Realizing you have a drinking problem and deciding to quit are the first two steps of recovery, and for some people, they are the hardest. So, if that’s where you are in your journey right now, know you’re not alone and that you can claim your life back from a destructive addiction.

Once you’ve decided to quit drinking, you must commit to staying sober, despite any temptations or triggers you might come across. This is much more practical when you have support from therapy, a church group, friends who don’t drink, and/or any other kind of system that motivates you and helps you to stay accountable.

It’s also essential that you add meaningful and enjoyable things to your life that don’t involve drinking, and that you move your life forward so that you can thrive. This article will provide some tips on how to get on with your life while recovering from alcohol abuse.

Get Car Insurance

One of the first things to get in order will be your car insurance (if you don’t have any), as you won’t be able to legally drive without it. If your policy lapsed due to having your license suspended, try going to your former insurance company for coverage. If they won’t work with you, you will need to look around at other companies. Sometimes, a lapse in coverage means that it’s too high a risk for standard companies to insure you. However, there are companies that specialize in insuring higher-risk drivers, though you can expect higher premiums.

Surround Yourself with Support

One of the most important aspects of staying sober is hanging around people who help you in your mission. While therapy, treatment, and church can prove invaluable, so can spending time with non-drinking friends. This is because it helps to break social connections with alcohol and normalize sobriety, and friends can keep you accountable on your journey. Plus, boredom can easily lead to relapse, and doing things with people will help prevent that from happening.

Improve Your Diet

What you eat obviously has a lot to do with your physical health, which plays a major role in your mental and emotional health. Start being conscious of your diet — maximizing fruits, vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats, while limiting sugar, sodium and saturated fats. You should also make mood-boosting foods like kale, eggs, spinach, nuts, and wild salmon a part of your diet. If it’s easier for you, just start by replacing one meal a day with a healthier option than you normally would consider, and build from there.

Get Fit

Physical activity is also important. Not only does regular exercise yield long-term health benefits, but it also provides short-term benefits. The endorphins released during exercise creates a sense of reward in the brain, which can instantly boost your mood, reduce stress, and make you feel productive. Also, exercise is known to reduce anxiety and depression symptoms, as well as promote better sleep.

Set New Goals

Finally, in order to move past your addiction, you have to move forward in your life. Think of where you want to be in the future, and start setting goals. This could include goals to start a new career, progress in your current career, or go back to school. It can also include goals for repairing and developing relationships, learning new activities or skills, or any other number of things. Take advantage of your commitment to change by setting and focusing on new goals.

Recovering from alcohol addiction is not easy, but the rewards far outweigh the struggle. Be sure to look into your car insurance, and start hanging around positive, non-drinking friends. Prioritize your physical health to boost your mental and emotional health, and set new goals for your future. Most importantly, have grace on yourself, and try to maintain a positive outlook throughout your journey through addiction recovery.

Source:  Ryan Randolph   Recovery Proud  November 2019

In a pre-clinical study, researchers from Western University in Ontario, Canada, studied the effects of long-term exposure to THC in both adolescent and adult rats.

They found changes in behavior as well as in brain cells in the adolescent rats that were identical to those found in schizophrenia. These changes lasted into early adulthood long after the initial THC exposure.

The young rats were “socially withdrawn and demonstrated increased anxiety, cognitive disorganization, and abnormal levels of dopamine, all of which are features of schizophrenia,” according to the article. The same effects were not seen in the adult rats.

“With the current rise in cannabis use and the increase in THC content, it is critically important to highlight the risk factors associated with exposure to marijuana, particularly during adolescence,” the researchers warn.

Read Medical News Today story here. Read study abstract in the journal Cerebral Cortex here.

Email from Monte Stiles, National Families in Action January 2016

A University of Pittsburgh Medical Center study published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors last September found that chronic marijuana use during adolescence did not lead to depression, anxiety, psychosis, or asthma by mid-life.

