Welcome to the charity's 'online newspaper' - and to 2010: the "year of recovery". Please feel free to comment constructively on any of our stories or to contribute new ones which will help people to recover from addiction.
Deirdre Boyd, editor
_____________________________________________ NO WAY TO DISPENSE PUBLIC MONEY _____________________________________________ DRUG DEATHS RISE AGAIN _____________________________________________ PATIENT PLACEMENT CRITERIA: THE REAL VERSION _____________________________________________ "Why has the RCGP not played a helpful role or accepted some responsibility for causing and sustaining addiction in the UK?" asks John Perrott. Read today/Comment. _____________________________________________ The Addiction Recovery Foundation has updated and republished this book by its CEO, and kept it at a low price of $9.99, to help as many people as possible to recover from addiction/ dependency and to support those who live around them. This book can also be given by therapists to clients and families. All royalties go to the charity (reg no 328133) to support its work. Order today/look inside. ______________________________________________ DRUG FIGURES PAINT INCORRECT PICTURE OF MISUSE ______________________________________________ NOTTINGHAM PCT DECOMMISSIONS RECOVERY CARE, FACES LAWSUIT UK Advocates launched a High Court challenge against a Primary Health Care Trust after it axed all funding for places at a leading rehab - it also axed funding for places at a day programme which helped alcoholics to recover. ______________________________________________ Click here for videos. It is bad enough when huge sums of public money have been wasted - it is outrageous when we find basic standards of procedure over allocation of capital sums have been ignored. This appears to be the case with a particularly shoddy process the National Treatment Agency has just overseen. Read today/comment.
HEROIN IS GREATEST KILLER - FOLLOWED BY METHADONE Latest figures from the International Centre for Drug Policy at St George's Hospital, London, and from the Office for National Statistics. Read today/comment.
About 50 million lives are in the hands of companies across the globe using ASAM ‘patient placement criteria’ to authorise addiction treatment. What are these criteria? They are too valuable to let vested interests water them down. Read today/comment.
OPEN LETTER TO PROFESSOR STEVEN FIELD,
CHAIR OF ROYAL COLLEGE OF GPs SELF-HELP FOR "ADDICTIONS AND RECOVERY"
A study by a leading irish academic resonates in UK practice/bad practice. Read today/Comment.
Read today/Comment.
______________________________________________
THE HEROIN TRIAL FAILURE
The government has been called on to adopt the Riott heroin prescription - but only 5 out of 43 patients stopped using street heroin while still on other drugs, and the cost is multiples of getting patients drug free in rehab/ daycare/ sessional work. Even Reuters and Associated Press, as well as the Lancet again, fell victim to the project authors' interpretation. Read today/Comment.
_____________________________________________
THE SCIENTIFIC CITIZEN: the danger of unquestioning trust when someone uses the word "science". By Kathy Gyngell of the Centre for Policy Studies. Read today/Comment.
______________________________________________
ADDICTION TODAY EVIDENCE LEADS TO MORE REHAB TREATMENT/FUNDS
Among the recommendations in the Home Affairs Committee Report on the Cocaine Trade are two influenced by the Addiction Recovery Foundation: that a greater percentage of the £11.8 million for treatment in 2009/10 be earmarked for residential treatment, and that the government revise the basis on which PSA 25, Indicator 1 is measured, to include powder cocaine users. Read today/Comment.
______________________________________________
TRUTH BEHIND THE MEDIA BLITZ
To persuade the public that it is fit for purpose, the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse went on a taxpayer-funded PR blitz at the end of 2009, including a supplement in the Guardian and an article in the Lancet. Addiction Today number-crunches to give you figures you won't find in nonspecialist media. Read today/comment.
_____________________________________________
Good structured interventions have a 92% success in getting addicts into treatment - and of helping family members even when this does not ensue. Learn today/Comment.
_____________________________________________
THE MYTH OF ADDICTION TREATMENT PROVISION
Has woeful implementation of government drug policy or quicksanded the UK into the worst drug problem in Europe? Read today/Comment.
_____________________________________________
TECHNIQUES:
Water off a duck's back! Help clients to deal with verbal provocation and potential relapse triggers. Read part 1 and part 2 today/comment.
_____________________________________________
RESIDENTIAL REHABILITATION: GOVERNMENT REVIEW
The government’s Commission for Social Care Inspection and the NTA carried out a review of treatment services in 2008 – inspector David Finney reveals findings that “residential rehabs outstrip other sectors in every outcome group we measure”.____________________________________________
REHABS CLOSURES Despite glowing government reviews, UK rehabilitative treatment centres were closing at a rapid rate - until the start of 2009, when Addiction Today highlighted the crisis, successfully campaigning for more referrals and thus more treatment units staying open. Closed rehab services includes: Parliamentary Answers confirm that only 2% of patients seeking help from the statutory sector via the National Treatment Agency are referred to rehab. Addiction Today continues its campaign for better, fairer and more access to effective treatment. _____________________________________________
plus
Click here for the report on problems arising from overuse of legal drugs.
_____________________________________________
RESEARCH ON REHAB SUCCESS
Click here for large-scale empirical research.
.
__________________________________________________
THE GUIDE TO REHAB - WHAT REALLY WORKS
20 research facts everyone should know about rehab treatment for alcohol and drugs dependency
In late 1999, Dr David Best (who was working with the National Addiction Centre), Addiction Today editor Deirdre Boyd and the then-CEO of EATA met to initiate an easy-to-use reference document about addiction treatment which could be used by professionals and general public, and which not only covered the key issues but were based on incontrovertible research addressing those issues. EATA requested Addiction Today to publish in full the key research findings - a decade later, we republish the facts. They have not dated. Read today/Comment.
