Some Things You May Not Know About Substance Abuse, part 4 It is a whole lot easier to get substances that will addict you than it is to get into treatment for addiction. In many localities, there are drug dealers at every corner, but to get to a clinic, you have to take two buses.Continue reading “Help is Closer Than You Think”
Category Archives: Addiction
Drugs Turn You Into an Addict, Then You Turn Everything Into a Drug
Some Things You May Not Know About Substance Abuse, part 3 If you are addicted, even if you stop using the substance that changed you, you will look for other things (other substances, sex, shopping, relationships, rage, work, gambling, exercising, making deals, etc) to gratify you in the same way. This is called switching addictions.Continue reading “Drugs Turn You Into an Addict, Then You Turn Everything Into a Drug”
Addiction is Not Satisfied With Just Screwing You Up
Some Things You May Not Know About Substance Abuse, part 2 Once addiction has got a good hold on you, it doesn’t stop there; it looks for others it can infect with madness. In you, it has established a home base from which it can make forays into others, as if its whole purpose isContinue reading “Addiction is Not Satisfied With Just Screwing You Up”
Soft Drugs Are More Addicting Than Hard Drugs
Most people divide substances into two categories: the hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, and crystal meth, and the soft drugs like alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and prescribed narcotics. Hard drugs are all illegal in the US, they are sold exclusively by underworld organizations, they are associated with the down and out, are socially unacceptable for mostContinue reading “Soft Drugs Are More Addicting Than Hard Drugs”
It’s Not How Much You Use, It’s What Happens When You Use
Some Things You Might Not Know About Addiction Grandma doesn’t drink much. She only has a glass of champagne every New Year’s Eve. But, boy, oh, boy, you should see what happens then. Last New Year’s she danced on the kitchen table, fell, and broke her hip. The year before, she stripped off all herContinue reading “It’s Not How Much You Use, It’s What Happens When You Use”
A Reflective Eclectic Treatment of Addiction
A Reading of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Part V When I was growing up, some people in my life drank, but there was only one instance when someone’s drinking resulted in scary behavior. I grew up in the sixties and early seventies and considered myself a hippie, but drug culture passed me andContinue reading “A Reflective Eclectic Treatment of Addiction”
Zero Tolerance or Harm Reduction?
A Reading of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Part IV My very first client when I began my career as an intern at a VA Medical Center’s Chemical Dependency Unit, confessed to me that he couldn’t stop thinking about having sex with little girls. He explained that heroin was the only thing that helpedContinue reading “Zero Tolerance or Harm Reduction?”
Is Addiction a Disease?
A Reading of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Part III People have debated whether addiction is a disease for as long as I know and have never settled the matter for me, so that I cannot say for certain whether it is or isn’t. It depends on what you mean by disease. The wordContinue reading “Is Addiction a Disease?”
The Origin of “Addiction”
A Reading of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Part II The first time someone used the word addict in English, he was criticizing the Pope. Since then, the word has been used millions of times about all kinds of people. The meaning has changed. Yet, in a sense, the original meaning remains the same.
The Spectrum of Addiction
A Reading of The Urge: Our History of Addiction, Part I I’d like to devote a few posts to chew over Carl Erik Fisher’s book, The Urge: Our History of Addiction. Fisher is an addiction psychiatrist, bioethicist, and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University.
Keith R Wilson 