The odds of substance use for lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) youth are on average 190 percent higher than for heterosexual youth, according to a study by University of Pittsburgh researchers published in the current issue of Addiction.

Drug abusers who used a computer-assisted training program in addition to receiving traditional counseling stayed abstinent significantly longer than those who received counseling alone, a Yale University study has found.

If an individual receives a physical punishment such as whipping, it will stir up endorphin receptors, activate the "production of happiness" and eventually remove depressive feelings. A group of drug addicts volunteered to test the new method of treatment: the results can be described as good and excellent.

Researchers found an apparent link between heavy drinking or heavy smoking by people in their 40s and the development of Alzheimer's disease decades later.

Psychiatry, at least for certain diagnoses, has confused the really serious forms of the illness with the far lesser forms. The best example is depression. There has been a confusion and conflation of this diagnosis that confuses serious disorders with far lesser conditions or, in many cases, life problems. We've medicalized a lot of life issues that are not mental illnesses.

While some look for answers to addiction in religion, 12-step programs and the power of positive thinking, scientists are pushing forward the frontiers of neurobiology. Researchers are figuring out how addiction rewires the brain. The goal is to eventually be able to rewire an addicted brain back to the way it was, before the drugs, the cravings, and the self-destruction.

A new study suggests that a mother's substance use during pregnancy, especially a combination of substances, may result in a smaller brain for her child.

The latest entry in the lexicon of food-related ills is drunkorexia, shorthand for a disturbing blend of behaviors: self-imposed starvation or bingeing and purging, combined with alcohol abuse.

Many veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and other combat-related trauma self-medicate with alcohol and other drugs.

A study by the Federation of State Physician Health Programs found about one percent of all physicians practicing in the United States are in confidential treatment. That's about 8,000 doctors whose patients may have no idea they are addicts.