Psychiatrist Anna Lembke's new book explores the brain's connection between pleasure and pain. It also helps explain addictions — not just to drugs and alcohol, but also to food, sex and smartphones.
ER doctors wanted to hospitalize the young man to help ease his withdrawal from opioid dependence. But he declined because he couldn't afford it. His mom says no one told him he had financial options.
The Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Association is awarding nearly $600,000 in grant money to the Georgia Council on Substance Abuse. Part of the money will be used for the “Georgia Recovers” billboard campaign. GPB’s Ellen Eldridge reports on the council’s work to reduce stigma associated with substance use disorder.
For years, people who used drugs were treated like criminals, often given long sentences. Now there's growing acceptance that addiction is a treatable disease, but shame and discrimination linger.
Oregon's bold move to decriminalize small amounts of all hard drugs and expand treatment is now meeting the reality of implementation as the treatment community is divided over the way forward.
The nation's top addiction scientist has teamed up with a prominent artist to let people know that substance use disorder is a disease, not a moral failure.
Researchers say cocaine, meth and other street drugs are increasingly contaminated with deadly synthetic opioids, contributing to a major spike in deaths.
Derek Chauvin's defense has suggested George Floyd's drug use might have made him more "volatile" and unpredictable, justifying the use of force. Critics say Floyd needed health care and compassion.
Black Americans with addiction face "pervasive and continuing systemic racism" and often struggle to gain access to treatments that prevent fatal overdoses.
Many drug rehab programs use aggressive sales techniques, price-gouge patients and provide substandard care. The system often pushes people struggling with addiction into debt, but not recovery.
The Biden administration had Day 1 plans for the pandemic, economy and climate change. Experts say they haven't yet seen that same focus on the addiction crisis, which is killing 220 people a day.
COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations are hitting record highs across the nation, and Georgia is back in the red zone among 42 states, according to the latest White House Coronavirus Task Force report. But experts caution against letting pandemic fatigue affect the decision to wear a mask, get a flu shot or maintain physical distance from others in public.
San Francisco will soon launch the nation's largest experiment that diverts most nonviolent mental health and behavioral crisis calls away from police and to specially trained mobile units.
President Trump's son Donald Trump Jr. called Biden "a crackhead." Researchers say that kind of humiliation puts many Americans with addiction at risk. Most people never get help because of shame.
