When you think of orthopedics, you probably don't think of smoking. After all, bones, joints, and muscles may seem unrelated to the lungs. However, when they undergo surgeries for hip replacements or injuries, current smokers are more likely to experience infection, significant pain, and poor healing.

Risks for Smokers During Surgery

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, currentsmokers are 53 percent more likely to have serious heart and lung problems after major surgery than people that have quit smoking. They are also 17 percent more likely to die after major surgery. Fortunately, the risks that smokers experience during procedures involving orthopedics aren't as severe as the risks they experience during major surgery. Still, smokers do have more problems than their non-smoking peers.

Dr. Bhaveen Kapadia of Sinai Hospital in Baltimore found that 8 percent of smoking patients required additional surgery within four years compared to just 1 percent of their non-smoking counterparts. Dr. Kapadia found that smokers scored about 1.5 points higher on a 10-point pain scale than patients that did not smoke. Also, fractures took about six weeks longer to heal, andsmokers were more than twice as likely to experience fractures that did not heal.

Quitting smoking can significantly reduce these risks. While patients don't have risks as low as people who never habitually smoked, they still have much lower risks than current smokers. Many doctors suspect that smoking prevents sufficient oxygen from getting to the tissues. This lack of oxygen slows down the healing process and exposes smokers to more risks.

How to Quit Smoking

The CDC estimates that 70 percent of smokers want to quit, but quitting is not as easy as non-smokers may think. Experts suggest following that people who want to quit smoking before orthopedics procedures follow these five tips for success:

1. Don't smoke any tobacco or tobacco products. Every cigarette smoked does more harm to the body. Even occasional smoking is extremely harmful to the lungs, heart, and blood vessels.

2. Write down the reasons that you want to quit smoking. Some people want to discourage their children from smoking, and they want to protect their loved ones from secondhand smoke. Others decide to quit smoking to improve their health and their appearances.

3. Expect withdrawal symptoms. While some people do not experience withdrawal symptoms, other people have symptoms lasting up to a month. Use nicotine patches to lessen symptoms before your orthopedics procedure. You can also quit smoking with a friend or with the help of a support group. Support from others won't decrease withdrawal symptoms, but it can make them easier to withstand.

4. Take advantage of free resources. You can call the CDC's hotline, 1-800-QUIT-NOW, or you can look online for information about quitting. If you're worried about gaining weight, then look online for tips about controlling weight gain when you quit smoking.

5. Be optimistic. Half of all smokers have successfully quit. You can also quit smoking before undergoing procedures involving orthopedics. You could increase your chances for successful surgery, and you could give your health a significant boost.

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Treatment

Most people know that there's more than one way to take a drug, but it's less common knowledge that the method of administration can also affect how easy it is for a user to become addicted. One of the main reasons for this is that different methods of administrating will speed up or slow down how quickly that drug gets into your blood stream.
Most drugs need to get to the user's brain to have their characteristic effects, so the quicker a drug hits the blood stream, the faster it will get to the brain and kick in the effect the user is trying to create. This is where the connection between the method of administration and the likelihood of addiction comes into play.
A big part of whether or not you'll become addicted to a drug is based on how quickly it can start affecting your brain chemistry. Many drugs work by making the brain release chemicals like dopamine or blocking the re-uptake of these same chemicals (causing them to stick around and affect the body longer.) The quicker the "pleasure chemicals" like dopamine can get released, and thus the harder they hit your system, the higher the likelihood that you will get addicted to the drug that caused the reaction to take place.
Because of this connection, it's important for families to know how the ways of taking drugs will affect the body and how addictive they can make a drug.
Inhaling
Inhaling is one of the most common ways of taking a drug. Inhaling means taking a smoke, vapor or other gas into the lungs, and is this is the method used every time someone smokes cigarettes or marijuana. It is also the method used when someone "huffs" chemical vapors.
When tobacco or marijuana smoke (or any other drug vapor) enters the lungs, it is very easy for these chemicals to cross into the bloodstream. This is because the lungs are designed to let oxygen and carbon dioxide quickly pass into and out of the bloodstream as well. Due to this, inhaled drugs can start to affect the body and brain very quickly.
Snorting
Snorting means inhaling a drug into the nasal cavity. It is the main method of administration for powdered cocaine. Because of the mucous membranes in this cavity (which are similar to the mucous membrane in the lungs), snorting can also lead to a quick high, but this method usually takes longer than inhaling a drug.
For this reason, some uses will try to smoke a drug in a form like crack cocaine instead of using a form that can be snorted.
Ingesting
One of the most common drugs on the planet is alcohol, and it is used by ingesting it (drinking it.) Other drugs that can be ingested include prescription drugs and marijuana. Marijuana is ingested by mixing it in with foods like "pot brownies."
When these drugs are brought into the stomach and digested, they pass into the bloodstream through the stomach lining. This is usually a slower method of bringing the drug into the blood stream, however.
Injecting
Injecting a drug is the fastest way to administer it to the brain. The reason for this is that the drug is being introduced directly into the bloodstream through a needle, and from there it can reach the brain in moments. Heroin is one of the main drugs used by injection.
Because it is the fastest method of administration, injection can also cause higher rates of addiction than other drugs. This method hits the brain like a sledgehammer, causing spikes in brain chemicals that can quickly cause the user's body to startadjusting into a state of addiction.
By knowing these methods of drug administration, families have that much more education about this major problem in society. Use this information to help your family stay drug-free.

