Texas Addiction Recovery Blog
From Pain to Opiate Use to Heroin Abuse in a Few Short Steps
Despite increased precautions and growing amounts of information, thousands of people continue to die from this condition, more than 52,000 in the United States in 2015 alone. Is the condition, cancer, diabetes, or heart disease? No. Thousands of people die from those...
Drug Abuse Causes Collateral Damage
Drugs don’t just hurt the people using them. They can also hurt people trying to help others. For example, some drugs are so powerful, you don’t have to willingly take them to feel their effects. You can experience their effects just by touching such drugs by...
Drug Addiction Treatment Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All
One of the debates over substance use disorder treatment is whether including medication-assisted treatment is preferable to detox and therapy alone. The argument is that if an opioid addict takes methadone or buprenorphine (often prescribed under the brand name of...
Government-Mandated Substance Use Disorder Treatment Not Trusted by Congress
California is trying to be an incubator for ideas again. State senators have approved a proposal for a single-payer universal health care plan. It’s a tentative plan, with no funding mechanism as of yet. Supporters, including Sen. Ricardo Lara (D-Bell Gardens), argue...
Using Electricity, Not a Drug
Recently, we discussed the use of the pain relief treatment TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation). TENS involves using electrodes to zap electricity to the skin. Proponents of the treatment claim that the electric current in TENS stimulates nerves and...
Treating Chronic Pain without Drugs
Yesterday, we discussed that some people who suffer from chronic pain also suffer from addictions to the medications they use to treat such pain. This is not condemning such sufferers, however, because chronic pain can be a debilitating condition and looking to...
Should Drugs Treat Chronic Pain?
Chronic pain. Millions of people suffer from it and are understandably looking for ways to relieve this painful and life-altering condition. Although sometimes, it seems as if treating chronic pain might be one of those situations where the cure might be worse than...
Dual Diagnosis Treatment Will Be Hindered by Substance Use Disorder, Mental Illness Budget Cuts
A lithograph by Armand Gautier (1857) from Madness: A Brief History (Wikimedia Commons) Holistic medicine teaches that everything is connected: mind, body, spirit. Good health requires that all be in balance. That includes substance use disorder and addiction....
Suboxone can be safe tool in substance use disorder treatment
Tom Price (Wikimedia commons) Almost every medicine – both those found in nature and created by humans, prescription and over-the-counter – that has the potential to heal can also harm, maybe even kill. Even knowing that, we don’t ban all medications; we regulate them...
Self-Esteem and Substance Use Disorder
Self-esteem seems to be one of the most helpful qualities people can possesses, yet it sometimes is one of the hardest ones to acquire. But once people have it, it can do so much. Self-esteem—or, more accurately, a lack of self-esteem—seems intertwined with so many...
