commitment to innovation. We want Cincoro to lead the ultra-premium segment globally and our amazing ownership group should help us break through and go global in a big way,” added Fazzalari.
When it comes to your multiple sclerosis (MS), you want to do what’s best for your body. But you wonder about alcohol. Is it OK to enjoy a drink from time to time? Or is alcohol completely off the table? The answer is a little more complicated than a simple yes or no.
Don’t Overdo It
“For most people with MS, the answer is to use alcohol in moderation,” says Jennifer Graves, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurosciences and director of the Neuroimmunology Research Program at the University of California, San Diego.
According to the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, that means no more than one drink a day if you’re a woman or two if you’re a man.
“Regularly having several drinks could worsen neurological damage and function for patients living with MS, but a glass of wine or single beer at dinner is unlikely to cause significant issues,” says Graves.
Alcohol is neither all good nor all bad. For example, the antioxidants and flavonoids in red wine may actually lower your risk of heart disease, which is a concern when you have MS. But this isn’t a reason to start drinking if you don’t already. These compounds are in other food and drink, says Graves.
And in case you’re wondering if past alcohol use may have caused your MS, set your worries aside.
“Based on data available, that’s unlikely,” says Graves.
Alcohol’s Effect on MS Symptoms
If you do decide to enjoy an occasional glass of wine or beer, know that it could ramp up certain symptoms of MS. Even one drink can make issues like unsteadiness worse.
“If you have a lot of trouble with balance, thinking, or memory symptoms from MS, it may be better to avoid alcohol altogether,” says Graves.
Alcohol can also lead to sleep problems and worsen bladder symptoms. You also raise your risk of other conditions when you drink alcohol, especially if you drink too much. Your chances of certain cancers, high cholesterol, and stroke go up. Some of these conditions can make your MS worse overall, says Graves, so doing what you can to keep them from happening is important.
Several medications used to treat MS symptoms like pain, headache, insomnia, and depression don’t mix well with alcohol. “Combining these medications with drinks could lead to excessive sedation and health risks,” says Graves.
Be sure to ask your doctor how your specific treatments might act with alcohol so you know what to look for.
Short and Sweet
Remember that everyone with MS is different. Have an honest conversation with your doctor about your habits so you can make smart decisions for yourself.
It’s likely fine for you to celebrate with a glass of bubbly, add a nice red to your meal, or enjoy a beer while you watch the game. Just know your limits and try your best to stay within them.
In recent years, accessibility to nonalcoholic beverages has surged, and perhaps for good reason. The COVID-19 pandemic alone brought in a new wave of sober-curious people, amid a rise in alcohol consumption during the isolation of lockdowns.
To meet this shift, drinks like CBD-infused seltzers, zero-proof liquors, nonalcoholic wines and more have filled the shelves for those who are looking for party options without the buzz.
CBD drinks, for example, promise to take the edge off after consumption thanks to the properties in cannabidiol, a nonpsychoactive part of a cannabis plant that may promote a sense of relaxation. Nonalcoholic, or “NA,” beverages give sober folks a substitute for the drinks that many may have previously relied on in social settings.
But for those who have a difficult relationship with alcohol, are these alternatives really a solution? Or is the need for them a sign of something greater? Speaking to HuffPost, substance misuse experts and people who are sober shared a few questions to consider if you’re turning to these beverages when you give up drinking:
1. What’s my motive for drinking nonalcoholic beers, wines or cocktails?
A recurring topic that occurs in 12-step substance misuse recovery meetings is motive. What is your motive for doing X vs Y? The spectrum of answers may range from attending a wedding to visiting a bar with nonsober friends.
Some may feel uncomfortable around their peers who still drink. It is hard to socialize without booze when you’ve become so accustomed to having a drink in hand to feel normal. Some may find solace in nonalcoholic beverages to put on the facade that they are still drinking, perhaps because they haven’t fully disclosed the change to friends. Others may insist that they are just taking a break from alcohol for health reasons.
Whatever the case may be, it is important to acknowledge what the motive is for wanting to indulge in nonalcoholic drinks in the first place and to address that. Those in recovery need to examine whether the motive behind drinking the nonalcoholic beverage is potentially detrimental to their sobriety.
