In recent years there's been a lot of attention and energy devoted to reclassifying addiction from a disease to something else--a "disease" of despair, a lack of social connection, a product of injustice and hardship, a product of deprived environments, a learning disorder, etc. Now, there's a recent study getting attention that suggests teaching clients … Continue reading Is calling addiction a disease harmful?

This article was shared by a friend today. Several previous posts have spoken to recent attention to language in recovery advocacy. (See here and here.) I think may have pointed to LGBT+ communities' use of words like "queer" when questioning whether we should change our own language to reduce the stigma that others harbor toward … Continue reading Person-first or identity-first?

So . . . Monday I posted about a study of a low barrier buprenorphine program. Toward the end of that post, I raised the tension between treatment-as-harm-reduction and treatment-as-recovery-facilitation and shared a quote from an emergency physician questioning the evidence-base for buprenorphine dispensed in emergency departments, as well as its effectiveness at facilitating "sobriety." … Continue reading Addiction treatment, palliative care, or both?

There was a lot of enthusiasm about this study on twitter recently. It appears to be based on this program highlighted in the NY Times last year. . . . city health workers are taking to the streets to find homeless people with opioid use disorder and offering them buprenorphine prescriptions on the spot. The … Continue reading Low barrier buprenorphine treatment for persons experiencing homelessness and injecting heroin

From Slate Star Codex, on the 2018 APA conference: The first thing you notice at the American Psychiatric Association meeting is its size. By conservative estimates, a quarter of the psychiatrists in the United States are packed into a single giant San Francisco convention center, more than 15,000 people. . . . The second thing … Continue reading The APA Meeting: A Photo-Essay

So . . . a week and a half ago, Indivior, the manufacturer of Suboxone, was charged with conspiracy, health care fraud, mail fraud and wire fraud. Prosecutors said: Indivior misled doctors and government health programs into believing that the drug, Suboxone Film, was safer and less likely to be abused than rivals, the Justice … Continue reading Follow up – Responses to charges against Invidior

Bill White has a great post on anonymity and advocacy. He examines the changing cultural context for anonymity and the different functions of anonymity. On anonymity as a spiritual principle: When AA literature speaks of anonymity as a “spiritual principle,” it does so out of a profound understanding of the importance of self-transcendence as the […]