With the growing dependency on prescription drugs and concerns about the rise of opioid addiction, providing effective pain management alternatives is a primary concern for health professionals and all of society. Online tools and alternative therapies are becoming more prevalent in supporting the management of pain and provide treatment opportunities for patients who do not want to rely solely on prescription medication. Alternative Pain Management: Solutions for Avoiding Prescription Drug Overuse is an essential reference source that provides alternative solutions for managing and treating chronic pain, including through the use of mobile applications, online programs, self-management strategies, and virtual reality. Additionally, the book promotes a further understanding of pain and how it is diagnosed and reviews pharmaceutical accountability when prescribing drugs for pain management. Highlighting a range of topics such as cryotherapy, pain assessment, and prescription tracking, this publication is an ideal reference source for physicians, nurses, hospital staff, surgeons, medical professionals, pharmacists, researchers, academics, and upper-level students.

Addiction takes many forms and has the potential to impact individuals of all ages, socio-economic statuses, and ethnic backgrounds. Technology addiction has become one of the latest topics of interest among researchers and mental health professionals as individuals become more engrossed in and reliant on digital devices. Psychological and Social Implications Surrounding Internet and Gaming Addiction focuses on the dark side of technology and the ways in which individuals are falling victim to compulsive internet use as well as gaming and gambling addictions. Highlighting socio-cultural, psycho-social, and techno-cultural perspectives on problematic technology use, this critical publication is essential to the research and practical needs of therapists, public administrators, psychologists, students, and researchers interested in compulsive disorders, human behavior, dependency, and other key mental health issues. A pivotal addition to the current mental health research available, this book focuses on topics including, but not limited to, digital addiction, gaming addiction disorder, gambling, gamification, hypermedia seduction theory, MMORPGs, psychotherapy, and related public policy issues.

Addiction is a powerful and destructive condition impacting large portions of the population around the world. Addiction takes many forms and has the potential to impact individuals of all ages, socio-economic statuses, and ethnic backgrounds. Substance Abuse and Addiction: Breakthroughs in Research and Practice is an authoritative resource that comprehensively examines the prevalence, assessment, causes, and impacts of substance abuse and addiction from cultural, legal, psychosocial, theoretical, and medical viewpoints. Highlighting a range of pertinent topics such as technological addictions, drug treatment, and addictive behaviors, this publication is an ideal reference source for psychologists, researchers, mental health professionals, clinicians, academicians, and graduate-level students seeking current research on the prevention, assessment, and rehabilitation of substance abuse and addiction.

Different cultures and the specific culture manifested within them are intrinsically linked to addiction in a complex fashion which has a long history. For important thinkers, such as Nietzsche, addiction actually embodies human culture, rendering addiction and culture inseparable. This is clearly seen within the Western world's addiction to the consumption of material goods and the damage that results. Utopia has often become dystopia. Not only is an understanding of addiction key to understanding culture but to an understanding of the very act thinking itself and the way of being in the world. Addiction raises key philosophical questions, such as: do people really have a choice in their behavior, and what governs them; is it free will or predetermination? Is it biology or environment is it the external world or the internal that drives addiction, or a complex combination of both? In a contemporary context the media frenzy around celebrity addiction continually fuels public debate in this area, and this book deepens the understanding of addiction within this contentious context. This book addresses a key concern over how addiction became the norm, and it seeks to understand its dominance comprehensively. How did it come to pass that not being an addict was a transgressive act and way of being? While there has been a great deal of debate about addiction utilizing the discourse of individual and often competing disciplines such as biology and psychology, little attention has been paid to the cultural aspects of addiction. The innovative approach taken by this book is to offer insights into this complex area through a contemporary methodology that covers diverse interrelated areas. Drawing on different disciplines, offering deeper insights, from the analysis of music lyrics to empirical social science and anthropological work in AA groups in Mexico and the portrayal of the "addiction' to therapy in film and television, amongst other areas, this book addresses the need for a more comprehensive approach. Academic analysis is also given to the discourse on celebrity culture and addiction. A contemporary fusion of the humanities and the social sciences is the best way forward to tackle this subject and move the debate on. The focus of this study is an innovative interdisciplinary and intercultural approach to addiction, from the social sciences to the humanities, including cultural studies, film and media studies, and literary studies. Areas that have been overlooked, such as lost women's writings, are examined, in addition to comics, popular film and television, and the work of AA groups. This edited collection is the first study to provide such a comprehensive analysis of the cultures of addiction. Traversing cultures across the globe, including Asia, Central America, as well as Europe and America, this book opens up the debate in addiction studies and cultural studies. The important insights the book delivers helps to answer questions such as: In what way can Deleuze further the understanding of addiction through the analysis of rock lyrics? How does anthropology improve the understanding of AA groups? How can cultural studies deepen knowledge on the "addiction" to therapy? These are just some of the vast array of areas this book covers. Other areas include the condemnation of "addiction" to comic reading through an historical examination, violence in popular culture, and lost women's writing on addiction. No other book has such depth and contemporary breadth. Cultures of Addiction is an important book for those taking cultural studies courses across a range of interrelated disciplines, including English and literary studies, history, American studies, and film and media studies. This will be invaluable to library collections in these fields and beyond in the social sciences, and specifically in addiction studies and psychology.

