Years ago I attended a conference where I first learned of the work of Dean Fixsen and heard the phrase implementation science. What I most remember about his presentation is a PowerPoint slide he showed that to this day continues to haunt me: The table is taken from Joyce and Showers (2002) where the authors… [Continue Reading]
Addiction Treatment System – Not So Broken After All
I need to apologize to those who work in the addiction treatment field, because some of my past posts have contributed to the perception that we have a broken addiction treatment system. While I have never said or even implied that the people working in the field are broken, I know from experience that it doesn’t feel… [Continue Reading]
Why You Should Care About Addiction Treatment Outcomes
Outcomes are important because they ultimately provide accountability for those who deliver treatment, and for your own actions. There is a wide continuum of addiction treatment services available depending on severity of symptoms, ranging from outpatient options to residential or hospital stays. As you might imagine, there is a huge range in cost for these services as… [Continue Reading]
Focusing to Move Beyond Addiction
Not long after my wife and I were married, we decided to proactively increase our chances of staying together by enrolling in one of Dr. John Gottman’s weekend couples workshops in Seattle. At the time I was deeply immersed in my graduate studies in counseling and was excited to spend some time with the world-famous marriage guru. What I had… [Continue Reading]
Investing in Addiction Treatment: Is it Worth the Cost?
I recently talked with a Huffington Post reporter about the Real Tab for Rehab: Inside the Addiction Treatment Biz. In our discussion, I pointed out that to a large extent we still have an addiction treatment system that provides short-term (acute) treatment for a long-term (chronic) problem (this key point did not make the article). In… [Continue Reading]