How to Talk so Someone With Addiction Will Listen (clinicians)

If Bob gets a job, his mom will ask him to move out of the basement, and he’ll have to get a roommate, which he doesn’t want, so better to remain unemployed.

Would have been easy enough to avoid, had I seen it coming. Unfortunately the brain I was using to make decisions was the addicted one. It was not a friend to recovery.

It’s as if the addict is so accustomed to just acting on impulse that he/she has lost touch with the source of the impulse — ordinarily a negative emotional state such as anxiety, anger, sadness, etc.

Seeking evidence, and applying practices based on evidence to your clinical interventions, can help making decisions that increase the chances of a desired outcome

If your inpatient provider determines eligibility using ASAM patient placement criteria, don’t forget to describe the patient’s need in those terms. Makes your case a little stronger by making their job a little easier.

You’re aware that music therapy is used in mental health settings. Playing music is great, but for most of us, it’s enough just to listen and be affected.

Some of what patients hear is gossip and folklore, something for which the addict community is famous. But there is a wide variation in quality among OTPs.

First, they don’t understand why they’re in treatment, or how it could possibly benefit them. Second, they’re ticked off about having been coerced.

It’s not so much that the client is unable to grasp the info as he or she is easily discouraged based on a fund of previous negative experiences in school.

The family is operating under the misconception that folks in their town don’t know, when they already do.