Research

November 21, 2011: THE STATE OF RESIDENTIAL TREATMENT IN ENGLAND
Comments: 0 | Categories: News , Research
Patients are arriving at rehab to quit their addictions far sicker, frailer and more physically damaged (than less than five years ago), according to a report commissioned by the Addiction Recovery Foundation and completed by members of the Concordat of...

July 20, 2011: BENZO REPORTS 2011: CONFLICT OF INTERESTS
Comments: 2 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research
Related story on National Addiction Centre and National Treatment Agency reports on Addiction to Medicine. Professor John Strang was lead author of the NAC report. Parliamentary question by Eric Ollerenshaw: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what interests...

July 20, 2011: ADDICTION TO OTC AND PRESCRIBED MEDICINES: UP A PRIMROSE PATH*
Comments: 2 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research
Two reports on addiction to prescription and over-the-counter medicines have been created to help government develop policy and services – but they are fatally flawed, omitting critical drugs, ignoring treatment providers they were tasked to contact and hiding possibly 1.5million...

June 26, 2011: TOBACCO, ALCOHOL AND PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES MUST LOVE THIS CAMPAIGN
Comments: 1 | Categories: News , Research
Celebrities and millionaires with no history of addiction research or helping addicts to reclaim destroyed lives campaigned globally in June to make drugs even more available – citing reasons based on theory not fact. David Raynes tells the truth. Print-friendly...

June 19, 2011: BREAKING THE HABIT:
Comments: 15 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research
STOP PUSHING DRUGS AND START PUSHING REHABS A paper by the Centre for Policy Studies grabbed headlines on TV, radio and press at the end of June – revealing a £3.6billion cost to taxpayers of keeping addicts dependent on drugs...

May 28, 2011: ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS IN THE RIGHT WAY
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Treatment research has been asking the wrong questions in the wrong way, resulting in “disappointingly negative results”, reveals a paper* by Jim Orford. We summarise the need for a “paradigm shift” in research on psychological treatments for addiction, and a...

May 27, 2011: RESIDENTIAL REHAB BRIEFING
Comments: 0 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research , Therapeutic Techniques
by THE CONCORDAT OF PROVIDERS OF FULL RECOVERY May 2011 CONTENTS / AGENDA 1 Introduction: What residential rehabs offer 2 Evidence base for outcomes 3 Costs: cost of rehab, cost of patients prior to/ not going to rehab, added value...

May 27, 2011: RESIDENTIAL REHAB BRIEFING: Introduction
Comments: 0 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research , Therapeutic Techniques
by THE CONCORDAT OF PROVIDERS OF FULL RECOVERY Click Residential Rehab Briefing for Contents list of all 6 sections. Or Download Residential Rehab Core Briefing May 2011 1. INTRODUCTION: WHAT REHABS OFFER. Residential rehab’ (rehabilitation) – offering addicts a 4-52...

May 27, 2011: RESIDENTIAL REHAB BRIEFING: Evidence base
Comments: 1 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research , Therapeutic Techniques
by THE CONCORDAT OF PROVIDERS OF FULL RECOVERY Click Residential Rehab Briefing for Contents list of all 6 sections. Or Download Residential Rehab Core Briefing May 2011 2. EVIDENCE BASE. There is a paucity of research about residential rehab in...

May 27, 2011: RESIDENTIAL REHAB BRIEFING: Costs
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by THE CONCORDAT OF PROVIDERS OF FULL RECOVERY Click Residential Rehab Briefing for Contents list of all 6 sections. Or Download Residential Rehab Core Briefing May 2011 and Download Cross Departmental Financial Benefits Full-Recovery 3. COSTS Cost of rehab, cost...

May 27, 2011: RESIDENTIAL REHAB BRIEFING: Myths vs facts
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by THE CONCORDAT OF PROVIDERS OF FULL RECOVERY Click Residential Rehab Briefing for Contents list of all 6 sections. Or Download Residential Rehab Core Briefing May 2011 4. POPULAR MYTHS ABOUT REHABS VS FACTS “Residential rehab doesn’t work”; “There’s no...

May 27, 2011: RESIDENTIAL REHAB BRIEFING: Barriers to access
Comments: 1 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research , Therapeutic Techniques
by THE CONCORDAT OF PROVIDERS OF FULL RECOVERY Click Residential Rehab Briefing for Contents list of all 6 sections. Or Download Residential Rehab Core Briefing May 2011 5. BARRIERS TO ACCESSING RESIDENTIAL REHAB “It is ideological/extremist to recommend rehab/abstinence for...

March 17, 2011: UK'S TREATMENT WAR ON DRUGS:
Comments: 2 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research
A LESSON IN UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES AND PERVERSE OUTCOMES Kathy Gyngell says policy makers can no longer avoid the question of whether universal access to low-contact harm-reduction services has generated more harms than it has solved, in an article published in...

March 4, 2011: LOTS OF HAPPY ENDINGS
Comments: 0 | Categories: Research , Therapeutic Techniques
Why do people not listen to stories of success when it comes to addiction, ask Dr David Best, Safeena Ghufran, Rajashree Ray and Ed Day. "Success can be measured. Our duty as researchers is to provide a voice for it."...

March 4, 2011: RESEARCH SHEDS NEW LIGHT ON THE NEUROBIOLOGY OF DISORDERED EATING
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High-fashion models are an unhealthy 23% thinner than the average woman – while research shows girls as young as five on diets to achieve the same image. On top of this, people with eating disorders are at higher risk for...

