ABC24 in Memphis, along with other media outlets across the country, recently reported on an alarming trend: Teens are drinking hand sanitizer to get high. Who knew this seemingly harmless substance – a favorite of busy moms to try to keep their kids germ-free – could be abused by kids to get a quick, cheap high?

Six Southern California teenagers showed up in emergency rooms recently, suffering from alcohol poisoning due to ingesting hand sanitizer. Some of the teenagers even took it a step further, using salt to separate the alcohol from the sanitizer, making a potent drink that is similar to a shot of hard liquor.

Liquid hand sanitizer is 62 percent ethyl alcohol and can easily be made into a 120-proof liquid. It also has all the hallmarks of big trouble: It’s cheap, it’s easily accessible and it produces a quick high.

The number of concentrated cases has health experts worried that it’s a sign of a growing trend. Of course, it’s not the first time teens have misused a common household substance to get high. In the past, teens have misused mouthwash, cough syrup and vanilla extract all for the same reason, and chances are they’ll continue to find new substances to try.

In the meantime, health officials recommend that parents who buy hand sanitizer opt for the foam version because it is harder to extract the alcohol and teenagers may be less likely to drink it. Parents also shouldn’t leave hand sanitizer around the house and should monitor it like any other liquor or medicine.

Alcohol Abuse Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol abuse, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

We’re one of the richest, most highly-developed countries in the world, and yet American teens are killing themselves by binge drinking at one of the highest rates in the world. Irish and Austrian youths share that dubious distinction with us, according to a recent study.

The study was part of the British medical journal The Lancet’s “Adolescent Health Series.” It examined the behavior of teens in developed, higher income countries, showing that the teens in these countries tend to live fast and die younger than in other countries.

According to the report, Irish and Americans between the ages of 10-24 are more likely to die violent deaths due to their overindulgence of pot and alcohol. Binge drinking is most prevalent in Austria and Ireland, but the US is not far behind, according to the study. (A binge in this study is defined by having more than five alcoholic drinks in one day.) The study also found that more girls aged 13 to 15 in the US drink excessively, in comparison to their peers anywhere else in the world.

For those outside the US, it’s not time to breathe a sigh of relief. Youth around the world are at risk. The editors of the study call adolescent health still a “marginalized sub-specialty” and advocate for it to be elevated into “mainstream global health agendas.”

Alcohol Addiction Help at La Paloma

Teen addiction rates continue to rise, but there is also more help available than ever before. If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Even those who are charged with upholding the law are not immune to disease of addiction. A recent story of a Tennessee judge who battled prescription drug addiction shows just how devastating substance abuse can be to a career and a person’s character. It also highlights the legal troubles that are often a side effect of severe substance abuse.

Criminal Court Judge Richard Baumgartner, 64, was reportedly so addicted to prescription drugs during his final two years on the bench, that he was having sex and buying pills during courtroom breaks, at times purchasing from convicts he had previously sentenced, an investigation found.

The Associated Press reports that many people had no idea the judge had a problem until he stepped down from the bench and pleaded guilty in March 2011 to a single count of official misconduct. Once his problem came to light, though, his behavior called into question many of the cases he presided over, including one of Knoxville’s most notorious murders.

It took months for the true extent of Baumgartner’s problem to be revealed. In the wake of the scandal, another judge has already tossed out the convictions from the high-profile murder case and ordered new trials. Other defendants are hoping for a similar outcome, and bids for new trials from the many people convicted in Baumgartner’s court could overwhelm the criminal justice system in Knox County, Tennessee’s third-largest county with more than 400,000 residents. It’s not clear exactly how many convictions are at risk.

Baumgartner had been a criminal court judge in Knoxville since 1992, but a bout of pancreatitis caused by his chronic alcoholism led to the painkiller problem. Soon, the judge was seeking oxycodone, hydrocodone and generic Xanax and Valium from multiple doctors. When the prescriptions weren’t enough, he turned to convicts he had punished – and their friends.

Baumgartner left the bench to seek drug treatment before pleading guilty to misconduct. A special judge handed Baumgartner a sentence that allowed him to wipe the felony conviction off his record if he stayed out of trouble. The sentence also allowed Baumgartner to avoid jail time and keep his pension. The judge who sentenced Baumgartner has since said he would have come down harder on him had he known the full details of the criminal investigation. The U.S. attorney’s office is also investigating.

