Switching from doctor to patient was not an easy transition for me. My first attempt at recovery was medically assisted, but only got me so far. What I needed was something more profound: hope, healing and connection to other recovering people. In this podcast for the National Wellbeing Hub, Dr Claire Fyvie interviews me about … Continue reading Top ten of 2021 #3 – The genesis of hope: a recovery story
Author: Dr David McCartney
Addiction Medicine Specialist
Top ten of 2021 #4 – Growing older and more stigmatised on methadone
In a compelling study from Dublin, Paula Mayock and Shane Butler (Trinity College) make the point that little is known about the stigma experienced by individuals attending drug treatment services over prolonged periods. They explored this through the lived-experience narratives of 25 people prescribed long-term methadone. Their findings ‘reveal the intersection of stigma with age … Continue reading Top ten of 2021 #4 – Growing older and more stigmatised on methadone
Top ten of 2021 #5 – Choice in addiction treatment
As a GP in inner-city Glasgow in the 1990s, I looked after patients with heroin addiction. I got to know many of them well, I knew their families, I immunised their children and, distressingly, I saw some of them die. Because of the nature of general practice, I saw the dreadful impact of those deaths … Continue reading Top ten of 2021 #5 – Choice in addiction treatment
Top ten of 2021 #6 – Opioid replacement treatment. Great! What’s next?
In opioid use disorder treatment, there’s been a persistent (though not always acknowledged) tension between what’s good for public health and what individuals and their families want from treatment. I’ve written about it before. For public health, there’s plenty of evidence that MAT (medication assisted treatment) reduces illicit drug use, improves health and reduces crude mortality … Continue reading Top ten of 2021 #6 – Opioid replacement treatment. Great! What’s next?
Top ten of 2021 #10 – You’re all going to hate the word ‘recovery’.
One of the problems with an aspirational and non-prescriptive definition of recovery is that it is hard to measure. The definitions most commonly featured in the literature share some elements including wellbeing or health, abstinence and citizenship. Clearly if you can’t define it precisely, then it’s hard to commission services to deliver on it. In … Continue reading Top ten of 2021 #10 – You’re all going to hate the word ‘recovery’.
Did a recovery strategy cause drug deaths?
There’s a narrative that’s been around for a while, but it’s been gaining ground in the last few months. This last couple of months alone, it’s been in the ether, permeating social media conversations and even appeared in an academic paper. The issue relates to recovery-oriented drug policies and the tone is negative. The thrust … Continue reading Did a recovery strategy cause drug deaths?
The tortuous routes to rehab
I’ve been reading a bit recently about the challenges of healthcare funding in the United States - an ‘international scandal’ according to Noam Chomsky. And although the problems are not the same, those issues have become linked with my thinking on the difficulties of accessing funding for residential rehabilitation in Scotland. The Lord Advocate’s recent statement allows … Continue reading The tortuous routes to rehab
Spirituality – steer away or steer towards?
We can no more do without spirituality than we can do without food, shelter or clothing – Bruce Lipton Despite the fact that there are plenty of us about, we don’t have as much information as we would like on people in long term recovery. In one study[1], Mark Galanter and colleagues took the opportunity … Continue reading Spirituality – steer away or steer towards?
Are we losing our humanity in addiction treatment?
The shortest distance between two people is a story - Patti Digh I must have signed tens of thousands of prescriptions over the years for a variety of medical conditions from athlete's foot to diabetes. Not one patient, as far as I can remember, has congratulated me on my expertise around knowledge of the evidence … Continue reading Are we losing our humanity in addiction treatment?
Alcohol deaths response – a whimper rather than a bang?
Given that there was a 17% year on year increase in fatalities and that the number of alcohol-specific deaths is a significant underestimate of deaths in which alcohol plays a part, I wondered in a tweet why there was a more muted reaction to the alcohol deaths than to the drug deaths. This touched a nerve it seems. A lot of responses were generated and I wanted to share some of the themes here.
Recovery Review 