The Coleman Institute Blog

We had an incredibly busy season at the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine. We were challenged to keep staff and patients safe from COVID-19, navigate holiday schedules, and respond as best we can to the tsunami wave of people desperate for help from various addictive substances. If holidays and COVID-19 weren’t enough to add to people’s vulnerability to using opioids, benzos, and alcohol, the relative ease of finding these drugs has made a bad problem much, much worse.

Addiction is a difficult disease. It can be isolating, lonely, and painful. Unlike many other diseases, addiction is often paired with secrets and lies. It is hard to picture a life without addiction when you don’t know what treatment solutions are out there.

Here are 3 addictions solutions that can turn your life around.

We see it almost daily. A patient comes in for a detox with us stating that they are buying pills, like opiates or benzodiazepines, on the street. They say their dealer is “trustworthy” and that the pills are “legit.” When we test their urine for substances, more often than not, there is no oxycodone, there are no benzos, but what is present is Fentanyl.

I was recently invited to speak to a class of student nurses and discuss how 12-Step Recovery programs like AA can help someone struggling with bipolar disorder and substance use disorder.

It happened again. The office phones had just transitioned to the answering service for the evening when a call came through from a patient who had completed an accelerated opioid detox (not to be confused with ultra-rapid (anesthesia-using), hospital-based detox) three days earlier.