Radio Health Journal
The latest in health, science, technology, and the intersection of medicine and public policy.
Does addiction affect all of us in some degree? A noted addiction specialist and author believes we are all somewhere on the addiction spectrum, from bad habits to full-blown addiction. He discusses how small triggers can push people to seek relief, producing deepening decline.
After criminal convictions, many people with substance use disorder are placed on probation with the condition they remain completely drug free. They are often jailed when they relapse, setting back recovery and removing them from treatment that helps keep them clean. Is that fair, when relapse is a common symptom of their disease (and many others)?
As the opioid crisis continues, the city of Vancouver, BC, has found that a harm reduction approach helps addicts move to safer drug use and eventually getting clean. An author who’s watched the process discusses the controversial approach of officially allowing drug use, but in safer conditions.
Recent studies show that people with autism are twice as likely as others to engage in substance abuse, contrary to previous belief that they are extremely unlikely to use drugs or alcohol. An expert and an author who has used alcohol to cope with his autism discuss the developments and their impact.
Experts discuss their “housing first” approach that does not require people to get off addictions before they get an apartment and how it is helping to reduce healthcare costs.
Scientists are learning the specific workings of the brain when it is addicted to a substance or behavior, and showing that all addictions are similar.
Primary care doctors can treat opioid addiction in their offices using drug substitution therapy potentially erasing the stigma of getting treatment.
New science has discovered that certain personality types are predictably predisposed to addiction risk, and that educational efforts can be targeted to them effectively.
People who use drugs, even those who are not addicted, are often destructively enabled by families. An expert explains why this occurs and what families have to do to break through their own denial as well as that of the user.
Many people have misconceptions about what addiction is and is not. A noted British journalist explains how these myths fuel the war on drugs, and alternatives that might really curb addiction and drug trafficking.
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