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Rehabilitation

There are many layers to drug addiction and its effects. On a physical level, addiction does more than saturate cells with dangerous toxins--it leaches vital nutrients, leaving a recovering addict drained, parched and gasping for vitality. In today's current food culture, it is nearly impossible to fully recover from drug addiction with supplementing the diet. Adding essential nutrientsto the diet can aid recovery and be the make or break point between rehabilitation and relapse.

Bandaids, or Full Recovery?

Conventional methods of treatment for drug addiction involve methadone--in other words, replacing one narcotic with another. Not only does this continue addiction, it creates a number of health problems and side effects including depressed breathing, wheezing, low blood pressure, severe constipation, vomiting, cloudy thinking, sedation and death.

While this method of treatment may be ideal for physicians and administrators who make their living on addiction, it is not the optimum solution for addicts. In fact, it is not even a solution.

The Importance of Vitamins

The role of vitamins in the human system was discovered in the search for a remedy for scurvy. With so many seamen returning from their journeys suffering from gum disease, anemia, weakness and even death, research began as to the cause of the problem. What was discovered was the value of a nutrient found in fresh fruits and vegetables: vitamin C.

Vitamin C is not produced naturally by the human body. It must be obtained from diet. Nowadays, however, the American diet consists mostly of processed foods, which are lacking in vitamins and minerals. If one does eat fresh fruits and vegetables, they come from such depleted soil that even this is not sufficient to maintain health.

Add years of drug addiction to the equation, and you have a body that is severely drained. Not only does it lack vitamin C, a water-soluble nutrient that must be continually replaced, it is deficient in a number of other vitamins and also minerals, which are necessary for the body to absorb vitamins. This is why withdrawal and recovery can be so difficult. Body pains, nausea, vomiting, exhaustion, sleep problems, delirium tremens, and various other withdrawal symptoms can be greatly eased by supplementing the diet with the nutrients it has been robbed of.

The Role of Vitamins in Rehab

Vitamin C plays an essential role in the body's management of stress. All mammals besides primates, guinea pigs and humans convert glucose to ascorbate (vitamin C) when they are under stress. As drugs place serious stress on the body, vitamin C supplementation can greatly aid a recovering addict's ability to cope with it. It helps tissue heal, increases appetite, aids sleep, and increases mental alertness.

B vitamins are also known as the "anti-stress" vitamins. They promote a feeling of wellbeing, help convert food to energy, form healthy red blood cells, and reduce the risk of heart disease. B vitamins are severely lacking in drug addicts, which is why supplementation is key.

Other vitamin and mineral deficiencies contribute to painful withdrawal symptoms. By replacing the nutrients lacking through diet and supplementation, an addict can have a much easier time in rehab.

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The worst thing we can do while smoking is to delay quitting. By prolonging the quit, the closer we become to walking that one-way street into deaths arms. You may think that I'm being a little extreme, but take a look at the statistics of young smokers dying. The age of 'terminal smokers' is dropping fast. Fact. There 2 main factors causing this change;

1. There are more children in their early teens taking up smoking.
2. The amount of chemicals that are added to cigarettes have varied and increased.

