In no other disease is there more noncompliance to be found than in the addicted population: addicts/alcoholics are notoriously difficult to treat. Addiction is a disease that affects the mind. It is a disease that is constantly trying to convince...
The term “concurrent disorders” is poorly defined. It usually refers to two or more mental illnesses. Usually, one of the mental conditions is substance dependency; the other condition is a psychiatric diagnosis. The term “coexisting mental diagnosis” is probably preferable...
These days it is not uncommon to hear nurses in the acute medicine unit complain that they are abused by the hospital administration, harassed by patients and the patients’ families, that there is no or minimal support staff and that...
Codependence is often associated with spouses/partners of addicts/alcoholics. However, since this is a blog site devoted to substance dependency with a particular emphasis on the health professions (a vocation particularly susceptible to codependence), I will confine my remarks to codependence...
It is worth discussing this concept again, this time viewed as a welcome contrast to the Dry Drunk Syndrome (see previous Blog). Generally, addicts/alcoholics in good Recovery identify themselves as being “recovering”, not “recovered”. Recovery is never really completed. It...
Boundaries are often sorely lacking in alcoholics/addicts. Nor do boundaries develop effortlessly or automatically in early Recovery. They must be worked on diligently with the help of a sponsor and the Steps. Rather than attempt to define what boundaries are,...
Alcoholism/addiction affects the family adversely, but the family in many cases can also positively influence the Recovery of the addict/alcoholic. For many years, family members were discouraged from getting directly involved in the patient’s Recovery. This traditional approach has gradually...
Some addicts/alcoholics in Recovery may never accept the concepts of “Powerlessness and “Higher Power”. The spiritual/religious connotations of the Twelve Steps put some people off. (As previously stated, however, the concept of a Higher Power need not be a supernatural...
The Disease Model of addiction/alcoholism has many advantages. I am going to focus on two of these advantages in this blog: 1) the Disease Model’s association with A.A. and 2) its recognition by the courts. The Disease Model is espoused...
The disease of addiction can be defined as a biopsychosocial and spiritual disorder characterized by loss of control and negative consequences. Let’s focus for the time being (and for the purposes of this blog) on the spiritual aspects of Recovery....
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