Popular new diet pills are potentially deadly and alarmingly easy to buy online.

Perhaps the worst part about parenting is hearing those dreaded three words from the mouth of your babe: “I hate you.” You realize it’s a childish outburst, but the words still sting. Here are some ways to deal when your daughter turns defiant.

“My mom just won’t quit nagging me,” grumbles 14-year-old Amanda. “She’s always on me about something — grades, cleaning up my room, what I’m wearing, who I’m hanging with. It’s endless. And it makes me crazy. Right now I hate my mom.”

But it wasn’t always this way. Not long ago, Amanda and her mom, Brenda, were inseparable. “We’d shop, go to movies, we even liked the same TV shows,” explains Brenda. “It all changed around the time Amanda turned 12. She started hanging out with girls in middle school that I felt were a bad influence. Her grades began to suffer. Suddenly my role was rule-maker and enforcer.”

“Adolescence is a time of separation from what the child considers controlling, out of touch and nagging parental relationships,” explains David Kipper M.D., a Beverly Hills-based internist and author of The Addiction Solution. As part of his practice, Dr. Kipper handles youth addiction issues and deals with many parents in distress. He says the tween period is especially volatile for mothers and daughters. “It’s a transition from cute to combat and the stress it creates is enormous…and predictable.”

Dr Kipper offers these five ways to make it manageable:

1. Pick Your Battles
Most moms want to establish rules around curfew, money, schoolwork, dating, drinking, drugs and shopping, according to Susan Shapiro Barash, author of You’re Grounded, Now Let’s Go Shopping. “Assess your daughter’s personality and understand what she might be most at risk for,” says Dr. Kipper. “What are the things worth fighting for? Is she making bad choices about friends? Is she at risk for taking drugs, drinking, or smoking? Are her grades suffering? Don’t try to tackle everything, just what matters most.”

2. Be Flexible
Just because you had certain rules growing up, it doesn’t mean the same holds true for your daughter. For instance, Dr. Kipper says to consider setting a curfew that is consistent with your daughter’s group. If her appearance is an issue, take a look at how her peers dress and then agree on something that’s acceptable to you both.

3. Enlist a Friend’s Help
When author Bruce Feiler (Council of Dads) thought he was dying of cancer, he enlisted six male friends to help raise his daughters in his absence. Feiler discovered that his anointed group offered wisdom, comfort and hope to his daughters even while he battled — and eventually came through — the cancer scare. The friends, it turned out, were just as valuable helping to raise Feiler’s daughters while he was still living. “Recruit a trusted friend, aunt, doctor, teacher, anyone that your daughter respects, to help keep her boundaries clear,” advises Dr. Kipper. “Remember, she needs to separate from you in order to be independent, but she has no tools. Your message will have a greater of chance of sticking if you have someone else to help encourage your daughter in the right direction.”

4. Make Time for Mother/Daughter Fun
Whether it’s shopping, watching a sports game or a favorite TV show, listening to music, or cooking together, make sure to take the time to do these things regularly with your daughter. And let it be on her terms, meaning let her make decisions about the activity, and even lead it.

5. Focus on Yourself
Do things that make you happy and don’t include your daughter. It can be something fun (dinner with girlfriends or bowling with your husband), impulsive (an afternoon movie), or self-indulgent (a spa treatment). It might mean attending a regular yoga or exercise class, a book club, or some spiritual activities. “You will accomplish two things,” says Dr. Kipper. “You reduce your own stress, and you set a good example for your daughter.”

Two experts tell HollywoodLife.com Tish and Billy Ray’s reconciliation is wonderful for Miley’s health and well-being!

Tish and Billy Ray Cyrus aren’t the only two people benefiting from getting back together, despite filing for divorce last fall. HollywoodLife.com spoke with two experts — a behavioral expert and a psychotherapist — who said the Cyrus’ daughter, Miley, will have healthier relationships in the future because of her parents’ now-healthy marriage.

“I think if she is actively involved in these [relationship] issues, she’ll be able to understand some of the issues that drove her parents apart a little better and how to resolve these issues [in her own life],” Beverly Hills-based behavioral specialist Dr. David Kipper M.D. said. “Her future relationships will only benefit from this.”

He added, “I think this is more of an investment in her future. She’ll learn coping mechanisms from this. It will be very advantageous for her.”

Not only will Miley’s love life prosper even more now her parents are back together, but Los Angeles-based psychotherapist Dr. Jenn Berman also believes her behavior won’t be quite as wild.

“When there’s a lot of chaos at home and when teens and kids are feeling like their home environment isn’t stable, they tend to act out more,” she said, explaining, “Now that things are more stable in Miley’s life and in her home, hopefully [she'll not feel the need to act out].”

