I frequently point to health professional recovery programs when discussing the effectiveness of drug-free treatment when it's delivered in the appropriate dose, frequency and duration. They have stellar outcomes. (More details here.) The programs were abstinence-based, requiring physicians to abstain from any use of alcohol or other drugs of abuse as assessed by frequent random … Continue reading Too expensive? (2016)
Category: Dawn Farm
Too expensive? (2015)
I frequently point to health professional recovery programs when discussing the effectiveness of drug-free treatment when it's delivered in the appropriate dose, frequency and duration. They have stellar outcomes. (More details here.) The programs were abstinence-based, requiring physicians to abstain from any use of alcohol or other drugs of abuse as assessed by frequent random … Continue reading Too expensive? (2015)
…let us work together
The last couple of days' posts, a recent conversation and some recent news (I'll let you guess which story.) reminded me of this post. It's from a couple of years ago and has a couple of minor updates. "If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time… But if … Continue reading …let us work together
Chemical Dependency & The Family – from the Dawn Farm Education Series
This program will provide participants with a basic understanding of how addiction impacts each member of a family. The About the presenter will describe the roles and behaviors that family members often acquire when living with addiction, ways in which each family member is affected by addiction in the family, and options for family members … Continue reading Chemical Dependency & The Family – from the Dawn Farm Education Series
Intervention – Dawn Farm Education Series
This program will describe how the "Love First" process of Intervention can help chemically dependent people find recovery. Key elements of the "Love First" model for effective intervention with addicted individuals will be discussed. This program will bring PRACTICAL INFORMATION, HELP and HOPE to anyone who cares about a chemically dependent person, and to anyone … Continue reading Intervention – Dawn Farm Education Series
Recovery Checkups
Bill White on efforts to develop and implement recovery check-up protocols: There is one sentence in the Standards that deserves particular acknowledgement: "Recovery check-ups by addiction specialist physicians, just as those by primary care physicians or other providers, may promote sustained recovery and prevent relapse" (p. 13). . . . The "recovery check-up" language marks … Continue reading Recovery Checkups
Recovery vs. Disease Management
The Hopeworks Community blog has an outstanding post contrasting recovery and disease management. His focus is on mental illness, but the parallels are clear. One can't help but reflect on the fact that the addiction recovery movement rose in response to the failure of the mental health system to help addicts recover. There's a lot … Continue reading Recovery vs. Disease Management
Why FULL recovery should ALWAYS be our goal
Yesterday, we shared Bill White's views on the dangers of under-treating addiction. Today, we have Viktor Frankl on the importance of high expectations and addressing the need for meaning and purpose in the lives of people we're helping. If we overestimate man...we promote him to what he really can be. ... We have to be … Continue reading Why FULL recovery should ALWAYS be our goal
Personal Failure or System Failure?
Bill White explaining why inadequate treatment may be worse than no treatment: What we know from primary medicine is that ineffective treatments (via placebo effects) or an inadequate dose of a potentially effective treatment (e.g., as in antibiotic treatment of bacterial infections) may temporarily suppress symptoms. Such treatments create the illusion of resumed health, but … Continue reading Personal Failure or System Failure?
The Unintended Consequences Of Medical “Maximalism”
The Health Affairs blog questions the American Heart Association's maximalist approach with the use of statins. The issues sound familiar. The policy implications of these guidelines are staggering. Estimates show that if these recommendations are fully implemented, close to a third of all Americans will be placed on a statin. But these developments beg the … Continue reading The Unintended Consequences Of Medical “Maximalism”