This is what it's all about. "I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I want to live again. I have dreams. I want a family. I want to experience life. And right now, I’m heading in the right direction." via A suburban heroin addict describes his brush with death and his hopes for a better life … Continue reading Sentences to ponder
Category: Controversies
Addiction and Free Choice
Nora Volkow, in the first two sentences of this post, provides more clarity than I think I've every seen on the matter of choice and the brain disease of addiction: Choices do not happen without a brain—it is the mechanism of choice. The quality of a person’s choices depends on the health of that mechanism. … Continue reading Addiction and Free Choice
Addicts and Disease
Dirk Hanson has a great post on resistance to the disease model. I'm a believer in harm reduction as part of the continuum of addiction interventions, but there is often a chasm between the way harm reductionists and treatment providers frame the problem. This can make it difficult to work together. Dirk does a great … Continue reading Addicts and Disease
The choice argument and pleasure cont’d
The NY Times recently had a Room for Debate feature on addiction. They published opinions from 6 different people on addiction with one being a clear advocate for the disease model. This is a little like publishing a debate feature on climate change and having 1 of 6 experts believe that global climate change is … Continue reading The choice argument and pleasure cont’d
A new smoking culture?
But now a new threat is emerging. The use of e-cigarettes is rising rapidly, with teenagers a key target of marketing efforts. “Vaping” is making smoking acceptable—even cool—once again as the tobacco industry returns to its old ways, putting e-cigarette commercials back on the airwaves for the first time since the 1970s. Right now, e-cigarettes … Continue reading A new smoking culture?
‘Recovering Alcoholic’: Words That Stigmatize or Empower?
• The more the individual identified him/herself as a recovering alcoholic (addict) the higher was his/her level of self-efficacy.• Higher self-efficacy was associated with more months clean and/or sober.• The more the individual leaned toward the recovering identity the less likely she/he was to report having relapsed into drinking or drug use during the pervious … Continue reading ‘Recovering Alcoholic’: Words That Stigmatize or Empower?
Sentences to ponder
The more than 16,000 overdose deaths from prescription opioids each year disproves the idea that it's easy to regulate addictive drugs if they are produced and provided legally. We can reduce the violence in markets, but we’ve paid a real cost in public health harms and in safety failures from reckless corporate behavior. via 100 … Continue reading Sentences to ponder
Recovery vs. Treatment
Hopeworks Community's blog speaks from the perspective of a mental health care patient advocate. He draws some important distinctions between recovery and treatment: Is treatment a necessary or a sufficient condition for recovery?? The answer is clearly on both counts no. Mental health professionals have stolen the notion of recovery and defined it as the result of … Continue reading Recovery vs. Treatment
What we project onto Philip Seymour Hoffman
Jen Matesa pushes back against some of the commentary framing Philip Seymour Hoffman's attempt to re-establish his recovery through a 12 step program as a product of stigma. (This, in spite of the fact that he had previously maintained recovery using this path for 23 years.) I find it astonishingly patronizing that some are suggesting … Continue reading What we project onto Philip Seymour Hoffman
Vancouver home to Canada’s first crackpipe vending machines
Vancouver is the home to Canada's first-ever crackpipe vending machines, which were installed in the city’s troubled Downtown Eastside in a bid to curb the spread of disease among drug users. Portland Hotel Society's Drug Users Resource Centre operates two of the machines. They dispense Pyrex crackpipes for just 25 cents. "For us, this was … Continue reading Vancouver home to Canada’s first crackpipe vending machines