Treatment Cave

Who Are Adult Children of Alcoholics? Adult children of alcoholics are people whose lives have been affected by growing up with a parent (or other family member) who drank or abused drugs. Living with somebody who abuses alcohol on a regular basis is chaotic, scary, and can be dangerous. When that person exercises power over your life and is responsible for meeting your physical and emotional needs, the harm caused is unavoidable and can be long lasting. Adult Children of Alcoholics (or ACOA)  is a twelve-step program of people who support each other in recovering from the effects of a damaged childhood. Together they learn to value themselves and each other and to live healthier lives, freeing themselves from the influence and control that growing up with an alcoholic parent has exerted on their emotional well-being and on their outlook on life in general. How Does an Alcoholic Parent Affect a Person’s Life? Some common symptoms of being raised by an alcoholic parent include Con...

The opiate addiction epidemic has reached crisis levels and is a national emergency. What’s notable about the proliferance of opiate addiction is how it is affecting families in every corner of our nation - from rural areas to urban centers and all the suburban neighborhoods in between. Also, opiate addiction has hit families at every  economic level, rearing it’s head in wealthy suburbs as well as claiming lives and destroying families in lower income urban and rural areas. Tennessee Has Been Hit as Hard as Anywhere You may be surprised that Tennessee has just about as much claim to being “ground zero” for the opiate epidemic as just about anywhere else. Consider these facts: The number of overdose deaths has exploded by more than 300 percent over the last two decades.  3 In 2012, Tennessee became No. 2 in the nation for consumption of opioids (topped only by Alabama).  1 A 2012  survey of Tennessee 10th- and 12th-graders finds the average age at which they first ab...

When you get into your car, you probably turn on the radio to listen to music while you’re behind the wheel. But, have you ever wondered why this is a natural instinct? Intuitively, you know that listening to music is enjoyable. To help explain why we are naturally drawn to music, scientists have been researching how music affects us mentally and physically. Music and Stress Relief While you can’t eliminate stressful situations, you can choose healthy ways to cope. And, learning how to deal with stress is a powerful tool to help protect your health (and sobriety). In fact, stress has been associated with high instances of heart disease, obesity and depression. To explore the health benefits of music as a tool in stress-reduction, many neuroscientists are researching how music can be used as a holistic therapy to treat anxiety. Daniel Levitin is a psychologist studying the neuroscience of music at McGill University in Montreal. Levitin and team are actively working to better understand ...