Understanding Addiction

Here’s a link to a NYT article that touches on a particularly distressing issue. I have often felt disgusted that drug rehab and treatment centers rely on misleading advertising (fake news?) to make huge profits off desperate people. And then send them back to an isolated existence without the tools they need to maintain some […] (Read the rest.)

…by Eric Nada… Hello again, and Happy September!  This guest post accomplishes something far too rare: a balanced perspective on the Twelve Steps. They can be a real boon when structure and connection are most needed, and a hindrance when it’s time to keep growing. ……………………… I am 22 years away from heroin and the […] (Read the rest.)

…and how modern society fails to meet them. Hi everyone. I hope your summer is going smoothly, safe from insects, droughts, forest fires, and other human-assisted calamities. I’m on vacation in France now, after a harrowing trip giving talks, first in Victoria, Canada, and then in Melbourne and Brisbane. Harrowing because I flew across 16 […] (Read the rest.)

…by April Wilson Smith… I used to hate the word “recovery.” To me, it was a mark of shame, stating that I was permanently damaged and different from “normies,” as they call people without substance use problems in AA. Recovery signified a lifetime of isolation, avoiding social events and going to dull nightly meetings where […] (Read the rest.)

…by Jenny Valentish… Not everyone enjoys the label ‘sober’. I personally don’t call myself an ‘alcoholic’ or ‘identify as an addict’. I’m also far too English to use a dramatic phrase such as ‘in recovery’. In my book, Woman of Substances: A Journey Into Addiction and Treatment, I don’t call myself ‘sober’ either, partly because […] (Read the rest.)