Alcohol addiction is one of the most prevalent and debilitating psychiatric disorders among the general population. Yet, little has been published on what it is like for men to actually experience this disorder. The purpose of this study was to identify commonalities in the experience of alcohol addiction among seven male members of Alcoholics Anonymous. Using a phenomenological approach, the participants completed an audio taped, unstructured, nondirective interview in which they were asked to describe their experience of alcohol addiction. The interviews were then transcribed and read by a phenomenological research team. Four themes were discovered: Emotions, Control, Awareness of Others, and The Turning Point, as well as a temporal ground. The authors conclude that mental health professionals should encourage alcohol addicted persons to talk about their experiences and to help them identify feelings and develop new coping skills.

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A new phospholipid-specific spray reagent is described. A new phospholipid-specific spray reagent, which is a modification of the Dittmer-Lester reagent, is described in authors' studies. The difference between these two reagents is in the addition of tin (II) chloride to the proposed spray reagent. The use of the described spray reagent together with an image analysis technique allows not only for qualitative, but also for quantitative, determination of major phospholipid classes. Separation of phosphatidylserine (PS), phosphatidylethanolamine (PE) and phosphatidylcholine (PC) was conducted on an HPTLC plate with a mixture of chloroform, methanol and 25% ammonia solution in a volume ratio of 65:25:4 as mobile phase. The calibration curves were linear in the ranges of 5.0-25.0, 1.5-15.0 and 1.0-20.0 µg/spot for PC, PS and PE, respectively. The use of the new spray reagent resulted also in lower limits of detection than the standard molybdenum method for the investigated phospholipids. The proposed method was used to determine the amount of PS in the dietary supplement 'Session', and of PS, PE and PC in biological samples, with good results.

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