(Credit: Fred Murphy) A friend shared this interview with Susan Stellin and Graham MacIndoe with me yesterday. Susan and Graham do a lot of public education about addiction and drug problems, including their traveling exhibition Reframing Recovery. It's rare to hear a lengthy discussion that communicates such sincere respect for both recovery and harm reduction. … Continue reading The Politicization of Harm Reduction

Each of us have qualities that seem relatively stable over our lifespan, while other aspects seem to come and go.  Some of our more stable qualities are personality factors.  Examples of personality factors include how outgoing we are, a tendency to see the glass as “half-empty”, and our propensity for risk-taking behaviors.  There are many … Continue reading Comments on the Practical Use of Personality

Recently, I did a podcast with Jeffrey Quamme of the Connecticut Certification Board on the piece below and why we need to stop saying recovery from addiction is Possible or Expected in America. The piece that was posted here on Recovery Review on October 12, 2023 and is clipped below.  It was a great discussion … Continue reading Recovery is __________ Scope of Practice Podcast with the Connecticut Certification Board

"The beauty and the tragedy of the modern world is that it eliminates many situations that require people to demonstrate a commitment to the collective good.” ― Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging Structures of healing and circles of recovery support have long been built on shifting sands, necessitating deep foundations. We have had … Continue reading Establishing a Recovery Community Bedrock of Mutual Interest to Build a Future On

This considers only the economic burden to others associated with the legal, regulated drug -- alcohol: Our cost estimates suggest that the burden to others from drinking is of the same general magnitude as the burden that drinkers impose on themselves and on response agencies serving them. This distinguishes alcohol from tobacco, where the burden … Continue reading Beyond the Drinker: Alcohol’s Hidden Costs

The majority of the population prefer the certainty of irrational conviction to the uncertainty of logical doubt. (Anonymous). Payte, J. T. (1997). Methadone Maintenance Treatment: The First Thirty Years. Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. 29(2): 149-153. DOI: 10.1080/02791072.1997.10400182

The following describes the divergent approaches of Dr. J. Edward Turner and Dr. Albert Day, both one-time leaders of the New York State Inebriate Asylum that operated from 1864 to 1879. The fundamental point at issue between Turner and Day was whether the inebriate was at his core Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. Although both … Continue reading Jekyll or Hyde? What’s the nature of the person with addiction?

In a recent post, I highlighted a schism in advocacy efforts related to addiction. On one end we see advocacy focused on non-interference in drug use, and various levels of facilitation of less risky drug use. These efforts largely emphasize negative liberty, or "freedom from" interference in living one's life as one chooses. On the … Continue reading In search of synthesis for positive and negative liberty and addiction

An article published online 11/20/2023 caught my attention.  The paper is titled “Multi-ancestry genome-wide association study of cannabis use disorder yields insight into disease biology and public health implications”.  You can find the full text here. The article's a rather technical read, given it describes research methods within population-level genetics.  By contrast, a highly readable … Continue reading Research Article Review:  A paper examining the genome of 1,054,365 people from four ancestral groups vs. cannabis

What do you gain for our field as you consider this quote about Miles Davis as a bandleader? Here it is. See what you think....  The main ingredient there, if there was any special ingredient, was Miles, and the way he led the way…Basically there was an agreement amongst those musicians, not spoken but something … Continue reading Lessons from Outside the Field:  Chick Corea on Miles Davis as a Bandleader