I'm reposting this to supplement Monday's post on retiring the concept of "deaths of despair." Zeynep Tufecki's analysis of the damage to public trust from misleading public health messaging during the pandemic reminded me of this post. She describes problems of omission, misrepresentation of confidence levels in information, a desire to be a counterforce to … Continue reading Follow the science . . .
Tag: Recovery
Recovery Languaging: Moving from Normalizing Healing to Normalizing Use & Pathology
For well over a decade, significant focus of effort within the recovery community and across our service space has focused on changing how we talk about substance use conditions and those who experience them. As noted in the 2014 paper Language, Substance Use Disorders, and Policy: The Need to Reach Consensus on an “Addiction-ary” our … Continue reading Recovery Languaging: Moving from Normalizing Healing to Normalizing Use & Pathology
Revisiting the Work of William White: A Commitment to Ethical Action 1994
“The alcoholism and drug abuse counseling profession is at a turning point, facing threats that fundamentally could alter the character of this field. While some see health care reform and financial concerns as topping the list of challenges; many others depict a spiritual crisis - a crisis in values. This crisis has emerged out of … Continue reading Revisiting the Work of William White: A Commitment to Ethical Action 1994
Revisiting the Work of William White: The Historical Essence of Addiction Counseling (2004)
“What the addiction counselor knows that other service professionals do not is the very soul of the addicted—their terrifying fear of insanity, the shame of their wretchedness, their guilt over drug-induced sins of omission and commission, their desperate struggle to sustain their personhood, their need to avoid the psychological and social taint of addiction, and … Continue reading Revisiting the Work of William White: The Historical Essence of Addiction Counseling (2004)
What does SAMHSA do?
What does SAMHSA do, and should I care if their staff are fired in significant numbers? It's my impression that most probationary SAMHSA employees have been fired. Terminations started there because terminating probationary employees is easy procedurally. Permanent employees require a process to justify Reductions in Force (RIF) to move ahead with termination. Some people … Continue reading What does SAMHSA do?
Recovery Capitalists and the Industries of Dependency
We are at the 25th anniversary of the new recovery advocacy movement in America. A movement to elevate and expand recovery opportunities nationally. It began as a grassroot community vision that rose up across the county. It envisioned a more cohesive treatment and community-based recovery model. A system to expand beyond the acute and fragmented … Continue reading Recovery Capitalists and the Industries of Dependency
Eliminating Inequities for Black Mothers With Substance Use Disorder
Between 2010 and 2017, the U.S. saw a 131% increase in maternal opioid use disorder at delivery. There also was an 83% rise in cases of neonatal abstinence syndrome due to prenatal opioid exposure. Additionally, between 2016 and 2020, there was a 3.6% increase in prenatal substance exposure, including alcohol, with significant variation across states. The rising rates of … Continue reading Eliminating Inequities for Black Mothers With Substance Use Disorder
Low Expectations Yield Low Rates of Recovery from Addiction
The primary limitation in life is our low expectations for ourselves and others. When we expect minimum results, that's usually what we get.” - John C. Maxwell How are we measuring our war against addiction in the United States? We have one single metric in the arena of public discourse on our progress. The increase … Continue reading Low Expectations Yield Low Rates of Recovery from Addiction
Drugs and alcohol in the NY Times
The NY Times had a couple of pieces on alcohol and drug problems this week. (credit: Jonas Bengtsson) First, an audio story about a Maine doctor operating a MOUD clinic in a county jail. Her commitment and advocacy are admirable. There are a couple of striking things to the story. First, she makes a case for … Continue reading Drugs and alcohol in the NY Times
Recovery Redefined: Shifts Across Domains and Contexts
I've posted several times about the changing boundaries of recovery. A recovery science pioneer's thoughts on the boundaries of recovery. On typologies for recovery. On questions about the boundaries of recovery-oriented models of care. On the changing definitions. On research regarding some college students being assigned a recovery label and questioning whether it's appropriate for … Continue reading Recovery Redefined: Shifts Across Domains and Contexts
Recovery Review 