by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D.   If a loved one is struggling with addictive problems and not interested in treatment, the overwhelming message from society is that staging an addiction intervention is the best way to help.  Interventions, like the ones depicted on television, generally involve a paid interventionist who coaches family members and friends on how to confront so-called ‘addicts’ and get them to agree to go to rehab.  For some, it may be surprising to learn that addiction interventions are only successful in encouraging a loved one to enter treatment around 30% of the time.  Furthermore, when interventions are not successful they can backfire in truly horrific ways.  Thus, it might be helpful to consider these five factors before staging an intervention. You migh...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Milestones are opportunities to reflect and refine.  Each New Year many resolve to make important changes, and such resolutions can carry even more weight when years stack up and we move into new decades and new centuries.  The 21st century has already seen significant change when it comes to understanding and treating addiction, much of which has been related to broadening access to multiple pathways of treatment as the tyranny of abstinence-only slowly and steadily decays.  As we move into the 2020’s, it's worth considering what positive changes the decade will bring as we continue to improve the treatment available to people who aim to change addictive behaviors. One significant change to understanding and treating addiction that will continue to gain...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. There are no known examples of addiction in the natural world.  There are, however, ample examples of animals shifting their consciousness with substances, a favorite of which is the infamous drunken moose who got himself stuck in an apple tree.  Even though animals often experiment with substances, the only examples of animals getting addicted are found in labs run by humans.  If addiction then is conspicuously absent from the natural world, it follows that addiction is a product of an unnatural world. Scientists widely agree that the human brain’s evolution has not had time to catch up to human society’s evolution since the onset of the industrial revolution.  Once a daily necessity, our fight or flight response is rarely needed now that we hit the eje...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Addiction is frequently mischaracterized in binary terms – us and them, normies and addicts.  The truth is that addictive behavior is universal and is, in a very basic sense, one of many manifestations of the way the brain naturally learns and develops.  The more we accurately understand addiction as normal, universal human behavior the more we’ll help people who struggle with addiction to see themselves as normal, not defective, human beings.  Technology addiction, manifest by the attachment to the electronic leash in our pocket, is perhaps the most glaring example of the universality of addictive behaviors. Modern society seems to have traded a purpose driven life for a device driven life.  Phones, laptops, desktops, tablets and phablets infiltrated al...

by A. Thomas Horvath, Ph.D., ABPP As part of my celebration of SMART Recovery’s 25th Anniversary, this blog is devoted to considering the recently released SMART Recovery USA Position on Goals: “SMART Recovery is abstinence oriented. Our meetings and tools are designed to help participants stop problematic addictive behavior.” I offer the following interpretation of this position.  Isn’t all addictive behavior problematic? Addictive behaviors are normal human behaviors, including eating, sexuality, and connecting with others. For some individuals these behaviors become problematic. Involvement with pleasurable psychoactive substances or activities is also common, including with alcohol, caffeine, gambling, video games, and many others. For some individuals these involvements becom...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. The term ‘binge-drinking’ generally conjures up images of frat boys in pastel polos guzzling litres of PBR out of a homemade beer bong, or something along those lines.  The stereotype is that binge-drinking is a college thing, not a mature adult thing. The truth, according to the current dean at USC’s School of Social Work, is that binge-drinking is on the rise amongst adults in their 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s.  A 2017 survey conducted by the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality found that over 30% percent of men 26 years or older binge drink, and under 40% of men ages 18-25 binge drink – a difference in percentages pretty close to the margin of error in many surveys.  Based on recent findings, the stereotypical binge drinker may be about as l...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. They said acid fries your brain and makes you jump off buildings.  They said shrooms make your brain bleed and that’s why they cause hallucinations.  They said pot makes people murder their families.  I don’t know exactly who ‘they’ are, but boy were they wrong.  The prestigious Johns Hopkins University just announced the opening of a nearly $20 million dollar research center to study psychedelic medicines.  The announcement from Johns Hopkins is arguably the single biggest acknowledgment that Western Society has been embarrassingly wrong about psychedelics all along.  Support for Psychedelic Therapy Research trials forthcoming from the new research center include the use of psychedelics to treat addiction, anorexia, Alzheimer’s related distress and cogni...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. When it comes to addiction treatment, it is well-known that the United States is embarrassingly and shamefully behind the rest of the industrialized world.  It is no surprise then that evidence for MDMA-assisted psychotherapy reducing alcohol relapse is coming out of the UK. We know MDMA-assisted psychotherapy was designated breakthrough status as a treatment for PTSD, and we know that trauma is at the etiological heart of most addictive behaviors (see Atkins, 2014, p.195). So it would naturally follow that if MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy helps treat the etiology of addiction, it will probably help treat addiction. Yet, the misinformed notion that all addicts are the same and can never touch mind-altering substances again (except of course for boat-loads...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. HBO’s hit television series, Euphoria, pushed the envelope on many important topics, except one – addiction.  The show depicted a biracial romance between two women, one of whom was transgender. The show offered gritty, raw depictions of sexual assault, teenage substance use, physical and emotional abuse, and abortion.  When it comes to addiction, however, the show somehow missed the memo that there are no experimental studies that unequivocally demonstrate the effectiveness of traditional addiction treatment.  Euphoria pushed boundaries on a number of important social issues, but when it comes to addiction, the show succeeded only in being yet another example of mainstream media perpetuating the harmful messages that all addicts are the same and thus, all de...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Addiction treatment needs improvement.  Exploring new methods is essential to advancing the field.  To imagine the latest radical approach to treating addiction one might envision an amalgamation of electro-shock therapy and trepanning.  Brain surgery for addiction is not a futuristic concept at the dawn of its conception.  On the contrary, brain surgery for addiction is happening now in China and a clinical trial is scheduled in West Virginia this year.  Like any emerging treatment, brain surgery to treat addiction is worth a closer look to consider potential costs, benefits, risks, rewards, and ethical delivery of services. The Technique The brain surgery technique used to treat addiction is deep brain stimulation (DBS).  DBS is already an established t...