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. Pretty much anyone who likes to think knows that truth in cannabis propaganda for the past century was about as scarce as a direct answer in politics.  Reefer madness told us that ingesting a single cannabis joint would make us rape and murder.  Nixon and his cronies put cannabis in the harshest category of the arbitrary drug schedule, making it the official stance of the U.S. government that cocaine, morphine, and methamphetamine are all safer and more medicinal than the versatile plant.  However, despite the stringent restrictions on cannabis as a result of its schedule I status, studies slowly trickle in that suggest the various medicinal potentials of cannabis, including the potential to help beat cancer.  Of particular interest is a recent study from Har...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. Family is forever, or at least, that’s what the chintzy wall stencils say.  During times of hardship, sickness, death, misfortune, mistakes, and malaise it is helpful to rest assured that our families will stand by us and help us.  My esteemed mentor, Dr. Horvath, often says that 90% of social support is who shows up.  Who shows up in the hospital during chemo?  Who shows up to console after a break-up or job loss?  Often times, family shows up when no one else will.  But who shows up when a so-called ‘addict’ hits the proverbial ‘rock bottom?’  Often times family members desert loved ones when addictive problems are at their most severe.  Why is an exception to the golden rule of family standing by one another made when it comes to addiction?  The hypocriti...

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. This week offers another controversial idea to consider in the realm of addiction, the idea that drugs are good.  In order to truly consider the idea that drugs are beneficial in an honest way, we must start by recognizing the vast extent to which we are led to believe the opposite.  There is no way for anyone raised in modern society, and the U.S. in particular, to not absorb – through PR campaigns, pop culture, D.A.R.E., etc. - the overarching message that drugs are bad.  Lucky for us we have the gifts of reason and thought, and we can question.  Let us exercise our intellectual gifts and openly consider the idea that drugs have value to balance out the indoctrination of the message that drugs are bad. People tend to feel guilty about doing something b...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. It has been said that the problem with good advice is that it usually interferes with our plans.  In the spirit of a human tendency to give advice in buckets and take it in grains, SMART Recovery starts off its meetings by asking participants to refrain from advice and instead encourages people to offer others ideas to consider.  This week’s article is the first installment in a series that will offer ideas to consider rather than direct advice on how to improve the rather dismal track record of treatment for addictive problems.  This week the idea up for consideration is that avoiding rock bottom is good. Rock Bottom The concept of rock bottom implies that if I want to change a pattern of addictive behavior then I must lose everything and hit the lowest ...

by Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. The concentration of misinformation in the world of addiction is as dense as osmium.  One of the most well-known misconceptions in addiction is the idea of an addictive personality.  I hear references to someone with an addictive personality all the time from professionals and lay folk alike.  The idea of an addictive personality is reminiscent of an availability cascade, in that people talked about it long enough that it became “true.”  The reality, however, is that scientific evidence does not support the concept of an addictive personality. A Closer Look at the "Addictive Personality" Anti-social and depressive behavior frequently accompany addictive problems, but the keyword is behavior.  Behavior is not personality.  According to research, no persona...

By Thaddeus Camlin, PsyD **The term 'substance abuse' was utilized for this article because that is the term people search for.  While we would prefer the term 'substance use,' we also want people to be able to find our information on the internet** Teens and drugs go together like soap and suds.  Nearly 80% of kids try alcohol before aging out of the teen years.  Last month about a third of high school seniors in the US drank.  Over 80% of teens are offered illegal substances, and over half accept.  Teens experiment with drugs.  Rather than entertain fantasy that somehow we can eliminate all teenage substance experimentation, it is important to look honestly into the most effective ways to prevent teenage substance abuse. What Doesn't Work To date, efforts to prevent teenage su...

by Thaddeus Camlin. Psy.D. Change happens slowly over time.  Gradually, habits develop and patterns of behavior establish routines.  Whether we are changing our eating habits, sleeping habits, work habits, love habits, or drinking habits, the change process is the same.  As behaviors develop into well-maintained patterns and habits, some self-regulatory control is compromised due to neurobiological adaptations – it’s harder to not add sugar to coffee for someone who always added sugar to coffee than it is for someone who only added sugar to coffee once.  Luckily, the brain of the coffee-sugar cross-fader has not been hijacked because drugs do not hijack the brain. Myth: Drugs Hijack the Brain Saying drugs hijack the brain is like filming a two year time lapse, then playing it back ...

By Thaddeus Camlin, Psy.D. By now most are accustomed to so-called addiction experts purporting hair-brained ideas about substance use.  Examples of hair-brained ideas from addiction experts include but most certainly are not limited to: don’t give an alcoholic drugs, once an addict always an addict, addicts are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves, there’s only one way to recover…   and the list goes on ad nauseam.  This week addiction experts from down under pushed a click-bait claim, based on "scientific analysis" of all James Bond films, that the man with a golden gun’s alcohol intake is so severe that he might not die another day.  In the spirit of challenging the litany of misinformation about addiction, let us look closely at the claim from Aussie experts...