White River Manor is a registered essential service provider and amidst the COVID-19 pandemic continues to offer a world class therapetic programme. We have taken every precaution to maintain the integrity of our environment and screen clients both before and on arrival. Our staff too undergo regular testing and screening to ensure the safety of our clients.
Addictive behaviours don’t get as much attention as alcohol and drug addiction but they can cause just as much damage. Behavioral addiction covers everything from gambling, sex and shopping addiction to Internet, gaming, self-harm and plastic surgery addiction. What is Behavioral addiction? Behaviour addiction refers to non-substance addictions. They include a range of activities that...
The four hardest drugs to quit change the brain’s chemical structure by messing with the production and absorption of dopamine or endorphins. Addiction to these drugs disrupts regions in the brain that are responsible for reward, motivation, learning, judgement and memory. Changes to your brain can become fixed with regular use of the substance as...
Common mental disorders such as depression, anxiety and PTSD are linked to sleep deprivation. Insomnia or poor quality sleep also increases the risk of drug and alcohol use which can lead to dependency and ultimately addiction. We look at the connection between sleep and substance abuse disorders and provide insight into how important it is...
For many, it’s hard to wrap your mind around the fact that drug addiction is classified as a mental illness. Many non-addicts view it as something that the person has only “himself or herself to blame”. Addicts do indeed blame themselves, their family, their work or their social circumstances. Overcoming shame and guilt is part...
Drug and alcohol addiction does not discriminate based on social status, race, gender or education. Addiction can happen to everyone; even successful lawyers, chefs, doctors, pilots and professional athletes. It has everything to do with genetics and environment factors and little to do with whether you are somehow “better or worse off” than others. Substance...
Many people have suffered during the Covid-19 pandemic. One group of particular concern is people who are dealing with addiction and working hard at their recovery. Due to imposed lockdowns and social distancing, people in addiction recovery have been forced to transition from face-to-face treatment to online therapy. There’s no reason the pandemic should derail...
Every year, the number of college students misusing “study drugs” is increasing. In fact, prescription drug abuse is the fastest growing drug problem in the United States after alcohol and marijuana. So called study drugs are prescription stimulants that were approved by the FDA to treat conditions such as ADD, ADHD and narcolepsy; yet widespread...
Addiction does not discriminate; it doesn’t care if you are rich or poor, male or female, young or old, black or white. It takes you on a long and harrowing road from experimenting to dependency and then addiction. But there is hope because there are exit ramps along the way; where you can get off,...
You might not know it but your brain is like a muscle. It’s not a true muscle because it doesn’t relax or contract; rather, it’s a complex cellular structure that functions in a very similar way to your body’s muscles. And just like the muscles of our arms, legs and abs; it has the potential...
High-functioning anxiety is a mysterious condition, mainly because those who experience it usually hide it well from the world. On the outside, people with high-functioning anxiety come across as super successful, organised and are often over-achievers. However, on the inside, they are driven by fear and live in turmoil; experiencing debilitating worry, stress and tension...
There’s a humorous meme that says, “If stress burned calories, we’d all be supermodels”. So true; we live in a world that leaves so many of us overwhelmed by stress; ranging from politics, crime, pollution and climate change to family dynamics, relationship and work pressure. Stress is an unavoidable fact of life. And it’s not...
Your brain is a complex matter yet it’s also quite a simple organ, in that it’s capable of reducing to ‘bare bones’ how we view and interpret events and relationships. This is known as cognitive bias and it’s our brain’s way of making sense of an information-laden world and reaching decisions with rapid speed. Everyone...
