Withdrawal and wet brain are medical issues related to alcoholism but do not prove addiction or alcoholism itself is a brain disease. This can be confusing.
Category: Uncategorized
The Facts: buprenorphine treatment for Opioid Use Disorder is widespread.
The number of Americans who fit the diagnosis for a heroin/opioid addiction (Opioid Use Disorder or OUD) is currently 2 million (most recent data available is from 2018). It has hovered around this number for a long time, with a low of 1.7 million in 2002, and a high of almost 2.4 million in 2015.… Continue reading The Facts: buprenorphine treatment for Opioid Use Disorder is widespread.
How the New York Times (and everyone else) keeps getting one major fact about opioid addiction and treatment wrong.
I just saw yet another bogus statistic about the opioid crisis, and specifically the underutilization of treatment, and I about lost my mind. It was in a New York Times (NYT) editorial, by their Editorial Board, titled: Want to Reduce Opioid Deaths? Get People the Medications They Need. The tagline says “Drugs like buprenorphine could… Continue reading How the New York Times (and everyone else) keeps getting one major fact about opioid addiction and treatment wrong.
You don’t need to live in constant fear of drugs or discomfort to get over a drug problem.
As I look at treatment and recovery methods I see two major themes/goals in most of what we’re led to do in the recovery world: stay afraid of substances, and make sure we never experience any discomfort in life (or at least stay vigilant against discomfort and quickly put an end to it). I don’t… Continue reading You don’t need to live in constant fear of drugs or discomfort to get over a drug problem.
Review of Thomas S Szasz: The Man and His Ideas
A few years back I read Thomas Szasz’s Ceremonial Chemistry and The Myth of Mental Illness, and found them both to be brilliant and enlightening books. Yet he’s dealing in nuanced issues, and sometimes it’s easy to miss the point. When there’s an army of people threatened by his discussions of these nuances, they want you… Continue reading Review of Thomas S Szasz: The Man and His Ideas
Mail: Discourse with a budding addiction counselor.
I’ve been getting quite a bit of communication from people studying to be in the addiction treatment field lately. Most are aggressive and insulting off the bat – and some even pretend to want to have a productive discourse while doing this! Here’s an example of a recent exchange (I have changed identifiers and bolded… Continue reading Mail: Discourse with a budding addiction counselor.
Steven Slate’s TEDx Talk Tahoe City
Addiction treatment, and our entire approach to “addiction” doesn’t help, and it doesn’t “cure addicts”, it only creates more of the symptoms of “addiction” – hopelessness and a sense of powerlessness to change and make different choices. This what I chose to demonstrate when I got the chance to give a TED Talk on addiction.… Continue reading Steven Slate’s TEDx Talk Tahoe City
Why we can’t work together to end shame & stigma and promote ongoing recovery support
I get many communications from rehabs and recovery organizations trying to get me to post an infographic full of addiction myths, or to advertise a rehab on my site that I completely disagree with, to propagate some content I disagree with, or to vaguely work together in some way. One of the recent messages I… Continue reading Why we can’t work together to end shame & stigma and promote ongoing recovery support
Stanton Peele pens new paper on free will and addiction
The key issue in addiction is free will. There’s no way around this. The entire notion of addiction rests on the assertion that the “addict” lacks free will in some way (either solely in regard to substance use – losing free will over substances after freely choosing a single dose, or else when faced with some… Continue reading Stanton Peele pens new paper on free will and addiction
The Business of Recovery… and Abandoned Storylines
I had the opportunity to see a screening of The Business of Recovery in NYC last month. Here is my extremely brief review and recommendation, followed by a lengthier criticism. The Business Of Recovery was a high quality production. It covered several topics in ways that we don’t normally see in most mainstream reports about the treatment… Continue reading The Business of Recovery… and Abandoned Storylines