Drugs Books

These are a comprehensive and priceless resource! I'm a last year nursing student in a RN program. I appreciate the time I will save using these drug cards for reference, while I am concentrating on other areas of studying.

I'm a first year nursing student and I think that these cards are a great reference, especially for those students first starting out in clinic. Unlike other nursing cards, Mosby's cards contain everything you need to know about the drug you will be administering to your patients. There are 2 formats available: 1)drug by name, 2) drug by classification. Each card has: the brand name, classification, dosage form, use, contraindications, pharmacokinetics, dosages for all types of patients, side effects, drug interactions, and nursing implications, which is very important to know. The format is easy to understand and the data is to the point. The package also contains cards with: a short summarized lesson on "fundamental drug therapy", drug dosage calculations, syringe/IV compatibility chart etc. These cards save you a lot of time from writing your own drug cards. If a drug you need is not in the package, you can get free updates from their website.

In Oleksiw's fifth book of this series, two drug-related deaths draw Police Chief Joe Silva into the shady underworld of Mellingham. When his investigation crosses paths with teens of the town, one of whom is his live-in girlfriend's son, it becomes personal for Joe. Once again, Oleksiw has depicted small town life in New England with a clear eye to the contrast between traditions and worldliness, and all that is encompassed therein, both good and bad. Her characters are real and you know them; they live down the street. The plot is real; you read about it in the newspapers, and the idea that it could happen in your town, maybe with your own children terrifies you. Beautifully written, A Murderous Innocence keeps the reader guessing through twists and turns until the final chilling outcome.

Most of the townsfolk of Mellingham attended the funeral of Ron Faroli, a former drug user. Not long afterward, Ron's friend, also a member of the Mellingham Community Center, Miles Stine's falls out of a third floor window. Chief of Police Joe Silva feels the coincidence is too much to ignore though the evidence points towards an accident.

Other former addict pals of Ron and Miles are nervous that they will be next. Meanwhile Joe tries to keep everyone calm as he makes inquiries. He especially is concerned with the parents of the recently deceased as George Faroli and Edna Stine are popular life residents. However, as he digs deeper into the Stine death, Joe begins thinking it is a homicide by someone who knew the second victim, but wonders who would want him dead and why, the answer of which remains elusive as the ties between the deaths lead nowhere.

Police procedural fans will enjoy A MURDEROUS INNOCENCE as Joe struggles with a homicide investigation in which the evidence seems more like a coincidental accident caused by drugs; still he persists because the twin deaths nag at his mind. The townsfolk know one another so they prefer that Joe stop digging and accept the deaths as an accident as they cannot accept one of them as a killer. Thus Joe has his work cut out for him while readers obtain a strong mystery.

Harriet Klausner

I stayed glued to the words. It was as if I were there experiencing the moments! This is a humorous yet thought provoking book. An exorcism using condiments? And folks said it coudn't be done! Kudos on the achievement, Brich. I will look foward to reading the next book!

Imagine if Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and Augusten Burroughs (Running with Scissors) had a baby - it would be this book. A drug addicted and alienated teenager winds up in a psychiatric hospital trying to perform an exorcism with condiments like mustard, salt, apple jelly and playing cards, and why not? Brich weaves in his mid-west upbringing into surprisingly lucid, tragic and funny accounts like; playing with a bead of mercury in a plastic Easter egg, a crazy mother who checks poop output, and an awkward erection during a baptism. We see inside the mind of someone convinced aliens inhabited the earth and who believes he is "the chosen one." A fascinating, irresistibly-twisted and touching semi-memoir. You will believe.

if you have a friend or a relative who is using drugs and you feel you don't understand and/or you're afraid of the possible consequences of drug use, i advise you to read this book of all books. maybe you won't agree with what's said in it, maybe you don't want to believe it's true, but read it anyway. it's a different point of view on the subject, if less held.

1 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

Serentiy Prayer, March 10, 2007

Here is the full text of the chapter "Hitler and Buchman" from the book Christianity and Power Politics by Reinhold Niebuhr, the eminent theologian who authored The Serenity Prayer. This appears to be a word-for-word reprint of Niebuhr's criticism of Buchman that first appeared in The Christian Century magazine, October 7, 1936, pages 1315 and 1316.


