A new study shows why some people may find it so hard to stop drinking when others have no problem knowing when to say “when.”

It can be hard to understand why an individual struggling with substance abuse seems unable to quit despite devastating negative consequences and a true desire to change. Now, a new study may provide some clues into that contradiction, proving scientifically that it’s not a lack of willpower but instead a chemical reaction in the brain that makes it so hard for some to just say “no.”

This latest research, published in the Science Translational Medicine journal, can help us understand what makes alcohol so addictive to some people. Researchers used positron emission tomography (PET) to look at the distribution of chemicals in the brains of participants, which included 13 heavy social drinkers and 12 healthy control subjects. (A heavy social drinker is categorized as a woman who consumes 10 to 16 drinks per week or a man who indulges in 14 to 20 drinks per week, while the women in the control group drank fewer than five drinks per week and the men drank less than seven.)

Researchers found some people’s brains give them more of an opioid release when they drink, leading them to perceive alcohol as more pleasurable than other people do. In the heavy drinkers who were studied, a single drink led to the release of more opioids in the orbital frontal cortex and the nucleus accumbens — two regions that play a role in reward. That reward makes the individuals in that group subconsciously learn to want that rush of pleasure again — making them seek and crave alcohol in a way they’re not even aware of.

This may also explain why alcoholics who truly desire to stop drinking have so much trouble doing so. Once part of the brain learns that drinking is important, it compels the individual to continue the behavior – even despite negative consequences.

While the study can be applied to our understanding of alcoholics, it’s important to note that the heavy drinkers in the study didn’t meet the criteria for alcohol dependence. The researchers’ ultimate objective was to come up with new ways of treating alcohol addiction, according to Jennifer Mitchell, adjunct assistant professor at University of California, San Francisco, and lead author of the study.

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Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville is only the latest celeb to drink and say, “I do.” Should marriage license applications include a breathalyzer?

It’s illegal to drink and drive (thankfully!), but it’s still perfectly legal to drink and wed, as Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Brandi Glanville proved while ringing in the New Year in Las Vegas.

Glanville, 38, tied the knot with her good friend Darin Harvey, a mixed martial arts manager. It’s a union she confirmed with multiple Twitter posts that seemed alcohol-fueled, to say the least.

“I’m married again – suuuuuuck it!” Glanville Tweeted, adding, “It wasn’t planned and we will handle it, but good times!” She also posted pics of the nuptials on the social media site. The newlyweds then headed to a strip club to celebrate.

By Monday, the alcohol had worn off and the groom tweeted it was just a “drunken BFF thing.” Glanville went further, denying the marriage was even legal and tweeting, “We were just having fun!”

Glanville was previously married to actor Eddie Cibrian, with whom she has two children. The couple divorced in late 2010 and Cibrian wed LeAnn Rimes in 2011.

Meanwhile, Irish singer Sinead O’Connor has been in the news for breaking off her 16-day marriage and then announcing later that the divorce was off. O’Connor married fourth husband Barry Herridge on Dec. 8 in a drive-through Vegas ceremony, and while wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision, the planned union turned sour that first night, according to O’Connor’s account in Britain’s Sun newspaper.

In the interview, O’Connor admits she went on a frantic hunt for cannabis on their wedding night. “We ended up in a cab in some place that was quite dangerous,” O’Connor is quoted as telling the Sun. “I wasn’t scared — but he’s a drugs counselor. What was I thinking?” The night only got worse from there. “Then I was handed a load of crack,” O’Connor continues. “Barry was very frightened — that kind of messed everything up a bit, really.”

But not long after deciding it was off, the two made up and decided it was back on. It is unclear whether or not the drug use will prove too much for the union, but it’s a variable that has been proven to cause rifts in relationships for others.

While adults are free to marry and divorce whomever they please, incidents like these (along with the quickie Vegas marriages of Britney Spears and Jason Allen Alexander, Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra, Nicky Hilton and Todd Meister) help make the case that heavy partying and lifelong commitment don’t mix well. Alcohol is a powerful drug that impairs not just motor function, but decision-making as well. You don’t need to have a substance abuse problem or be battling an alcohol addiction to be negatively affected by it, either.

