mortiz095

Some interesting new studies are showing promising results for patients all over the world: Turns out, Quality of Life improvements aren't just for the wealthy: Quality of Life (QoL) scores significantly improved in ALL  four domains (psychological, physical, social and environmental) of the WHO QoL scale in patients in low and middle income countries, according to the authors of a systematic review of 13 studies involving over 1800 participants. The findings, published online last week in the Journal of Drug and Alcohol Dependence , show that despite the apparent lack of resources in these countries, opiate replacement therapy with methadone or buprenorphine can be an effective treatment tool - with scores increasing along with the length of time at followup - and offering outcomes comparable to those seen in high income countries. You can read the abstract of the study by Feelemeyer, et al., here:  http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0376871613004225 The metha...

This week's entry comes from Dr Reid K Hester, PhD. He is Director of the Research Division at Behavior Therapy Associates , LLC, where they have been conducting some exciting new research using a web-based application, Overcoming Addictions. Thank you, Dr Hester, for the guest post: Overcoming Addictions, a web-based application, & SMART Recovery: Outcomes of a  randomized clinical trial My research staff and I recently published the early outcomes of a new web app, Overcoming Addictions in the Journal of Medical Internet Research ( http://www.jmir.org/2013/7/e134 ). Overcoming Addictions (OA, www.overcomingaddictions.net ) is an abstinence-oriented, cognitive behavioral program based on the protocol of SMART Recovery. SMART Recovery ( www.smartrecovery.org ) is an organization that has adapted empirically supported treatment strategies for use in a mutual help framework with in-person meetings, online meetings, a forum and other resources. A firm believer of “In God we trust,...

A clinician recently sent me this email: Dr. Willenbring, I read an article in the New York Times from early this year discussing Effective Addiction Treatment that in part highlighted your comments and Alltyr's mission to be a 21st century model for addictions treatment. As a therapist in an outpatient practice not specializing in addictions treatment--but who nevertheless encounters co-morbidity with substance abuse on a pretty regular basis--it can be confusing to know how to approach the psychosocial aspects of treatment. I believe in a multimodal approach for chronic forms of addiction but there are tons of options out there for my part in that process:  motivational enhancement therapy, cognitive-behavioral, contingency management interventions/motivational incentives, the matrix model, 12-step, DBT, family behavior therapy, interpersonal neurobiology, etc. There is so much out there it's dizzying, and I feel overwhelmed. There are some that seem more indicated for alcoho...

An analysis of an impressive and wide-sweeping study arrived in my email box this morning, via the wonderful folks at Drug and Alcohol Findings in the UK. For the study, recovery advocate William L White reviewed 415 scientific studies of recovery outcomes from clinically- and culturally-diverse populations, looking at research performed over the past century. Among the highlights, the author concludes from all of this data that recovery happens - at far greater rates than conventional wisdom would have us believe. In fact,   "Recovery is not an aberration achieved by a small and morally enlightened minority of addicted people. If there is a natural developmental momentum within the course of [these] problems, it is toward remission and recovery." Some very hopeful words to start your day. Below are some additional highlights. You can access the article here:   http://findings.org.uk/count/downloads/download.php?file=White_WL_24.txt  and find great resources for tre...

In an interesting study recently made available in Addictive Behaviors , researchers found that parents’ beliefs about their children’s cannabis use could predict whether they began using one year later. It turns out, parents’ predictions, while highly variable and often wrong, could work in their favor – or against them, depending on the response: kids were more likely to begin smoking cannabis if their parents had wrongly assumed they already were. What’s more, kids were more likely to cease smoking if their parents had wrongly assumed they didn't smoke. Turns out, the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy is alive and well in our nation’s high schools. Data for the study was analyzed from the National Survey of Parents and Youth (N=3131). In the survey, youth (ages 12-17) were asked about past-year marijuana use (T1). In addition, one parent of each respondent was asked about what they thought was their child’s past-year use. One year later (T2), investigators followed up with the same qu...