HITLER AND BUCHMAN
On returning from Europe, Frank Buchman, Oxford group revivalist, is quoted by a reputable New York paper as having said: "I thank heaven for a man like Adolf Hitler, who built a front-line defense against the anti-Christ of communism.... My barber in London told me Hitler saved all Europe from communism. That's how he felt. Of course I don't condone everything the Nazis do. Antisemitism? Bad, naturally. I suppose Hitler sees a Karl Marx in every Jew. But think what it would mean to the world if Hitler surrendered to the control of God. Or Mussolini. Or any dictator. Through such a man God could control a nation overnight and solve every last bewildering problem."
In this interview the social philosophy of the Oxford group, long implicit in its strategy, is made explicit, and revealed in all its childishness and viciousness. This philosophy has been implicit in Buchmanite strategy from the beginning. It explains the particular attention which is paid by Mr. Buchman and his followers to big men, leaders, in industry and politics. The idea is that if the man of power can be converted, God will be able to control a larger area of human life through his power than if a little man were converted. This is the logic which has filled the Buchmanites with touching solicitude for the souls of such men as Henry Ford or Harvey Firestone and prompted them to whisper confidentially from time to time that these men were on the very threshold of the kingdom of God. It is this strategy which prompts or justifies the first-class travel of all the Oxford teams. They hope to make contact with big men in the luxurious first-class quarters of ocean liners.


A NAZI PHILOSOPHY
In other words, a Nazi social philosophy has been a covert presumption of the whole Oxford group enterprise from the very beginning. We may be grateful to the leader for revealing so clearly what has been slightly hidden. Now we can see how unbelievably naïve this movement is in its efforts to save the world. If it would content itself with preaching repentance to drunkards and adulterers one might be willing to respect it as a religious revival method which knows how to confront the sinner with God. But when it runs to Geneva, the seat of the League of Nations, or to Prince Starhemberg or Hitler, or to any seat of power, always with the idea that it is on the verge of saving the world by bringing the people who control the world under God-control, it is difficult to restrain the contempt which one feels for this dangerous childishness.
This idea of world salvation implies a social philosophy which is completely innocent of any understanding of the social dynamics of a civilization. Does Mr. Buchman really believe that the dictators of the modern world create their dictatorships out of whole cloth? He does not know, evidently, that they are the creatures more than the creators of vast social movements in modern history. The particular social forces which create dictatorships are on the whole the decadent forces of a very sick society. The sickness of that society is the sickness of sin; and if a word of God is to be spoken in such an hour as this let it be the woe of Christ upon his Jerusalem or the prophecy of judgement which an Amos or Jeremiah pronounced upon their civilization.

THE PRODUCT OF THE QUIET HOUR
There is unfortunately not the slightest indication that the prophetic spirit of the Bible has ever entered into this pollyanna religion by way of the quiet hour. Several times Mr. Buchman has confessed that the word of God which he heard in his quiet hour was the slogan: "An international network over spiritual live-wires," whatever that may mean. In other words, the world is to be saved by a vulgar advertising slogan rather than by a genuine priestly and prophetic mediation of the judgement and the mercy of God upon a sinful world.


THE MAN OF POWER
In the simple and decadent individualism of the Oxford group movement there is no understanding of the fact that the man of power is always to a certain degree an anti-Christ. "All power," said Lord Acton with cynical realism, "corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely." If the man of power were to take a message of absolute honesty and absolute love seriously he would lose his power, or would divest himself of it. This is not to imply that the world can get along without power and that it is not preferable that men of conscience should wield it rather than scoundrels. But if men of power had not only conscience but also something of the gospel's insight into the intricacies of social sin in the world, they would know that they could never extricate themselves completely from the sinfulness of power, even while they were wielding it ostensibly for the common good.
Mr. Buchman has greater aptness for advertising slogans than for historical perspectives. Otherwise he might have had occasion to meditate upon the life of Oliver Cromwell. Cromwell was a Christian in the real sense. There was a vital Christian faith in him which is hardly available for a modern statesman even after the ministrations of the Oxford group. Cromwell really wanted to do the will of God -- and thought he was doing it. Yet nothing in Cromwell's personal religion could save his dictatorship from being abortive and self-devouring. Let Mr. Buchman read about Cromwell's campaign in Ireland and the religious pretensions he made for his ambitions there and learn something of the moral complexities which men of power face and the temptations to which they succumb. It might be added that Cromwell's genuine religion not only failed to make his dictatorship palatable; it also failed to save him from the personal temptation to arrogance and cruelty.
The life and religion of Bismarck suggest similar lessons. Bismarck, who established a slightly more palatable dictatorship in Germany than Hitler's was a convert of the pietist movement. This movement was informed by an evangelical fervor which some of us may be pardoned for preferring to the sentimentalities of the Oxford groups. It deeply affected Bismarck. He was in certain areas of his life a very genuine Christian. But his surrender to God hardly accomplished the results in politics which Mr. Buchman envisages as a possibility in the case of Hitler's conversion. It did not help God to "control his nation overnight and solve every last bewildering problem."
The increasingly obvious fascist philosophy which informs the group movement is in other words not only socially vicious but religiously vapid. The slightest acquaintance with the history of Christian thought on the problem of the relation of the absolute demands of the gospel to the relativities of politics and economics would prove its childishness. A careful study of the gospel itself, particularly its abhorrence of the self-righteousness of the righteous, would reveal the danger of any doctrine which promises powerful men the possibility of fully doing the will of God. They had better be admonished that after they have done what they think right they will still remain unprofitable servants.
The Oxford group movement, imagining itself the mediator of Christ's salvation in a catastrophic age, is really an additional evidence of the decay in which we stand. Its religion manages to combine bourgeois complacency with Christian contrition in a manner which makes the former dominant. Its morality is a religious expression of a decadent individualism. Far from offering us a way out of our difficulties it adds to the general confusion. This is not the gospel's message of judgement and hope to the world. It is bourgeois optimism, individualism and moralism expressing itself in the guise of religion. No wonder the rather jittery plutocrats of our day open their spacious summer homes to its message!

