by Alice G. Walton, ContributorFORBESWOMAN | 2/06/2012 Addiction is one of the most common mental health problems there is: Drug use alone affects tens of millions of Americans, and that’s only the illegal ones. Even more people deal with addictions to other things – alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, food, and various behaviors. People who are familiar…
June 11, 2012|By Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times Drug czar Gil Kerlikowske says the Obama administration has changed its thinking about people addicted to drugs — and you should too. In a speech Monday at the Betty Ford Center in Rancho Mirage, Kerlikowske said it was time to stop believing that the millions of Americans…
By Dr. Stuart Gitlow | June 7, 2013 | Some over the years have wanted to envision addiction as being represented on a pyramid where mere use falls at the base of the pyramid, abuse falls partway up, and dependence lives at the peak. This type of approach suggests a continuum in which an individual…
This guide is written for individuals, and their family and friends, who are looking for options to address alcohol problems. It is intended as a resource to understand what treatment choices are available and what to consider when selecting among them. Many people struggle with controlling their drinking at some time in their lives. Approximately…
By Austin Frakt The UpshotThe New Health Care Do Alcoholics Anonymous participants do better at abstinence than nonparticipants because they are more motivated? Or is it because of something inherent in the A.A. program? How researchers answered these questions in a recent study offers insight into challenges of evidence-based medicine and evidence-informed policy. The study,…
by Chad D. Emrick, Ph.D Thomas P. Beresford, MD. In the December, 2015, edition of this Science Update we responded to a recent article appearing in The Atlantic.1 Its author, Gabrielle Glaser, claimed that AA and its 12-step programs lack scientific foundation, asserting that “nothing about the 12-step approach draws on modern science …..” We presented the…
By Jessica Gregg Washington Post March 18 Jessica Gregg is medical director for substance use disorders at Central City Concern in Portland, Ore., and an associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Addiction has long been medicine’s unwanted stepchild. Doctors didn’t understand it, didn’t know how to treat it and felt helpless…