Biotechnological treatment, including addiction treatment, is the way of the future. Researchers and pharmaceutical companies praise depot injections, agonist/antagonist implants, deep brain stimulation, and hapten conjugate vaccines as medicine's greatest chance for reducing illegal usage, reducing the danger of overdose and severe withdrawal, and preventing drug diversion to criminal markets.

Old conflicts around ideas of addiction and treatment are revealed by marketing and the use of new technologies: between medical condition and will disorder, between criminal justice and health, and...

Tobacco smoking is the greatest cause of sickness and early death worldwide, with 8 million people dying each year from a smoking-related condition. The use of pharmaceutical or behavioural assistance improves smokers' chances of quitting; nonetheless, the majority of smoking cessation efforts are unassisted.

Engagement with web-based smoking cessation interventions is a strong predictor of data retention in clinical trials and successful behaviour change.

WebQuit is a web-delivered smoking intervention based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), which suggests that psychological...

Brief treatment (BT) or regular outpatient alcohol use or substance use disorder (SUD) treatment is a key element of the Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) model. It can be an effective, short-term, and low-cost treatment option for many people who misuse alcohol and drugs. Nevertheless, inconsistent BT implementation often costs similar to regular outpatient care. Prior research is also prevalent with inconsistent operationalizations regarding the measurement of BT received by patients. Therefore, there is a need to more explicitly identify and document...

Background:

Substance use disorders are reliably associated with high impulsivity and sensation seeking. Importantly, both precede problematic substance use, implicating them as risk factors. Individuals with substance use disorders show variable degrees of substance use (combined quantity and frequency) and substance-related problems and differ in both aspects from healthy controls. Dimensional research has indicated differential associations of impulsivity-related traits as well as sensation seeking with the degree of substance use and substance-related problems. The current study aimed...

UNODC Regional Office for Central Asia supported regional training of trainers (ToT) on Course 11  “Enhancing Motivational Interviewing Skills”. This course is part of the Advanced Level of the Universal Treatment Curriculum for Substance Use Disorders (UTC training package) for national trainers from Tajikistan and Uzbekistan which took place offline in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on 24-28 May 2021.

16 members of national teams of trainers from Tajikistan (5) and Uzbekistan (11) took part in the training. The main objectives of this training were to provide a comprehensive understanding of the...

Abstract

Objectives: 

Face-to-face meetings are key components of Twelve Step (TS) fellowships’ support of members’ abstinence. Home confinement during COVID-19 made this less feasible. Our objective was to ascertain whether a transition to virtual online meetings among TS members took place, and whether it was potentially effective.

Methods: 

Two thousand one hundred fifty-two long-standing USA members of Narcotics Anonymous (NA) were surveyed to ascertain their recovery-related experiences and their relation to the transition to virtual meetings.

Results: 

During the...

This article from Scientific American covers recent advances in treating Methamphetamine Use Disorder.