When a person has been free from opioids for six months, it feels much easier for everyone around them. But then you realise that they're going to the gym twice a day, every day, even if they're injured. Or the fact is that they've begun to drink 'just socially', even though alcohol wasn't really something they'd ever done before. Or there's a sudden increase in the number of items in t........

She was always on time for deadlines; she led the morning meeting, picked up her children at the agreed time, and still managed to host the book club every third Thursday. Should you have asked anyone who knew her, they would have described her as the most reliable person in the room. Nevertheless, they would have been completely unaware that she had begun to need a drink most nights in........

If you're asking this question, then you are likely attempting to come to terms with a situation that seems senseless. It could be your own difficulty in this area, or it might be that you're seeing someone you care about make choices which harm them repeatedly and still being puzzled as to how things have got to this point. In either case the real question behind the question is genera........

Envision a father facing his adult son, who has just had a relapse for the third time. "You ought to know better," he says, feeling frustrated. "Why do you continually do this to us?" On the surface, this is a reasonable question. Yet it arises out of a misapprehension that confuses almost every family involved in this situation—that addiction is a choice which is made again and again, ........

You've most likely heard it at some point—perhaps you've even said it yourself. "If only they wanted it badly enough, they'd cease." It is one of the greatest misunderstandings regarding addiction and also one of the most harmful.

Willpower is important—there's no suggestion that it isn't. But the idea that it is the sole means of overcoming a substance use disorder is like attem........

A woman completes a six-week course of the opioids that have been prescribed to her following knee surgery. Towards the end, she realises that her body feels wrong when the medication is no longer being taken—she experiences some sweating, some irritability and has difficulty sleeping. She becomes anxious and starts to think that she may have 'become an addict'. However, her doctor give........

It could be the missed calls that have ended up as missed holidays. It might be that your brother now snaps at you about things which never used to be important, or the fact that your best friend has a new reason every week for not wanting to hang out. You've realised that something is wrong, even if you still don't have a name for it.

The uncertainty is in itself a form of exhau........

You might have come across the term from a doctor or seen it in a letter from your child's school counselor. Alternatively, you could have been using a different expression in your mind all this time — for example, "his problem with drinking" or "her issue with pills" — and now that there's a clinical term associated with it, you're uncertain about what that term really means.

Th........