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(……)

Today, women in addiction recovery are visibly leading and supporting recovery advocacy organizations, and they are speaking at and participating in national and local public recovery celebration events. Such actions rest on the legacy of the first women who challenged the discrediting images linked to addicted women. This brief photo-essay begins with the story of(……)

The social stigma attached to addiction is most often portrayed as an attitudinal problem rooted in the lack of knowledge about alcohol, tobacco, and other drug (ATOD) problems and the prevalence and methods through which they are effectively resolved. The resulting antidotes thus become focused on public/professional education and changing attitudes through increased public contact(……)

  It is time to celebrate the lives of scientists who have moved beyond the study of addiction and addiction treatment into the frontier of addiction recovery research. Of particular note would be those scientists who have achieved a sustained focus on addiction recovery, conducted and published multiple studies in the field’s leading journals, and(……)

Throughout the history of addiction in America, family members have been castigated more as causative agents and sources of recovery sabotage than as recovery resources or individuals deserving services in their own right. Given this history, it is not surprising that family members have most often found healing and purpose when they banded together for(……)

No child held in a parent’s arms envisions a future of addiction.  No parent holding a young child’s hand envisions their hopes and dreams for that child to be one day ended by addiction.  And yet, those wrenching realities are played out daily in this country.  More than a half a million individuals die drug-related(……)