Drugs And Alcohol

Increment of the operant behavior alter the presentation of stimulus conditioned to ethanol effects

by Gonzalo Miguez

Quezada, V., Alarcon, D., Miguez, G., & Betancourt, R. (2009). [Increment of the operant behavior alter the presentation of stimulus conditioned to ethanol effects] Aumento de la conducta operante tras la presentación de estímulos condicionados al efecto del etanol. Revista de Psicología, 18, 65-79.

Previous studies have shown that stimuli associated with drugs can acquire motivational proprieties, which allow them... more Previous studies have shown that stimuli associated with drugs can acquire motivational proprieties, which allow them to control operant behavior for drug consumption/seeking and other types of reward. The current research investigated whether a conditioned stimulus (CS) that has been paired with ethanol is able to disrupt the rate of responding for a reward. A Pavlovian instrumental transfer experiment was conducted with albino rats. The experimental group received paired presentations of the CS (i.e, tone) and the unconditioned stimulus (US) (i.e., the effects of ethanol). Subjects in the control group received random presentations of the US and the CS. The rate of operant behavior for food seeking in both the presence and the absence of the CS was determined for the subjects. The results show that a CS associated with ethanol increased the rate of responding for food.

Lamoure J., Stovel J. A Pharmacists Overview of Alcohol Dependence. Pharmacy Practice 2011; 27(8) CE1-CE10

by Dr. Joel Lamoure

Lamoure J., Stovel J. A Pharmacists Overview of Alcohol Dependence. Pharmacy Practice 2011; 27(8) CE1-CE10

Lamoure J., Stovel J. A Pharmacists Overview of Alcohol Dependence. Pharmacy Practice 2011; 27(8) CE1-CE10 Lamoure J., Stovel J. A Pharmacists Overview of Alcohol Dependence. Pharmacy Practice 2011; 27(8) CE1-CE10

Making Amends and Moving Forward by Hugo Schwyzer

by Feminism and Religion

cross published at Feminismandreligion.com

Since Clarisse Thorn’s interview with me appeared at Feministe about two weeks ago, there’s been a huge outpouring of... more Since Clarisse Thorn’s interview with me appeared at Feministe about two weeks ago, there’s been a huge outpouring of shock and anger surrounding revelations about my past. I’ve only read some of the posts and the comments at various sites, but I’ve seen enough to recognize that these revelations have understandably touched a deep nerve.

Exactly a year ago, I wrote a post about the last time I used drugs and alcohol, a binge episode that ended with my attempt to kill myself and my ex-girlfriend with gas. The post was written in haste as a response to a friend’s query about forgiving oneself for a terrible error. The example my buddy Bill offered was of neglecting a dog he’d been housesitting. Foolishly, I regrettably offered the most painful example from my own life of a dreadful action – the time I tried to kill another human being and myself. It was grotesquely insensitive of me to compare what Bill had done with a pet to what I did to my ex, and I deeply regret having framed the story in that way. I also am sorry that the post was written so as to frame my feelings alone in a way that eclipsed my ex, the victim of this episode.

I do want to clarify one point from that post for the sake of the record. I never lied to the sheriff’s deputies about a suicide pact, as some bloggers have alleged. I was barely coherent when they kicked down my apartment door, and made no statement to them about what was happening, other than to ask the deputies why they were handcuffing us. After I’d been placed on a hold in a mental hospital, it was a psychiatrist who told me that the deputies had told him that this had been a suicide pact. Filled with remorse, I immediately told him the truth. He then notified the sheriff’s department. My ex and her family declined to press charges, and so no case was filed.

CONTINUE READING: http://feminismandreligion.com/2012/01/11/making-amends-and-moving-forward-by-hugo-schwyzer/

TAGS: Ethics, Feminism, Gender and Power, Men and Feminism, Power relations, Sexual Ethics, drug and alcohol recovery, gender and power, Hugo Schwyzer, making amends, men and feminism, power relationships, professor student relationships

Review of A Pleasing Sinne: Drink and Conviviality in 17th-Century England, edited by Adam Smyth.

by Corey E. Andrews

The Social History of Alcohol and Drugs: An Interdisciplinary Journal 20.1 (2005): 154-56.