Procrastination during smoking is literally life threatening. The longer we put off quitting smoking, the more chance there is of a deadly disease taking over our body. Every single cigarette we put to our lips is like another pull of the trigger during a game of Russian roulette. Problem is that there are only so many empty chambers before the hammer finally strikes a bullet.

When quitting smoking, the term "sooner rather than later" has more truth than we think. According to the surgeon general Regina Benjamin, one puff of a cigarette could kill you. Although cancer can take quite a long time before it takes a hold on your body, a heart attack could be just around the corner.

Its become quite clear recently that the harm caused by smoking (especially those concerning the heart) can start in right away says Dr Terry Pechacek of the CDC. This means that the so-called "social smoker" is also at risk from a heart attack, if the persons arteries are silently clogged then one cigarette is enough to cause a cardiac arrest.

There are more than 7000 chemicals in each puff and as they surge through your body, they cause cellular damage in nearly all organs, and as you take each puff the smoke enters the body and transforms its chemistry so that its sticky and tacky, this is howarteries are blocked.

You really are playing Russian roulette when you decide to keep smoking and I don't believe we're even close to discovering the true extent of the damage that smoking causes, not just to us but also our loved ones through passive smoke.

None of us actually think that it will happen to us, but believe me when i tell you that if you keep smoking then there's only one way out! Don't just be another statistic, quit now before it's too late. Quit for good.Call our live
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Rehabilitation

We recently celebrated a number of recovery milestones here at our drug and alcohol treatment center, and given the nature ofdrug addiction and alcoholism, we are overjoyed with these miracles. Here are some simple tips for those looking to hit these milestones for themselves.

It is all well and good to have a sponsor, but if we never actually make use of them, it does not do us a lot of good. We might think we have the answers, but our own histories with drug addictionand alcoholism should be enough to show us that is not always the case.

A sponsor has a deep understanding and knowledge of recovery, and the life experience clean and sober to help us navigate through our own lives. All too often, we do not make use of them until we are in desperate need of their assistance. If we maintain that relationship and keep open minds, we can often avert some of those troubles altogether.

Be of Service

There is nothing quite like helping someone to help forget about whatever it is we are going through at the moment. By helping others, we are reminded that the world does not revolve around us, and that, compared to where we used to be, our problems today do not stack up to what we used to endure.

Something as simple as giving a ride, or even just introducing yourself to someone who you have not seen before, is a great way to give back, and more often than not, helps you far more than the other person. Whether that person is going through a drug and alcohol treatment center or has any interest in recovery does not matter. It is our own willingness that makes all the difference.

If we stay around long enough, there will come a time when life just is not going the way we want it to. This is where we learn the real strength of our recovery. It is all well and good to champion the merits of drug and alcohol treatment when things are working out in our favor, but it is much harder to do that when we might feel as though the world around us is falling apart.

The good news is that this need not be so difficult, so long as we ask for help from those around us and tell them honestly how we are doing. If we keep a straight face and say that everything is going well when that is not true, then it becomes very hard for those around us to help. There's an old saying in recovery: "It's better to save your butt than save your face," and sooner or later, every old-timer learns this truth firsthand.

Do you have any words of wisdom for those just starting out, or for those with some time under their belts? Let's hear it in the comments section!

449 Recovery is a drug and alcohol and rehabilitation center helping people overcome their fears and assisting families to deal with a loved one's challenges. Visit HERE to find out more about our services.

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Heroin is no longer the taboo of yesteryear. Once limited to veteran drug addicts, the opioid known to enter through a hole in the arm is now soaring in popularity. Officials attribute the increase to the prescription drug epidemic that's sweeping the nation, as many of the drugs prescribed by doctors happen to be close cousins to heroin.

From Pills To Injections

Opioid painkillers like Oxycontin, Vicodin and Percocet are not merely used to ease the pain of cancer patients or those recovering from surgery. Addicts take them for the fast, long high and for their numbing effects. They are highly addictive, which is why users often inadvertently find themselves hooked after legitimate use.

When prescriptions are no longer available or the addict runs out of money, heroin is a cheaper alternative. It's easy to get, easy to use, and no longer carries the stigma it had a generation ago.

Opioid abuse (painkillers and heroin) appears to be more popular among teens, especially girls.

Tragic Deaths In Toledo

A number of tragic heroin-related deaths have made headlines in Toledo, Ohio. In 2006, death by unintentional poisoning surpassed motor vehicle crashes, according to the Ohio Department of Health. In 2010, more than 1600 state residents died from overdoses; 45 percent involved prescription opioids.

