Marc Lewis's Blog, page 8

My debate with Nora Volkow

So many of you have asked how it went last night, I thought I’d try to give you my take on it, right here. In a nutshell, it went very well. After working for days (sweating, obsessing, etc) on my Powerpoint presentation, Isabel forced me (don’t ask me exactly how) to redo the whole thing […] (Read the rest.)

Happy New Year! Yes, I’m still here

Hello readers, Some of you have noticed that I haven’t posted much in the last few months. The last post published, by Hildur Jónsdóttir, was I thought very beautiful and meaningful. So…not a bad place to end for the season. Please take a look if you haven’t read it yet. Blogging has been an incredibly […] (Read the rest.)

The gifts of time: Understanding and growth beyond addiction

…by Hildur Jónsdóttir… I have a problem with the term recovery. For many of us recovery implies that there once was a wholeness that was shattered through addiction, a wholeness that we need to recover, find again. I have toyed with the word restoration, but likewise, often there is little to restore. For many of […] (Read the rest.)

Part 2. Drug users aren’t the bad guys: Opioids treat emotional pain too

Point of clarification: I didn’t mean to imply that people who take opioids for reasons other than physical pain are to blame for the opioid “crisis” or the overdose epidemic. Let me retrace my steps. I recently pasted and posted my article, published in The Guardian, arguing that opiates prescribed for people in pain are […] (Read the rest.)

Untangling the confusion between the “opioid crisis” and the overdose epidemic

Hi all. I haven’t been blogging for a while, partly because I wasn’t sure I had anything new to say. But the “opioid crisis” is obviously on everyone’s mind. So, I wanted to get the facts straight, and I pitched an article to The Guardian, published yesterday, based on what I found. The response has […] (Read the rest.)

Google is restricting ads for rehab: Hooray!!

Here’s a link to a NYT article that touches on a particularly distressing issue. I have often felt disgusted that drug rehab and treatment centers rely on misleading advertising (fake news?) to make huge profits off desperate people. And then send them back to an isolated existence without the tools they need to maintain some […] (Read the rest.)

Moving on from the Twelve Steps: They truly helped until they truly hindered

…by Eric Nada… Hello again, and Happy September!  This guest post accomplishes something far too rare: a balanced perspective on the Twelve Steps. They can be a real boon when structure and connection are most needed, and a hindrance when it’s time to keep growing. ……………………… I am 22 years away from heroin and the […] (Read the rest.)

What the overdose epidemic teaches us about our deepest needs…

…and how modern society fails to meet them. Hi everyone. I hope your summer is going smoothly, safe from insects, droughts, forest fires, and other human-assisted calamities. I’m on vacation in France now, after a harrowing trip giving talks, first in Victoria, Canada, and then in Melbourne and Brisbane. Harrowing because I flew across 16 […] (Read the rest.)

“Recovery”: Mark of shame or triumph?

…by April Wilson Smith… I used to hate the word “recovery.” To me, it was a mark of shame, stating that I was permanently damaged and different from “normies,” as they call people without substance use problems in AA. Recovery signified a lifetime of isolation, avoiding social events and going to dull nightly meetings where […] (Read the rest.)

Sober or not: Defining substance use for yourself

…by Jenny Valentish… Not everyone enjoys the label ‘sober’. I personally don’t call myself an ‘alcoholic’ or ‘identify as an addict’. I’m also far too English to use a dramatic phrase such as ‘in recovery’. In my book, Woman of Substances: A Journey Into Addiction and Treatment, I don’t call myself ‘sober’ either, partly because […] (Read the rest.)