I read an article this morning that led me to this article on overdose, housing, and homelessness. A common assumption is that there is a unidirectional causal pathway between drug use and homelessness; that is, people become homeless because of their drug use. This misconception places the blame on the individuals and away from the … Continue reading Overdose, housing, and homelessness

Over the last decade, as faith in the effectiveness of drug policy, addiction treatment, and drug enforcement diminished, interest and hope in harm reduction grew. Harm reduction was once a last resort response to drug problems and in recent years has become the first line response to drug problems. Harm reduction is now receiving the … Continue reading Every response is incomplete

This article has been on my mind since it came out earlier this year. I didn't write anything at the time, but my mind kept coming back to it, in part because it's representative of a lot of contemporary academic activity. The article focuses on the attitudes of peer recovery coaches toward cannabis use by … Continue reading How should peer recovery coaches think about client cannabis use?

Imagine this scenario. You get the frightening diagnoses of cancer, like addiction, it is often terminal if left on its dreadful course unimpeded. You are in the depths of despair, facing everything this terrible diagnosis means for your life and the lives of people who love and do not want to lose you. Consider: The … Continue reading Can We Please Stop Saying Recovery from Addiction is Possible or Expected in America?

A colleague spoke these 10 words during group supervision the other day. Ten words that encompass decades.  Ten words that could fill a book or a semester.  Ten words that describe addiction, trauma, loss of hope, resignation, preparation, change, belief, and somewhere new.  Ten words about two actions – the purchase of a suit and … Continue reading “His mom sold the suit she bought for his funeral.”

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) recently released the Recovery from Substance Use and Mental Health Problems Among Adults in the United States. It provides data from 2021 through the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH). The press release is here. It is exciting for several reasons. Central among them … Continue reading Reflections on the Newly Released Recovery Among Adults in the US Report from SAMHSA

We improperly characterize what is occurring in America as an opioid epidemic, what we are experiencing is much broader than that. It is well past the time to properly account for how else the millions of Americans like me die from substance use disorders (SUDs). We fail them by not adding all the causes up … Continue reading Caring Enough to Count – How We Die from Drug Misuse and Addiction in America

Guest Post by Enid Osborne, PhD CSAT – Public Health Advisor No doubt, you’ve certainly heard the idiomatic expression been there, done that more times than you can remember, and perhaps even used it yourself.  It’s an assertion that the individual has personal experience or knowledge of a particular place or topic and is not … Continue reading The Value of Lived Experience –