The Brief Addiction Science Information Source (BASIS)

Addictions and the Humanities, Volume 1(5) - The Way of the Future – A case study in mental health diagnosis

The Aviator (Logan, 2004), a new movie directed by Martin Scorsese about the life of Howard Hughes, opens with a shot of Hughes (Leonardo DiCaprio) as a boy being washed by his mother in a bath and warned about all of the disease and germs in the world. The movie emphasizes Hughes’ eccentric behaviors that were undiagnosed during his lifetime but later attributed to obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). Although the film’s attempt to draw a causal link between Hughes’ OCD and the interaction with his mother from the opening sequence is simplistic at best, The Aviator and its exploration of... Read more →

Op-Ed/Editorials - Why the Humanities?

Christine Reilly Executive Director Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders Division on Addictions, Cambridge Health Alliance, a teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School The humanities are the study of what it means to be human--our culture, philosophy, religion, language, literature, artistic expression, and civic life. The varied disciplines of the humanities tell the story of our lives both as individuals and as members of a society and a civilization. Because the purview of the humanities is all encompassing, the story of addiction is a part of human experience that can be illuminated by history, ethics, the arts... Read more →

ASHES Vol. 1(1) - Just a Cigar? Adolescent Lifetime and Past 30-Day Cigar Smoking Rates

In spite of widespread public health initiatives, well-publicized lawsuits, and a growing understanding of the dangers of tobacco use among the public, between 1988 and 1996 the average number of adolescents who tried a cigarette was about 6,000 per day. The number of these first smokers who become daily smokers averages more than 3,000 per day (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 1998). Though there has been an encouraging decline in the national rate of cigarette smoking among youths since 1998, alternative forms of tobacco, such as cigars, have experienced increased popularity (Delnevo, Pevzner, Steinberg, Warren, & Slade, 2002). For... Read more →

The Dram, Vol. 1(1) - Care for a Drink, Doctor?

In many professions, written and unwritten rules preclude the consumption of alcohol if there is a chance of being called to work. Few people would be happy to know that the pilot of their plane spent the two hours preceding their flight drinking alcoholic beverages in a bar. Similarly, few people would want their doctor to drink beverage alcohol just prior to starting a rotation. This week the DRAM reviews research by Ahmad, Wallace, Peterman, & Desbiens (2002) that investigated doctors’ attitudes about drinking alcohol while on call. Ahmad et al. (2002), using a list provided by the American Medical... Read more →

Op-Ed/Editorials - Alcohol Use and Driving: A Continuing Public Health Crisis

Recent statistics from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) indicate that, in 2003, over 17,013 (40%) fatalities and approximately 442,960 (7%) of reported motor vehicle accidents were due to alcohol-related automobile accidents (NHTSA, 2003). Though it is encouraging that alcohol-related crash fatalities decreased by 5% between 1993 and 2003, the number of alcohol-related fatalities were approximately the same during both the beginning and ending years (i.e., 17,908 in 1993, 17,013 in 2003); sadly, the drop in percentage of alcohol-related motor-vehicle fatalities is due to an increase in the total number of vehicular accidents (i.e., 40,150 in 1993, 42,643 in... Read more →

The WAGER Vol. 10(1) - Addiction as Syndrome

“The important thing in science is not so much to obtain new facts as to discover new ways of thinking about them…” -- Sir William Bragg (1862-1942)1 Currently, the dominant philosophy of addiction presumes that particular chemicals are inherently addictive. This view suggests that the psychoactive property of the drug causes addiction. The conventional wisdom suggests that the use of a psychoactive substance leads directly to abuse, dependence and inevitably addiction with all of its associated impairments. The only uncertainty is how long it will take to become addicted. Guided by this approach, the treatment and diagnosis of addiction has... Read more →