'On the origin and progress of temperance'

by James Nicholls

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs 25.1 (2011)

Alcohol and public health: culture, policy and delivery

by James Nicholls

Final report of the Alcohol Culture Exchange (AHRC Knowledge Transfer Fellowship 2010-11)

Symbolic gender boundaries in news discourse on psychotropics use and drinking: An analysis of the Swedish press debate 2000-2009

by Alexandra Bogren

Forthcoming in NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist & Gender Research, 2012.

Psychotropics and alcohol are psychoactive substances with different cultural meanings and opposite gendered... more Psychotropics and alcohol are psychoactive substances with different cultural meanings and opposite gendered associations. This paper examines the Swedish press debate on gender and psychotropics and compares it to the press debate on gender and alcohol, aiming at identifying the conditions under which gendered moral boundaries of acceptable/unacceptable consumption are defended. The study shows that boundaries acquire a heightened moral status in news stories that deal with (1) a topic related to cultural ideas about essential gender difference, (2) where the cultural status of the psychoactive substance is linked to selfish and/or hedonistic motives, and (3) where innocent victims of consumption can be identified. Moreover, it shows that the “bad” characters constructed through this moral boundary are portrayed as exhibiting “excessive masculinity” and “insufficient femininity”. On the basis of these findings, it is argued that newspaper discourse on psychotropics and alcohol still relies quite heavily on gendered and heteronormative ideas.

The Rational and the Capricious: An Analysis of an Alcohol and Drug Information Campaign for Teenagers’ Parents

by Alexandra Bogren

Published in Nordisk Alkohol- och narkotikatidskrift 2004, Vol 21, No 4-5, 309-326 (in Swedish). Available in English translation in the book "Female licentiousness versus male escape?".

The point of departure of this article is a campaign undertaken during spring 2003 by the Swedish NGO... more The point of departure of this article is a campaign undertaken during spring 2003 by the Swedish NGO Föräldraföreningen Mot Narkotika (Parents Against Drugs). The organization started in 1968 as a group of parents getting together and offering each other mutual support as well as carrying on an open house enterprise for misusers in an apartment in Stockholm, the organization has now become an important participant in Swedish official drug discourse. The campaign in question was directed towards all parents in Sweden with children born in 1991. The purpose of the present study is to analyse how the FMN – as an important actor in Swedish drug policy – talks about youth, alcohol and drugs through their campaign and how the subject positions ‘teenager’ and ‘parent’, are established through this talk. The analysis of the campaign material centres on discussing what properties are linked to these subject positions, how parents and youth/teenagers are described. Results show that normal adolescence tends to be seen as never involving drug use and there is a tendency to see the relationship between teenagers and their parents as a relationship characterized by inherent conflict and hostility, sometimes manifested in metaphorical terms suggestive of war. The conceivable consequences of this, as well as of other central divisions in the data – such as the nuclear family as an inherently good unit and misuse as choice – are discussed in the article.

The Competent Drinker, the Authentic Person and the Strong Person: Lines of Reasoning in Swedish Young People's Discussions About Alcohol

by Alexandra Bogren

Published in Journal of Youth Studies 2006, Vol 9, No 5, 515-538.

