Four alcoholic patients fitted with brain microchips as part of NZ research into addiction have seen their cravings for alcohol dramatically reduce.

A Dunedin-based neurosurgeon is investigating whether tiny devices implanted in the brain can stop alcoholics' cravings.

More people seek help for problem drinking in the three months following Dry July, the Salvation Army says. Dry July is a campaign

A man whose alcohol addiction had "overwhelmed him" since the death of his wife, fell asleep drunk in the back of the Greymouth District Court

COMMENT: Smoking is the filthy-rich, tax dodging, environment-trashing capitalist pig of vices, writes Paul Thomas.

Psychological research on persuasion and self-control suggests some strategies to help you resist insidious pull of online distractions.

A simple jab could stop cravings for alcohol, cigarettes and junk food, say scientists.

The country's worst drink driver has undergone a lengthy prison rehabilitation programme aimed at stopping him offending again upon his release next month.

A new consumer behaviour survey backs other research that there is a growth of "digital dependency" in New Zealand, according to a leading academic.

Internal Affairs has abandoned an investigation into alleged irregular payments for a thoroughbred racehorse made by Sir Owen Glenn's charity.

From eating ice to picking scabs, people can become addicted to all sorts. Here are six of the strangest addictions we've come across.

'Getting stuck on a benefit is like crack cocaine,' deputy Prime Minister Bill English told a Tauranga crowd yesterday - and beneficiary advocates aren't impressed.

Robin Williams' death today followed a troubled past with cocaine and alcohol, and in July this year he checked into rehab again.

The offending of a former Department of Internal Affairs worker left one of his victims worried that his family's citizenship bid was in danger.

A man caught drink driving twice within two hours - both times at more than triple the legal limit - was described as a "danger to the community" during sentencing today.

A young mother helped stop her former partner - 'psychotic' on synthetic cannabis - from driving her and her child into Otago Harbour.

We're more connected to our cellphones than we thought, scientists say.

An office worker who stole $1.1 million from a Canterbury family firm to fund a spiralling gambling addiction has lost an appeal against her jail sentence.

Sloth, torpor, idleness. Forget the negative connotations, for it turns out they might actuallybe good for us. Kate Bussmann managed to put down her iPad and allowed her mind to wander for the purposes of research.

With the news that researchers believe they have discovered a compound that could revolutionise the treatments of addiction, Greg Dixon asks why only some people become addicts and why society seems to view some addictions as ‘worse’ than others.

It's been found on nearly every bank note in the UK, in toilets at Parliament - now tests confirm cocaine traces are in Britain's drinking water.

A mum jailed today for almost three years for raising two kids in a clandestine P lab was blasted by a judge as being an "abysmal failure" as a mother.

A 10 per cent tax hike on tobacco introduced today will help more Kiwis escape a "creeping death", anti-smoking advocates say.

In a rare case of life imitating art, a 53-year-old goatee-wearing man named Walter White has been caught dealing an "extraordinary" quantity of methamphetamine.

A traveling medical technician was sentenced Monday to 39 years in prison for stealing painkillers and infecting dozens of patients in multiple states with hepatitis C through tainted syringes.

An independent report ordered by Brittany Murphy's father has revealed the US actress may have been killed by poison.