This week a friend of mine and I launch a simple initiative called Screen Less Week, a resource for schools to help children and families recalibrate their reliance on screens, if only for one week.

We have created a nation of children who have grown up around massive alcohol consumption. Huge. For at least the past eight years social networking has made it irrelevant whether it takes place in their own home or not. Everyone has a platform to share learned behaviour with susceptible peers.

What would you think if I told you it was possible to change your body and your life in just two short weeks? You'd be justified in thinking that I am either a crazy optimist or extremely keen to sell you something, it does seem a ludicrously short period after all.

For many people, the abuse of alcohol, substances, and illegal drugs can be fuelled by a variety of life events. Financial problems, relationship problems, and work related issues are all common factors that can lead to a person reaching breaking point and turning to substances or alcohol.

When Lindsay Lohan entered the Betty Ford Center, as part of a court ordered rehabilitation programme, it was her second time as a visitor, and her si...

Everyday I speak to someone who feels hopelessly addicted - whether they are drunk or sober - and every time the word they use is the same: relapse. The fear of slipping backwards. Returning to where they started. And it can't happen. It's not real.

You don't need to have suffered from addictive illness (although it undoubtedly helps) to understand that abstinence-based recovery is the only method that really works - in the sense of bringing the individual completely face-to-face with the underlying psychological problems that cause him or her to use drugs and alcohol in the first place. Nor do you need to be an addict (although, once again, in indisputably helps), to know that the current Kafkaesque condition of our prisons is a direct result of addiction treatments that are really nothing of the sort.

It is infuriating to have America, whose mad war on drugs helped dig this hole in the first place, come up with the first sensible solution in years. But The Drug Reform Policy 101 is undoubtedly a move in the right direction.

We've got it all backwards. Horribly backwards. And its killing us. This awful catch 22 situation. If we wait to admit and accept we have a drinking problem in our society? We are waiting for end-stage alcoholism. Or alcoholic Alzheimer's. Or being arrested. Or being injured horribly.

I have just finished reading Ban Ki-moon's address to the residents of San Patrignano. On Wednesday the Secretary - General of the United Nations visited the drug rehabilitation community in Italy and in his address he mentions two residents that I am proud to call my friends - Mike and Damir.

Nobody likes a pretty-girl drunk. That's a deal-breaker right here. A pretty-girl who is a little bit tipsy? Cute. A pretty-girl a little unsteady on her feet? A bit giggly? Charming. But a pretty-girl who is a messy, sloppy, belligerent drunk receives twice the vitriol reserved for even the most unsavoury of drunken characters. It offends us, seeing this pretty girl displaying her internal ugliness for all to see. It's like taking a shop window display and covering it in garbage. Nobody wants to see that. Keep your window displays clean and bright.

Forgive the unexpected intermission. Where were we? Yes, that's it. I was fumbling around, trying to get the hang of living in a wheelchair in a new part of London, waiting for my broken back to heal a bit more. But in my last update, I glossed over some of the worst of what was happening.

Russell Brand, the notorious actor and comedian, recently published an article that gives the most penetrating insight into the struggles of a heroin ...

This morning I received a call from my friend in Australia letting me know that one of our friends had taken his life over the weekend. I have suffered grief and loss before and today I did not know what to do - go to work and carry on? Stay at home and take it easy? I went to work and whilst there I listened to every early 80s tune that reminded me of my friend who I now will never see again.

Some people know things others do not. That a home is supposed to be a place you feel safe. Comfortable. A little haven from the rest of the world where you can relax and just be yourself. Some people do not live with a drunk.

You know how you're always craving food that tastes like wet rocks? No? Oh, in that case it's just 40-year-old Natasha, who recently featured in a...

While the amount of people who smoke had been going steadily down since the fifties, in the last six years that decline has stalled. Although nearly two out of three want to quit and one in ten tell us they're 'desperate' to get rid of their addiction, around 20% of the UK still smoke.

I recovered from alcoholism when I was able to stop drinking. Finally. I recovered from being disabled when I was able to maintain walking again. Consistently. I recovered from the years of isolation when I was able to live back in the world again. Joyfully. So many recoveries.

But while there are endless studies, research groups and counsellors looking at the interrelation between addiction and crime, Malton takes a different approach. For her, addiction isn't just a force that leads people into crime as a means to finance their habit. For many, she believes, crime itself is the addiction, committed first and foremost to satisfy a need to do so within the criminal.

Russell Brand has been calling for empathy for addicts, and he is right. Whether you adore or despise Brand's Marmite-like character doesn't really matter; you should still listen to him. He understands addiction. He understands addicts.