It’s an extreme case, but many who battle addiction find themselves on the wrong side of the law. While not everyone with a substance abuse problem has legal issues, alcoholism often leads to drunk driving and drug abuse requires participants to seek illegal substances, a process that may include additional crimes. As the addiction escalates, individuals who were once upstanding citizens may find themselves doing things they never would have imagined doing while sober. Then, once a decision is made to seek treatment, there are often legal obstacles that need to be overcome as well.

Fortunately, these issues aren’t insurmountable. Many drug treatment programs will even work with the court system to show that an individual is making positive changes, which goes a long way toward resolving legal issues. The key is to stop before there is bigger trouble and get help now.

Substance Abuse Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with drug or alcohol addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Why do you think people keep their addictions secret until they run into trouble with the law? Tell us in the comment section below.

Britain’s popular Daily Mail recently told the story of a mother who sought help for her alcoholism only after her 15-year-old daughter took a photo of her passed out clutching a vodka bottle.

Samm Veevers, 45, admits she was consuming a liter of vodka each ay as well as gallons of beer and cider. Those who loved her most could see she was slowly drinking herself to death during marathon binges that could last for more than a week at a time.

It was far from her days as a model. Veevers’ life spiraled out of control following the death of her father eight years earlier, and she found herself turning to alcohol to cope. After being forced to quit work as a care home manager when her husband’s job had forced them to move away from London, Veevers became bored and depressed. She began drinking a little wine to help her get through the day, but soon she found herself drinking more and more. She experienced a dramatic weight loss and her health deteriorated to the point that she was given just five years to live due to severe cirrhosis of the liver.

Her marriage fell apart and her husband was awarded custody of their three children.
“I didn’t stop to think what I was doing to my family, I just drank to blot out the pain,” She said. She lived on the living room couch and had alcohol delivered to her door. Sometimes she would be passed out for up to 36 hours. She lost entire blocks of days.

Her daughter Hannah would occasionally stop by to check on her mom and plead with her to stop drinking. It was on one of these visits that she found her mom lying comatose on the floor, clutching a bottle of vodka. A desperate Hannah decided to take a picture, hoping to help her mom finally wake up to the severity of her situation.

“I was mortified when Hannah showed me the picture of me unconscious, clutching an empty bottle, and it shocked me into making a change in my life,” Veevers told The Daily Mail. “My addiction came out of nowhere and completely took over.”

After receiving professional help, quitting drinking and doing some local charity work, Veevers now runs her own cake company. Her daughter has moved back home and they are closer than ever.

Addiction Rehab at La Paloma

Not every story has this type of happy ending, but yours can. It’s not too late. Help is just a phone call away. If you or someone you love needs help with drug or alcohol addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

If you’re in recovery, what was your wake-up call? Tell us below.

“The tourism and alcohol industries promote heavy drinking and sex, creating an environment that can lead to rape, fatal injuries and death by alcohol poisoning. We agree with parents that we must put an end to these promotions that target students, most of whom are underage,” said J. Edward Hill, MD, AMA chair-elect in a news release.

Then there are the parents who are unaware that tourism companies market to students with promises of a wild week featuring excessive drinking and sex. And it’s not just US destinations that are doing this. American tourism companies, in partnership with alcohol producers, promote destinations outside the country where the drinking age is 18, making them a big draw for underage students who can’t drink legally back home.

The poll showed that a whopping 80 percent of parents were concerned about college students drinking alcohol during spring break, while 70 percent were worried about students driving while intoxicated or with a drunken driver. Meanwhile, 88 percent of parents said they think that spring break is primarily a problem of underage drinking, because many college students are younger than the legal drinking age of 21, and 61 percent believe that underage students are more likely to drink than 21-year-olds.

Networks like MTV and reality shows also add to the idea that spring break should be one big alcohol-fueled party. It’s unlikely that parents will be able to stop these spring break trips altogether, but awareness is the first step. Students need to be clear on the dangers, too.

Alcohol Abuse Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol abuse or addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Look around at a bar full of people. How come some can have one or two drinks – or even choose a nonalcoholic option – while others can’t stop drinking until they’re well past the point of intoxication? It’s not because they’re unaware of the health risks, the dangers of driving drunk or the other negative consequences alcohol abuse can cause. Instead, the reason may be because their brains react to alcohol differently.