This is an impressive book. It will open a lot of eyes, especially eyes that watch ads for antidepressive medication on television. The authors wrote the book for people who feel depressed and need more information and for professional caretakers who want a better understanding of treatments for depression.

The authors argue that there is little reason to go along with the theory that defects in brain chemistry cause depression. When a person is locked in depression, it may well be that his brain chemicals change. However, the authors can't find evidence for the widespread belief, fostered by pharmaceutical companies and biological psychiatrists, that depression is a disease caused by defects in the brain. Some people may indeed inherit a susceptibility, possibly via brain chemistry, to develop depression, but without an interaction with life experiences the predisposition would be unlikely to affect them.

Antidepressant drugs, obviously needed say the pharmaceutical companies if depression is a disease of brain chemistry, can be shown to have a moderate therapeutic effect. However, the authors, based on reviews of a large number of placebo-controlled research trials, found that most of the positive effect could be attributed to a placebo reaction-another eye opener.

The authors view depression, not as a brain disease, but rather as a mood and behavioral disorder resulting from adverse life situations. "It's Not Your Brain; It's Your Life" is their title for a section of Chapter 3. Depression might result from the death of a spouse or the loss of a vocation where the person fails to find a replacement, or, more commonly, from the long-term avoidance of risks of pursuing deeply-held life goals or intimate relationships. Avoidance, manifested as isolation, sleeping, drinking, procrastination, and the like, can be motivated by fears of failure, rejection, humiliation, shame, etc. Behavior therapy and cognitive behavior therapy are described with considerable clarity as therapeutic treatments for depression. The focus of this therapy is replacing the avoidance behavior with effective coping behaviors. Among the most interesting parts of the book is the section in Chapter 5 describing five cases of depression where a "double arrow" diagram points to the crucial step of avoidance that maintains the disorder.

In reviewing the treatment literature, the authors find that these types of psychotherapy are at least as effective as medications in treating depression in the short-term but are more effective in the long-term because the relapse rate is lower after treatment is discontinued. Apparently, psychotherapy is more likely than medications to "stick."

A shortcoming of the book is that some sections are hard to read. These sections, probably intended for a professional audience, seem long and complicated. My suggestion to the reader is to feel free to scan or skip. On the other hand, I found other sections, particularly Chapter 5 describing the behavioral approach to understanding and treating depression, were interesting and easy to read. Three appendices provide practical advice on questions to ask before accepting a prescription, how to find a behavioral therapist, and questions to ask a potential therapist. I think this book is well worth the effort required to read it.

Any college-level health collection, especially those strong in mental health concerns, must have THE MYTH OF DEPRESSION AS DISEASE: LIMITATIONS AND ALTERNATIVES TO DRUG TREATMENT: it goes where few books so clearly have gone before, arguing that there's little actual scientific evidence for treating depression as a biological disorder to be treated with drugs. Indeed, the authors say, there is very little known about the role of biology in depression; but marketing by pharmaceutical companies has perpetuated the myth of chemical imbalance and treatments to benefit their bottom lines. Therapy is under-explored in contrast, and should be one of many alternatives to drug therapies: that's the hard-hitting contention of THE MYTH OF DEPRESSION AS DISEASE, which should earn much classroom discussion as well.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

This is one of the most important books to come out in the last few years that exposes the truth about the toxicity and innapropriate claims and marketing of most of the currently used psychiatric drugs, from anti-depressants to "mood stabilizers" [actually only anti-epilepsy drugs], including Lithium, to anti-psychotics.

