The number of people who had used heroin in the previous year increased between 2007 and 2012, from 373,000 to 669,000. Meanwhile, federal data from 2011 finds that nearly 80 percent of people who had used heroin in the past year had also previously abused prescription painkillers classified as opioids. via With Rise … Continue reading With Rise Of Painkiller Abuse, A Closer Look At Heroin
Tag: Substance abuse
A drug to treat cocaine addiction?
A recent study on the use of topiramate for cocaine addiction has been getting a lot of attention. Most of the coverage draws only from the researchers press release. “Using an intent-to-treat analysis, the researchers found that topiramate was more efficacious than placebo at increasing the participants’ weekly proportion of cocaine nonuse days and in … Continue reading A drug to treat cocaine addiction?
Recovery and Harm Reduction
Bill White has a new paper on Recovery and Harm Reduction in Philadelphia. Here's a quote he offered in a blog post introducing the paper: Traditional harm reduction programs have pioneered low threshold services, but they have often also been characterized by low expectations. Our vision is to expand low threshold services that at the same … Continue reading Recovery and Harm Reduction
Sentences to ponder
If your loved one is suffering from addiction or mental health issues, it means you’re suffering right along with them. You don’t have to struggle alone. ... We can make it together. We Made It Together | Love First - Intervention for alcoholism and addiction
A chronic illness?
Bill White responds to a recent article that has gotten a lot of attention by Gene Heyman, a disease model critic. Heyman (and a couple of other recent articles) question whether it's accurate to call addiction a chronic illness. If there is anything that the full scope of modern research on the resolution of AOD problems is … Continue reading A chronic illness?
Addiction and quality of life
David Best recently wrote a piece on addiction and quality of life. On the role of community in recovery: At the heart of the recovery movement is a shift of emphasis away from “treatment” as a model reliant on professionally delivered interventions. Rather, the movement sees the recovery journey an intrinsically social process and … Continue reading Addiction and quality of life
Tribes of the recovering community
Yoga of 12-Step Recovery (Y12SR) thinks of itself as an adjunct to 12 step recovery. Founded in 2012, The Y12SR Foundation is a program of Off the Mat, Into the World® (OTM). Our mission is to empower the lives of individuals and families affected by substance and behavioral addictions with relapse prevention practices that enhance … Continue reading Tribes of the recovering community
Worth Every Penny?
Preventing HIV is a very good thing. The Atlantic has a post about the role of needle exchanges in preventing HIV. It makes a pretty compelling case that needle exchanges reduce HIV infection rates among injection drug users. I don't doubt this. And, provided it serves as an engagement point for recovery, I have no … Continue reading Worth Every Penny?
If it wasn’t rational, cont’d
All right, last one. This time, Sally Satel makes the case that recovery comes down to choice and "grit and conviction." It's not just American Enterprise Institute fellows who make these arguments. I've heard people in recovery say to other AA members in relapse, "You need to make a decision!" Of course, the relapser has … Continue reading If it wasn’t rational, cont’d
If it wasn’t rational, cont’d
Sam Wilkinson responds to the the coverage of Hart's research (That crack and meth addicts in a lab will decline drugs for money.) and agrees that addiction is rational. Hart has found the same thing. It isn’t the addicts are powerless; it’s that nothing on the other side of the scale weighs as much as … Continue reading If it wasn’t rational, cont’d
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