Addiction

There’s no blood test, no scan to aid diagnosis. Knowing intellectually that one in ten will succumb is very little help; it has no practical value in terms of predicting an individual outcome.

Assumption: Without that reinforcement, use will simply stop on its own.

Having read the research, I’m confident it’s not just a matter of decision-making, or willpower, or even depression.

Money is a tool that allows some to delay the inevitable. They construct a protective bubble that minimizes the risk of getting caught and the other consequences that follow addiction.

It may seem to the individual as if it happens by itself– the result of an autopilot, set to return home.

Isn’t that a bit like the drinker who insists he’s fine except that he just drinks a whole lot more than other people?

Modern healthcare, for all its spectacular innovation, still lacks a genuinely safe, effective remedy for certain types of pain.

That’s why drug treatment may reduce crime, but doesn’t always eliminate it.

There’s no shortage of stories among nurses and doctors about a friend or family member who went through treatment and relapsed, perhaps many times.

Apparently, many voluntary self-excluders later change their minds in favor of a return to old behavior.