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”
Category Archives: 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.
Feed the Person, Starve the Problem
One Halloween when I was a kid, I came home from trick-or-treating with a plastic pumpkin full of chocolate. My mouth had been watering ever since the second doorbell, but my costume prohibited taking an early snack. As soon as I got home, the mask came off, and I had my first piece of chocolate.Continue reading “Feed the Person, Starve the Problem”
The Opioid Crisis
Bringing you the best of mental health Considering how serious the opioid epidemic has become, and how many people have needlessly died, wouldn’t it be nice if there was a medication that people could take that could control their addiction to the substances? Funny, but there is. Federal law limits its availability.
Today is a Special Day
Bringing you the best of mental health every week. June 12, 2017. What is so special about today? I’ll tell you. Today is Superman Day, a great day to stand for what the Man of Steel stood for. It’s Red Rose Day, so visit a garden. It’s Loving Day, commemorating the day in 1967 whenContinue reading “Today is a Special Day”
Buzzed
Bringing you the best of mental health every week. The best book I know about how drugs of abuse work and their effects is Buzzed: The Straight Facts About the Most Used and Abused Drugs from Alcohol to Ecstasy, now in its fourth edition. No one is frying eggs and exaggerating or diminishing the effectsContinue reading “Buzzed”
Unbroken Brain
Bringing you the best of mental health every week. People have often asked me to recommend a book about addiction. For thirty years, the only one I ever urged people to read has been the Big Book of AA, written eighty years ago, when we knew next to nothing about addiction. I’ll get into theContinue reading “Unbroken Brain”
Keith Wilson - Counseling 