Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

Referred to as “the Army disease” in the late 19th century, addiction to opium derivatives including morphine allegedly involved as many as 400,000 Civil War combatants. As this estimate derives mostly from Federal disability pension records and the rolls of early veterans’ associations such as the Grand Army of the Republic, it is bound to have excluded survivors of the Confederacy. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

The tail-end-Charley item in this week’s ASAM Weekly is arguably the most practicable and promising of recent approaches to stimulant addiction, pharmacological or behavioral. The New York Times review of Contingency Management (CM)’s premises, benefits, and obstacles to implementation gives an accurate description for all levels of understanding. Steve Shoptaw and colleagues have demonstrated the concept’s efficacy repeatedly since the early 2000s - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

Below, Jim Wahlberg (older brother to the Calvin Klein underwear idol, ”Don’t call me Marky!” Wahlberg), describes his and his son’s experiences of addiction and of recovery. In reading it, I was drawn to parallels between his arguably more-famous brother and those on either side of the national debate on “rights”: The more junior Wahlberg has himself gone through changes, evolutions in opinion and commitments, in the days since he led a boy band. People’s views may soften with education, experience, and development of character; and sometimes we discover that it is our views which want softening. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

My mother, who was Australian, found Americans intriguing yet illogical, and strangely misdirected in their sentimentality. She explored this experience by marrying my father in the middle of a world war, so you could not accuse her of lacking a spirit of adventure or of inability to tolerate ambiguity. But she never could quite come to grips with one consequence of American commercialism. “Why,” she would ask, “is there a Mother’s Day in this country. Yet, a national pickle month?” Much of the time I would fall back on my role as callow adolescent, or cynical young adult, and shrug my shoulders, or encourage her to worry about something more important, such as whether Nixon was going to be elected. The seeming lack of honor accorded mothers by yielding an entire month to bottled vegetables was never quite resolved in her lifetime. Despite this, she went ahead and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1970. I thought I finally had the answer for her, when, in 2001, the status of pickles appeared to have been downgraded to a National Pickle Day (November 14, in case you are interested: https://nationaltoday.com/national-pickle-day/ ). I was wrong. She was no slouch at research, and I was reminded that she had been a secretary in the Ministry of Defense when my father, on leave from New Guinea, first won her attention. She pointed out to me that the pickle had yielded nothing in this virtual combat for primacy, as there is still a national pickle month as well as, now, a day. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

The ASAM Board of Directors met over the weekend preceding this issue of ASAM Weekly. It is a quarterly convocation, at one time a two-day affair: more recently one day event via virtual platform. The members of the Board are all unpaid volunteers, for whom travel and rooming is always at their own expense. These past, recent meetings have necessarily been hosted by a flow of electrons, and consequently blissfully economic. Because the Directors are all volunteers, and the Board meetings are only a fragment of their volunteer duties with ASAM, the spirit of collegiality was unusually strong. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

I frequently begin my talks by forewarning the audience that I do not know what is going to come out of this box up on my neck. It is a reflection on computers and on our limited control of their moment-to-moment functionality. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

I joined a recovery meeting last night, in itself no great surprise. But two revelations were provided to me, perhaps one more significant than the other. The more mundane one was that I found myself hearing old familiar friends clearly for once, in years. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

From 1988 to 1992, I was the medical director of the alcoholism and drug rehabilitation unit at a facility we’ll call Very Large Army Hospital (VLAH). Coincidentally, “Fred”, a high school classmate, an Army officer and a pediatric oncologist, was also stationed at VLAH. We were at opposite ends of the hospital. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

The Psychiatry Online piece below speaks to the relatedness of the experiences of mental health care workers, inclusive of those working with substance use disorders, to those of their patients. It served as a reminder to me, further stimulated by an ongoing discussion with the Senior Editor, about the importance of subjective experience in defining an illness state. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

1990 Marked the first reference to methamphetamine use by inhalation in Hawaii. A case study, involving a pneumonitis with severe respiratory compromise, made sparing reference to signs of intoxication. - Editor-in-Chief: Dr. William Haning, MD, DFAPA, DFASAM

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

It was my intent this week to discuss the convergence of the infectious pandemic with drug use endemicity, centering on the Hawaiian experience with methamphetamine. I will defer that to next week. Let me focus instead on our obligation as healthcare professionals within the field of addiction, to take care of ourselves and of each other.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

Marie & Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel supported an early theory of radioactivity with observations and refinements that also led to the isolation of radium. Leaving aside the impact of this on their respective healths - all suffered radiation sickness at various times, with Marie being the most frequently-identified of the three to die from it - their accomplishments famously required enormous obstinacy and persistence.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

This week’s lead article correlates substance use disorders (SUD), serious mental illness (SMI), and suicidal ideation (SI) with the COVID-19 pandemic. Similar findings have been remarked in the military population, during wartime, by medical thought leaders in stress disorders and suicide since before the time of Harry Stack Sullivan, in the hope of devising reliable screening instruments.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

Three of the articles reviewed emphasize COVID-19-related risk factors for addiction relapse. Featured prominently are the lack of interpersonal connections, absence of intimacy, and unavailability of feedback; in a single word, isolation.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

Those who are familiar with the superb program by Shankar Vedantam, on National Public Radio, "The Hidden Brain," a weekly interview and analysis of issues in neuroscience and behavior, may also be as accustomed as I in discovering how much I do not know [https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510308/hidden-brain ].

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

In Stephanie Brown’s “Treating the Alcoholic” there is a section entitled “a psychological view of the 12 steps.” While paralleling the process of recovery - employing a 12-step model - with psychotherapy, she and George Vaillant have made the case for it being a maturational process.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

Owing in part to absence, I regret that this week’s commentary is abbreviated, limited to a short quotation. My choice of material reflects this week’s U.S. Presidential decision, which diverted clinical data needed for successful management of the COVID-19 pandemic away from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

The account of important events can be difficult enough in real time. A national pastime is watching the news and making fun of the various heads that are speaking. At the same time, we generally reserve a certain amount of sympathy for the difficulty of their vocation, and not merely for their performance anxiety.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

There is a common and grievous tendency to refer to the holiday just passed as “The Fourth of July,” when it is, in fact, “Independence Day”: a celebration specifically of the signing of the Declaration of Independence (plus or minus two days depending on whose account of the date you choose). Benjamin Rush, M.D., senior attending physician in the University of Pennsylvania and Surgeon General of the Continental Army, was very relevantly a signer of the Declaration of Independence of the nascent United States.

Aug 9, 2021, 13:40 by admin admin

July 1 has a democratizing effect for all program directors of residency training, in all specialties. For one brief week, we are equally humbled. All must pay homage to their minor deities, those institutional ones of scheduling and funding and quality assurance; and to the superordinate deities, the respective specialty boards, and the American College of Graduate Medical Education.