This study examines young people's discussions about alcohol in an Internet chat room. I study how alcohol is... more This study examines young people's discussions about alcohol in an Internet chat room. I study how alcohol is meaningful to the young people through specifically focusing their understandings of the concepts control/loss of control, conscientiousness and maturity. I also study what relations of power are constructed among them. The results point to four different lines of reasoning about alcohol: the ‘teetotaller argument’, the ‘age-distinction argument’, the ‘moderate drinking argument’ and the ‘getting drunk argument’. From each of these lines of reasoning to the next, there is a shift in the definition of ‘the Others’—of those who are said to be immature. In three of the lines of reasoning—the teetotaller argument, the moderate drinking argument and the getting drunk argument—the young people describe the characteristics of what for them appears as an ideal person with ideal views on alcohol consumption and intoxication: the strong person, the competent drinker and the authentic person. In the concluding section of the paper, I discuss and compare these different lines of reasoning with each other and with previous research on young people and drinking.

Women's intoxication as' dual licentiousness': An exploration of gendered images of drinking and intoxication in Sweden

by Alexandra Bogren

Published in Addiction Research and Theory 2008, Vol 16, No 1, 95-106.

In this article, it is suggested that an important cultural image of intoxication in some Western societies appears to... more In this article, it is suggested that an important cultural image of intoxication in some Western societies appears to be ‘intoxication as ecstasy’, intoxication as escape from the everyday into a ‘wild’ and ‘natural’ state. The purpose of this article is to discuss this cultural image and its link to gendered ideas about sexuality and, on the basis of this discussion, to develop a hypothesis for further testing. The hypothesis developed proposes that women – via the cultural linking of their sexuality to biological processes of reproduction – are placed closer to nature than men. This makes women’s drinking and intoxication seem more dangerous than men’s, because drinking and intoxication would seem to make women come even closer to nature. It is suggested that women’s ‘dual licentiousness’ threatens the distinction between nature and culture.

Biologically responsible mothers and girls who "act like men": Shifting discourses of biological sex difference in Swedish newspaper debate on alcohol in 1979 and 1995

by Alexandra Bogren

Published in Feminist Media Studies 2010, Vol 11, No 2, 197-213.

Drawing on a qualitative analysis of Swedish newspaper debates in 1979 and 1995, this article examines how Swedish... more Drawing on a qualitative analysis of Swedish newspaper debates in 1979 and 1995, this article examines how Swedish newspapers refer to biological sex difference as central to drinking practices. The study shows that women are a special category of concern in debate about gender and drinking in both 1979 and 1995. Further, it shows that Swedish newspapers draw upon biology in different ways in the two years. In 1979, debate about drinking during pregnancy and Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) is central and newspapers link biomedical research on FAS to the moral idea that mothers do anything to avoid harm to children. In 1995, debate about girls' drinking habits is central and newspapers link sex hormones and neurotransmitters to the moral idea that girls shouldn't “drink like men.” These differences are discussed in the context of Swedish media interest in evolutionary psychology and biomedical solutions to alcohol problems during the 1990s.

Drink Sluts, Brats and Immigrants as Others: An analysis of Swedish media discourse on gender, alcohol and rape

by Alexandra Bogren

Co-authored with Josefin Bernhardsson. Published in Feminist Media Studies, iFirst, May 2011.

Drawing on an analysis of the media debate on two Swedish rape cases involving alcohol, the present article argues... more Drawing on an analysis of the media debate on two Swedish rape cases involving alcohol, the present article argues that social norms and power structures are made visible both when debaters ascribe explanatory power to alcohol and when they do not. Using feminist intersectional theory, we argue that when debaters employ the concepts of “foreign culture” and “jet-set drinking culture,” respectively, to explain the rapes, they simultaneously (re)produce stereotypical discourses on gender, sexuality, class and ethnicity/nationality. The troublesome positions of the Immigrant, the Drink Slut and the Brat symbolize how these discourses intersect in the specific cases. To understand why alcohol is central in explaining rape in a fashionable area, but not in a socially disadvantaged area, we suggest that the official image of Sweden as a gender-equal, sexually liberal and multicultural society with small class differences blocks discussion of existing inequalities within the country. When rape happens in a place constructed as a “Swedish middle- and upper-class area,” alcohol and intoxication are used to symbolize the “uncivilized,” unpleasant and malicious among Swedish men. When rape happens in “socially disadvantaged neighbourhoods” populated by “immigrants,” the unpleasant instead resides in the “foreign culture.”

