Maia Szalavitz

Decisions about a patients' pain treatment are now made much more collaboratively, but even in modern times, the process is fraught with moral judgment, stemming largely from the nature of available pain treatments and an incomplete understanding of how to use them. Patients who ask for more pain drugs are eyed as potential addicts; doctors who prescribe pain medications too frequently fear being arrested for it. But with about 10% to 15% of Americans, mostly in middle-age or older, suffering from chronic pain severe enough to interfere with daily life, figuring out which pain medications work best — and which are safest — is of crucial interest.

One of the main reasons I wanted to write about empathy in my forthcoming book with Bruce Perry, MD, Phd, Born for Love, was my experience of the lack of empathy we show towards people with addiction. As a former heroin and cocaine addict, I was horrified by what I learned about treatment before I sought help: the idea was that addiction is cured by "tough love," by breaking people in order to fix them.

That moment of yielding fully to addiction is what Alan Marlatt, director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington, calls the abstinence-violation effect (AVE). "The abstinence-violation effect is a form of black-and-white thinking," says Marlatt. "You blame [your failure] on internal factors that you consider beyond your control." Those factors — whether they are, as in Oprah Winfrey's case, a thyroid condition that causes weight gain, or a belief that addiction is a disease that robs you of free will — are what derail thousands of quitters and abstainers from their New Year's resolutions.

Should young women worry about “spiked” drinks and “date rape” drugs?  A new study published in the British Journal of Criminology including surveys of both American and British coeds suggests that the real problem is what's already in the glass, not what a surreptitious date or stranger might add to it.

Couples having difficulty conceiving may want to skip one item that is ordinarily considered helpful to the process—alcohol—at least if they are using in-vitro fertilization (IVF).  A new study of 2,574 couples undergoing 5,363 IVF cycles between 1994 and 2003 found that couples in which both partners drank four or more alcoholic beverages per week decreased their chances of having a live birth by 26%.

They call it "the switch." Alcoholics who take an anticraving medication called baclofen say the drug allows them to resist the most powerful triggers of relapse: former drinking buddies, a favorite bar, the sight of alcohol or even the most potent drinking cue of all, having a single drink. French cardiologist Dr. Olivier Amiesen wrote about his experience with baclofen in his memoir The End of My Addiction.

"The abstinence violation effect is a form of black-and-white thinking," says Marlatt. Those factors — whether they are, as in Winfrey's case, a thyroid condition that causes weight gain, or the belief that addiction is a disease that robs you of any free will — are what derail thousands of quitters and abstainers from their New Year's resolutions every year.

Are the evil internets trying to hook your children on aural drugs? Either USA Today and ABC News don't read the opinion columns they post on their websites, or the mainstream media is so far gone that it's beyond help. From the column in question, by a radio host named Kim Komando: "websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects."

A recent online poll by Nature magazine of 1,400 readers—mainly scientists—found that one in five admitted to using stimulants to boost brain power and 80% said they thought such drug use should be permitted. That poll was unscientific because it did not involve a random sample, but it still suggests a widespread acceptance of “cognitive enhancement” by pharmaceutical means...

Could people with anxiety disorders be suffering because they’re not producing enough endogenous opioids—the brain chemicals best known as natural painkillers?  This could help explain why people with anxiety disorders and those who suffer childhood trauma have elevated rates of addiction to opioid drugs like heroin and Vicodin.