Restoring Hope: The Gift of Detox
It doesn’t happen like this all the time. But it did happen yesterday. Room to room, patient to patient, over and over—I heard one success story after another. Mack, off fentanyl since mid-April. Sleeping well, doing home renovation projects he’d put off for...
My Pain Doctor Cut Me Off, What Do I Do?
This has become a very common scenario and patients from all around the country are calling the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine for help. It’s important to understand the difference between addiction and physical dependence. Addiction, at its simplest, can be...
Triggers as Reminders
Recovery is a lifelong process, fraught with many twists and turns. A friend who has been sober from alcohol for two and a half years told me a story yesterday that brought this point home. She had just renewed her Costco membership and went there for the first time...
Do This 1 Thing to Stay Off Opioids Forever
Using willpower to change a behavior means working hard to achieve something; Merriam Webster defines will power as “energetic determination.” If I need willpower to accomplish something, then I am attempting a task that I feel some level of conflict about doing. Like...