This overview of prescription drug abuse includes historical background, key concepts, and discussion of the prevalence of drug abuse, treatments, and policy issues implicated in ending the epidemic. Prescription opioid medication abuse has been declared a national crisis by experts in medicine, substance use, public health, and pain management, culminating in a declaration made by the President of the United States that opioid misuse and abuse is a national health emergency. In this comprehensive text, expert scholars analyze and address a wide range of issues in, obstacles to, and potential solutions for this emergency, which caused more than 50,000 deaths in 2016 alone. It covers a variety of topics related to prescription misuse from both clinical and academic perspectives. After an opening containing background material on the most commonly misused medications, chapters examine subgroups engaged in misuse and special medical environments where misuse issues are key. They then cover U.S. policy, perspectives outside the U.S., and theories that may explain the misuse phenomena. This book will serve as a resource for students and professionals in fields related to prescription drug abuse-including psychology, sociology, medicine, and public policy-and is accessible to individuals not trained in these fields. Zooms in on legal and policy issues related to the ongoing opioid epidemic in the U.S., providing insight into current and potential actions to limit the epidemic Describes each prescription drug among the most commonly abused, for what it is prescribed, how it works, economic cost, and the damage that abuse of the drug may cause to both individual health and social wellbeing Identifies each of the most common groups of people who abuse prescription drugs, their motivations for doing so, and the special risks for each Addresses commonly co-abused drugs and the risks of using them concurrently Includes comparative text examining prescription drug abuse in Canada and the United Kingdom

After decades of the American "war on drugs" and relentless prison expansion, political officials are finally challenging mass incarceration. Many point to an apparently promising solution to reduce the prison population: addiction treatment. In Addicted to Rehab, Bard College sociologist Allison McKim gives an in-depth and innovative ethnographic account of two such rehab programs for women, one located in the criminal justice system and one located in the private healthcare system-two very different ways of defining and treating addiction. McKim's book shows how addiction rehab reflects the race, class, and gender politics of the punitive turn. As a result, addiction has become a racialized category that has reorganized the link between punishment and welfare provision. While reformers hope that treatment will offer an alternative to punishment and help women, McKim argues that the framework of addiction further stigmatizes criminalized women and undermines our capacity to challenge gendered subordination. Her study ultimately reveals a two-tiered system, bifurcated by race and class.