A new study confirms what addiction experts have been espousing for decades: alcoholism isn’t about a lack of will power, it’s about a powerful chemical. The Science Translational Medicine journal reports findings that explain just what makes alcohol so addictive to some people and not others.

Researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) to look at the distribution of chemicals in the brains of participants, which included 13 heavy social drinkers (a woman who consumes 10 to 16 drinks per week or a man who indulges in 14 to 20 drinks per week) and 12 healthy control subjects (women who drank fewer than five drinks per week and men who drank less than seven). The heavy drinkers in the study didn’t meet the criteria for alcohol dependence.

During the study, scientists found some people’s brains give them more of an opioid release when they drink, leading them to perceive alcohol as more pleasurable than other people. In the heavy drinkers who were studied, a single drink led to the release of more opioids in the orbital frontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens — two regions that play a role in reward. That reward makes the individuals in that group subconsciously learn to want that rush of pleasure again — making them seek and crave alcohol in a way they’re not even aware of.

This may also explain why alcoholics who truly desire to stop drinking may have so much trouble doing so. Once that part of the brain learns that drinking is important, it compels the individual to continue drinking – even despite negative consequences.

The researchers’ ultimate objective was to come up with new ways of treating alcohol addiction, according to Jennifer Mitchell, adjunct assistant professor at University of California, San Francisco and lead author of the study. Currently, the main drug used in alcohol treatment is Naltrexone. This drug binds to the same receptors in the brain that opioids would bind to, making the alcohol provide less of a reward. It means that pleasurable feeling that alcoholics get from drinking is greatly diminished.

Still, doctors are often hesitant to prescribe Naltrexone, partly because of the side effects, which can include headaches, nausea, irritability and achiness. Studies like this latest one help justify the search for new alternatives to Naltrexone. To do that, researchers will likely look at the role that other opioid receptors play so they can determine which receptors a drug should affect in order to get the benefits without the side effects.

Alcohol Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

In this day and age, when we have more information than ever before about the dangers of drinking and more help for the problem of substance abuse or alcoholism, it’s surprising to hear that binge drinking is a bigger problem than previously thought.

It’s surprising, but it’s true, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). According to the new Vital Signs report issued Jan. 12, 2012 from the CDC, more than 38 million U.S. adults binge drink an average of four times a month consuming up to eight drinks at a time, on average. And this dangerous pastime isn’t just the indulgence of the young. While binge drinking is more common among young adults ages 18–34, of those age 65 and older who report binge drinking, they do so more often than their young counterparts – an average of five to six times a month.

Income may play a role in binge drinking, too. The study showed it’s more common among those with household incomes of $75,000 or more, but the largest number of drinks consumed per occasion is significantly higher among binge drinkers with household incomes of less than $25,000 – an average of eight to nine drinks, the report said.

Just what constitutes binge drinking? The practice is defined as consuming four or more drinks for women and five or more drinks for men on any occasion. Binge drinkers also put themselves and others at risk for many health and social problems, including car crashes, other unintentional injuries, violence, liver disease, certain cancers, heart disease, sexually transmitted diseases and both unintended and alcohol–exposed pregnancies.

Drinking too much, including binge drinking, causes more than 80,000 deaths in the United States each year, making it the third leading preventable cause of death, and was responsible for more than $223.5 billion in economic costs in 2006. Over half of these deaths result from injuries that disproportionately involve young people.

“Binge drinking causes a wide range of health, social and economic problems and this report confirms the problem is really widespread,” said CDC Director Thomas R. Frieden, MD, MPH, adding, “We need to work together to implement proven measures to reduce binge drinking at national, state and community levels.”

Binge Drinking Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction or binge drinking issues, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Any death is sad, and death as a result of a disease — especially one that could have been treated — is especially tragic. As 2011 comes to an end, it’s time to look back at the famous faces we lost this year to the tenacious disease of addiction. Some deaths were directly traced back to current substance use, while others were the result of poor health related to past substance abuse.

While 27-year-old singer Amy Winehouse had accomplished so much in her young life, her talent was often overshadowed by her alcoholism and drug use. The performer was reportedly working to overcome her addiction when she was found dead July 23 in her London apartment. The cause of death was determined to be alcohol poisoning.

