Greater Good has a nice piece on the benefits of helping others in addiction recovery: In recent years, a growing body of research has found that helping others brings measurable physical and psychological benefits to the helper. Building on this work, Pagano is exploring the particular and sometimes surprising benefits of altruism for people battling alcoholism and … Continue reading Everyone, from Yale to jail
Category: Research
Rest in peace
Addicts and alcoholics often experience sleep disturbance and often seek help from doctors. Sleeping meds have always been risky for addicts, here's another reason to think twice. In the study, which compared 10,529 people who received prescriptions for sleep aids with nearly twice as many people with similar health histories who did not take sleeping … Continue reading Rest in peace
Sober housing helps! Who knew?
Detox + discharge = š¦ Detox + sober housing = š Detox + sober housing + treatment = š To find out if opioid-dependent individuals achieve higher abstinence rates given access to recovery housing and day treatment, researchers from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine followed 243 patients -- primarily heroin users -- after their … Continue reading Sober housing helps! Who knew?
Establishing residence in hell
Saving lives is good an important, but something about this feels like building an addition on a house in hell. Naloxone is a medication administered usually by injection which rapidly reverses the effects of opiate-type drugs such as heroin, including the respiratory depression which can cause what are normally referred to as 'overdose' deaths. ...Ā The … Continue reading Establishing residence in hell
Treating depression and substance use: no significant difference from control
Another study finds treatment as usual to be just as effective as specialized CBT: Few integrated substance use and depression treatments have been developed for delivery in outpatient substance abuse treatment settings. To meet the call for more ātransportableā interventions, we conducted a pilot study to test a group cognitiveābehavioral therapy (CBT) for depression and … Continue reading Treating depression and substance use: no significant difference from control
A New Paradigm for Substance Use Disorder Treatment
From Robert DuPont, MD: Substance abuse treatment is committed to abstinence from nonmedical drug use. Yet, continued nonmedical drug and alcohol use and relapse are so common that they are often defined as part of the disease itself. A ānew paradigmā for care management has been pioneered over the past four decades by the state … Continue reading A New Paradigm for Substance Use Disorder Treatment
Primary care is good for recovery
Primary care visits are associated with better recovery outcomes: A yearly primary care visit was also positively associated with remission (OR, 1.39), as was continuing care (OR, 2.34), defined as: having at least 1 yearly primary care visit, completing substance abuse treatment or receiving further treatment, receiving alcohol or drug treatment when the alcohol or … Continue reading Primary care is good for recovery
Ritalin Gone Wrong
Not surprisingly, we get a lot of clients who have been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. Many are concerned about suggestions to discontinue prescription stimulants. This NYT opinionĀ pieceĀ has gotten a lot of buzz over the last couple of days: In 30 years there has been a twentyfold increase in the consumption of drugs for attention-deficit … Continue reading Ritalin Gone Wrong
PROMETA ineffective…duh
PROMETA as been demonstrated to be the sham we all knew it was. Keith Humphreys offers a brief history of the "treatment" and some lessons: ...when the next wonder drug for addiction comes along (and it will), we must not yield to our powerful collective desire to believe before we have hard evidence of effectiveness … Continue reading PROMETA ineffective…duh
Missing the point
The American Journal of Public Heath (behind a paywall) has a new study looking at 2 year trajectories of residents in a "wet shelter". Ā The found that the residents reduced their drinking by 40%. Reducing drinking in these cases is a very good thing. To me, there are several important questions but the first might … Continue reading Missing the point
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