A significant portion of people who resolve alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems do not embrace a recovery identity—do not see themselves as recovered, recovering, or in recovery. I first suggested this in Pathways from the Culture of Addiction to the Culture Recovery (1990) and later in a co-authored essay on the varieties of recovery(……)

In our last blog, we explored five foundational ideas about addiction that demonize people with alcohol and other drug problems and diminish recovery expectations.  We also identified some of the effects such low expectations exert on people seeking recovery. We continue this discussion below.   IF YOU HAVE:  *been given the impression you have nothing to offer to your treatment other than(……)

  Inebriate, dipsomaniac, drug addict, drunkard, alcoholic, dope fiend, wino, junkie, crackhead, speed freak, dirty, strung out, blitzed, bombed, ripped, and on and on for more than two centuries.  Stigmatizing words, slogans, and images of people experiencing alcohol and other drug (AOD) problems have fueled personal, public, professional, and policy pessimism—particularly pessimism about the personal(……)

The understanding of addiction as a brain disease has been a central organizing principle within the research agendas of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Promotion of the brain disease paradigm stirred controversies over its scientific legitimacy and contentions and counter-contentions over its effects on addiction-related(……)

When that doctor asked me, ‘Son, how did you get in this condition?’ I said, ‘Hey sawbones, I’m just carrying on an ole family tradition.’ –Hank Williams, Jr., Song Lyric, Family Tradition.  The intergenerational transmission of addiction and related problems has been documented for more than two centuries. Put simply, the children of alcohol and(……)

Drug-related moral panics rest so deep and so enduring within American history that they could be thought of as part of our national character. The latest focus of concern is the opioid epidemic as indicated by the more than 100% increase in opioid prescriptions, 2.5 million U.S. citizens who have a substance use disorder involving(……)

Like the United States, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced critical challenges from rising opioid addiction. And like the U.S., Iran has experimented with a wide variety of remedial responses, ranging from supply reduction efforts and harsh punishment of users to expansion of harm reduction, treatment, and recovery support services. The latter include the(……)

If you don’t know history, then you don’t know anything. You are a leaf that doesn’t know it is part of a tree.  ― Michael Crichton History is the ultimate elder, whether her truths are drawn from dusty tomes or passed on by our most revered storytellers. The early history of addiction in America has been(……)

“How does it feel to be a problem…It is a peculiar sensation, this double consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of the world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”   –W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks “I(……)

Essentially, it is thought that the negative effects emanating from group trauma experiences are not only transferred across generations, but that these effects accumulate, such that events occurring at different points in history are part of a single traumatic trajectory.—Amy Bombay, Kimberly Matheson, and Hymie Anisman Wakiksuyapi, those carrying the historical trauma, can transcend trauma(……)