A new study published recently in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research says that alcohol-related deaths have doubled in the U.S. between 1999 and 2017. In reviewing death certificates for that period, researchers determined that the number of alcohol-related deaths increased 50.9%, from 16.9 to 25.5 per 100,000. Or, in real terms, there were…

Read More

Several years ago, a colleague asked me what I thought about his “four months and done” buprenorphine treatment program. He believed that virtually all people with opioid use disorders could “learn” how to stay drug-free in that time. All his patients were titrated to an effective dose in the first weeks, maintained for the first…

Read More

Near the end of the Second World War researchers and leaders in the recovery community jointly formulated the problem of uncontrolled drinking into what is now known as the Disease Model of alcoholism. This model postulates that, like medical illnesses, alcoholism–more specifically alcohol dependence, or addiction—can be diagnosed, its course observed, and its physical causes…

Read More

Alcoholics Anonymous is the most widely used treatment for alcoholism in the world, yet it continues to come under attack by popular media ignorant of the science behind its success. A recent high profile attack appeared in the April 2015 issue of The Atlantic, in the form of an article by Gabrielle Glaser titled, “The Irrationality…

Read More