Addiction Science

Are you or a loved one struggling with substance abuse and you’re not sure why? Gaining insight into the motivation behind the drug use is a great first step towards recovery. There is no one answer to the question “why do people use drugs?” but we have provided the following list of potential reasons as…

There is no universal definition of addiction recovery. Recovery is highly individualized because so many factors come into play: physical condition, emotional/psychological condition, support network strength, motivation, socioeconomic factors, personality/demeanor, religious beliefs, etc. Recovery goals vary widely from facility to facility and from person to person, but on a basic level the aims are usually…

Individuals with a substance use disorder are oftentimes in denial about their addiction for a period of time. Denial is a simple way to minimize and rationalize any problem at hand. It is a defense mechanism that shifts the blame away from the denier and hands it off to anyone available to accept the responsibility.…

Medicine cannot be considered a strictly formulaic field; medical professionals must consider each individual holistically in order to make appropriate decisions regarding opioids. There are physicians on both sides of the spectrum: some are “pill-pushers” who prescribe opioids for every case of pain they encounter, while others are so stingy about prescribing painkillers that they…

Dream Journal Volume XXXVII / March 2016 Note From Dr B. Faith has been a significant part of my recovery journey with chronic pain. It keeps me optimistic in the face of surgeries and steroidal injections. It allows me to push through agonizing physical therapy sessions, knowing that I will come out on the other side…

If you suffer from chronic pain, you certainly know what that feels like. Whether it’s your lower back that aches, your shoulder that gives you trouble or your entire body that hurts from head to toe on a regular basis, it’s no fun being in agony. After a while, you may feel like giving up,…

Urine Drug Testing Around 21.5 million Americans suffer from substance use disorders, and approximately 90% of them go untreated. On average 43,982 people die every year due to drug overdoses, amounting to a shocking 120 deaths per day. Overdose deaths, especially from prescription drugs and heroin, have reached alarming levels and addiction professionals are concerned…

Dream Journal Volume XXXVI / February 2016 Note From Dr B. Hope is the driving force behind recovery. You can see it in the glowing smile of the elderly man who finally made it through a full year without a drink. You can feel it in the bouncing step of the middle-aged woman whose regular physical…

Addictive drugs directly activate the brain’s reward pathway, a system involved in behavior reinforcement and memory production. Activation of the reward system can be so intense that normal activities, like eating and sleeping, may be forgotten and/or neglected. Drugs of abuse characteristically enhance dopamine signaling in an area of the reward pathway called the nucleus…

A new study published in the British Medical Journal suggests that co-prescribing benzodiazepines with opioids increases the patient’s risk of overdose by four times that of opioids alone. Even patients on low doses of opioid analgesics have this increased chance of fatality. Researching physicians suggest that prescribers should thoroughly consider their options and weigh the…