The Addiction Conspiracy:
You Don’t Have to Struggle
New book by Baltimore addiction medicine specialist explains brain chemistry and addiction so everyone can understand
Key Points:
- Recent study of brain chemistry proves addiction is a disease, which can be treated with medicine like many other diseases.
- The general medical community does not treat addiction as it treats other diseases, like diabetes and high blood pressure, although similar maintenance medication controls the disease and allows patients to lead happy and productive lives.
- The most widely-accepted treatment for addiction is the Alcoholics Anonymous model, which has been used since the 1940s. No other medical treatment from the 1940s is still practiced today.
- Understanding addiction means understanding the basics of brain chemistry and how drug use actually alters the brain, teaching it that it needs the drug to survive.
- First-hand testimonials demonstrate incredible accounts of immediate and long-term success with the use of addiction medicine.
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Audio:
What is the biggest misconception about addiction? [400kb .MP3]
How does our brain respond to drugs and addiction medicine? [392kb .MP3]
What is the most surprising fact about addiction? [116kb .MP3]
Why is addiction the only disease not treated with medicine? [616kb .MP3]
What are the warning signs of alcohol dependence? [260kb .MP3]
Who has succeeded with addiction medicine treatment? [236kb .MP3]
Who suffers from addiction? [196kb .MP3]
Video:
What is the biggest misconception about addiction? [Requires Flash 8]
How does our brain respond to drugs and addiction medicine? [Requires Flash 8]
What is the most surprising fact about addiction? [Requires Flash 8]
Why is addiction the only disease not treated with medicine? [Requires Flash 8]
What are the warning signs of alcohol dependence? [Requires Flash 8]
Who has succeeded with addiction medicine treatment? [Requires Flash 8]
Who suffers from addiction? [Requires Flash 8]
Patient Video [Requires Flash 8]
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Resources:
Biography:
About the author
Lee Tannenbaum, MD, graduated with a degree in chemical and biomedical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1981 and graduated cum laude from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1988. Dr. Tannenbaum served as chief resident at Forbes Family Practice and is board-certified by the American Board of Family Practice. Dr. Tannenbaum also works as an addiction specialist certified by the American Society of Addiction Medicine. As one of a small number of physicians nationwide with this certification, he is uniquely qualified to treat all forms of addictive disorders using state-of-the-art discoveries and medications.
Dr. Tannenbaum founded the Bel Air Center for Addictions in Bel Air, Maryland in 2005 to treat individuals with addictions ranging from alcohol and prescription pain medication to heroin use, in a professional atmosphere and through methods that are minimally intrusive.
As an addictions treatment advocate, Dr. Tannenbaum regards addiction as a disease and seeks to treat it as such. In addition to regularly speaking to community groups and fielding calls on local radio shows, Dr. Tannenbaum recently teamed up with AddictionAction.org and HBO’s ADDICTION project to host a Voices for Recovery forum.
He maintains active memberships in the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the Harford County Medical Society and MedChi, the Maryland State Medical Society. Dr. Tannenbaum also serves as an advocacy expert for the Harford County Drug Task Force, Together Recovery Works and Addiction Resources Connection.
Dr. Tannenbaum currently treats patients suffering from addiction at the Bel Air Center for Addictions in Maryland and is a medical and addictions consultant at the Phoenix Recovery Center in Edgewood, Maryland.
Excerpts:
New Book Reveals…
Chapter 1 Journey to Addiction Medicine
I decided to read the Big Book, the “bible” of Alcoholics Anonymous and the basis for all twelve-step addiction treatment programs. This was the treatment used at both facilities where I had gained experience and apparently was the standard of care everywhere. As a family physician, I had also referred many patients for this type of program. I wondered exactly what the Big Book had to say so I decided, quite simply, to find out.
To sum up my reaction, I was shocked. I had been searching for a sensible, medical approach to treating addiction, but the book assured me this wasn’t possible. Apparently, the standard of addiction treatment was to ask patients to turn their lives over to a higher power and be healed! I found out that addicts and alcoholics really were hopeless and now I understood why I had never learned anything about addiction treatment; there was nothing to learn. Neither was there any medical support to offer these patients.
According to the Big Book, those poor miserable souls who unfortunately had become addicted to drugs or alcohol needed to learn to make better choices. This condition had very little to do with medicine or real diseases. It seemed counseling from psychologists could offer some hope or maybe a psychiatric evaluation could diagnose and treat depression, but if these people continued to choose to use drugs or alcohol, what could we really do for them?
Despite the lack of information, I took my position as medical director of an addiction facility, albeit temporary, very seriously. I also needed 50 hours of continuing medical education per year to keep my board certification and license. So, the next time I saw an addiction conference offered, I decided to go.
Many patients describe addiction medicine as life changing. Learning about addiction medicine was life changing for me as a physician. For the first time, I interacted with other physicians who discussed the science of addiction as a disease. Most interestingly, the information presented about addiction was similar to information I had learned about other diseases – theories of causes, statistics about prevalence and incidence, physiology, biochemistry, and even thoughts about medical treatments. Certainly, there was ample discussion about the role of twelve-step, abstinence-based programs and how they supplemented addiction medicine. However, these were discussed as one of several tools physicians could use to treat patients with the disease of addiction. Yes, they were patients rather than simply addicts, and the goal was to help them manage their disease so they could lead happy, productive lives just like every other patient. Where had all this information been all of my professional life?
