Behavioral Medicine Solutions

Your primary care physician did all the tests but found nothing, and referred to a cardiologist for sudden onset of fear, anxiety, chest pain, shortness of breath, weakness in the legs, sweating, and general discomfort. Your million dollar work up turned out to be negative for any identifiable cause of your symptoms. The symptoms started after a series of losses [...]

You have been recently diagnosed with ADHD and are considering options for treatment.  If you have abused stimulants and have struggled with addictions in the past, your choice of future therapy needs to be tailored to your unique experience. By now you have learned about the manifold hazards of unchecked addictive behavior and have organized a comprehensive program of recovery to maintain your abstinence [...]

Individuals afflicted with ADHD are more prone to addictions and impulsive behavior, including abuse of drugs.  Early intervention via proper diagnosis, education, and treatment has been shown to reduce the rate of later development of full-blown addictions.  Clinical challenges arise when a person with fully-developed addictions seeks treatment for ADHD.  Here are a few guidelines I follow when working with these situations: The addiction process [...]

Here is a link to a New York Times article that summarizes many of our fears about the abuse of stimulant medications: Risky Rise of the Good Grade Drug Is it oversimplistic? Does it trivialize ADHD? Does it assume that physicians are too stupid or careless when prescribing treatments? Does it highlight some real problems we need [...]

He was barely twenty and was wearing a stylish polo shirt.  He appeared confident and mature.  I was interviewing him for his addiction to heroin.  He was found passed out in his car in a parking lot after shooting up with an elixir of different types of opiates he had gotten hold of. “When did [...]

We live in a sense-based culture.  There were periods in history that ideal-based modes were more in vogue.  No wonder then that sense-based gratifications such as preoccupation with sex , food, and other sensual pleasures are regarded as universal rights.  Any hint at proper channeling and control of sexual impulses is regarded as limiting and old-fashioned.  The consequences [...]

There is a national debate going on regarding the abuse of prescription drugs.  Most of the time this has been about opioid abuse and dependence and the criminal activity that goes along with this process.  Other substances such as sedatives and stimulants are also included in some discussions as they too are scheduled substances and [...]

Although a comprehensive definition remains elusive, one can easily recognize addiction when confronted with its devastating consequences.  The hallmark of addictions, in my clinical experience, is the loss of control and a relative inability to make meaningful choices.  It also connotes being unequipped to confront the existential pain of living.  A self-defeating loop of a behavior then develops that  promises quick rewards, but [...]

My involvement as an advisor to community organizations grappling with the drug problem has made me aware of an alarming increase in the abuse of prescription opiates and heroin.  The consequences to families and communities are truly catastrophic and include:  Criminal activity,  life-long addiction, distortion of human spirit, prostitution,  financial ruin, psychiatric and medical illnesses, and finally, death. There are many reasons for [...]