“Addiction is a Response to Childhood Suffering: In Depth with Gabor Maté”

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Popular addiction news outlet, the fix, interviews Dr. Gabor Maté on addiction, the holocaust, the "disease-prone personality" and the pathology of positive thinking. “Until...

Playpen Rats Making Popular Comeback, Defy the Brain-disease Model of Addiction

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-University of Queensland addictions experts challenge last year's Nature editorial that claimed there is a scientific "consensus" that addiction is a brain disease.

Young Transgender Women Burdened with High Rates of Psychiatric Diagnoses

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New research published in JAMA Pediatrics reveals that transgender women have more than double the prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses than the general US population. The study found that the women, who had been assigned male at birth and now identified as female, had a high prevalence of suicidality, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse, generalized anxiety and major depressive disorder.

Coroner Warns of Deaths Involving Young People and Drugs

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From The Irish News: Steven Coyle, a 27-year-old father of two, recently died of complications resulting from a cocktail of prescription medications for depression, anxiety,...

Most People Who Use Drugs Don’t Become Addicted — And Why That’s Important

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--The former CEO of the UK's National Treatment Agency describes the social circumstances of people most susceptible to addiction.

Life Experience is Key for Certified Peer Support Specialists

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From MinnPost: Peer support specialists can play a crucial role in helping people recover from life challenges including addiction, mental health concerns, and homelessness. "'Certified peer...

Highly Praised Anti-Addiction Program For Prisoners Was “Fraud”

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-A psychiatric study widely hailed in Swedish media which led to new treatment guidelines was a "fraud," states health reporter and researcher Janne Larsson.

Deconstructing Psychiatric Diagnoses: An Attempt At Humor

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Based on my experience both as a therapist and client in the mental health field, I have learned that when therapists or psychiatrists give you the following diagnoses all too often here is what they really mean:

Quitting Smoking May Help with Depression

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A new study suggests that smoking cessation is related to depressive symptom improvement, but that depression may also make it harder to quit.

Harvard’s Madras Critiques University of Pittsburgh Marijuana Study

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Bertha Madras, professor of psychobiology at Harvard Medical School, has printed a critique listing 20 flaws to a recent study finding no differences in physical or mental health problems between users and non-users of marijuana.

Why Mental Health Systems Should Be Organized Under Alcohol and Drug Systems

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While I was in charge of the public systems for both mental health and addictions in Oregon, I found it a challenge to maintain an equal focus on alcohol/drug problems compared to mental health. One big reason for the emphasis on mental health was that the mental health budget was big, about 6 times greater than that for addictions. And that doesn’t even count the hidden funding for psychiatric drugs which probably added another 30 or 40% to mental health —atypical antipsychotics are a lot more expensive than Antabuse.

In Texas, People With Mental Illness Find Work Helping Peers

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From Kaiser Health News: Peer support for people diagnosed with serious mental illness is becoming increasingly common. In places like Texas, where there is a...

It’s All in the Approach: Compassionately Shifting Language

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In this piece for HuffPost, Brooke M. Feldman discusses the importance of shifting language around mental health and addiction in a compassionate way that does...

Brain Drugs and Corporate Climbers

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-There's rising use of "cognitive enhancement" and energy-increasing psychiatric drugs among stressed workers and ambitious executives.

Large Increase in Poison Control Calls for Children Taking ADHD Drugs

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New data shows that calls to US poison control centers have increased significantly for children taking stimulant ADHD drugs.

Treating the Lifelong Harm of Childhood Trauma

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From The New York Times: Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, who has emerged as one of the country's strongest voices calling for a national public health...

“What if Addiction Is Not a Disease?”

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For The Chronicle of Higher Education, David Schimke reports on how debate erupted at a substance abuse conference over whether or not addiction should...

CDC Advises Nonopioid Treatments for Chronic Pain

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Primary care clinicians and mental health providers face a particular set of challenges when treating individuals with chronic pain. These problems are compounded by...

Experts Warn of an Emerging ‘Stimulant Epidemic’

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From Medscape: While policymakers and members of the general public are justifiably focused on addressing the opioid epidemic, there is another epidemic that may be...

“United States of Adderall (Part II)”

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Writing for Huffpost, medical doctor Lawrence Diller looks at the effects of the ever increasing diagnoses for ADHD and the addiction and abuse issues...

The Problem With Hospitalizing Opioid Addicts Against Their Will

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From The Washington Post: In Massachusetts, which has one of the highest rates of opioid deaths nationally, addiction-related civil commitments have doubled in the past...

Study Suggests Having Kids in Foster Care Bad for Mothers

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From CBC News: A recent study shows that having a child taken into foster care has detrimental effects on the mother's mental health and may reduce...

When Legal Drugs Harm and Illegal Drugs Help

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From Scientific American: In a day and age when people are increasingly becoming addicted to prescription drugs, and increasingly helped by the therapeutic effects of illicit...

“Barry Takes Center Stage for World Benzo Day Launch”

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Mad In America contributor and prescription drug addiction reformer Barry Haslam has “taken his fight to the world stage by helping create an international...

Ireland to Decriminalise Heroin, Cocaine and Cannabis

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The UK Independent reports that Ireland is moving toward a policy of decriminalizing small amount of drugs like heroin, cocaine, and cannabis in what amounts to a “radical cultural shift.” While it would remain a crime to profit from the sale of these substances, users will have specially designated areas for safe use. The chief of Ireland’s National Drugs Strategy told the paper: “I am firmly of the view that there needs to be a cultural shift in how we regard substance misuse if we are to break this cycle and make a serious attempt to tackle drug and alcohol addiction.”