Tuesday December 03 , 2024

Posts Tagged ‘alcoholic’

City Beacon featured in the Guardian

Richard Kingdon director of City Beacon

A working life: the addiction counsellor

(This report was written by and taken from www.guardian.co.uk)

Addiction counsellor Richard Kingdon works with City clients in a world where it’s acceptable to drink heavily or take drugs – but not to seek professional help

You don’t have to be a drug addict or an alcoholic to be an addiction counsellor, but it certainly helps.

“If you were an addict desperate for help, would you want to turn to someone who has learned it all from books?” asks Richard Kingdon, managing director of City Beacon, an addiction counselling service based in the City of London.

Kingdon has plenty of experience of addiction. He started taking drugs – “anything but heroin, I never injected” – at the age of 12, was homeless and living on the streets of Soho by 16, and says he has done “everything” to fund his addiction. Then, at the age of 26, he had a breakdown, or “breakthrough” as he prefers to term it, and ended up in a psychiatric unit suffering psychosis.

 

Why do some people become addicts?

amy wine house drug problemsAmy Winehouse’s struggle with drink and drug addiction was well known, reflected in her music and widely reported in the media.
But how much do we understand addiction?
What causes it and why do some people become addicts while others do not?
Addiction is naturally associated with drink and drugs, but that is not the whole story.
The NHS points out that people can “become addicted to anything, from gambling to chocolate”.
 

Drinks firm sponsors midwife training on dangers of alcohol in pregnancy

 

Alcohol-related hospital admissions reach record level

man drinking beerThe number of alcohol-related hospital admissions in England has topped one million for the first time, according to official statistics.
An NHS Information Centre report said admissions had increased by 12% between 2008-09 and 2009-10.
That includes liver disease and mental disorders due to alcohol abuse as well as some cancers, accidents and injuries.
The Department of Health will publish a new alcohol strategy later this year.
 

Motorists to be denied blood tests when stopped on suspicion of drink driving

Motorists who are marginally over the limit when stopped by the police are to lose the right to demand a blood test under the biggest changes to drink-drive law in over 40 years.

Phllip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, is to plug a loophole which enables motorists to sober up while police find a doctor or nurse to carry out the test.
It is among a series of far reaching changes unveiled as part of the Government’s response to recommendations on road safety made by Sir Peter North, former Principal of Jesus College, Oxford.
However the Government has angered road safety campaigners by rejecting Sir Peter’s call for the drink drive limit to be reduced from 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100 millilitres of blood to only 50.

 

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