Programmes | Newsnight | Rain in my heart - the filmmaker's view. "My objective as a filmmaker was to record an alcoholic's journey" An alcoholic is a drunk for whom nothing can be done. Until, hopefully, a day arrives when they decide they want to get well. That day will come when they can go no deeper into the mire of self abuse. A day when there is only recovery available to them, or death. My objective as a filmmaker was to record an alcoholic's journey either to well being or a miserable death.
In making Rain in my Heart I would need to film people with troubled psyches; people within which gremlins and monsters lurk producing psychological pain and miseries, miseries that often push them to self-harm. Some will slash their wrists and arms as a way to forget the mental pain. "Booze" becomes, for them, the only reliable medicine to quieten the monsters. An "alcohol dependency" that eventually obliterates the person within whom the untouched "gremlins and monsters" continue to exist. Convincing the carers I "knocked" on many hospital doors. Job done! Professor David Nutt - The Inconvenient Truth About Drugs. Binge Drinking Among Women Is Both Dangerous And Overlooked : Shots - Health News.
Hide captionA picture from the photo story "Keg Stand Queens," which explores the gender dynamics of undergraduate binge drinking. Amanda Berg/The Alexia Foundation for NPR A picture from the photo story "Keg Stand Queens," which explores the gender dynamics of undergraduate binge drinking. Binge drinking is something many people want to shrug off. But officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say it's a public health problem that deserves more attention.
You might be tempted to think binge drinking is mainly an issue for men, but that's not the case. So the CDC is putting the spotlight on women's binge drinking, which it says is both dangerous and overlooked. About 13 percent of U.S. women go on drinking binges each month, says the CDC, citing survey data collected in 2011. Consuming four or more drinks in a single session is considered a binge for women, in case you were wondering. All told, the CDC figures 14 million women in the U.S. binge drink. Dr.
The U.S. Thinking Through Drinking: Wine, Beer and Philosophy. Mind-altering drugs research call from Prof David Nutt. 23 January 2012Last updated at 21:12 By Pallab Ghosh Science correspondent, BBC News Could mind-altering drugs have a medical role? Former government drugs adviser Prof David Nutt has said that regulations should be relaxed to enable researchers to experiment on mind-altering drugs. Prof Nutt told BBC News that magic mushrooms, LSD, ecstasy, cannabis and mephedrone all have potential therapeutic applications. However, he said they were not being studied because of the restrictions placed on researching illegal drugs. He said the regulations were "overwhelming". His comments followed the publication of new research by his group in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which suggests that the active ingredient in magic mushrooms could be used to treat depression.
"I feel quite passionately that these drugs are profound drugs; they change the brain in a way that no other drugs do. Fired Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End QuoteProf David Nutt Medical role? Doctors consider using street drugs to ease suffering of dying patients. Recent studies at Harvard, U.C.L.A. and my alma mater John Hopkins have now made it plain that doctors should—as soon as proper safeguards can be put in place—be free to offer illicit drugs to patients who are terminally ill, in order to ease their emotional suffering and potentially offer them new perspectives—fueled by drug-induced insights—into issues like their own mortality. At Harvard, Dr. John Halpern (as reported in the New York Times) tested MDMA (the street drug Ecstasy) to determine if it would ease the anxieties in two patients with terminal cancer. At U.C.L.A. and Hopkins, Drs. Charles Grob and Roland Griffiths used psilocybin (the active ingredient in hallucinogenic mushrooms) to help cancer patients past their paralyzing, debilitating fears.
The results are reportedly consistently good. In many cases, patients are able to cope with their physical pain and psychological turmoil better than before. Dr. Dr. Hallucinations with Oliver Sacks | World Science Festival Webcast. Renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks answers your questions about the secret world of hallucinations. These queries came to us via Twitter, Facebook and e-mail. Q. Are the visual or auditory hallucinations in blind or deaf people analogous to sensations in a phantom limb? A. Not really. Phantom limbs occur because there is a stable, lifelong image of the limbs in the brain—the body-image. If a limb is amputated, part of this body-image is now exposed, so to speak (normally, it is seamlessly incorporated), and intrudes into consciousness as a phantom.
Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Alcohol 'more harmful than heroin' says Prof David Nutt. 1 November 2010Last updated at 14:11 Professor David Nutt: "In terms of the cost to society, alcohol causes the biggest harm" Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack when the overall dangers to the individual and society are considered, according to a study in the Lancet. The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former government chief drugs adviser who was sacked in 2009. It ranked 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society. Heroin, crack and crystal meth were deemed worst for individuals, with alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine worst for society, and alcohol worst overall.
Harm score Professor Nutt refused to leave the drugs debate when he was sacked from his official post by the former Labour Home Secretary, Alan Johnson. He went on to form the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs, which says it aims to investigate the drug issue without any political interference. 'Valid and necessary' 'Extraordinary lengths' "We are talking about a minority. 'Binge-drinking gene' discovered. 3 December 2012Last updated at 19:56 ET Many genes may be involved in influencing how much we drink Scientists believe some people have a gene that hard-wires them for binge drinking by boosting levels of a happy brain chemical triggered by alcohol. The gene - RASGRF-2 - is one of many already suggested to be linked with problem drinking, PNAS journal reports.
The King's College London team found animals lacking the gene had far less desire for alcohol than those with it. Brain scans of 663 teenage boys showed those with a version of the gene had heightened dopamine responses in tests. During a task designed to make them anticipate a reward, these 14-year-old boys had more activity in a part of the brain called the ventral striatum which is known to be involved in dopamine release. When the researchers later contacted the same boys at the age of 16 and asked them about their drinking habits, they found the boys with the 'culprit' variation on the RASGRF-2 gene drank more frequently.