“We’re on the cusp of some major advances in how we conceptualize alcoholism,” says Dr. Mark Willenbring, director of treatment and recovery research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The institute is the nation’s leading authority on alcoholism and the major provider of funds for alcohol research. “The focus now is on the large group of people who are not yet dependent. But they are at risk for developing dependence.”

Many of these people need not give up alcohol altogether. The concept of so-called controlled drinking — that people with alcohol-use disorders could simply curb, or control, their drinking — has existed for many years. Evidence now exists that such an approach is possible for some people, although abstinence is still considered necessary for those with the most severe disease.

The article does go on to point out risk factors for alcoholism, but the content of the piece makes me think one thing: ruh roh – all those alcoholics out there are going to say, see, that’s me, I can cut back anytime I want on my own!

Far be it from me to say the research is flawed -and I think it does serve a purpose in that it focuses on identifying people in the early stages of abuse who might be able to address their issues before they overwhelm them and ruin their lives.  But I’m always thinking about that person who uses this type of research to write off their own addiction as “not that bad.”

To those people I say, if when you drink alcohol, bad things happen, chances are you shouldn’t be drinking alcohol.  It’s simple, doesn’t require a lot of scientific study, and makes perfect sense.

It is well-known throughout the healthcare industry that smoking while pregnant is very unhealthy for a baby. Engaging in such activity limits the amount of oxygen that reaches the unborn child, leads to lower birth rates and more. Research now suggests that smoking while pregnant can also put children at greater risk of developing psychotic symptoms in their teenage years.

In a recent Science Daily release, a summary of this research shows a link between maternal tobacco use and psychotic symptoms. Researchers from Cardiff, Bristol, Nottingham and Warwick Universities studied 6,356 12-year-olds from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.

Results from this study show that smoking during pregnancy is associated with an increased risk of psychotic symptoms in children. A ‘dose-response effect’ was observed by researchers, which means the risk of psychotic symptoms was highest in children with mothers who had smoked heavily during the pregnancy.

The study also examined the influence of alcohol in pregnancy and found that it only led to increased psychotic symptoms in the children whose mothers had consumed more than 21 units of alcohol a week in the early months of their pregnancy. A few study participants had also smoked marijuana during pregnancy, but it was not found to have any significant association with psychotic symptoms.

Researchers suggest the tobacco exposure in the womb may have had an indirect impact on the unborn child by affecting impulsivity, attention or cognition. It is estimated that between 15 and 20 percent of women in the UK continue to smoke during their pregnancy.

Dr. Stanley Zammit, a psychiatrist at Cardiff University’s School of Medicine and lead author of the study, said in Science Daily, “If our results are non-biased and reflect a causal relationship, we can estimate that about 20 per cent of adolescents in this cohort would not have developed psychotic symptoms if their mothers had not smoked. Therefore, maternal smoking may be an important risk factor in the development of psychotic experiences in the population.”