Thinking About Addiction

This is in part a course correction from the trend of several decades ago, when the emphasis was on cutting expenses in the naive belief all addicts could be successfully treated on an outpatient basis.

I compare it to finding someone lying on the sidewalk, helping them up, brushing them off, and pushing them down again.

There’s not a lot of disagreement about the potential for cannabis intoxication to impair driving performance, though without an accepted standard and a reliable roadside test, it’s not of much value in a courtroom.

Clearly, these folks don’t experience shame in the way society expects. It’s why they arrive in treatment angry and defensive.

We can’t be too surprised at the extraordinary lengths that owners and CEOs will go to hang onto those profits.

Many so-called “heavy drinkers” do in fact meet criteria for an AUD, but quite a few do not.

It’s as if we can’t conceive of life without drowning ourselves in abusable substances.

Those of us who work in treatment quickly sense a problem: people with addictions aren’t likely to respond to this approach.

…despite the rapid growth in new cases, the number still doesn’t equal alcohol.

Unbeknownst to the patient, the CBD products they also use could affect how well those prescribed medicines work, or interact with them in unhelpful ways.