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Where there is life there is hope and it is never too late to stop drinking, even with the most severe case of alcohol-related liver disease, according to new research from the University of Southampton. (Source: Medical News Today: 4/16/09)

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Improvements in readiness to change and drinking in primary care patients with unhealthy alcohol use: a prospective study. BMC Public Health 2009, 9:101 doi:10.1186/1471-2458-9-101
Nicolas Bertholet, Nicholas J Horton, Richard Saitz Provisional PDF, 4/9/09

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At Join Together’s AlcoholScreening.org, over one million people have now taken a confidential, free online screening test to assess their drinking patterns — just in time for Alcohol Awareness Month.
READ MORE: http://members.jointogether.org/ct/ppS7HDY1YSRl/announcement
VISIT ALCOHOLSCREENING.ORG: http://members.jointogether.org/ct/p7S7HDY1YSRo/website

Providing housing and support services for homeless alcoholics costs taxpayers less than leaving them on the street, where taxpayer money goes towards police and emergency health care. Stable housing also results in reduced drinking among homeless alcoholics, according to a Seattle-based study published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). (Source: Medical News Today, 4/02/09)

For decades alcohol industry lobbyists have succeeded in derailing most attempts to raise state alcohol taxes, but the lousy economy has many cash-hungry states now considering alcohol-tax increases — in some cases, to help pay for addiction treatment services as well as address budget deficits. (Source: Join Together, 4/1/09) (detailed report)

Six million women in the U.S. abuse or are dependent on alcohol, according to the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Frequent binge drinking in women’s colleges increased by 124 percent between 1993 and 2001. Nearly 21.6 million Americans are in need of but have not received treatment for an alcohol problem, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA, 2003). April is Alcohol Awareness Month, and Brookhaven Retreat, a multidisciplinary treatment facility that helps women overcome emotional trauma and addiction challenges, is working to raise awareness about the number-one drug problem in the United States: alcohol. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/27/09)

Researchers at Boston Medical Center (BMC) have found that a single-screening question recommended by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) accurately identifies unhealthy alcohol use in primary-care patients. (Source: Medical News Today, 3/12/09)

President Barack Obama this week proposed the federal budget for fiscal year 2010, an announcement that overshadowed House approval of a more immediately significant omnibus appropriations bill for FY2009 that included major funding for addiction-related programs. The $410-billion appropriations bill, approved by the House of Representatives on Feb. 25 by a 245-178 vote, would keep the federal government running through the end of the current fiscal year (Sept. 30) and calls for increasing domestic spending by 8 percent. The measure now goes to the Senate for consideration. (Source: Join Together, 2/28/09)

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) has introduced legislation that would make addiction treatment more available to members of the military and provide more privacy protections to service members who seek help for alcohol and other drug problems, Stars and Stripes reported Feb. 2. (Source: Join Together, 2/3/09) Deutsche Webseite: Rehabilitation

The $819-billion economic stimulus plan recently approved by the House of Representatives included tax cuts, aid to states and a myriad of other spending from infrastructure improvement to job programs — but not the direct funding for alcohol and other drug treatment or prevention that advocates had hoped for. (Source: Join Together, 1/30/09) Deutsche Webseite: Verschiedene Parlamente