All too often rehabs and addiction treatment facilities promote themselves as spa like atmospheres, enticing patients and clients with fancy amenities. It is vital that when a potential patient or loved ones are searching for a detox or rehab to above all else make sure that the chosen facility is able to appropriately and effectively meet the individual’s medical and clinical needs.   Detox and rehab are not vacations. They are interventions and experiences that stop the use of drugs and alcohol and begin to delve into the underlying reasons someone is suffering from addiction or substance use disorder. They are the first steps in what is hopefully a journey of recovery. There is important, serious work that a patient [...]

Chronic pain is an issue recently at the forefront of addiction treatment. As America’s opioid epidemic increased and got worse, government and public health officials began to call for greater scrutiny on prescribing practices, especially the prescribing of dangerous opioids. Overtime, prescribing methods began to catch up with the overprescribing of opioids, with less and less opioids prescribed for patients dealing with acute medical conditions and alternative methods considered for patients that could avoid the prescribing of opioids. However, it seems that an unintended consequence of trying to get America’s arms around the opioid crisis was that chronic pain patients, having been prescribed opioids for many years, were seemingly cut off from medications they had been taking for a long [...]

When people think of going to detox for drugs and alcohol, typically the obvious thing they think about is the process of detox and the medications used to help them go through detox with manageable withdrawal symptoms. For many, detox is simply a process of going through withdrawals while safely and effectively medicated, to stop using dangerous drugs and alcohol and reach a place of feeling physically better. And, in a general sense, it is.   However, detox is also a vital first step in what should be a long-term process of recovery and an on-going process of healing. Addiction, alcoholism, and substance use disorder is often a long and arduous journey undertaken by an individual against their will. They [...]

Addiction is a complex, chronic illness that, in order to ensure sustainable recovery, requires a long-term continuum of care. However, while numerous studies have demonstrated high recovery outcomes are supported by long-term care, monitoring, and community recovery engagement, not every individual’s continuum of care will look the same and that continuum may not always be linear. Not every patient requires the same continuum, and supportive recovery care needs to appropriately take into account not just the clinical needs of the patient, but also the many other biopsychosocial aspects of their individual needs associated with their substance use disorder.   Therefore, one patient’s continuum of care may look very different from another patient’s continuum of care, each one obviously based on [...]