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Despite all the information we have about addiction and the fact that help is close at hand, we still lose a number of famous faces to substance use each year.

Any death is sad, and death as a result of a disease — especially one that could have been treated — is especially tragic. As 2011 comes to an end, it’s time to look back at the famous faces we lost this year to the tenacious disease of addiction. Some deaths were directly traced back to current substance use, while others were the result of poor health related to past substance abuse.

While 27-year-old singer Amy Winehouse had accomplished so much in her young life, her talent was often overshadowed by her alcoholism and drug use. The performer was reportedly working to overcome her addiction when she was found dead July 23 in her London apartment. The cause of death was determined to be alcohol poisoning.

Former Alice in Chains bassist Mike Starr had a very public battle with drug addiction, chronicled in part on the third season of VH1′s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew. He  was found dead March 8, at age 44.

Another bassist, Mikey Welsh, who had played with the rock band Weezer before retiring to pursue an art career, died in Chicago on Oct. 8. He was found dead in his hotel room from a suspected drug overdose that led to a heart attack. Two weeks earlier, Welsh predicted his death in a Twitter post, saying, “dreamt i died in chicago next weekend (heart attack in my sleep). need to write my will today.” followed by “correction – the weekend after next.” Welsh played on Weezer’s 2001 Green Album, featuring the hit song “Hash Pipe.”

Jeff Conaway was best known for his roles in the movie Grease and the TV series Taxi. In later years, he also became known for his longtime battle with addiction.  Conaway died May 27 after two weeks in a medically induced coma. The official cause of death for the 60-year-old was pneumonia, but his problem with pain meds surely played a role.

Jackass fans were stunned to hear of the death of 34-year-old Ryan Dunn, known for his dangerous stunts and tricks. He was killed June 20 in a fiery car crash that police later said resulted from alcohol and driving at high speeds. Dunn tweeted pictures earlier in the evening that appeared to show him drinking at a Pennsylvania bar.

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If you or someone you love needs help with alcohol addiction or substance abuse issues, call The Canyon at the toll-free number on our homepage. Someone is there to take your call 24 hours a day and answer any questions you have about treatment, financing or insurance.

One adoptive mother’s story serves as a cautionary tale for all women.

Those warnings against drinking alcohol while pregnant are so ubiquitous these days that many of us just look right through them. Every expectant mom knows to trade in the cosmos and martinis for juice, water and milk during her pregnancy, right? But everyone doesn’t always do what they know they should. Some expectant moms don’t even know they’re pregnant until they’re in their second trimester. Still others are in denial and refuse to accept the responsibility of caring for another human being in utero.

Adoptive mom Lori Gertz discovered this the hard way. She was vilified in 2010 when she sent away her seven-year-old adoptive daughter, Ellie, to be raised by strangers. What led to this extreme act? Gertz blames fetal alcohol syndrome disorder (FASD), which causes an array of neurological deficits that can result in poor judgment, inability to bond and aggression.

In Ellie’s case, that meant violent outbursts that began in infancy and progressed from there. She threatened to kill her little sister and pulled her pregnant mother down the stairs. There were suicide attempts, psychiatric hospitalizations and consultations with nearly 40 doctors. The FASD diagnosis didn’t solve the problem, but it did give the Gertzes the information they needed to formulate a plan.

Fearing for the family’s safety, Gertz made the heartbreaking choice to relinquish her daughter to the care of a couple from Washington state who had experience with FASD, hoping it would allow Ellie to improve.

Ellie’s case isn’t a rare exception. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP), approximately 125,000 women a year have serious alcohol problems throughout pregnancy. FASD affects about 40,000 newborns a year — about one percent of all live births in the United States — according to the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (NOFAS). And since FASD has no cure, it’s a diagnosis that’s for life, resulting in 2 million adults being affected.

After a 15-month honeymoon with her new family, Ellie’s aggression and outbursts returned. The two families faced unfounded charges of abuse, and now they struggle to co-parent a child whose brain has been permanently damaged by her biological mother’s drinking, Gertz told ABCNews.com.

Gertz can’t undo the damage Ellie’s birth mom did during pregnancy, so she’s speaking out now to save other children from the same fate. Gertz is outspoken in warning women not to drink during pregnancy, ever, and to be “ultra-cautious” during childbearing years. “The legacy of FASD never wanes,” she cautions. She should know.

