Drug Overdose Deaths Are Increasing Pretty Much Everywhere

December 7, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz

These images speak for themselves. Here are a couple of important sentences: Between 1999 and 2009, drug poisoning deaths grew by 394 percent in rural areas and 279 percent for large metropolitan areas, according to the CDC’s county-level look at the data. According to the CDC, roughly 60 percent of all OD deaths in 2010 … Continue reading Drug Overdose Deaths Are Increasing Pretty Much Everywhere

…let us work together

December 2, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 4 Comments

"If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time… But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together." - Lila Watson Obviously, I've been thinking a lot about the buprenorphine maintenance, the NY Times series and the reactions since it was published. … Continue reading …let us work together

Who’s guarding the hen house?

November 18, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 4 Comments

From the NY Times: Addiction experts protested loudly when the Food and Drug Administration approved a powerful new opioid painkiller last month, saying that it would set off a wave of abuse much as OxyContin did when it first appeared. An F.D.A. panel had earlier voted, 11 to 2, against approval of the drug, Zohydro, … Continue reading Who’s guarding the hen house?

Tribes of the recovering community

November 10, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 1 Comment

There are a lot of prevention coalitions out there, but I have not seen any that have done as good a job of integrating recovering people as Families Against Narcotics. They have a speaker's bureau that includes 50 young people in recovery and organize activities that include a softball game between the local police and … Continue reading Tribes of the recovering community

In Race for Boston Mayor, Former Addicts Back Candidate With a Past

November 4, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz

A colleague who specializes in working with at-risk youth was fond of saying that we could look at those kids as predators, victims or resources. Too often we fail to see them as resources. The same could be said of addicts and alcoholics. The NY Times shines a light on a recovering mayoral candidate who … Continue reading In Race for Boston Mayor, Former Addicts Back Candidate With a Past

Tribes of the Recovering Community

November 3, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 1 Comment

Bill White recently had a great post on recovery advocacy around the world. A flourishing recovery advocacy movement continues to spread across the United States that is spawning new recovery support structures and transforming addiction treatment in its wake. Even more unimaginable would have been a prediction that a recovery advocacy movement in the U.S. would … Continue reading Tribes of the Recovering Community

Recovery should not become an ideology

November 1, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 7 Comments

Andrew Sullivan points to a recent talk by the pope discussing how faith is lost when it becomes an ideology. The faith passes, so to speak, through a distiller and becomes ideology. And ideology does not beckon [people]. In ideologies there is not Jesus: in his tenderness, his love, his meekness. And ideologies are rigid, … Continue reading Recovery should not become an ideology

A chronic illness?

October 28, 2013February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 7 Comments

Bill White responds to a recent article that has gotten a lot of attention by Gene Heyman, a disease model critic. Heyman (and a couple of other recent articles) question whether it's accurate to call addiction a chronic illness. If there is anything that the full scope of modern research on the resolution of AOD problems is … Continue reading A chronic illness?