A friend recently shared a research summary reporting that cannabis users are at higher risk of clots and limb amputation following a common surgery. Researchers at Michigan Medicine analyzed more than 11,000 cases from the Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan Cardiovascular Consortium, known as BMC2, to review patient cannabis use and postoperative outcomes for lower … Continue reading What’s the pathway to recovery for medical patients?

Addiction by Thomas Hawk This interview is brilliant. I've long been wary of extending the boundaries of addiction to food and compulsive behaviors. My concern is that diffusion of the conceptual boundaries of addiction would reinforce stigma. We often hear people describe being addicted to shopping, chocolate, exercise, their phones, social media, sex, gambling, etc. … Continue reading Food addictive?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com The video below and the accompanying story grabbed my attention recently. There's been a lot of talk about crime and disorder in many urban areas since the beginning of the pandemic. I haven't known what to make of it because much of the discussion is very politicized. However, it's … Continue reading Safety, order, recovery AND harm reduction

Reading about addiction and recovery can be overwhelming and confusing. Media reports and experts often make strongly worded statements that are contradicted by statements from other media sources and experts. Other times, they seem to negate or minimize the lived experience of people with drug or alcohol problems and their families. For example, it’s very … Continue reading A consumer’s guide to research on substance use disorders

Demonstrated solutions to alcohol and drug problems will do more to reduce the stigma attached to these conditions than will endless debates about the source of such problems. White, W. (2000). Toward a new recovery advocacy movement. (Photo credit: beware of pity by shawnzrossi)

...I do want to suggest that something got lost along the road to professionalization. What got lost was a relationship between two people that transcended the roles of counselor and client. What got lost was our deep involvement in the community and in local communities of recovery. What got lost was our recognition of the … Continue reading Sentences to ponder: the roles of professionals and community

Eve Tushnet, from a list of 5 things the disease model gets wrong about addiction: It isn’t mercy. If someone genuinely did not choose to do wrong then compassion for that person isn’t mercy—it’s justice. And conversely, if you can only have compassion on someone if you believe she did not choose her misdeeds, then … Continue reading Sentences to ponder: mercy or justice?

Photo by Brett Jordan on Pexels.com For most of my career, I've been responsible for managing treatment programs. I believed strongly in those programs. At one of those programs, we developed a continuum of care that provided treatment and substantial, structural recovery support for more than 2 years for people with high severity, high chronicity, … Continue reading Treatment as usual isn’t cutting it (same for research as usual)

Photo by Miguel u00c1. Padriu00f1u00e1n on Pexels.com I think the future rests in seeing harm reduction and recovery as strategies to be uniquely combined and sequenced across the stages/styles of drug use / drug addiction and the stages of recovery rather than as warring ideologies. William White from Bamber, S. & White, W. (2011). Bamber-White … Continue reading Sentences to Ponder

("Wrong Way" by Jack Zalium is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.) More and more frequently I'm hearing self-identified and publicly recognized recovery advocates state that providing harm reduction services with the goal of moving people toward recovery or treatment constitutes "doing it wrong." This perspective isn't limited to a few outliers, I heard it voiced at a SAMHSA … Continue reading Doing it wrong?