Credit: LarimdaME NAMI recently shared this profile of a woman living with schizoaffective disorder. They did a really nice job and it reminds me of addiction recovery advocacy and stigma reduction messaging circa 2000. It got me wondering which elements reminded me of that older brand of recovery advocacy. First, it frames Ashley as a … Continue reading Elements of recovery advocacy messaging

A friend shared this REALLY good post. It's a must-read for anyone working in the helping professions. I've written before about the importance of guarding against stealing pleasure through vicarious nonconformity and transgression. I've always struggled with conceptualizing and articulating this clearly, but Joe Wright, MD very clearly captures a very important dynamic for anyone … Continue reading Useless, yet full of urgency and importance

Yesterday, I shared a couple of highlights from this Brookings event. Here's another interesting portion. Portugal's Lessons for the US https://youtu.be/mb1ftlQiJEI?t=2348 Keith Humphreys on Portugal's lessons for the US. I'm based in California and many people who are in west coast cities often call me about their their concerns about drugs. Sometimes they're elected officials, … Continue reading More Highlights from The Biden Administrations Drug Policy Strategy and Lessons from Portugal

Portugal's drug policy gets a lot of attention as a model policy, but details get considerably less attention. I watched this Brookings seminar a few weeks ago. It was a great opportunity to hear about it straight from the source. I decided to pull together some highlights for all of you. The role of harm … Continue reading Highlights from The Biden Administrations Drug Policy Strategy and Lessons from Portugal

This was originally published in a 2019 National Association of Social Workers’ Alcohol, Tobacco and other Drug specialty section newsletter. The most striking thing about substance abuse treatment is the mismatch between the duration of treatment and the duration of the illness. —Robert DuPont, MD (2018) The opioid crisis has shined a spotlight on the U.S. addiction … Continue reading What should be the gold standard for addiction treatment?

I recently came across a couple of items responding to reactions to research findings that were considered objectionable. "We reserve the right to eject objectionable persons" by City of Vancouver Archives is licensed under CC BY 2.0 First, Noah Smith responds to calls to suppress findings that parental incarceration is correlated with the following benefits to their children, "reducing … Continue reading What should we do with objectionable findings?

I just came across this recent interview with Andre Johnson and I thought I share it with you, along with my interview with him about maintaining services through the pandemic. https://youtu.be/8_ScBktNreI Who are you? My name is Andre Johnson. I'm a person in long-term recovery. And what that means is, I have not used drugs … Continue reading Addiction Professionals in the Pandemic – Andre Johnson

There's a lot of academic and advocacy energy around harm reduction, legalization, and assertions that drugs and drug use carry relatively few innate harms--the real problems are puritanical and often racist attempts at social control. These discussions give the impression that people with addiction and society would be ok if we assured a legal, unadulterated … Continue reading “Really… You think you’re the only one who had a hard time?”