A number of Ohio families continue to mourn the loss of their loved ones to heroin. Many say they had no idea heroin would impact their lives; they never expected such devastating consequences. Even when a heroin user decides to clean up, it is a long and difficult runway back to sobriety, and many don't make it.

Officials say that heroin use is not confined to one economic or social class. It's everywhere.

Potent Poison

The trouble with heroin is that batches are not all the same. While prescription pills are standard and have their quantities clearly marked, heroin comes in a bag of white powder that could be laced with anything.

A notorious batch of heroin known as China white--far more potent than the brown kind popular in the U.S.--has been the culprit in a number of overdoses. Imports of China white appear to be increasing, however, and officials are seeing major shifts in the type of heroin popular on the streets. In Toledo, Ohio, for example, police seized 5.3 grams of China white heroin in 2011, less than one percent of all heroin seized that year. In 2012, 68 percent of the heroin seized was China white; and so far this year, approximately 80 percent of all heroin seized was white.

Officials attribute the increase to the fact that a lot of white heroin is now refined in Mexico, which means that it's coming in through experienced drug-trafficking gangs south of the border.

Users often don't know what they're getting when they try China white, which is the reason for its high levels of overdose.

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In the United States, approximately 7% to 12% of women are dependent on alcohol, meaning that they need it to feel happy or cope with difficult situations. About 20% of men are alcohol-dependent, making women's rates roughly two-thirds of men's.

The rest of the world, however, surpasses the United States by a considerable amount. In fact, the American gender gap is one of the smallest in the world. Women's drug use in India, Pakistan and Indonesia is less than 10% that of men's. In Brazil and Argentina, it is 33% of men's. As these countries develop, officials expect to see drug and alcohol rates increase, especially for women.

History

Statistically, experts have seen the gender gap on addiction shrinking since the 1970's, after the feminism movement of the 1960's. The stigma against women drinking began to diminish and they gained more access to alcohol. Rates of increase began among the upper class and was eventually taken up by the middle and lower classes.

Researchers speculate that alcohol use increased as women became more career-driven and more competitive against men. It also has a great deal to do with advertising.

Clever Marketing

Massive advertising campaigns in the United States began after World War II, and an increase in affluence among women provided more leisure time. Alcohol became part of the culture, and it is especially true today, when television and the Internet glorify drinking. Wine is women's drink, and a number of TV shows promote the sophistication and cultured aspect of alcohol consumption. It may seem perfectly normal for women to unwind with a glass of wine or two at the end of a hard day, but addiction can creep up when they least expect it.

Experts urge women to watch for the following signs of alcohol addiction and get help immediately:

• Cravings for alcohol.

• Requiring it on a regular basis, being unable to get through a day without it.

• Finding oneself drinking earlier in the day.

• Reckless or dangerous behavior, such as driving under the influence or endangering children.

• Severe mood swings that are eased when you've had a drink.

• Withdrawal symptoms when you haven't had a drink in a while--these are similar to those of illness and include fever, chills, nausea, vomiting, coughing, runny nose, and so on.

• Sacrificing relationships, family, health and personal hygiene for your drinking habits.

• Neglecting activities and responsibilities, such as forgetting to pick up children from school, withdrawing from groups, and becoming more and more secluded.

• Feeling shame or embarrassment about your drinking habits.

• Becoming defensive when confronted about a potential problem.

• Becoming secretive about your drinking habits.

If you see one or more of the above get help or seek help for a loved one.

Addiction is a major problem in the United States but it doesn't have to be. Contact Narconon Vista Bay today through Twitter for more information on how to help a loved one.

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What makes a person be considered to have an addictive personality? These people would actually have certain qualities that make them weaker than everyone else to addiction. There have been many studies conducted on people with this condition that show they frequently run to addiction to ease their stress and to manage the problems that they sustain in their life.

When a person has an addictive personality there is not one specific substance that they go to, in fact, there could be multiple abusive and addictive channels that they use that are self-destructive. These channels primarily include substance abuse, binge eating, mass exercise, work addiction, video games, porn, or gambling. These behaviors are impulsive, compulsive, and habit forming.

People with this disorder do not go to the same outlet or release as others do. The addictions could transfer to another or could very well develop into multiple addictions. What constitutes this is pretty straightforward. How an additive personality surfaces is still up for debate.