Chapter 2 Addicts or Patients?
Like most people, I tried a methadone program. This was not effective at all and even made things worse for me. It was at the methadone clinic where I met a fellow addict who introduced me to heroin and needles. Most people I encountered at the clinic were still using. It was horrible. They were abusing both street opiates and methadone… it was easy to score drugs there and to talk other people into getting high again. Despite all of this, even before I relapsed with heroin, the methadone was not controlling my cravings at all. It just made me feel doped up and tired. I literally would get my dose in the morning and come home and sleep most of the day away. This went on for about eight months and it was almost as bad as using. More bad came out of the methadone program than good.
- Bel Air Center for Addictions patient
Most people, despite what they might have heard or read, think addiction to drugs or alcohol is a behavior under the addict’s control. It is easy to see why we believe this without looking at the scientific evidence. After all, if someone were to hold a gun to an addict’s head and tell him that if he used he would be shot, the drug addict would be able to turn down the drug in order to save his own life. Compare this to something we know is a disease – say, diabetes. If someone were to hold a gun to a diabetic’s head and command him to lower his blood sugar on the spot or be killed, the diabetic would be unable to, no matter how much he wished or tried.
This is how people tend to view the difference between behavior and disease; a disease is completely and totally out of the patient’s control while a behavior, if the motivation is strong enough, can be started or stopped on command. Addiction certainly looks like a behavior, and for decades it has been widely believed that addicts can stop using if the motivation to do so is strong enough. This seems logical, but like most things that seem obvious to the naked eye, there is another, much more complicated, explanation beneath the surface.
This explanation is beginning to come to light as addiction is just starting to be better understood by science. We now know more about addiction than we ever have in the past, but that knowledge hasn’t yet been widely accepted and myths have sprung up in its place. It’s time we examine some of those myths and talk about the new, real scientific knowledge that has risen up to debunk them. Let’s look at our perception of addiction and its victims, and tell the truth.
Chapter 5 The Truth About Addiction
Does everyone believe that addiction is a disease? Certainly not, but that doesn’t change the fact that it is a disease. For countless centuries, people believed that the sun orbited around the Earth. That was certainly the way it looked and there was no obvious visible evidence to the contrary. Then, when scientific evidence surfaced that stated the Earth revolved around the sun, people were skeptical and refused to believe it because it went so radically against what they had been taught to think. Today, of course, we know better. Still, the example is a haunting one. If we are capable of believing such a massive optical illusion, what else are we capable of believing without scientific evidence to guide us? Addiction is a disease. We have tested it, proven it and confirmed it. Our society believes that it is a behavior, but that doesn’t make the truth of the matter any less true.
The disease of addiction affects the brain’s reward system. This part of the brain is called the mesolimbic pathway and involves several areas of the brain with long names that do not need to be discussed in detail here. The function of this pathway is to tell our brain what is valuable and necessary for us to survive. It deals with our most basic and instinctual desires, the ones that kept us alive long before we evolved enough to speak, think or invent. The mesolimbic system governs our animal instincts like fear, hunger, rage and sexual desire.
The idea of the existence of this embedded reward system is not new. Freud, the father of modern psychology, called it the id and made it responsible for all the aggression and hungers that are more animal than human. What is new, is our ability to define the physical parameters of this area with advanced neural imaging studies and begin to understand how this area functions on a biochemical basis.
Chapter 6 Treating Disease and Addiction
Consider how we treat disease and illness in modern times. We go to doctors’ offices. We are treated with respect. We sign forms regarding our right to privacy. We get tests. We take medicines to make us better.
Now, consider how we treat addiction. People suffering from addiction are treated in 28-day treatment facilities where they are isolated from their lives and families or they may have to stand in line at the methadone clinic which is usually in an undesirable area to sign in to get their medicine.
When people suffering from most diseases don’t get better, we consider that the treatment might not be appropriate and the medical community tries to develop better treatments. When people suffering from the disease of addiction don’t get better, we often assume that it is their fault because they aren’t really trying, haven’t fully committed themselves to the twelve-step process or are just weak and bad people.
When we treat diseases, our goal is often improvement and not perfection. We treat diabetics to improve their blood sugars and thus reduce the ill effects caused by their disease. This allows them to live longer and more productive lives with fewer problems. We do not demand that our diabetics achieve perfection as the only acceptable goal of treatment.
When we treat the disease of addiction, we often demand perfection. If total abstinence is the only acceptable goal, then anything less is considered failure. This is the problem with establishing abstinence as the only acceptable goal. Someone who has decreased their drinking behavior from 25 drinks per week to 4 drinks a week has made remarkable progress with their alcoholism and deserves to be commended and encouraged. However, if abstinence is the only acceptable outcome, as it is in a twelve-step program, then this person would continue to be a failure.
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Dr. Tannenbaum and the Bel Air Center for Addictions treats individuals with addictions ranging from alcohol and prescription pain medication to heroin use, in a professional atmosphere and through methods which cause minimal impact to daily life. For more information, contact Dr. Tannenbaum at (443) 504-4710 or visit the Web site at www.belaircenterforaddictions.com.
