Addiction Professional shines a light on Scott Kellogg and his Gradualism model. I’ve mentioned him several times in this blog and he has been kind enough to link to me on his website. Two months ago Kellogg established a website (http://gradualismandaddiction.org) that he hopes will serve as a vehicle for discussion around a more nuanced … Continue reading Gradualism

I recently stumbled on this educational page about stigma from the National Harm Reduction Coalition. It’s well done and illuminates the assumptions and goals for their stigma reduction efforts. They frame responding to drug use as a choice between liberation and stigma, with harm reduction as the path to liberation. While it may work for … Continue reading 2022’s #10 post: Addiction, Stigma, and Liberation

I recently stumbled on this educational page about stigma from the National Harm Reduction Coalition. It’s well done and illuminates the assumptions and goals for their stigma reduction efforts. They frame responding to drug use as a choice between liberation and stigma, with harm reduction as the path to liberation. While it may work for … Continue reading Addiction, Stigma, and Liberation

The DrugWise Daily newsletter noted the passing of Sara McGrail. I never met Ms. McGrail and I didn’t follow her work, but her name rang a bell. I knew I’d interacted with her years ago but couldn’t remember the details. It turns out we interacted around some posts related to harm reduction in 2008. I … Continue reading Thank you, Sara McGrail

I’ve been watching a really interesting twitter discussion about the conceptual boundaries of recovery. One branch of the discussion got into recovery as a process and as an outcome. It reminded me of this post from 2019. Yesterday, we began to revisit the concept of recovery-oriented harm reduction. Why recovery-oriented harm reduction and not just … Continue reading Revisiting recovery-oriented harm reduction (part 2)

The is a post was initially published in 2018. Please note that abstinence can mean abstinence from illicit drugs, or abstinence from all drugs that produce euphoria or are commonly misused (including agonist medications, benzodiazepines, etc.). For the purposes of this post, this distinction is irrelevant because the arguments in the second article really apply … Continue reading Should addiction treatment prefer abstinence (however we define it)?

I was perusing past year’s articles in Alcoholism Treatment Quarterly and came across these two: Achieving a 15% Relapse Rate: A Review of Collegiate Recovery and Physician Health Programs A Perspective from the Field: The Disconnect between Abstinence-Based Programs and the Use of Motivational Interviewing in Treating Substance Use Disorders Achieving a 15% relapse rate … Continue reading Should addiction treatment prefer abstinence?

Over the last week, there have been two noteworthy stories on supervised injection sites. NYC planning supervised injection sites The first story was in the New York Times and reported on NYC considering supervised injection sites and looking to Toronto for their experience. The scouts from NYC are seeking to learn what they can to … Continue reading What would things look like if we believed they could recover?