Is treatment offering what patients and their families want?

January 2, 2021February 28, 2022 ~ Dr David McCartney ~ 2 Comments

What do patients want when they come to treatment? My own experience suggests simple things: relief of emotional pain; a healed life; to be a better mum, dad, partner, human being; to let go of shame; to have a job and to be free from the Groundhog Day experience of addiction. Modest goals. Some people … Continue reading Is treatment offering what patients and their families want?

Early mutual aid involvement improves outcomes

May 3, 2014February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 2 Comments

DJ Mac provides an outstanding summary of a recently published study on the pre-treatment and early treatment behavior of outpatient addiction treatment patients and their outcomes. He starts with this finding: The folk who tested negative for drugs early on didn’t seem to have worse drug problems, but they did have better mental and physical … Continue reading Early mutual aid involvement improves outcomes

“looking past these behaviors”

January 25, 2014February 28, 2022 ~ Jason Schwartz ~ 1 Comment

This article got me thinking about the bigotry of low expectations and the importance of continuing to assert that every addict should be offered treatment services that provide a path to full recovery, not just symptom or harm reduction. If it's not suicide or drug overdoses doing the killing in psychiatric patients after all, how … Continue reading “looking past these behaviors”