Many people become addicted to opioids while taking them as prescribed to manage chronic pain. They also fear that if they quit taking opioids, they would have no other way to treat the pain. However, opioids are typically not the best way to treat chronic pain. Opioids are best used for short periods after a… Continue Reading 4 Ways to Manage Chronic Pain without Opioids
Watching a loved one struggle with addiction is stressful and painful. It’s very difficult to understand addictive behavior if you’ve never experienced it personally. Watching someone you love slowly self-destruct is hard. If you’re in this position, here are some ways to deal with it. Stay safe. The most important thing is to stay safe.… Continue Reading How to Cope with an Addicted Loved One
By now, most of us are aware of the big myth about opioid painkillers that kicked off the opioid epidemic: that opioid painkillers are not addictive. Decades of intensive marketing by drug manufacturers convinced doctors and patients that drugs like OxyContin were safe for long-term use and would not lead to addiction. Now we know… Continue Reading 3 Myths About Opioid Painkillers
About five million Americans have wisdom teeth extracted every year. It’s usually quick, safe procedure that takes a few days to recover from. People often feel quite a bit of pain those first few days, which is why oral surgeons prescribe pain medication for patients recovering from dental surgery. Unfortunately, that medication can be addictive.… Continue Reading Can Wisdom Tooth Extraction Lead to Addiction?
Opioid painkillers were never intended for long-term use. They work very well for people who have been badly injured, people who have just undergone a medical procedure, such as a surgery, or people with terminal illnesses. Unfortunately, many people believe they are the only way to treat chronic pain, such as back pain. Others just… Continue Reading What Are the Long-term Effects of Opioid Painkillers?
The death of a loved one is one of the most difficult experiences in anyone’s life. It’s a situation that’s both painful and impossible to change. It often leads to depression and, for people recovering from addiction, it might lead to relapse. As difficult as it is to work through grief, it doesn’t have to… Continue Reading How to Avoid Relapse while Grieving
It’s often said that addiction is a family disease. Addiction doesn’t just affect the person with the substance use issue. It affects everyone close to her, and especially her family. Addiction makes you unpredictable and unreliable. The people around you constantly have to guess which you they’re getting. That can be especially stressful for children.… Continue Reading The 5 Roles People Play when a Family Member is Addicted
We’ve come a long way in understanding addiction, but unfortunately our language doesn’t always keep up. We now know that addiction has a large genetic component and that your risk of addiction has a lot to do with social factors, trauma, and mental health. Despite this, much of our language about addiction remains accusative and… Continue Reading Why Language Matters When Discussing Addiction
Eight states have now made recreational marijuana legal, and many other states are moving in that direction by making medical marijuana more easily accessible. Advocates of marijuana legalization consider this a positive thing because it leads to more personal freedom, hurts the profits of drug cartels, allows police to spend their time on better things… Continue Reading Has Marijuana Legalization Led to More Addiction?
Substance use is extremely common. Most Americans drink alcohol at least occasionally, most have at least tried marijuana and a substantial minority use it regularly, and every day, people take prescription painkillers after medical procedures and stop taking them when their prescription ends. Why is it then, that roughly 10 percent of the population uses… Continue Reading What Are the Risk Factors for Addiction?
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