There are few things that inspire a deeper sense of apprehension and dread in someone in recovery from a substance abuse disorder than the prospect of a major surgery. Rare is the recovering drug addict who doesn’t know a contemporary… Read More ›
addiction
The Dead Are Always Drug-Free: Why An Abstinence-Only Approach Will Never End The Heroin Epidemic
Heroin is not alcohol. This might seem like a fairly obvious and even ridiculous point to make, but there are so many people in our courts, our governments, our treatment centers and our recovery communities who don’t seem to grasp this… Read More ›
Sentiment Over Substance: How Presidential Candidates Talk About Addiction Without Saying Much Of Anything
It happened at the beginning of the New Hampshire Forum on Addiction and the Heroin Epidemic, well before the 5 mid-card presidential candidates who participated in the event showed up to speak. About halfway through the morning portion of the… Read More ›
Off His Meds & Away From Reality: Charlie Sheen’s Struggles With HIV & Mental Health
Acceptance is the answer. As someone who has been through his fair share of rehabs and Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, that is an axiom that I am sure Charlie Sheen is well acquainted with and, based on his history of addiction… Read More ›
There Are Such Unfortunates: Failing To Deal With Severe Mental Illness in Recovery
How the hell did I get here is a question that comes about with a fair amount of frequency in the course of an alcoholic or addicted life. Wind up waking up next to someone you’ve never seen before in… Read More ›
Angels In The Outfield Asking For Help: Josh Hamilton & Baseball’s Other Drug Problem
If, in the distant future, some baseball historian were to come across the box score for the Cincinnati Reds’ Opening Day in 2007, he wouldn’t find anything that seemed particularly noteworthy. On that day, the Reds’ notched a 5-1 victory… Read More ›
The Bones of a Country: One Night in a Dead California Desert Town
Driving the 220 miles of road that lie between the Tehachapi mountains and the California-Arizona border, I started hearing the voice of Tom Joad ring in my ears. This here’s a murder country, he said to me. This here’s the bones of… Read More ›
Constitutionally Incapable: Brief Reflections On My Time Living With an Autistic Alcoholic
In March of 2009, I went to the Hazelden Center For Youth & Families in Plymouth, MN to receive dual diagnosis treatment for alcoholism/addiction and bipolar disorder. Thankfully, both my addiction and mental health have been in check over the… Read More ›
The Click (Or, How I Came To Realize I Was An Alcoholic)
After 16 months of languishing in a storage locker just outside of Baltimore, I finally managed to schlep the bulk of my worldly belongings back to my apartment in Cincinnati. Moving is never fun, but sometimes the process can unearth… Read More ›
Dope Sick With Mouths To Feed: The Struggles of American Women in Active Addiction
~~~~~~~ Author’s Note ~~~~~~~ On the night before I was to publish this article, one of my cousins died at the hands of this insidious disease of addiction. The last time I saw her was early Thursday morning after a… Read More ›
Virally Suppressed - Muckraking For The Modern World 