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• 57 per cent of adults reported drinking alcohol in the previous week in 2016 which is a fall from 64 per cent in 2006. This equates to 25.3 million adults in England.
• Those who drank more than 8/6 units on their heaviest day in the last week fell from 19 per cent to 15 per cent.

Source: content.digital.nhs.uk/searchcatalogue?productid=25009

Note: A report was also released by the Office of National Statistics on the drinking habits of the UK as a whole. ■

Some researchers now believe the brain and its diseases in general can only be understood as an interplay between tremendous numbers of neurons distributed across the central nervous system.

Source: www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/03/our-understanding-of-the-human-brain-could-be-all-wrong/

Note: It seems possible that both modular and all-encompassing approaches might be helpful to some degree. ■

I offer a “responsibility without blame” framework that derives from reflection on forms of clinical practice that support change and recovery in patients who cause harm to themselves and others. This framework can be used to interrogate our own attitudes and responses, so that we can better see how to acknowledge the truth about choice and agency in addiction, while avoiding stigma and blame, and instead maintaining care and compassion alongside a commitment to working for social justice and good—Hanna Pickard, Reader in Philosophy, Birmingham University, UK

Source: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12152-016-9295-2

Note: This suggestion tallies closely with the compromise reached in Alcohol Companion. As is pointed out in this paper, it is important for our well-being to acknowledge that we continue to make choices after exposure to alcohol. But it is also important to acknowledge that alcohol exposure means, for a variety of reasons, our subsequent choices often become unreliable, often being heavily biased in favour of consuming more alcohol. Choices made when we are being coerced, disabled, bribed or deceived cannot be given the same treatment as ones we make without interference. In such circumstances it can be helpful to ignore the question of whether a choice is morally right or wrong, because there can be no reliable answer when our judgment is impaired. And moral answers rarely provide a solution for the person being judged. Luckily, however, it is often both possible and helpful to look at the factors which led to a choice and ask whether it was a good or bad one purely in terms of our happiness and well-being. ■

Intense romance can often come with symptoms resembling addiction–euphoria, craving, dependence, withdrawal and relapse–and brain scans have shown that it can be linked to drug-addiction-like activity in the brain’s reward centres.

Source: www.newscientist.com/article/2129208-addicted-to-love-craving-comes-in-two-forms-and-both-can-hurt/