Evidence-based writing on addiction, treatment and recovery for families and individuals, drawn from the peer-reviewed literature and 18 years of practice.
The dangerous period is not during treatment. It is the weeks immediately after, and there are specific mechanisms behind that which can be planned for.
The evidence on medication for opioid and alcohol dependence is stronger and more uncomfortable than most treatment marketing admits. Here is what the large studies found.
The success is the obstacle. Every conventional argument for getting help is answered by the fact that nothing has visibly gone wrong yet.
The return to work reintroduces every stressor at once, in the period the research identifies as highest risk. What to plan before the first Monday.
Every facility says it. Almost none will tell you which evidence, for which outcome, measured how. Four questions that separate the real thing from the marketing.
“Rock bottom” and “tough love” are the most common advice families receive, and among the least supported. What the research suggests instead.
More than one, and that is the ordinary case rather than a failure. What the population research found about how many tries it actually takes, and how many people get there.
A sponsor, a therapist and a sober companion do genuinely different jobs. The difference is not seniority or cost — it is presence, and when it is available.
Thirty days of structure end on a Tuesday morning. What replaces it is usually nothing, and that gap is where a large share of relapses happen.
When researchers compared three ways of getting an unwilling person into treatment, the confrontational approach families picture was not the one that worked best.