February 28, 2011: PREDICT RELAPSE IN ALCOHOL-DEPENDENT PATIENTS
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Advances in technology show that, with chronic alcoholism, the brain’s grey matter shrinks and the volume is linked to relapse. Even newer cutting-edge research predicts the length of time it takes for recently-abstinent patients to relapse. Add this knowledge to...

February 28, 2011: THE POLITICS OF DRUGS RESEARCH:
Comments: 2 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research
A JOURNEY INTO THE COLD There is a secret controversy in the world of drugs policy – the relationship between science and politics, specifically researchers’ experience of undertaking studies which bring them into conflict with public-sector officials and others in...

January 7, 2011: HOW ADDICTED ARE WE? THE UK'S DATA DEFICIT
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by Kathy Gyngell Chair of the Centre for Policy Studies' Prisons and Addictions think-tank The US is well ahead of us in the game of social data collection. A first-of-its-kind study by the US Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and...

November 14, 2010: REHAB EVIDENCE & NTORS
Comments: 2 | Categories: Research
by George Christo BSc, PhD, PsychD, AFBPsS, CPsychol Link to Rehab works: evidence Further to the Rehab works evidence, this post is an extract from the paper about rehab I wrote eight years ago. I think you will find it...

November 6, 2010: REHABILITATION WORKS: THE EVIDENCE
Comments: 2 | Categories: News , Research
A myth is doing the rounds that there is no evidence that rehabs work – much like scientists could not prove until four years ago that bees could fly. Deirdre Boyd gathers some of the evidence, and outlines the necessity...

October 4, 2010: NTA TREATMENT OUTCOME RESEARCH:
Comments: 4 | Categories: News , Policies, legislation , Research
HARD EVIDENCE OR POLITICAL SPIN? by Neil McKeganey Professor of Drug Misuse Research University of Glasgow Related article The National Treatment Agency has announced a near miracle in drug treatment. Followed up over a four-year period, the NTA has claimed...

October 4, 2010: DODGY DOSSIER 3: NATIONAL TREATMENT AGENCY FIGURES
Comments: 5 | Categories: News , Policies, legislation , Research
THE STATISTICS OF FAILURE IN THE NTA ANNUAL ACCOUNTS 2009/10, AND 2005 OUTCOMES RESEARCH by Deirdre Boyd If this country wishes to cut crime and get addicts into recovery, it is vital that our drugs policy is built on a...

September 26, 2010: ADOLESCENCE AND ALCOHOL:
Comments: 1 | Categories: News , Research
AN ALARMING RITE OF PASSAGE Adolescents’ brains and physiology are constantly developing for adulthood – and thus drugs including alcohol and tobacco affect them differently than adults. Aaron White shares the latest research results. This article was first printed in...

August 24, 2010: DRUG DEATHS RISE AGAIN
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HEROIN IS BIGGEST KILLER - FOLLOWED BY METHADONE Drug-related deaths continue to increase, remaining higher than 2001 when the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse was founded to reduce them. Click here for related article on previous years' figures. UK...

July 9, 2010: DRUGS FIGURES PAINT INCORRECT PICTURE OF MISUSE
Comments: 1 | Categories: News , Research
MULTIPLE DRUG USE NOW THE NORM, HEROIN SHUNNED BY YOUNG Government drug policy is too centred on heroin abuse, fails to take account of the realities of current usage trends and needs to focus on individual user behaviour if it...

June 11, 2010: THE HEROIN TRIAL FAILURE
Comments: 11 | Categories: News , Policies, legislation , Research
by Anders Ulstein Read the full article here. Summary below. Read related article: Dodgy dossier 2. The Lancet report (29 May 2010) of a recent heroin prescription trial has been widely promoted as a success. But only five out of...

June 9, 2010: THE 'SCIENTIFIC CITIZEN'
Comments: 0 | Categories: Current Affairs , Policies, legislation , Research
THE DANGER OF UNQUESTIONING 'TRUST' by Kathy Gyngell Read the full article here. Summary below. Was anyone else more than a little disturbed by Professor Martin Rees' call in his Reith Lecture for public policy choices "to be leveraged by...

May 2, 2010: "STOP THE TOP": NTA RESPONSE... VS THE EVIDENCE
Comments: 3 | Categories: Current Affairs , National Treatment Agency - DoH , Policies, legislation , Research
Dr Jason Luty revealed research in the March 2010 issue of Addiction Today showing that the National Treatment Agency’s Top Treatment Outcome Profile form is “criminally invalid”. The NTA’s Colin Bradbury gives his defence below - and Addiction Today editor...

October 7, 2009: DODGY DOSSIERS OF ADDICTION NON-TREATMENT
Comments: 3 | Categories: Policies, legislation , Research
In the week of the Labour Party Conference, Jack Straw publicly called for heroin on the NHS – based on publicity for a project called Riott which had not been independently evaluated nor peer reviewed (click here for critique). The...

September 29, 2009: THE RECOVERY ACADEMY:
Comments: 3 | Categories: News , Research
RECOVERY AS THE ART OF LIFE ITSELF This summer, Addiction Today participated in the development of a 'recovery forum' blueprint for exchanging ideas and evidence about addiction recovery. Stephen Bamber and David Best were the architects – they build on...