This headline is for all the legalization activists who point to the legal status of tobacco and alcohol. A sobering thought: One billion smokers and 240 million people with alcohol use disorder worldwide (source)
Tag: tobacco
How full do you want your recovery to be?
Bill White on the importance of primary care: The Philadelphia survey goes beyond affirming the significant prevalence of recovery in the general population to provide a detailed profile of the health of people in recovery. The results are sobering. People in recovery, compared to citizens not in recovery, are twice as likely to describe their … Continue reading How full do you want your recovery to be?
Smoke Screens
Bill White recently posted on tobacco use in recovery. He's been way ahead of the field on this and challenges not only treatment providers, but recovering people as well: People in recovery are dying from smoking-related diseases in large numbers, but they are also dying from conceptual blindness: the failure to see the … Continue reading Smoke Screens
The benefits of harm reduction are not as obvious as they seem
Theodore Dalrymple points out the inconsistency in the British Medical Journal's vigorous advocacy for harm reduction where heroin is concerned and its squeamishness with harm reduction for nicotine. He pulls a passage from BMJ and inserts comments: What, then, does the BMJ, so much in favour of harm reduction for heroin addicts, say about harm reduction … Continue reading The benefits of harm reduction are not as obvious as they seem
What what?
A new study looking at the comparative effectiveness of various coping skills for dealing with urges to drink in preventing relapse reports some counter-intuitive findings [emphasis mine]: ...relying on going to a meeting or talking to a sponsor or counselor when experiencing an urge was not correlated with improved drinking outcomes. and Ineffective skills in this population … Continue reading What what?
The social cost of smoking
Apparently, Singapore was an early adopter of designated smoking areas and non-smoking areas. However, this wasn't driven by health concerns. Rather, it was driven by aesthetic concerns--primarily smell. In a fascinating paper published recently in Urban Studies, Qian Hui Tan observes that smokers are "purveyors of sensory pollution" – creating a scent that, like all odors, … Continue reading The social cost of smoking
Smoking cessation in treatment
Looks like we still have a lot to learn about helping alcoholics and drug addicts quit smoking, but intensive smoking cessation interventions do not appear to do harm: The intensive smoking cessation intervention yielded a higher short-term smoking quit rate without jeopardizing sobriety.
No. 1 Littered Item in the United States is on Roads and Beaches?
...cigarette butts are the No. 1 littered item every year on U.S. roadways and beaches. It had to be about 19 years ago that I flicked a cigarette butt to the ground and stepped on it outside of a meeting. My sponsor ran over and picked up and threw it out saying, "What's wrong with … Continue reading No. 1 Littered Item in the United States is on Roads and Beaches?
Smoking cessation + exercise = quit
Another ingredient to be added to tobacco quit plans: Quitting smoking is one of the healthiest things a person can do, but it's also among the hardest, especially for teenage smokers who battle not only addiction but also the social pressure to keep lighting up. Now new evidence that suggests a way to make their … Continue reading Smoking cessation + exercise = quit
Left behind
Good news for the country: Fewer American adults are smoking cigarettes, and those who still smoke have cut back on the number of cigarettes they smoke, but the rate of decline has begun to slow, health experts said on Tuesday. ... The report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows 19.3 percent of … Continue reading Left behind
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