I watched an informational video about search patterns used by the Coast Guard and gained some thoughts I decided to share.  The video was just under 30 minutes long and you can find it right here if you’re interested.  As you read this article, see what you notice from outside our field that could serve … Continue reading Coast Guard Search and Rescue:  Lessons and Inspiration

In their 2020 Commentary published in The Journal of Addiction Medicine (a journal of the American Society of Addiction Medicine aka ASAM), Kelly and Bergman state that: “Individuals with regular and increasing very heavy alcohol consumption cannot be considered as maintaining ‘recovery’ due to toxicity and intoxication-related risks”.  Why did they publish a commentary about … Continue reading Top ten of 2021 #9 – Continuing “Very Heavy Drinking” and Also Meeting An Improved Definition of Recovery?

In the most recent 10 years especially, I’ve been noticing some activity in our field concerning advancement of public health measures (e.g. cigarettes) and harm reduction strategies (e.g. opioids).  Some of these efforts seem to include the notion that widespread harms would be reduced, and widespread health would be advanced, if use of drugs was: … Continue reading Study Betel Nut Before You Finalize Your Public Health or Harm Reduction Policy

In a recent conversation, a colleague in the field told me they are attempting to “Catalog the biases at work among many of the scientific and medical experts in the field.” And they said to me, “I'd like to hear what biases you observe.” This blog post serves as my attempt to respond to that … Continue reading What Biases Do You Observe Among Many of the Scientific and Medical Experts in the Field?

Note:  nothing in this post should be considered clinically instructive or supervisory.  Rather, I wanted to simply share an inspiration and my thoughts about it with others in our field. Back in the early 2000’s, the organization where I worked joined the Network for the Improvement of Addiction Treatment (NIATx).  For those that might not … Continue reading Gathering Ideas From Outside the Field:  Lessons from Jackson Pollock 

I have been thinking about “psychological dependence” and "physical dependence” a lot lately. It seems to me our field is losing these concepts. Psychological Dependence Back in the late 1980’s counselors and patients alike would bring up “psychological dependence” from time to time.  But over the last 20 years this concept seems to have slowly … Continue reading The Concepts of Psychological Dependence and Physical Dependence Are Being Lost

The topic of this article concerns defects in the alcoholic family system that are caused by the birth of a well baby. This article is not about defects found in a newborn. As we consider the topic of defects in the family system, for the purposes of this article, let’s consider the family system as … Continue reading Birth-Related Defects in the Alcoholic Family System

A few days ago David McCartney posted an interesting piece titled "Choice in addiction treatment." That post got me recollecting about clinical practices in our outpatient methadone maintenance program that I thought I would briefly share - in case this historical information is somehow helpful or interesting to someone. Our methadone maintenance program began operation … Continue reading Choice in addiction treatment: A little more. Recovery-Oriented Methadone Maintenance?

Prevention of substance use is probably more important than ever.  And the relevance of prevention across the lifespan (including among those who have already initiated use) has probably never been more important.  Why would I say that?  The purity and potency of substances have increased so much that preventing even a one-time use of certain … Continue reading We All Need to Learn “Prevention”

If you were asked to physically point to the location of a person’s addiction illness, where would you point? My answer might surprise you.  Where would you point if you were asked?  Have you ever thought of that question?  I’ll share my answer to that question a little later in this essay.  But first, try … Continue reading WHERE is Addiction?