Addiction Science

Cigarette smoking and nicotine addiction lead to 400,000 deaths annually, despite the fact that the detrimental consequences of smoking are widely known and accepted. While smoking rates have declined considerably since the Surgeon General first announced its health hazards in 1964, still about 21% of the American public continues to smoke. Nicotine addiction is one…

What is opioid-induced hyperalgesia? Opioid-induced hyperalgesia is the occurrence of increased pain sensitivity in response to opioid administration. In other words, taking opioids in excess and/or for a long period of time has been known to lower the individual’s pain threshold so pain seems worse even if the opioid dose is increased. This phenomenon is…

Robert L. DuPont, Jr, MD, made the term “gateway drug” famous in his book Getting Tough on Gateway Drugs: a Guide for the Family. DuPont observed that youths at his clinic often engaged in alcohol and tobacco use before proceeding on to marijuana use. He thought that psychological barriers prevented the use of hard drugs…

There has been much debate on whether or not ecstasy, also known as methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), is capable of causing susceptibility to infection. The evidence of infection is suggestive, but not entirely conclusive. Researchers have been studying the immune cell responses of rodents exposed to ecstasy. In these experiments, there seems to be a reduction in…

The increased access to and overuse of painkillers seen in today’s opioid epidemic was the result of past drug policy changes. In the late 1990s, the laws governing the prescription of opioids became relaxed, giving access to populations besides cancer patients with chronic pain. In 2000, the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations introduced…

Probuphine is the first buprenorphine implant for treatment of opioid dependence. It supplies patients with a constant, low-level dose of buprenorphine for six months at a time and is designed to improve patient compliance and outcomes.   What is buprenorphine? Buprenorphine is a drug meant to help relieve cravings during opioid maintenance therapy and heroin…

Non-medical prescription opioid use is a major public health problem. In 2011, 5.1 million people in the United States were using opioids, 4.5 million of whom were using for non-medical purposes and 620,000 of whom were using heroin. 2.2 million of those using opioids were considered clinically dependent. 1.8 million of these dependent individuals were…

A common question we get here at Two Dreams is, “why me?” People want to know what it is about their core that makes them an addict. They want to know why they are dependent on drugs while their friends are able to use in moderation. Were they born that way? Is it the way…

Most of us have heard by now that alcohol can have detrimental effects on our health, but did you know that it significantly raises the risk of developing Type 2 Diabetes?   How is blood sugar regulated? The cells in your body use glucose, a simple sugar, as fuel to survive and function. Normally, the…

What is binge drinking? Binge drinking is a popular form of excessive alcohol use, which the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines as “a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above.” For a typical American adult male, this translates to drinking 5+ servings…