Addiction

This isn’t a problem a physician can deal with comfortably in the context of a 12-15 minute office visit.

That’s the mystery: Not why some people become addicted to certain substances, but why others do not.

It may be that kratom is a drug that some can use without much difficulty, while for others, it becomes pathological.

Willing not only to think outside the box, but to stomp the box flat if need be.

The flaw in this very late-stage view of addiction… is the suggestion that somehow, addiction is the patient’s fault. Avoidable if the patient simply followed directions.

Newcomers had a tendency to focus their attention on the drug that brought them to treatment, ignoring others they happened to have been using.

Perhaps 20% of users will experience withdrawal– evidence of their dependence on the drug– regardless of whether they have other symptoms.

Clinicians… feel as if they’re always missing at least one extremely important tool that would make all the difference.

If by chance the patient didn’t fit the physician’s preconception of an addict– he or she was a respected member of the community, for example– then the doctor often fell into the enabler role.

We develop habits and routines that seem to have a life of their own– and you’re never more aware of that than when you go to change them.