Editorial Comment 10/15: The struggle for balance and National Addiction Treatment Week; “Mindful Drinking”

In the April 2019 issue of National Geographic magazine on cities (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/2019/04/ ),  the segment on Singapore asks the important question of social control versus autonomy: what are we willing to give up for security?  I submit this just as an analogy in considering the measures for treating addiction.  The NatGeo article describes the astonishing, mixed technologically-advanced and yet verdant beauty of the city as a prize of substantial social control. With that, of course, comes a sacrifice of autonomy, a considerable concern of  addiction treatment or prevention methodologies. We might expect that science couldn’t generate as much unproductive heat as a political debate, but of course that would be mistaken.  The intensity of advocacy for free access to all substances, commonly using examples in Portugal and the Netherlands, or even the intensity of advocacy for injection safehouses (https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/23/opinion/sunday/opioid-crisis-drug-seattle.html), is no less than that among the advocates of therapeutic conservatism, who remind us that man is weak and fallible and undisciplined in his natural state.   Recovery is more than simply not using drugs; and good legislation requires good science.

In furtherance of a national discussion of addiction, National Addiction Treatment Week (NATW) was initiated by ASAM in 2017;  this year it is 21-27 October (see link).  http://treataddictionsavelives.org/about/   Please consider opening the link and responding to the solicitation of your experiences, your hopes, and your advice.

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Suggested additional reading in support of NATW conversations:

To a well-reasoned article that attempts to state the range of American attitudes towards alcohol consumption and which describes a responsive phenomenon, “mindful drinking”, TIME’s editors  unfortunately – if perhaps unintentionally - attached a dismissive caption:    “’Mindful Drinking' Is the Latest Health Craze. Here's What It Is”.    https://time.com/5064543/mindful-drinking-dry-january/  But no matter the title, Jamie Ducharme’s January 2018 piece reminds us that the general public’s view of alcohol does not divide neatly into safe use and addictive use. 

- Editor-in-Chief: William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM