From the Editor
My patient could recognize the damage done by alcohol. The lost friendships. The failed marriage. The firing of her job of 15 years. And yet, she was still puzzled. “How did I get into this mess?”
In a new American Journal of Psychiatry paper, Andrea King (of the University of Chicago) and her co-authors explore the draw of alcohol with a major new study that measures the subjective response to alcohol challenges at five and ten year follow ups. “Initial stimulant and rewarding effects of alcohol predicted heavy alcohol use, and the magnitude of these positive subjective effects increased over a 10-year period in those who developed alcohol use disorder compared with those who did not develop the disorder.” We discuss this big paper.
Dr. Philip Seeman had an extraordinary career with major achievements. Some argue that he should have shared the Nobel prize. He died on 9 January 2021 at his home. The Globe obituary is our second selection. Dr. Seeman was a generous mentor of many young scientists, and a husband, father, and grandfather. And his work was impactful: Dr. Seeman’s interest in dopamine helped change the way we practice today.
And in our final selection, we look at a new essay by Dr. Gaurav Sharma, a resident of psychiatry at the University of Toronto. The disaster of Ontario’s long term care homes has made many headlines. For this young doctor, the problems are close to home, affecting his godmother. He writes about her life and her downward turn. “In my training as a psychiatry resident, a basic principle I’ve learned is that every mental health crisis has its triggers. In Lucy’s case, the crisis that led to her hospitalization was prompted by a precarious housing situation.”
DG
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