A number of people think that this should be blamed onbiological factors but there are others who think this stems from psychological damage. Research has confirmed that well over half of those with an addictive personality had a parent that suffered from the same problem.

The people that believe the psychological factors are to blame also believe that it is personality traits that should take the blame for addiction. Studies about the psychological factors and addictive behaviors conclude that individuals with addiction are spontaneous, are socially compromised, lack motivation, and are frequently anxious.

It has already been concluded through studies that addiction can be triggered by certain environmental factors in those with personalities that are addictive. These people also do not react well to stressful or overwhelming situations and tend to lean more towards addictive behaviors.

People that fell short of being well reared or that suffered from childhood trauma are more likely to use addiction as a channel to deal with the damaging past experiences. To determine if someone has an addictive personality, the signs include extremeimpulsiveness, antisocial tendencies, insecure, disliked, and have a tendency to be loners.

These people are prone to depression and feel isolated and alone. Addictive personalities could be caused by environment, genetics, or preexistent personality traits. The good news is that there is a better way, a positive outlet for those suffering from addiction

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rug Addiction Rehabilitation

Take a deep breath!

In 2012, a study at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) calculated that even smoking a single joint every day for 20 years might be benign, though most participants only smoked two or three joints each month. "I was surprised we didn't see effects [of marijuana use]," said UCSF epidemiologist Mark Pletcher, who led the study.

Marijuana

One assessment of various epidemiological studies points to small sample size and poor study design as reasons for scientists' inability to nail down a link between cannabis and cancer risk. But some suspect that such a link doesn't exist, and that marijuana may even have cancer-preventive effects. A 2008 study, for example, suggested that smoking marijuana may reduce the risk of tobacco-associated lung cancer, calculating that people who smoke both marijuana and tobacco have a lower risk of cancer than those who smoke only tobacco (though still a higher risk than non-smokers).

But even Pletcher isn't sanguine about marijuana's effects on the lungs, and suspects that there may still be long-term lung damage that can be hard to detect. "We really can't reassure ourselves about heavy use," he explained.

Your brain on drugs

There is some evidence to suggest that stoned subjects exhibit increased risk-taking and impaired decision-making, and score worse on memory tasks-and residual impairments have been detected days or even weeks after use. Some studies also link years of regular marijuana use to deficits in memory, learning, and concentration. A recent and widely discussed report on the IQs of New Zealanders followed since birth found that cannabis users who'd started their habit in adolescence had lower IQs than non-users.

In this study, led by researchers at Duke University, "you could clearly see as a consequence of cannabis use, IQ goes down," said Derik Hermann, a clinical neuroscientist at the Central Institute of Mental Health in Germany who was not involved in the research.

But not 4 months later, a re-analysis and computer simulation at the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo countered the Duke findings. Ole Rogeberg contended that socioeconomic factors, not marijuana use, contributed to the lower IQs seen in cannabis users.

Rogeberg's conclusion counters a sizeable literature, however, which supports a link between pot use and neurophysiological decline. Studies in both humans and animals suggest that people who acquiring a marijuana habit in adolescence face long-term negative impacts on brain function, with some users finding it difficult to concentrate and learn new tasks.

Notably, most studies on the subject suggest that while there may be negative consequences of smoking as a teen, users who begin in adulthood are generally unaffected. This may be due to endocannabinoid-directed reorganization of the brain during puberty, Hermann explained. The intake of cannabinoids that comes with pot use may cause irreversible "misleading of the neural growth," he said.

In addition to the consequences for intelligence, many studies suggest that smoking marijuana raises the risk of schizophrenia, and may have similar effects on the brain. Hermann's group used MRI to detect cannabis-associated neuron damage in the pre-frontal cortex and found that it was similar to brain changes seen in schizophrenia patients. Other studies further suggest that weed-smoking schizophrenics have greater disease-associated brain changes and perform worse on cognitive tests than their non-smoking counterparts.

But much of this research can't distinguish between brain changes resulting from marijuana use and symptoms associated with the disease. It's possible that cannabis-smoking schizophrenics "might have unpleasant symptoms [that precede full-blown schizophrenia] and are self-medicating" with the psychotropic drug, said Roland Lamarine, a professor of community health atCalifornia State University, Chico. "We haven't seen an increase in schizophrenics, even with a lot more marijuana use."

