Gabapentin can be addictive. Search for gabapentin or pregabalin abuse on Google Scholar and you’ll turn up more than 26,000 results in a fraction of a second. Pubmed is a little more specific, finding 420 papers on the subject. Vaults of Erowid has hundreds of gabapentin and pregabalin experiences detailed by users. It seems gabapentinoids … Continue reading Gabapentin: too risky in addictions?
Tag: Addictions
Tribes of the recovering community – Calix Society
This week's tribe is the Calix Society. Calix is an association of Catholic alcoholics who are maintaining their sobriety through affiliation with and participation in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Our first concern is to interest Catholics with an alcoholic problem in the virtue of total abstinence. Our second stated purpose is to promote the spiritual … Continue reading Tribes of the recovering community – Calix Society
NYT Reax
This blog has a point of view. We're not fans of maintenance. (Though we still think Suboxone can be a very useful detox tool.) If you want to read defenses of Suboxone, you can find a couple here: The Media Needs to Stop Stigmatizing Our Best Weapon Against Heroin Addiction - "tainted, to bourgeois eyes" New York … Continue reading NYT Reax
AA is asinine?
The Boston Globe has a piece on why Russians haven't embraced AA: ...the group-therapy dynamic collides with a skepticism about the possibility of ordinary people curing each other of anything. “The idea that another drunk can help you is asinine to most Russians,” said Alexandre Laudet, a social psychologist who has researched Russian alcoholism. Then … Continue reading AA is asinine?
Methadone, technology and outcomes
Substance Matters has a post about the use of new technologies in methadone maintenance. Patients who use a web-based intervention (TES) instead of half of their traditional counseling did better than those with traditional counseling as part of their methadone treatment. It provokes important questions about the usefulness of new technologies and how they might … Continue reading Methadone, technology and outcomes
Sentences to ponder
"I had a doctor who I greatly respect who said, 'We thought the great problem with these drugs [opioids] is addiction. What we didn't realize [was] that the people who take them would opt out of life.' And you see it across the spectrum: One of the more startling things is in the area of … Continue reading Sentences to ponder
24 month outcomes
Another study supports the effects of twelve step participation over 24 months. (I know the abstract says "self help", but the pay-walled article makes it clear that they were looking at twelve step participation.) Abstract The goal was to identify factors that predicted sustained cocaine abstinence and transitions from cocaine use to abstinence over … Continue reading 24 month outcomes
Sentences to ponder
From the ASAM blog: ...is there any evidence that the general public requires less treatment than do healthcare professionals and pilots? I would further ask, given the excellent outcomes generally obtained by PHPs and pilot recovery programs, why there have been no studies in which members of the lay public go through identical programs to … Continue reading Sentences to ponder
The ancients on will and addiction
It took me a few reads, but Alan Brody suggests that addiction is a combination of impaired will and impaired evaluative faculties that lead to poor choices in how to exert our will. Then again, I'm not sure I know where he stands. He guides through some philosophical musings about addiction and will. He presents … Continue reading The ancients on will and addiction
Human rights and coerced treatment
A recent article looks at the ethics and effectiveness of coerced treatment: It has been argued that quasi-compulsory treatment (QCT) may be considered ethical (under some specific conditions) for drug dependent offenders who have committed criminal offences for whom the usual penal sanction would be more restrictive of liberty than the forms of treatment … Continue reading Human rights and coerced treatment