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Living with Addiction: The Role of the Family
As you can see by the letters after my name, I am a Social Worker by profession but one of the most significant roles in my life has been as a mother. For the last 6 years I have been the mom of a 28-year-old son who is suffering from the disease of addiction. Prior to my knowing about his drug use...
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Seven Steps to Fix the Opioid Addiction Crisis Now: We Already Have Most of the Tools We Need
Recently, Professional Voices revisited an issue that The Fix has been focused on since its inception: the public health debacle caused by the overprescribing of opioid pain medications, and the related increase in heroin use and overdose, which has contributed to the deaths of tens of thousands of...
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One Runner at a Time: We Are Slowly Eroding the Stigma of Addiction
Recovery from substance use disorders often resembles training for a marathon. It’s a long process that requires discipline, focus, and ongoing effort. As addiction experts and mental health professionals gain greater insight into the behavioral-physical health connection, fitness programs are...
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Realizing My Purpose
I often wonder what my mom would think of the journey of my life and the man I am today. She raised me well, as a single parent to me and my older brother. She passed away when I turned 13, and my life began to spiral out of control. My brother and I were taken in by my aunt, but despite her best...
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Bullied by Addiction
It’s sort of embarrassing to have an eating disorder. It seems like such a silly problem to have. “Just stop it!” Well, unfortunately, it’s not that easy. In fact, it is not easy at all. Other addictions can be avoided, not easily, but one can live quite successfully without smoking or...
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SBIRT: Stopping Addiction Before It Starts
The facts are clear: in our country, there is an imminent need for substance abuse prevention and intervention as early in the teen years as possible. A recent study in the Archives of General Psychiatry found that the 15 percent of U.S. high school students who abuse drugs and alcohol began...
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Addiction 2.0
When we think about addiction, we associate the word with an addiction to substances, such alcohol, tobacco, pills or other drugs. But in recent years, researchers have been studying behavioral addiction, an overwhelming desire to engage in a particular behavior or action. Some of the...
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Embracing Harm Reduction
Many of the people we serve in supportive housing use drugs and alcohol; some in ways that disrupt their lives. That is a fact. Behavior change is hard. That is a truism, and a fact. It is our job as supportive housing providers to serve people who may have struggled for most of their lives with...
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Brief Overview of Treatment and Prevention of Substance Abuse and Mental Illness
Substance abuse and psychiatric conditions frequently co-exist. According to NAMI, most mental health services are not adequately equipped to address both conditions. This makes treatment and prevention of substance abuse in the presence of mental illness a challenging task due to several moving...
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Food Addiction: Chemical Dependency’s Twin
Most addicts start on the path to addiction using food as the first drug. The addict “to be” starts life with a genetic predisposition. Whatever was happening in the future addict’s life to set him/her on the addiction journey (with this genetic vulnerability), happened at an early age. The...