In fact, other research suggests that cannabis-using schizophrenics score better on cognitive tests than non-using schizophrenics. Such conflicting reports may be due to the varying concentrations-and varying effects-of cannabinoids in marijuana. In addition to tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), a neurotoxic cannabinoid that is responsible for marijuana's mind-altering properties, the drug also contains a variety of non-psychoactive cannabinoids, including cannabidiol (CBD), which can protect against neuron damage. Hermann found that the volume of the hippocampus-a brain area important for memory processing-is slightly smaller in cannabis users than in non-users, but more CBD-rich marijuana countered this effect.

A deadly cocktail?

While data supporting the harmful effects of marijuana on its own are weak, some researchers are more worried about the drug in conjunction with other substances, such as tobacco, alcohol, or cocaine. Some studies suggest, for example, that marijuana may increase cravings for other drugs, leading to its infamous tag as a "gateway drug." A study published earlier this month supported this theory when it found that, at least in rats, THC exposure increases tobacco's addictive effects. Furthermore, marijuana may not mix well with prescription drugs, as cannabis causes the liver to metabolize drugs more slowly, raising the risk of drug toxicity.

Despite these concerns, however, Lamarine thinks it's unlikely that the consequences of cannabis use are dire, given the amount of research that has focused on the subject. "We're not going to wake up tomorrow to the big discovery that marijuana causes major brain damage," he said. "We would have seen that by now."

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A recent study published in the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior tracked the development of nearly all of the people who were born in the years 1972 and 1973 in the New Zealand city of Dunedin. As they grew into young adulthood, the 1,037 study subjects were questioned about several topics, including their sexual partners and their patterns of drug and alcohol consumption. The researchers discovered an astonishing statistical disparity between men and women, with women being far more likely to develop a serious substance abuse problem than men when they had several sex partners. The breakdown was reported as being:

— Women with 2 or 3 sexual partners when they were between 18 and 20 years of age were found to be 10 times more likely to develop a drug or alcohol abuse problem by the time they reached the age of 21 than were their peers who had one sexualpartner or none
— Women with 2 or 3 partners from the age of 21 to 25 were 7 times more likely to develop a substance addiction by the age of 26
— Women with 2 or 3 partners from the age of 26 to 31 were 18 times more at risk of becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol by the age of 32

The men who were tracked in the study were also found to be more at risk of becoming alcoholics or drug addicts, but the increase was not nearly as great as it was for women. For example, men who had 2 or 3 sexual partners from the time they were aged 18 to 20 years old had a risk of addiction 3 times greater than their peers at age 21, while those who had more than this number of partners were still only 4 times as likely to develop a substance abuse disorder.

To get a better perspective of the size of this problem, consider the fact that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a quarter of women between 20 and 24 years of age and nearly a third of men that age admit to having had 2 or more sexual partners in the last year. This means that a very large percentage of young adults are greatly at risk of becoming addicts. While it may come as no shock to learn that people who have multiple sex partners are also more prone to becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol, it is surprising to see that the risk is so much greater for women than it is for men. One possible explanation for this disparity has to do with the fact that women typically face a larger cultural taboo against having multiple sexualpartners; those who go ahead and do it anyway may be more likely to push the limits in other areas of life, such as by drinking heavily or using drugs.

Possible Explanations For The Relationship

The researchers pointed out that one thing that both sexual promiscuity and substance abuse have in common is impulsivity. People who are compelled by sudden impulses to engage in behavior which may not be entirely healthy for them are generally more likely to do things like sleep around or start using drugs. In that same vein, both behaviors are generally associated with people who can be categorized as being "risk takers." The researchers also acknowledged the fact that drug and alcohol useboth make a person more likely to have casual sex, since they lower the individual's inhibitions.

The explanation which they preferred as being the most "intriguing," however, was that the people who were more at risk of becoming addicts ended up in that position as a result of self-medicating to reduce stress. Specifically, they pointed to the stress involved in entering and leaving multiple serious romantic relationships. This explanation does seem to prove out, since it also works to explain why young women were discovered to be so much more at risk than men: since they are generally confronted with greater expectations to be monogamous, they may experience even greater levels of upset and anxiety over having been involved with multiple partners, and may therefore be more likely to turn to drugs or alcohol as a way to relieve this stress.

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