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FAA Boss Resigns After DUI

If you’re a regular flyer, you may be surprised to find that pilots aren’t required to not drink before flying. Instead, the FAA has a limit of .04% when it comes to the blood alcohol content for commercial pilots. While that’s certainly lower than the .08% limit found in most states, it’s hardly zero-tolerance.

Those running the FAA aren’t teetotalers either, apparently.

Federal Aviation Administrator Randy Babbitt was forced to resign this week, just three days after he was arrested on a drunk driving charge near his suburban Washington, DC home. The scandal really started, though, when the local police department issued a news release following the incident, which is apparently standard practice.

It didn’t help that Babbitt’s boss, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, didn’t hear about the DUI arrest from his employee but instead through the police department’s public announcement.

Babbitt didn’t speak publically, but he did release a brief statement to the media announcing that he submitted his resignation. The 65-year-old, who is a former airline pilot and president of a major pilots’ union, said serving as FAA administrator had been “the highlight of my professional career.” His statement went on to say that he was “unwilling to let anything cast a shadow on the outstanding work done 24 hours a day, 7 days a week by my colleagues at the FAA.” Missing from his statement was any reference to his arrest, although they were obviously related.

Fairfax City, Virginia police arrested Babbitt late Saturday night after they allegedly saw him driving on the wrong side of the road. Babbitt was alone in the car, and was cooperative, police said. The police department also said Babbitt failed a sobriety test, but they did not release the results of any blood-alcohol test.

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A mom is arrested after feeding her preschooler beer and her infant daughter tests positive for beer and cocaine.

Parents are supposed to warn their kids about the dangers of drinking and drugs, not provide them! Unfortunately, a Connecticut mom didn’t get that memo, because she recently pleaded guilty to charges she forced her four-year-old son to drink beer and gave her 10-month-old daughter beer and cocaine.

The mother, Juliette Dunn, 29, pleaded guilty to the risk of injury to a child, acknowledging that she doesn’t agree to the facts but agrees the state has enough evidence to win a conviction, according to The Connecticut Post. A companion of Dunn’s pleaded guilty to the same charges.

The crime was discovered when police officers were waved down by a neighbor who complained that a woman was feeding children beer at a playground. Authorities took the children to the hospital where the son tested positive for alcohol and the daughter for alcohol and cocaine, local station WVIT reported.

According to the warrant, Dunn admitted to giving her son a bottle of beer every day, and when questioned by a social worker, the preschooler was able to list off brands he liked and ones he didn’t.

The children were turned over to the Department of Children and Families and their mother could face up to two years in prison when she is sentenced in December. It isn’t clear what the mother’s reasoning was or if she struggled with an alcohol addiction or a cocaine addiction.

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Coeds are going to dangerous — possibly deadly — lengths to cut calories and still party.

Dieting and calorie cutting is at an all-time high among college girls, but now there’s a new wrinkle: female coeds are restricting calories during the day so they can drink their calories at night. The result is something called “drunkorexia.” To consequence-challenged college students, it seems smart. They save money by eating less and getting drunk faster and they keep their weight down all at the same time. It’s a win all the way around – until you look at the long-term health problems.

A study out of the University of Missouri found that as many as one in five students save their calories for alcohol. Students in the study said their motivations to be drunkorexic included getting drunk faster, spending money on alcohol that might otherwise be spent on food and keeping their weight down.

The research suggests the majority of drunkorexics are women — they were three times more likely to have the disorder than men.

Researchers tie it to the fact that women are constantly bombarded with media images of a physical standard that is unachievable for many. They learn at an early age that they can only consume so many calories without putting on weight, so many college students are choosing to limit those calories to alcohol.

Drunkorexics are at greater risk of becoming sexual assault victims and suffering from substance abuse and more severe eating disorders later in life, Taylor said. What these students may not be aware of is that drunkorexia could affect their ability to learn and to make decisions, and ultimately damage their internal organs, the Missouri study suggests. There are no statistics on how many develop a drinking problem or seek alcohol rehab as a result of drunkorexia.

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