- Methadone, a drug commonly used to wean heroin users away from their addictions, is increasingly being prescribed by doctors to combat severe pain, but many are unaware of the dangers of the synthetic opiate.

The New York Times reported Sunday that Methadone has become the fastest growing cause of narcotic death, quickly surpassing Oxycontin and Vicodin, two widely prescribed pain killers

Alcohol misuse and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) were more common in U.S. National Guard and military reserve soldiers who returned from Iraq and Afghanistan than active-duty soldiers, a new military study suggests.

The study, published in the August 13 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association, suggests that lack of preparation for dealing with the stress of combat and reduced access to support services at home is to be blamed for alcohol abuse among soldiers. There was also increased stress among individuals and their families who were deployed, according to the report

Americans are drinking less alcohol as they get older, and many are switching from beer and hard liquor to wine, a new report says.

Researchers at Boston University School of Medicine studied 8,600 white adults in Framingham, MA, over 50 years. The participants, born between 1900 to 1959, joined the study when they were at least 28 years old and answered questions about their lifestyle and health, including their alcohol use for the past few decades

Researchers at the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that people who stop drinking may develop depression.

Findings from the study appear online in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology. Scientists have long known that moderate drinking offered some health benefits, including protection against heart disease, certain types of stroke and some forms of cancer. But now they say that people that stop drinking, even moderate drinking, run the risk of developing depression and a reduced capacity of the brain to produce new neurons, a process called neurogenesis

- A new study found that stopping drinking alcohol can be detrimental to one's mental health.

According to the findings of the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studies performed on mice who voluntarily drank alcohol for 28 days showed that when their alcohol consumption was stopped, it caused depression and a negative mood that set in 14 or more days after their systems were cleared of alcohol. This led scientist to believe that people who quit drinking, even moderate drinkers, will experience "negative mood states" days or weeks after the alcohol is out of their bodies