A New Prescription for Addiction

A New Prescription for Addiction relates a story of discovery for the author, Richard I. Gracer, MD, a long time family physician and pain specialist. In the early 2000's a new law (DATA2000) was passed by Congress, allowing the use of a novel medication , buprenorphine (Suboxone), for the office based treatment of opiate drug addiction. Physicians need a special "waiver" from the DEA to use this medication. Dr. Gracer was added to the database of physicians using this medication. He soon had many patients calling for help with severe addiction to prescription opiates (Vicodin, Norco, Oxycontin, and many others. While the medication proved to be extremely effective, it was obvious that these people needed a comprehensive approach to treat this all encompassing disease. He started a search for such a program to use in conjunction with buprenorphine. What he found was distressing. Most programs treated this illness as a social problem, not a serious disease. This discovery started Dr. Gracer on a quest to determine the best and most effective ways to treat what is really at its heart, a brain disease that affects every system in the body and distorts almost everything in the world of these people. A New Prescription for Addiction is the story of that search. It includes the faults of the usual addiction treatment programs, as well as the methods that he found to get better results. This book is easy to read and understand, yet has details that will interest professionals. There are clear explanations of how addiction affects the brain and information on the processes used for medical, nutritional, psychologic and social treatment. There are references to assist the reader to find more help and also self administered quizzes to see if you, a friend, or a family member has a significant drug problem.

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