What is alcoholism?

      Alcoholism is a disease. The craving that an alcoholic feels for alcohol can be as strong as the need for food or water. An alcoholic will continue to drink despite serious family, health, or legal problems.

Can alcoholism be treated?
Yes, alcoholism can be treated. Alcoholism treatment programs use both counseling and medications to help a person stop drinking. Most alcoholics need help to recover from their disease. With support and treatment, many people are able to stop drinking and rebuild their lives.

Is tobacco a drug?
Because tobacco is legal and heavily advertised, people often don't take it seriously as a drug. Nicotine is the drug in tobacco that makes it addictive and habit forming. Nicotine, heroin, and cocaine have similar effects on the brain. Cigarettes, cigars, pipe tobacco, snuff, chewing tobacco – even nicotine gum and patches – all contain nicotine. Nicotine is a poison and it is harmful to your body.

What are the health risks associated with smoking cigarettes?
1)Tobacco causes cancer, emphysema and heart disease, which contribute to the deaths of 400,000 Americans each year.
2) Tobacco is known to cause cancer of the mouth, larynx, pharynx, esophagus, lungs, pancreas, cervix, uterus and bladder.
3) Women who smoke and are taking the birth control pill are at an increased risk for stroke.
4) Women who smoke have more trouble getting pregnant. Note: It is not a sure fire method of birth control.
5) Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk for stillbirth and infant mortality by 33% and doubles a child's risk of attention deficit disorder.
6) Smoking may contribute to impotency in men.
7) Children of smokers are more likely to pick it up.
8) Smoking can give you heartburn and ulcers in the blood and increases the tendency for blood to clot inside blood vessels and obstruct blood flow. What does that mean to you? You could be at risk for a stroke, heart attack or pulmonary embolism. Atherosclerosis is a major contributing factor in stroke.

      9) People who smoke a pack a day have 2.5 times Smoking also contributes to blindness by macular deteriorations.
10) Smoking also contributes to hardening of the arteries and to atherosclerosis. Smoking reduces the proportion of HDL (good) cholesterol to LDL (bad) cholesterol.
11) Shortness of breath, coughing spells, phlegm production, wheezing and diminished over all physical health are common.
12) Smoking increases the frequency of colds and flu.
13) Second-hand smoke even at low exposures appears to have disproportionately greater effects in non-smokers. Non-smokers are more sensitive to the ill effects of the smoke because they have not adapted to chronic exposures from cigarette smoke.

What are the short-term effects of marijuana use?
 1) Problems with memory and learning
 2) Distorted perception (sights, sounds, time, touch)
 3) Trouble with thinking and problem solving
 4) Loss of motor coordination
 5) Increased heart rate.
These effects are even greater when other drugs are mixed with the marijuana and users do not always know what drugs are given to them.

What are the long-term effects of marijuana use?
Research shows that regular use of marijuana or THC may play a role in some kinds of cancer and in problems with the respiratory and immune systems.
Cancer
It’s hard to know for sure whether regular marijuana use causes cancer. But it is known that marijuana contains some of the same, and sometimes even more, of the cancer-causing chemicals found in tobacco smoke. Studies show that someone who smokes five joints per day may be taking in as many cancer-causing chemicals as someone who smokes a full pack of cigarettes every day.
Lungs and airways
People who smoke marijuana often develop the same kinds of breathing problems that cigarette smokers have: coughing and wheezing. They tend to have more chest colds than nonusers. They are also at greater risk of getting lung infections like pneumonia.
Immune system
Animal studies have found that THC can damage the cells and tissues in the body that help protect against disease. When the immune cells are weakened you are more likely to get sick.