The U.K.’s Independent was one of many newspapers that celebrated the news, scoffing at the National Health Service help page that warns: “Your risk of developing a psychotic illness is higher if you start using cannabis in your teens.”
 
Now, however, the journal has run a correction. It turns out that the researchers misinterpreted their data. They checked it again after criticism of their study and found that there was a two-and-one-half-fold increase in psychotic disorders in midlife after chronic marijuana use that began in adolescence.
 
The director of the Maryland chapter of SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana) caught the error and notified the journal which lead to the correction. SAM is calling on all media who reported the original incorrect story to correct their account of it now.
 
Read Independent story here.  Read SAM account of the correction here.

Source: Email from Monte Stiles, National Families in Action, January 2016

Marijuana reporter Joel Warner asks if the media is currently biased in support of marijuana legalization.

He cites a recent incident brought to his attention by Kevin Sabet, founder of SAM (Smart Approaches to Marijuana), who had received a tip that the next-day release of the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health would show that marijuana use in Colorado has reached the highest levels in the nation. Sabet wrote a press release which fell on deaf ears. A Google analysis shows only 17 stories were written about this consequence of legalization in Colorado.

In contrast, a few weeks before, the release of the 2015 Monitoring the Future Survey showed a slight downturn in past-month marijuana use among 8^th, 10^th, and 12^th grade students nationwide. It was hyped by some in the press as a signal that legalization is of no consequence. A total of 156 news stories covered the results of this survey.

Warner notes that there are now “marijuana-business newspapers and marijuana culture magazines, full-time marijuana-industry reporters (this writer included), and even a marijuana-editorial division at the Denver Post called the Cannabist, staffed with a marijuana editor and cannabis strain reviewers,” like Jake Browne, pictured above.
 
He asks if the data supports it, could marijuana journalists “be expected to conclude that legalization has been a failure, if that means they would also be writing the obituaries for their own jobs?”
 
Read Joel Warner’s thoughtful International Business Times article here.

Source: Email from Monte Stiles, National Families in Action January 2016

Two recent studies, one in Great Britain and this one from the University of Southern California, contradict the findings of a rigorous 25-year-long study done with a birth cohort in Dunedin, New Zealand a few years ago. That study found that persistent marijuana use that continued into adulthood resulted in an 8-point drop in IQ. The two new studies find the opposite.

The UCLA study looked at 789 pairs of adolescent twins from two ongoing studies—one in Los Angeles and one in Minnesota—who enrolled between ages 9 and 11. Over 10 years, five IQ tests were administered along with confidential surveys of marijuana use. Marijuana-using twins lost 4 IQ points, but so did their non-using twins, leading researchers to conclude that something other than marijuana was lowering IQ.

The other study compared teens who reported daily marijuana use for six months or longer with teens who used the drug less than 30 times and found no difference in IQ.
 
But critics say both studies are flawed in that they did not measure heavy marijuana use over a long 25-year period like the Dunedin study did.
 
Dr. Madeline Meier, lead researcher of the Dunedin study, writes, “Our 2012 study (Meier et al. PNAS 2012) reported cognitive decline among individuals with a far more serious and far more long-term level of cannabis use. That is, we found cognitive decline in individuals followed up to age 38 who started cannabis use as a teen and who thereafter remained dependent on cannabis for many years as an adult. This new study is different; the two papers report about completely different doses of cannabis, and about participants 2 decades apart in age.  The new study reports cognitive test scores for individuals followed up to only age 17-20, fewer than half of whom had used cannabis more than 30 times, and only a fifth of whom used cannabis daily for > 6 months. This new study and our prior study agree and both report the same finding: no cognitive decline in short-term low-level cannabis users. The message from both studies is that short-term, low-level cannabis use is probably safer than very long-term heavy cannabis use. The big problem remains that for some teens, short-term low-level teenaged cannabis use leads onward to long-term dependence on cannabis when they become adults. That is what is cause for concern.”
 
Read Science story here. Read Dr. Meier’s rebuttal here.

Source: Email from Monte Stiles, National Families in Action January 2016