How Veterans Can Get Addiction Treatment with TRICARE

For anyone who doesn’t have a family member, colleague, or close friend who has served in the military, sometimes the only window into the unique challenges of a soldier’s life is from a big-budget blockbuster like 1917, Saving Private Ryan, or Platoon — or more detailed accounts found on the small screen, such as the miniseries Band of Brothers or The Pacific. The common thread in all these stories? Deployments are stressful and, not surprisingly, they take a serious toll on your body, mind, and the relationships that matter most. As a result, many service members develop unhealthy coping mechanisms like substance abuse, depression, and alcohol misuse, which can follow them into retirement and provide a new set of challenges. Read More

Pain Care: The CDC’s New Approach to Opioids

Throughout history, opium and its derivative opiates and opioids have relieved a lot of pain, but they have also caused a lot of harm. So how do we balance the real, medical need for pain management with opioids’ potential for side effects like abuse and addiction? Read More

Celebrities Sharing Their Struggles to Help Others

If you’ve ever flipped through a copy of US Weekly, there’s a rather comical section called “Stars — They’re Just Like Us!” There you may find Brad Pitt pumping his own gas, or a Kardashian smiling as she exits the dentist’s office. While stardom seems to come with many irresistible and enviable perks, it turns out that people with lives in the spotlight are very much “just like us” in ways we may not have considered. Read More

Rainbow Fentanyl: How One Pill Can Kill

What is rainbow fentanyl? These colorful new pills that contain illicitly-produced fentanyl can be lethal in a single dose. The bright colors make rainbow fentanyl look like candy, which makes it even more dangerous, given that it is more likely to appeal to younger children and teens or be mistaken for something sweet. Read More

A Deep Dive on Drug Addiction

Drug addiction doesn’t discriminate. It doesn’t matter your gender, economic status, or whether you live in the city, the suburbs, a small town, or rural area, no one is immune. This issue is so wide-reaching and pervasive that drug control cost the US $35 billion in 2020, according to research from the National Center for Drug Abuse Statistics (NCDAS). Read More

7 Dangers of Detoxing Alone

death. Every effective treatment plan includes a process called detoxification. Drug detox and alcohol detox rid the body of the toxic substances in which it has become dependent. Detox is among the first steps toward recovery. If you’ve asked yourself, Can I detox alone? The short answer is no. Drug detox and alcohol detox should be attempted only under the direct supervision of a trained medical professional. Here are seven reasons why: Read More

Prescription vs. Illicit Drug Addiction

When we think of “drug abuse,” most of our minds probably go straight to illicit drug use. But prescription drug abuse has grown into a national problem over the past few decades, with sad and shocking statistics to show for it. Read More

Why Are Co-Occurring Disorders So Common?

“Co-occurring disorders,” sometimes referred to as “dual diagnosis,” or “comorbidity,” is a term used to identify when a person has both a substance use disorder and a mental health condition. The incidence of co-occurring disorders is fairly common because of the way that a person’s physical condition and their mental and emotional state affect each other. Addiction and mental health disorders often perpetuate each other; people may seek out substances to self-medicate mental health symptoms, or they may develop a mental health condition due to the effect of substances on the body. Both conditions need to be treated so that a person can live a fulfilling life in recovery. Read More

Introducing Recovery Replay

The fact that everyone seems to have a podcast these days is not lost on Dominic Lawson. As the host and producer of Beyond Theory podcast for Meadows Behavioral Healthcare (MBH), the recovery podcast vet has discovered something extraordinary about the decidedly old-school medium: the ability to tell a complete, three-dimensional narrative. This approach has helped MBH’s newest addiction recovery podcast, Recovery Replay, stand out in a crowd. Read More

The New Workaholism

By Anna McKenzie The nature of work has changed in recent years, but workaholism is still as prevalent as ever. Why is this the case? Advances in technology promised us the ability to work less; but now that we can work from anywhere — and more people are working… Read More