Our prisons are overcrowded with people, a majority of whom are drug offenders. But thousands will sit and wait to find a spot in the federal Residential Drug Abuse Program, which offers a one year sentence reduction to inmates who successfully complete the drug rehab program.
Recent research has emerged that indicates that methadone treatment for opiate addiction doesn’t need to be combined with counseling in order to be effective. The Federal Government currently mandates that anybody receiving methadone must also be receiving counseling, with only interim methadone treatment being available without additional treatment. This is highly restricted, which leaves many addicts on long waiting lists for standard treatment. Although this is far from ideal, prescribing methadone without counseling does nothing to address the underlying issues, which often contribute to addiction. There are numerous good points on both sides of this debate, so any calls for a change to current legislation need to be thoroughly evaluated before they’re implemented.
Read more about Methadone Without Counseling is a Recipe for Relapse
If you have a loved one who has been incarcerated for drug use or criminal activity, then you know how hard it is to show love without condoning their behavior. It’s heartbreaking to think that a loved one is suffering in prison with no one to help them, even though their own behavior earned them their sentence. However, there are some things that a family can do to help their loved one even while they are still incarcerated. If they were incarcerated for drugs, rehab is generally not an option. Their body has probably already gone through detox just by being in an isolated area, so rehab won’t be much help. What they do need is for someone to help them set goals and try to learn skills that will enable them to integrate back into society; this is the same with all inmates.
Read more about Why Get Your Loved One a Life Coach in Prison?
In recent years, the practice of hypnosis has been receiving a lot of positive publicity for its ability to help people make constructive changes in their lives. Hypnotherapists have helped their patients stop smoking, lose weight, reduce anxiety, and overcome insomnia, just to mention a few of their accomplishments, and the list of bad habits and behavioral issues that hypnosis has been used to treat has been expanding steadily.
What do you really know about addiction and treatment? Unless you have been intimately involved in walking beside a recovering addict, chances are that your ideas on the subject are far from fact-based. There is a lot of confusion and downright misinformation surrounding addiction and addiction treatment. Here are just a few of the most common misunderstandings.
Addictions are very hard to overcome. For those who struggle with drug addiction, alcoholism or nicotine addiction, the decision to seek out treatment does not guarantee that life will improve. Many who enter treatment find themselves struggling soon after completion of the program and fall into a cycle of treatment and relapse.
For many others, however, treatment is never initiated. A report from the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA Columbia) finds that addictions largely go unidentified and untreated in the United States.
The report focuses on addictions related to substance abuse, including alcohol, drugs and tobacco. The report does not include information on addictive and compulsive behaviors.
Over the past five years, a team of addiction experts, along with specialists in public health and representatives from universities and medical centers joined with judicial experts and mainstream officials to examine the state of addiction treatment in the U.S. The team was led by Drew E. Altman, who is the president and chief executive officer of the Kaiser Family Foundation.
The examination included the review of scientific literature, extensive surveys throughout the U.S. and especially focused in New York State, interviews of leading experts and researchers, focus groups and a review of state and federal licensing and accreditation rules.
The team developed a definition of the word addiction, stated as alcohol abuse and drug abuse and dependence. Abuse is compulsive use of a substance despite the harm to relationships, work and/or physical health, and dependence is defined as use that leads to withdrawal when blood levels of substance use drop.
The experts also defined treatment, including social and psychological therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and medications designed to treat addictions. Treatment not recognized by the team included religious-based services and detoxification.
The team reports that substance abuse and addiction result in the largest preventable public health problem and is the leading causes of preventable death. In 2009, there were 578,819 deaths attributed to alcohol, tobacco or drugs. They also concluded that the cost of the health problems to the government totals more than $468 billion each year.
However, the findings of the team show that only one in ten individuals struggling with addiction to alcohol or other drugs report receiving treatment.
This finding draws frustration from experts in the field, who consider that 40 percent of all fatal motor vehicle accidents involve someone that is under the influence of a substance such as alcohol or drugs. In the last two decades, there has also been a significant increase in deaths attributable to drug overdose.
The report also includes recommendations for improving identification and treatment of addictions in the United States.
Read more about Report Shows Addictions Are Largely Untreated
Isn’t it amazing how narrow minded some people are? In fact, when it comes right down to it, some of the folks we find in the recovery rooms seem to act as if they have it all figured out, right?
Read more about Johnny-Come-Lately: It’s Always the Right Time to Go into Rehab
You’ve embraced a new life, one that you’ve freely chosen, and one that entails living clean and sober from here on out. That is, you mostly embraced it, and mostly freely chose it. For some who are new to recovery, however, the first few days, weeks, and even months of sobriety are often anything but certain.
Read more about Putting Your Dark Days Behind You in Recovery
Crime and drugs; two words that often go hand-in-hand. Statistics are clear that illicit drugs are at the heart of many crimes committed today. The real question is what can be done about it?
Doctors may have a new philosophy when it comes to treating patients who were exposed to alcohol when their mothers were pregnant and those with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Read more about Understanding the Differences in Treatment Needs
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