I spent a little more time with Jim Contopulos' video memorial for his son and an interview he did will Bill White. There's a lot to all of this, but a couple of things stuck with me. In the interview, he discussed being a scared parent and seeking to buy recovery: Yes. At the age of … Continue reading Care that never quits
Tag: Substance abuse
Happy Labor Day!
The video's got nothing to do with recovery, but it's a great song and is apropos for Labor Day. While we're on the subject of labor, Bill White had a post a while back on the subject: In 2011, Dieter Henkel of the Institute for Addiction Research at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, … Continue reading Happy Labor Day!
Addressing reality with a health-oriented approach
We know how to crackdown -- but we seem ignorant when it comes to what to do with all those addicted people we've "cracked down" on. You may thwart them with your database at the pharmacy, but they're still addicted. Now what? Abuse-deterrent formulations of drugs and prescription drug take-back days are well and good, but … Continue reading Addressing reality with a health-oriented approach
Recovery Pluralsim
Bill White has a new post challenging the recovering community to be more pluralistic and let go of notions that there is one path to recovery: Embracing recovery pluralism is not an embrace of recovery relativism in which opinions and preferences completely dominate facts. To be tolerant of the varieties of recovery experience is not … Continue reading Recovery Pluralsim
Tribes of the recovering community
In Pathways: From the culture of addiction to the culture of recovery, Bill White shared the concept of tribes within the culture of recovery. One tribe of the recovering community is the Wharf Rats. They started as a group of recovering Dead-Heads and currently describe themselves as "a group of concert-goers who have chosen to … Continue reading Tribes of the recovering community
how do you want your loved one to return?
Anna David has an interview with Earl Hightower that really gets at the informed consent issues I've been talking about here. AD: Should the parents just accept the first recommendation or should they ask for more? EH: I think the first question they should ask should be one they ask themselves, which is how they … Continue reading how do you want your loved one to return?
Suboxone diversion?
A recent study looking at diversion of buprenorphine finds that: While 9% reported recent street-obtained buprenorphine use, only a small minority reported using buprenorphine to get high, with the majority reporting use to manage withdrawal symptoms. The use of street-obtained buprenorphine primarily to avoid withdrawal fits with Dawn Farm's experience, though the percentage would be … Continue reading Suboxone diversion?
Quality of life and death
A study out of Australia looks at death rates among opioid addicts receiving opioid substitution treatment (OST, for short. It's methadone.) in New South Wales between 1985-2005. It's a HUGE sample--43,789 people. If fact, the paper says: This cohort is likely to represent the majority of opioid dependent people in that State during this period, … Continue reading Quality of life and death
Sentences to Ponder
...conducting an RCT (randomized controlled trial) comparing two medical treatments (depot naltrexone and methadone.) misses the critical issue—that cure of addiction is not through medical interventions. People need social roles that provide identity other than being an addict and provide alternative rewards to drug use, in order to recover from addiction. Medical treatment cannot provide … Continue reading Sentences to Ponder
Recovery for life?
Our friend Bill White has been blogging. This is great news! To my mind, he's been the most important voice in addiction treatment, recovery and research of both. His writing is very accessible and he bridges experiential knowledge and empirical knowledge. He's also been amazingly prolific. The downside of this is that his body of work … Continue reading Recovery for life?
Recovery Review 