Former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr had a very public battle with drug addiction, chronicled in part on the third season of VH1′s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. He was found dead March 8, at age 44.

Another bassist, Mikey Welsh, who had played with the rock band Weezer before retiring to pursue an art career, died in Chicago on Oct. 8. He was found dead in his hotel room from a suspected drug overdose that led to a heart attack. Two weeks earlier, Welsh predicted his death in a Twitter post, saying, “dreamt i died in chicago next weekend (heart attack in my sleep). need to write my will today.” followed by “correction – the weekend after next.” Welsh played on Weezer’s 2001 Green Album, featuring the hit song “Hash Pipe.”

Jeff Conaway was best known for his roles in the movie Grease and the TV series Taxi. In later years, he also became known for his longtime battle with addiction. Conaway died May 27 after two weeks in a medically induced coma. The official cause of death for the 60-year-old was pneumonia, but his problem with pain meds surely played a role.

Jackass fans were stunned to hear of the death of 34-year-old Ryan Dunn, known for his dangerous stunts and tricks. He was killed June 20 in a fiery car crash that police later said resulted from alcohol and driving at high speeds. Dunn tweeted pictures earlier in the evening that appeared to show him drinking at a Pennsylvania bar.

Addiction Help at La Paloma

If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction or substance abuse issues, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Longtime fans of MTV’s The Real World may remember watching in shock as cast member Ruthie’s alcohol problem surged out of control during 1999’s Hawaii-based season. Over on Survivor, Jessica “Sugar” Kiper was reportedly suicidal following the show and engaged in several addictions, landing her on the fifth season of Celebrity Rehab. Reality TV’s meteoric rise in popularity has come with an interesting side effect: A firsthand view of addiction. Many of these programs have inadvertently showcased meltdowns by reality stars that continue to publically spiral downward or enter treatment.

The latest reality TV personality to hit bottom while the cameras rolled is Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards. A former child star and aunt of celebutante Paris Hilton, Richards entered treatment last week for what People magazine called “alcohol abuse and other problems.”

As with many who struggle with addiction, it isn’t her first time seeking professional help. Last season, her substance abuse issues were the subject of a major blow-up between Kim and her sister Kyle, who also appears on the show. This season, her erratic behavior has continued. In one episode, Richards seemed to be slurring her words, causing co-stars to question her sobriety. The official explanation was that she was taking anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications, along with an anti-seizure medication, which can be used to treat alcoholism.

According to the People article, Kim’s family is relieved she’s getting help and fans of the show are wishing her well. It also raises the question of whether these reality shows expose people’s weaknesses and pain. Obviously, reality star wannabes don’t sign up to appear on TV, thinking their biggest problems will be made public. On the positive side, the pressure cooker that is reality TV may bring simmering issues to the surface faster than they would if the cameras weren’t there. If this results in individuals getting help, that’s a good thing.

Alcohol Addiction

If you or someone you love needs alcohol addiction treatment, call La Paloma at our toll-free number. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

Usually parents are concerned about finding ways to keep their children from drinking when they are underage, but a Connecticut mom recently pleaded guilty to charges the she forced her 4-year-old son to drink beer and gave her 10-month-old daughter beer and cocaine.

The mother, Juliette Dunn, 29, pleaded guilty to the risk of injury to a child, acknowledging that she doesn’t agree to the facts but agrees the state has enough evidence to win a conviction, according to The Connecticut Post. A companion of Dunn’s pleaded guilty to the same charges.

The crime was discovered when police officers were waved down by a neighbor who complained that a woman was feeding children beer at a playground. Authorities took the children to the hospital where the son tested positive for alcohol and the daughter for alcohol and cocaine, local station WVIT reported.

According to the warrant, Dunn admitted to giving her son a bottle of beer every day, and when questioned by a social worker, the preschooler was able to list off brands he liked and ones he didn’t.

The children were turned over to the Department of Children and Families and their mother could face up to two years in prison when she is sentenced in December. It isn’t clear what the mother’s reasoning was or if she struggled with an alcohol addiction or a cocaine addiction.

Alcohol Addiction

If you or someone you love is in need of help with alcohol addiction or treatment for other substance abuse issues, call La Paloma at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.