Gender and alcohol: the Swedish press debate

by Alexandra Bogren

Published in Journal of Gender Studies 2011, Vol. 20, No. 2, 155–169.

The dominant approach to gender in alcohol research still conceives of gender in terms of binary roles and looks for... more The dominant approach to gender in alcohol research still conceives of gender in terms of binary roles and looks for explanations for gender differences in drinking. This paper challenges the binary approach, and instead analyzes the categorization of gender as created in Swedish newspaper stories about alcohol, published between 2000 and 2008.
Specific categories examined include ‘responsible mothers’, ‘responsible parents’, ‘party girls’, ‘career women with drinking problems’, ‘violent men who drink’ and ‘beer-drinking, sexist male athletes’. Based on this examination, the paper discusses
how the media stories do and/or undo gender and how they encourage readers to act by the categories of drinkers that they describe. The study shows that the Swedish media stories produce multiple ways of interpreting drinking. Some of the stories undo gender through linking ‘male’ behavior (drinking heavily) to female bodies, while others undo gender by treating parenthood as more important than gender. Importantly, however,
other stories reproduce the discourse of heteronormativity and gender binarism. The study suggests that analyses of media texts need to take the complexity of ‘undoing gender’ into account, for example by avoiding the assumption that gender is either undone or reproduced.

Providentialism, The Pledge and Victorian Hangovers: Investigating Moderate Alcohol Policy in Britain, 1914-1918

by Henry Yeomans

Law Crime and History (2011), Volume 1 (1)

This discussion piece is based on research undertaken as part of the author‟s ongoing PhD project. Drawing on history,... more This discussion piece is based on research undertaken as part of the author‟s ongoing PhD project. Drawing on history, sociology, criminology and law, the broader empirical enquiry investigates attitudes to alcohol and their relationship with the development of laws relating to alcohol (primarily in England and Wales) from the nineteenth century onwards. It builds on the insights of moral regulation theory, as espoused by Philip Corrigan and Derek Sayer2 as well as Alan Hunt3, in order to position the law within a wider project through which individual behaviour is governed. Consequently, a diverse range of sources, including newspaper reportage, cartoons, health promotion literature and advertising, are drawn upon to help understand the various ways, legally and morally, through which people were, and are, compelled to behave in particular ways. This piece focuses on the period 1914-1918 and, in accordance with these theoretical formulations, raises issues relating to both legal and extra-legal efforts to govern alcohol consumption in Britain during World War One. In particular, it draws attention to the widespread promotion of the teetotal pledge during this period as a means to help Britain‟s war effort.

Mephedrone, Cannabis and Alcohol: the New Risks to Mental Health (Swansea University, 2011)

by Ashleigh Cullen

Mephedrone is a new recreational drug on the illicit market. Although it was centre of media attention for some time,... more Mephedrone is a new recreational drug on the illicit market. Although it was centre of media attention for some time, there is little research pertaining to its use and effects.The intention of this study was to examine the association between mephedrone,
cannabis and alcohol and mental health and well-being with regard to depressive symptoms. A total of 115 participants were sourced from social networking websites and drug related forums to complete a three part online questionnaire. The first stage investigated lifestyle and drug use, the second required completion of the Center of Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES-D), and finally reasons and opinions for mephedrone and other drug use were questioned. The data pertaining to lifestyle, drug use and was compared against CES-D depression scores in a one way ANOVA. There were no observed differences between mephedrone and alcohol use on depression scores, however, there was an observable difference between cannabis and mephedrone. Results illustrate that use of mephedrone has a higher potential for causing depressive symptoms than the use cannabis and alcohol, but not alcohol
alone, and that mephedrone users also use a wide variety of other drugs. Percieved benefits and increase in feelings of happiness were associated with consumption. The findings support the theory that users of mephedrone may suffer similar
neurochemical depletion to users of ecstasy, but it remains unclear whether this is due to mephedrone, or whether it is contribution from other drugs of use. This study has gathered a fair amount of additional qualitative research surrounding the use of mephedrone that may be of use to future larger-scale studies.

The ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment of drug users

by Alex Stevens

A paper presented at the EU-China Human Rights Dialogue in Beijing, 6-7 September 2011

The paper examines the ethics of compulsory and quasi-compulsory treatment by reference to international ethical... more The paper examines the ethics of compulsory and quasi-compulsory treatment by reference to international ethical standards and concludes that compulsory treatment is not ethical but that quasi-compulsory treatment (QC) of drug dependent offenders can be ethical under certain conditions. It briefly reviews evidence that suggests that such QCT is generally as effective as 'voluntary' treatment, but that it is unlikely to have significant impacts on population levels of drug dependence and offending.

The Usual Suspects: Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use in 15-To 16-Year-Old School Pupils--Prevalence, Feelings and Perceived Health Risks.

by Jon Lamb

Alastair Roy, Christopher Wibberley and Jon Lamb 2005, Drugs: Education, Prevention, and Policy, Vol. 12, No. 4 , Pages 305-315

This paper presents the findings of a five-year study of year-11 pupils (15–16 years old), based on a sample drawn... more This paper presents the findings of a five-year study of year-11 pupils (15–16 years old), based on a sample drawn from seven schools in the North West of England. It examines: use, feelings about close friend's use and perceptions of the health-related risks of specific drugs. The findings conform with those examining other similar populations, in identifying that ‘The Usual Suspects', alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are the predominant drugs used by young people at 15–16. The reported use of alcohol and tobacco has remained consistent throughout the course of the study. However, beliefs about the health risks of these drugs have altered over the five-year period. The picture for cannabis has changed in terms of use and feelings about use; pointing to a continued process of normalization for this drug. The paper places the findings in the context of other recent studies; the specific value of the current study arises from the use of pupils from the same schools on a year on year basis (giving a total sample of 4059).

Experiences of emergency department staff: Alcohol-related and other violence and aggression

by Sandra Jones

Gilchrist H, Jones SC & Barrie L (2011) Experiences of emergency department staff: Alcohol-related and other violence and aggression. Australasian Emergency Nursing Journal 14(1), 9-16.

Introduction
Alcohol-related violence is a significant and growing problem in Australia and overseas, however... more Introduction
Alcohol-related violence is a significant and growing problem in Australia and overseas, however there is no up to date information regarding the self-reported experiences of hospital emergency department (ED) workers in Australia.
Methods
Ninety-one ED staff in two major hospitals in the Illawarra region of New South Wales completed a short survey designed to measure the amount and causes of violence experienced by staff and canvas possible solutions.
Results
Eighty participants reported being verbally abused at least once a month, and 39 reported this as a daily occurrence. Twenty-three staff had experienced physical assault at least once a month. Alcohol was the most commonly listed factor contributing to the violence and aggression (n=71). Seventy-one staff felt that alcohol-related violence had increased since they had begun working in the ED. There was some confusion at one hospital regarding policies and procedures around alcohol-related violence. Staff suggestions for how to manage alcohol-related violence included the provision of more security staff and better training.
Conclusions
Alcohol-related violence continues to be a significant issue for ED workers and further investigation of policies and procedures around alcohol-related violence in the ED is warranted.

Burrows, R. and Nettleton, S. ‘Going Against the Grain: Smoking and “Heavy” Drinking Amongst the British Middle Classes’, Sociology of Health and Illness, 17, 5, 668-680, 1995

by Roger Burrows

Vinum Britannicum: The drink question in early modern England

by James Nicholls

Social History of Alcohol and Drugs, 22.2 (2008)