A comment from a previous post suggested I watch a documentary titled Cracked Not Broken by independent film maker Paul Perrier. It was time well spent. In short, the film is about a woman named Lisa who is addicted to cocaine and works as a prostitute to support her habit. Much of the film is an… [Continue Reading]
Addiction in Society? Let Me Count the Ways
In the book Rapt Attention and the Focused Life Winifred Gallagher makes a case that life ultimately adds up to what you choose to pay attention to. This got me thinking about how addiction has evolved to our changing world, and the ways in which we are all more vulnerable to excessive behaviors – or at least exposed to far… [Continue Reading]
Autism Expert Can Help Those With Addiction
In the late 1990’s I begin attending workshops on trauma therapy because I realized many of those who struggle with addiction also wrestled with untreated underlying trauma – sexual, physical, and emotional. It was at one of the workshops that I first heard the name Stanley Greenspan. Today he is known as one of the… [Continue Reading]
Childhood Trauma – The Gift that Keeps on Giving
Estimates of the co-occurrence of trauma and addiction are quite high, and depending on how trauma is defined, one could argue that most who struggle with addiction have experienced some type of trauma in their life. In my clinical work, most patients had histories of traumatic events that shaped their life in significant ways, even… [Continue Reading]
Why Treatment Fails Patients
I wrote a paper about this topic some time ago, but thought I would post a more parsimonious version of the top 10 reasons treatment fails patients. The point is not to suggest that treatment is always ineffective, just that we have a long way to go to optimizing it for those who struggle overcoming addictive… [Continue Reading]