The Coleman Institute Blog

This may not be what you would expect to read in a blog of an addiction treatment program but opioids are my best friend right now. You see, my father in law is dying. Sure, he’s 95, but a month ago he was working and driving! And yet here he lies at a beautiful hospice house high up on a hill beyond a Home Depot and Costco. Life goes on down there.

I am in the luxurious position of spending most of my time doing exactly what I want to do. Of course, there are still toilets to clean, laundry, bills and taxes, but I love my day job and spend my free time cooking good stuff, doing yoga, practicing calligraphy and hanging with friends and family.

I am going to change the details for my patient’s confidentiality, but the basic story is spot on.

Alana, a beautiful 23-year-old woman who lives far away from Richmond, VA, convinced her mother to bring her to the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine to help her stop using opioids.

I interviewed Caylee for this blog article.

Caylee has been coming to the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine for several years now for long-acting naltrexone treatments. She has close to four years of sobriety under her belt, and although many things impress me about this young woman, I think I’m most taken by the intensity she continues to put into her commitment to stay off drugs.

Rebecca now realizes that this is no longer a joke. While she used to kid around calling herself a “functioning alcoholic,” that all changed when, after many attempts at cutting back, stopping drinking for a period of time, or setting limits, she suddenly lost her job of 10 years. She made an error that cost her company thousands of dollars and they fired her.

This was not her first mistake at work. Although the mistake was not attributed to alcohol use, it was serous enough to result in termination. Deep down in her heart, she questioned whether her nightly alcohol use had contributed but she then remembered that she is functioning just fine in all other areas of her life so she discounted these thoughts.