Written by Geoff Kane, MD, MPH05 August 2015 “Spirituality”—like “love”—has many interpretations. Some identify spirituality as their personal sense of connection, meaning, and purpose. Others identify it is an elusive abstraction they have never experienced. Those who equate spirituality with religion and are not religious themselves may assume spirituality is not relevant to them. But…
DetailsBy Clifford W. Beninger 08/18/15 AA is not the only game in town anymore, but these options need your support.ShutterstockSome time ago I was manager of a laboratory facility, and we hired undergraduates to come in and work, learn and gain some experience. Quite often these young people would somewhat reluctantly ask me for advice…
DetailsPosted December 3, 2015 in Roundtable Discussion by Anne Fletcher I knew little about the work of Stephanie Covington, PhD, LCSW until just recently when helping a young woman find residential treatment for a substance use disorder and co-occurring mental health problems, including trauma. I came across a unique facility, called A Woman’s Way (scroll down…
DetailsA Woman’s Way Through The Twelve Steps by Stephanie Covington AA Agnositca Review A Woman’s Way through the 12 Steps was published in 1994 and has become a favorite book for many women in AA. Why do women have their own book? One reason is the effect on women of the religious language used in the…
Details“These aren’t throwaway kids. These are kids with huge challenges.” Joseph ErbentrautThe Huffington PostOct. 19, 2015 Teacher Traci Bowermaster arrived at the White Bear Lake Area Learning Center, an alternative high school in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, in early 2001 with a mandate for change. White Bear Lake was designed to help teens who…
Detailsby Chad D. Emrick, Ph.D Thomas P. Beresford, MD. In the December, 2015, edition of this Science Update we responded to a recent article appearing in The Atlantic.1 Its author, Gabrielle Glaser, claimed that AA and its 12-step programs lack scientific foundation, asserting that “nothing about the 12-step approach draws on modern science …..” We presented the…
DetailsOpioid painkillers are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they reduce chronic pain, which plagues around 100 million Americans. Yet they can also lead to abuse of painkillers, which all too often develops into a heroin addiction. Researchers from Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center conducted a study that assessed the effectiveness of meditation as a…
DetailsBy Damian McElrath Foreword by Richard Solly: In The Essence of Twelve Step Recovery, Damian McElrath defines spirituality as “relational.” That is, spirituality is not found alone in the desert, isolated on the snowy peak of a mountain top, or even in solitude on the shore of the Aegean Sea, but surprisingly, it can be found at…
DetailsBy Jessica Gregg Washington Post March 18 Jessica Gregg is medical director for substance use disorders at Central City Concern in Portland, Ore., and an associate professor of medicine at Oregon Health and Science University. Addiction has long been medicine’s unwanted stepchild. Doctors didn’t understand it, didn’t know how to treat it and felt helpless…
DetailsMarc Galanter MDa*, Zoran Josipovic PhDb, Helen Dermatis PhDa, Jochen Weberc & Mary Alice Millarda The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse: Encompassing All Addictive Disorders ABSTRACTBackground: Many individuals with alcohol-use disorders who had experienced alcohol craving before joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) report little or no craving after becoming long-term members. Their use of…
Details