by Tom Horvath, PhD, ABPP The US media often presents stories about substance problems. However, there are fewer stories about how individuals resolve these problems. The National Recovery Study (Kelly, Bergman, Hoeppner, Vilsaint, & White, 2017) was an effort to estimate how many in the US have resolved substance problems, and how they did so. This landmark study merits more attention. What We Already Knew 1) Many individuals who previously had substance problems resolved them on their own (“unassisted recovery”), without being involved in treatment, medication, mutual help or other recovery services (“assisted recovery”). Unassisted recovery is also termed natural recovery, or self-guided change (Bishop, 2018). 2) Many of the individuals in unassisted recovery do not consi...

By Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. For many, perfectionism is a guilty pleasure – we know it isn’t good for us but we can’t seem to let it go.  Well, difficulty in letting something go is almost always a sign of that thing being beneficial in some ways, and perfectionism is no different.  When it comes to changing addictive behavior, perfectionism is not only common, but often demanded.  People are routinely kicked out of treatment for not being perfect, or at least coerced into stepping up to a higher (more expensive) level of care.  Because perfectionism is demanded of people attempting to change addictive behavior, it might be worth exploring the concept a bit further. Perfectionism As a Measure of Success in Changing Addictive Behavior There is arguably no arena in which perfection...

The online recovery community has exploded in the last decade with several resources, from apps to forums to blogs. These resources have become integral to the recovery process for millions of people affected by addiction. Over the next few months, we will be interviewing some of the top-rated recovery bloggers of 2018. These bloggers play a special role in the online recovery community. Not only do they give voice to those affected by addiction, they also provide a way for individuals to connect during their own recovery process. Our hats are off to the brave men and women who, by writing publicly, break the stigma of addiction, encourage unity amongst those affected by addiction, and provide a place for people to connect, inspire, and heal. Our first featured top recovery blogger i...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Here at Practical Recovery we’ve done a number of pieces on the language of addiction.  I personally consider the article It’s Time to Clean Up The Language of Addiction, by Anne Fletcher, MS, RD, to be a foundational cornerstone to quality addiction treatment.  In recent weeks a particularly common term in addiction treatment, one highlighted in Fletcher’s landmark piece, has been gnawing away at me – dirty.  The complex histories that shape addictive behavior, combined with moral associations to the term dirty make for a potent, insidious label that deserves swift eradication. The term ‘dirty’ in addiction and recovery circles is about as much of a staple to the industry’s vernacular as the term ‘bottom line’ is in the finance industry.  The world of a...

by Tom Horvath, Ph.D., ABPP. Clients often attempt to choose addiction treatment carefully. Typically, they search for a “program” suitable to their problems, at least as they understand their problems. Unfortunately, most clients are uneducated about addiction. They are not professionals, and the addiction treatment industry and media often present inaccurate information. Consequently, clients can end up in facilities that harm them rather than help them, primarily because in these facilities substandard practices are common (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Surgeon General, 2016). Almost daily in our offices at Practical Recovery we hear about what goes wrong in addiction treatment. Here are some examples. Treatment sessions are not conducted by psychoth...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Outpatient Rehab: What the Experts Say Anyone who encounters the US addiction treatment industry is likely to experience a ‘hard sell’ on inpatient.  The idea that addiction problems are resolved by ‘going away for 30 days’ is as pervasive as it is uninformed.  Lasting change may be initiated in four weeks, but it takes much longer to become engrained.  While the cultural mythos of addiction treatment continues to promote the notion that most people need to go away for 30 days, experts have been saying that outpatient rehab is actually the best fit for most people for quite some time. William Miller and Reid Hester (two leading experts in the field of addiction treatment) looked at who benefits from inpatient alcohol treatment and found no overall advanta...

Thinking about quitting drinking? Here's some advice you might not want to follow. There is an abundance of advice about quitting drinking out there that conspicuously lacks the hallmarks of thought and wisdom.  Advice itself can often be a sign of unsophisticated “help.”  While there are likely many more witless ideas about quitting drinking than this article covers, we’ve hand-selected a few of our favorite Mickey Mouse methods for your enjoyment. 1. Don't Substitute. Tell people who had a failing liver and used cannabis as a substitution for alcohol that substitution doesn’t work. 2. You have to announce your problem to the world. It might not be the best idea to pull your boss or your father-in-law-to-be aside to let them know that you’ve been drinking more than you want to. ...

Drug Rehab: Predicting the Future by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. I’m told people want to know what drug rehab will be like in 100 years.  So, this week let’s put on our Doc Brown suit, make sure Einstein has a doggy sitter, secure dangerous amounts of plutonium, and fire up our flux capacitor so we can send our favorite McFly back to the future of rehab. As we travel into the hypothetical it would be folly to ignore the major mistakes that other artists seem to inevitably make when they conduct their best Nostradamus impersonations.  In the 1980’s a handful of popular films depicted what our present day would be like (e.g. Back to the Future, Terminator, Blade Runner).  The films from the 1980’s that predicted the future that is today all grossly overshot the technological advances o...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Adderall vs. Meth When it comes to amphetamines, our culture seems to want to eat our drugs and have them too.  On one hand, Adderall is marketed with promises of saving marriages or images of smiling children with taglines like, “Finally, schoolwork that matches his intelligence.”  On the other hand, we’re inundated with images of  “meth mouth” and propaganda campaigns with wholesome slogans like, “15 bucks for sex isn’t normal, but on meth it is,” and, “Before meth I had a daughter, now I have a prostitute.”  Well, if tooth decay, cost-effective intimate companionship, and disowning children are normal for meth, we must ask ourselves why meth is still a prescribed medication for ADHD and weight loss. Yes, you read correctly, today, right now, in 2018, y...

If you have ever experienced drug and alcohol addiction, whether it was your own substance use or a loved one's, you were likely on the receiving end of opinions from others. US culture and its collective views on addiction are often rooted in shame, degradation, and negativity. More importantly, however, the mainstream conversation is all too often shrouded in myths and misinformation. These myths of drug and alcohol addiction are not only untrue,  they are dangerous for those who are in need of treatment and unsupportive for those in recovery. The misinformation paints a scary uphill battle for those who enter recovery, when, really, recovery is a journey of healing, hope, and self-empowerment. We've collected 12 of the most common myths of drug and alcohol addiction in an attempt ...