What Are Your Recovery Options

Joe Gerstein, founder of the Smart Recovery treatment programme that is spreading from the US as an alternative to AA, explains why he rejects the myth that alcoholism is a 'disease' to be endured rather than cured. Alcoholism is a disease that leaves victims powerless and needing to stay in permanent recovery if they are serious about stopping the demon drink from inflicting further damage, conventional wisdom holds.

The biological discoveries have been so much more illuminating than the Freudian notion that addiction stems from "dependency needs" dating to childhood. It's understandable, then, that more funding, and seemingly all the excitement, has gone to discover medications and vaccines for addiction, not to implement behavioral therapies. And although the media laud the smallest steps toward a cocaine vaccine, when a study shows—yawn—that rewarding abstinence can get addicts off meth, that couples counseling can treat alcoholism, or that cognitive-behavior therapy can break the grip of coke addiction … silence.

In this episode, R. Trent Codd, III, Ed.S., LPC, LCAS, interviews Dr. Tom Horvath about addiction-related issues including the following:   * What someone struggling with an addiction can do to find help  * What a loved one of someone who is struggling with an addiction can do to be of assistance  * Current research on addiction treatment  * SMART Recovery  * Controversies in addiction treatment

Online psychotherapy with patient and therapist texting each other in real-time can be effective, potentially giving thousands or even millions of patients new access to much-needed treatment, researchers say.

Addiction is a symptom; there are many ways available to help treat the underlying causes, including biofeedback, stress release approaches like Rolfing, and massage therapy.

When people's knowledge of addiction comes entirely from attending AA meetings (or examining addict brain scans), they find proof positive that people are unable to quit an addiction under usual circumstances - in other words, they learn the atypical is the rule. This is understandable, but very unfortunate.

Three video recordings (Windows Media Player required) from the ScattergoodEthics Program conference on Alternative Strategies for Alcoholism Treatment on May 21, 2008. The conference examined the role and ethical implications of comprehensive treatment for alcoholism, including the ethical challenges of different treatment strategies and the latest empirical research and clinical evidence. Participants included a panel of experts from the local alcohol treatment community.

The authors of "Alcoholics Anonymous" - the guide for living life without alcohol, were of a certain era, of a very specific socio-economic group, and had very specific personality problems. Unfortunately, these personality problems are presented as being THE diagnosis for ALL alcoholics. They are not. These particular men used and abused their power which was automatically granted to them by being born into a racist, classist, sexist society which was geared to cater to the needs of individuals exactly like them, at the expense of women, children and people of color.

In late 1999, Dr David Best (who was working with the National Addiction Centre), Addiction Today editor Deirdre Boyd and the then-CEO of EATA met to initiate an easy-to-use reference document about addiction treatment which could be used by professionals and general public, and which not only covered the key issues but were based on incontrovertible research addressing those issues.

Problem drinking in Western societies leads to disease and death, as well as social and economic problems.
Few problem drinkers seek treatment help. New findings show that a 24/7 free-access, anonymous, interactive, and Web-based self-help intervention can aid problem drinkers in the privacy of their own homes.