At Guernica, Lucas Mann (who lost his brother to heroin addiction) writes on why abstinence and methadone don’t work and how doctors are failing in their fight against arbitrary, DEA-enforced patient caps on buprenorphine — a promising treatment for heroin addiction. Curran began prescribing in 2002. He was stunned by the results, and so were […]
addiction
Posted inUncategorized
How a Local Police Chief Took on the Drug War
After 25 years of fighting a losing war on drugs and with a heroin epidemic raging in his home state of Massachusetts, Gloucester Police Chief Leonard Campanello decided to take matters into his own hands. He opened his police station’s doors to any addict seeking help, promising to get them into treatment. Writing for Boston Magazine, Chris Sweeney […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Amy Winehouse Documentary Doesn’t Pander
Like Senna’s, Winehouse’s family co-operated with Kapadia, but unlike them, they are displeased with the film, and it’s not hard to see why. As well as a welcome portrait of the frequently caricatured Winehouse as an (exceptional) artist and as a person, Amy is an indictment of those around her, especially her ex-husband, Blake Fielder-Civil, […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Power of Reddit as a Public Health Advocacy Tool
Writing for Backchannel, Andrew McMillen recently profiled a woman named Tracey Helton. Helton—a former heroin addict who now works as a public health advocate—has taken to Reddit to advocate harm reduction strategies among addicts and to distribute the overdose-reversing drug naloxone. Dubbed the “mother of r/opiates,” Helton’s program “illustrates the unexpected good that can emerge from darker corners of […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Quitting the Internet, Cold Turkey
The advice offered to me by people when I explain I am going to live by myself in the woods for a week varies from the sensible (“Develop a routine”) to the frankly awful (“Take some weed!”). But it is Michael Harris, the Canadian author who published a book in 2014 called The End of […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
When Prescription Abuse Among Veterans Accelerates Into Heroin Addiction
“The effects produced by oxycodone and hydrocodone are indistinguishable from the effects produced by heroin,” said psychiatrist Dr. Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer of Phoenix House, which runs more than 100 drug treatment clinics nationwide. “If we don’t see that the many veterans who became addicted are provided with effective addiction treatment, we will continue to see veterans turn to heroin, and we will continue to see very high overdose death rates.”
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
William S. Burroughs on Why He Stopped Taking Drugs
What Burroughs revealed in his 1965 conversation with The Paris Review.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Five Stories About Addiction
Stories of drug addiction take many form; every story is different and intensely personal. This week, read an excerpt from a journalist’s memoir, a profile of a lead singer, a mother’s reflection and more.
Posted inNonfiction, Reading List
Five Stories About Addiction
Stories of drug addiction take many form; every story is different and intensely personal. This week, read an excerpt from a journalist’s memoir, a profile of a lead singer, a mother’s reflection and more.
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Russell Brand on What It’s Like to Be an Addict
Drugs and alcohol are not my problem, reality is my problem, drugs and alcohol are my solution.
If this seems odd to you it is because you are not an alcoholic or a drug addict. You are likely one of the 90% of people who can drink and use drugs safely. I have friends who can smoke weed, swill gin, even do crack and then merrily get on with their lives. For me, this is not an option.