Depression was once viewed as a state of mind caused by stressful life factors, but today the majority of Americans believe depression is a biological disease caused by chemical imbalance in the brain. This shift in the way "mental disorders" like depression and anxiety are viewed has resulted in profound social and cultural changes. Antidepressants are now the most widely prescribed class of medications in the U.S., and many states have enacted parity legislation requiring insurance coverage for mental illness equal to physical illness. Soldiers returning from the war in Iraq are encouraged to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress, and Congress may pass a "Mothers Act" to promote screening new moms for postpartum depression. In many classrooms more than half the students are on medications for attention deficit and similar disorders, and the number of U.S. children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has risen an astounding 4,000% in the past ten years. Almost weekly we hear of yet another school shooting, with headlines clamoring for early intervention and mandatory treatment of "at risk" individuals.

Against this backdrop of a seemingly rampant epidemic of mental illness, Joanna Moncrieff has written a brilliant new book calling into question nearly everything commonly believed about the nature of psychiatric illness and psychiatric medication. First and foremost, this book shatters the myth that psychiatric drugs restore chemical balance. Page by page and chapter by chapter, Dr. Moncrieff systematically exposes the shoddy science, flawed research and deceptive marketing campaigns which have led us down a sadly mistaken path that has nothing to do with science and everything to do with profit.

Among the most interesting chapters, Moncrieff methodically examines what happens to patients on different classes of psychiatric drugs. The so-called antipsychotics such as Zyprexa and Risperdal achieve their therapeutic effects by causing a form of Parkinson's disease, while the so-called SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft have comparatively little effect on the brain but often cause nausea and seem to work mostly as active placebos, barely outperforming inactive placebos such as simple sugar pills.

Because the author follows strict scientific methods and carefully documents every step of her work, this is not a book that will appeal to a mass audience, but for anyone seriously interested in genuine medical research unfettered by special interests dedicated to maximizing pharmaceutical profits, I cannot recommend this book too highly. Joanna Moncrieff's The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment belongs on the reference shelf alongside Grace E. Jackson's Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent and Peter R. Breggin's Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex.

With great sensitivity and understanding, Dr. Diamond takes us on a poignant and poetic journey with his clients -- all of whom were transformed by the narrative approach to their struggles. This book offers a positive and refreshingly creative look at issues that have universal significance. A compelling read that touches the heart as well as the mind. I gifted my family and friends with this book, and highly recommend you do the same.

This beautifully written book describes the author's clinical discovery and use of the power of letter writing for (initially) adolescent alcohol and drug abusers whose lives had left them with too much felt and unsaid. It teaches patience and realism in the face of addiction while unfurling a technique which builds compassion and connection on both sides of the treatment equation. Hurray for Jonathan Diamond! I look forward to his next book and recommend this one wholeheartedly to professionals and laypersons alike.

Every counselor and educator should own this clearly written, easy to read book about the prevalence of alcohol addiction and marketing in America. Covers specific groups as well as population in general. Comprehensive, up to date, superbly outlined and indexed, it hits hard at the problem. Excellent section on treatment. Invaluable also for family members of any age, as well as professionals. Factual, provocative, alarming, educational, helpful -- this book is first rate in every way.

This is a great, long awaited text! I may be biased, since I helped with some of it for my Graduate work!! This book should be purchased by anyone who is interested in knowing how we as Americans came to have such a problem with Alcohol. It should be purchased & read by all students in social work, counseling, psychology & other social studies fields if they plan to work with addicted clients. It reads relatively easy & has several references to help the lay person understand the terminology used when dealing with those who are addicted & their families.

We really value this book.

It is a real reference book, organized alphabetically by disease or problem, which is one reason it has gotten a lot of use. The depth and breadth is wonderful. You can find a summary of "conventional treatment" or "drug treatment" followed by paragraphs on "homeopathic," "Chinese Herbal Remedies," and/or "home treatment." There's just a ton of information here -- and it is about CHOICES not about dictating things to you.

However, it is also readable. Paging through it has confirmed things I picked up from other sources and taught me new things.

And there's even an entry for "BAD MOODS (see Anger.)"

I borrowed this book from the library and now I must have my own copy. It analyzes treatments not only from holistic perspective but chinese remedies and conventional remedies. It also gives suggestions on what products is best for the ailment. IT is written by a panel of expert instead of from a single source. After reading this among a stack of similar books addressing using natural remedies w/ children, this is definitely my favorite and the natural remedies REALLY does work!!

This is a very well written and practical book that will be a great asset to people recovering from challenging addictions. I would highly recommend this publication!

I was given this journal, and I have to say, if you are new to recovery or know someone who is, this is an excellent daily workbook for recovering alcoholics or addicts. It takes you through all 12-steps of the AA program, one day at a time, over a year period. For each day, there is an inspiring, thought provoking reading and a place to journal your own thoughts. Comes with a DVD of recovering people sharing their experiences getting into AA. It's great to watch with family -- everyone gets a better idea about what it takes to get sober.