The Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine Blog

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.

It doesn’t happen like this all the time. But it did happen yesterday. Room to room, patient to patient, over and over---I heard one success story after another.

Mack, off fentanyl since mid-April. Sleeping well, doing home renovation projects he’d put off for years. He now has the time, the energy and the money to do so.

This has become a very common scenario and patients from all around the country are calling the Coleman Institute for Addiction Medicine for help. It’s important to understand the difference between addiction and physical dependence. Addiction, at its simplest, can be defined as continued use despite adverse consequences.