“I feel as if you should be fully abstinent for the first two years of sobriety,” said Ashley Loeb Blassingame, a co-founder of an online substance abuse counseling program named Lionrock Recovery, noting that these kinds of problems “aren’t substance-specific.”
“Then, check your motives to see if the desire for an NA beverage is still there,” she continued.
If the desire is still there and you decide to try an NA beverage, think about why you are doing it. Is something missing in your sobriety? Is your recovery checklist in order?
“How much do you like the taste of a NA beverage? Or do you like it because it tastes similar to alcohol?” Blassingame said.
If drinking a beverage that tastes similar to alcohol could be triggering, it is important to have a plan in order. In recovery, the idea of a true nonalcoholic beverage is alluring, and with so many new options becoming available, it is OK to wonder about them. Just make sure you are valuing your sobriety more than anything and not becoming a victim of surreptitious marketing.
If you’re sober-curious but not dealing with an addiction, full abstinence might not be totally necessary right now. In those circumstances, practicing moderation tactics ― like drinking NA beverages ― is a good entryway into the recovery world.
For both those in recovery and those who are sober-curious, it is important to have a network in place — people you can rely on in a time of need or bounce questions off without fear of judgment, according to Blassingame.
Henrik Sorensen via Getty Images
Consider your motive when deciding whether to try a CBD-infused or nonalcoholic drink.
2. Do the drinks I’m choosing contain traces of alcohol?
The reality is that many nonalcoholic beverages include small amounts of alcohol. This is known as a low alcohol by volume, or ABV.
A sober-curious individual partaking in these alternative beverages is different from someone in recovery doing so. The former may look at these options as healthier choices. The latter has more at stake, with the consumption of low-ABV drinks potentially igniting the craving for something stronger.
If you’re in recovery, be mindful of the ingredient list for anything you’re consuming, experts told HuffPost. This does not mean diligently checking every household item, but it is good to be aware of what is in your food and beverages, as well as how certain ingredients can affect you. Beverages like kombucha have an ABV of 0.5%, and while that may not be enough to even remotely affect some, others may feel a buzz due to overconsumption.
Check the alcohol volume in drinks you’re choosing. Then ask yourself why you may want them — and be radically honest about it.
3. Does this align with my definition of sobriety?
Sobriety isn’t one-size-fits-all, and this applies to the beverages people choose to consume, according to Trey Laird, the CEO and founder of a sober living facility in Connecticut known as The Lighthouse.
“I have worked with clients who have tried both nonalcoholic drinks and CBD. For some of them, it has a purpose, and I don’t judge them,” Laird said, adding that people in recovery who drink them should disclose this to someone they trust beforehand.
He warned, however, that these beverages can become a slippery slope in some cases. Some of his clients have reported drinking one bottle of O’Doul’s, which in turn leads to drinking a six-pack to feel a slight buzz. In Laird’s personal recovery, he hasn’t found the need to indulge in nonalcoholic drinks.
“For me, I have been sober since 2011 and have gone this long without trying a nonalcoholic beer or wine,” he said.
Lindsey Metselaar, the host of the dating and relationship podcast “We Met at Acme,” feels similar to Laird in terms of her own recovery. She isn’t interested in trying nonalcoholic drinks, and she argued that the consumption of CBD products in recovery is unnecessary and does not equal sobriety.
The distinction needs to be clearly defined for you, Blassingame said. In her opinion, the term “sober” implies recovery in the traditional sense, which can include meetings, therapy and more.
“It is the difference between someone running a marathon [on occasion] … versus an endurance athlete,” she said, noting that to her, sobriety and recovery imply complete abstinence from all mood and mind-altering substances ― even drinks like CBD-infused beverages or low-ABV beer alternatives.
The sober-curious, however, may think of the change as just abstaining from drinking, with the option to either maintain that or consume alcohol when they want.
Decide what aligns with your needs for your relationship with alcohol, and then make an informed decision about whether drinking alternative beverages will fit into those plans, the experts said. And no matter what, make sure you’re relying on a support system to guide you through it.
Need help with substance use disorder or mental health issues? In the U.S., call 800-662-HELP (4357) for the SAMHSA National Helpline.
