Thinking About Addiction

We’re in a drug epidemic with no South American cartels or Afghan drug lords to vilify.

What does a place like that have in common with a big-city program filled with homeless addicts who have multiple social problems and co-occurring disorders and perhaps haven’t held a job in decades?

One thing’s for sure: it’ll be popular, because your typical alcoholic would rather not quit if he could think of an alternative.

Addiction has been described as a chronic problem that we’ve attempted to treat as an acute illness –a big reason for the revolving door of relapse.

Either way, it’s the drugs and alcohol that wind up killing the addict — not abstinence.

I had to think back to the retreat leaders I had experienced, and remember just how much they listened to me and offered prayers, not advice.

Psychiatrists were encouraged to hold off on a diagnosis of depressive disorder until several months after such a loss.

By extension, (women’s) recovery success will positively affect communities’ (and the nation’s) health and economy.

In spite of the advances, science still struggles to understand the disease process that underlies most disorders.

In a sense we’re just describing disorders that we only partly understand.