Dr. Kipper also pointed out Miley, 18, can take what happened in her personal home life and use it to help her fans.

“She should be open and talk about it,” he said. “If the world already knows about all of this, then this issue is an obvious issue. It’s the elephant in the room. If she can take this info and come forward with it in a constructive way — rather than try to ignore it — and take a poistive spin on it, I think she’ll be helping a lot of people.”

We’re so happy for the Cyrus family and hope Miley has the confidence to share what she went through, especially if it can help other kids going through the same thing.

read whole article>

Steven Whitney

Date: Tuesday March 29, 2011 – 7:00pm

Book Soup
8818 Sunset Blvd.
W. Hollywood CA 90069

A recovery for Charlie Sheen — whose ongoing unraveling in front of one major media outlet after another — may seem hopeless at the moment. But many equally down-and-out stars, including Sheen’s own father Martin, have made peace with addiction and gone on to live healthy, clean, fulfilling lives. “Celebrities are role models, and they can use this status with fellow celebs to demonstrate their own healthy journey into a legitimate, long-term treatment program,” says David Kipper, MD, a substance abuse specialist in Beverly Hills and author of The Addiction Solution. Maybe Charlie can learn a lesson from the inspiring recoveries of such celebs as Elton John, Kelly Osbourne, Robin Williams, and more. read more >

exerpt: “Many students believe that people with ADHD have an unfair advantage over those who don’t have the disorder, because those students are allowed to take the “miracle study drug.” In reality, however, the drug has different effects on those who are prescribed and those who are not. “The drug is used for people to give them more focus, more energy, and the drug actually calms down people who have ADD,” says Dr. David Kipper, author of The Addiction Solution: The New Paradigm in the Medical Treatment of Addiction. “For someone who doesn’t have ADD, the drug acts as a stimulant much like cocaine. Their libido goes up and the appetite goes down.”

Most students who abuse Adderall don’t know this, however, and continue to take it as a study drug to help them perform better. The “academic edge” might be the initial motivator for taking the drug, but once students like Ashley realize they are losing weight because of Adderall’s hunger suppressant capabilities, they become dependent on it for a whole new reason. read whole article>

Reviewed by Dr. Maurice J. Smith ; Former President of California Forensic Associates.

Dr. David Kipper and Steven Whitney have achieved the almost impossible goal of authoring a book on a very complex medical topic yet providing us with an extremely “readable” publication. For this reason the wake-up call contained within the book will reach not just medical professionals, but the audience that really needs to hear the message that addiction is not simply a behavioral problem – it is a combination of both predetermined genetic influences and the social evolution of the addict! Recognizing that there are two converging origins to addiction reveals the need for a duality in both diagnosis and treatment.

“Dual Diagnosis” is the central theme of The Addiction Solution.  It IS the solution as it motivates the health care professional to identify both the behavioral and genetic origins of the addiction.  As earlier mentioned, the text is eminently readable therefore the addict and all others in their sphere, such as family and caregivers, can recognize that addicts are not simply “behaving badly,”  they were dealt a bad genetic  hand from birth and need assistance from a variety of treatments to restore a controlled normalcy in their lives.  Fundamentally individual brain chemistry must be brought into balance AND  behavior must be modified.   Without intervention in both, addicts are delivered into an endless cycle of relapse, associated guilt, and the dangerous lack of self-esteem originating from perceived failure.

As readers delve into each chapter, they are introduced to the fundamentals of brain chemistry and how it works.  The neurotransmitters and their associated receptors are in very complex balance, constantly exchanging the base chemicals of serotonin, noradrenaline and dopamine.  Because the authors avoided turning the book into an academic dissertation and concentrated on comprehension, these complex issues and how and why they move from transmitter to receptor is presented in an easy to recognize pattern.

Nothing improves comprehension better than examples and The Addiction Solution presents a series of Case Histories wherein the reader can actually see how these chemicals impacted their subjects.  Further it reveals how Dr. Kipper’s approach of “dual diagnosis,” when applied to these cases, provides a real and sustainable solution.

The Addiction Solution is a “roadmap to recovery” for addicts and the practitioners who intervene.  It is also a comfortable read for the family and caregivers who may finally understand why the addicts they love may not have been correcting their lifestyles and having multiple relapses through failed “behavior modification” programs.

I encourage all practitioners to read this book. I also encourage all addicts who may be in programs now or who are already sober, to also read this book and understand they must be vigilant to the “duality” of their addiction and pursue a lifestyle and treatment that meets the objectives outlined in The Addiction Solution.