With the internet, smartphones, and video games easily available to increasing portions of society, researchers are becoming concerned with the potential side effects and consequences of their prevalence in people's daily lives. Many individuals are losing control of their internet use, using it and other devices excessively to the point that they negatively affect their wellbeing as these individuals withdraw from social life and use their devices to escape from the pressure of the real world. As such, it is imperative to seek new methods and strategies for identifying and treating individuals with digital addictions. Multifaceted Approach to Digital Addiction and Its Treatment is an essential research publication that explores the definition and different types of digital addiction, including internet addiction, smartphone addiction, and online gaming addition, and examines overall treatment approaches while covering sample cases by practitioners working with digital addiction. This book highlights topics such as neuroscience, pharmacology, and psychodynamics. It is ideal for psychologists, therapists, psychiatrists, counselors, health professionals, students, educators, researchers, and practitioners.

This book presents the main theoretical and practical tools provided by behavior analysis to diagnose and treat substance use disorders. Based on the theoretical framework of radical behaviorism, first developed by B.F. Skinner, behavior analysis offers a distinctive biopsychosocial approach to substance use disorders by considering both the biogenetic and environmental influences on behaviors associated with substance use, enabling the development of more integrative and effective diagnostic, prevention, and treatment strategies at the individual and collective level. The volume is divided in three parts. Part one presents an introduction to core concepts in behavior analysis and related disciplines, such as behavioral pharmacology, and their specific applications in substance use disorders diagnostics and treatment. Part two shows how different types of behavioral-analytical clinical and social interventions can be applied in practice to treat substance use disorders, such as: Contingency Management Exposure Therapy Functional Analytical Psychotherapy (FAP) Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Therapy by Contingencies of Reinforcement (TCR) Motivational Interviewing Finally, part three covers special topics, such as the interfaces between neurosciences and behavior analysis on drug use and dependence, effects of substance use in romantic relationships and their relationship with violence against women. Behavior Analysis and Substance Dependence will be a valuable tool for clinical and health psychologists, as well as other health professionals and social workers dealing with substance use disorders, by presenting, in one single volume, an overview of the tools offered by behavior analysis to deal with this serious health issue.

If one tries to imagine the amounts of money that have been spent by federal and state governments, coupled with what has been spent by private citizens in battling substance abuse over the last thirty years, it would amount to an almost unimaginable figure.

There have been many books written that offer criticism regarding the traditional twelve-step treatment approaches to addiction. The problem has been that most of these efforts have failed to offer a viable alternative to traditional treatment. Those that have attempted to do so have merely suggested that singular treatment strategies, such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Psychodynamic Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, etc., should be implemented in conjunction with traditional treatment. "Misunderstanding Addiction" outlines a more holistic treatment method that can be implemented in a variety of environmental contexts that do not require patients to be institutionalized for them to be effective.

"Misunderstanding Addiction" has the potential to radically alter the way that addictions are treated in this country. At a time when healthcare is foremost in the thoughts of our nation's citizens, "Misunderstanding Addiction" offers a timely and important look at how addiction treatment should be undertaken now and in the future to ensure an effective outcome for the patient.

Where do the roots of addictive behavior lie -- in our genes or in our environment, in our chemistry or in our character? In the Craving Brain, Dr. Ronald Ruden asserts that the roots of addiction most defintetly do not lie in our character. Rather, they lie in a complex chain reaction that originates in an ancient survival mechanism in the brain. When this system is inappropriately activated, it drives the body to crave, sometimes with addictive behavior as the end result. In clear, straightforward language, Dr. Ruden outlines his remarkable successful treatment program which he believes can cure this problem.

The Craving Brain offers crucial insights into the world of addiction. This revolutionary book will bring hope to millions of people who suffer from a wide range of addictions, from gambling and alcohol to drugs and food.

Recovering Assemblages offers an exciting new insight into the policies and practices of recovery and drug use bridging critical drug studies and the sociology of health and illness. The book investigates lived experiences of young people in Azerbaijan and Germany during their personal recovery from alcohol and other drug use and shows the contingency of 'real' experiences. The sociomaterial and ontological analyses unfold the interrelation of practices, spaces, bodies, and affects in experiencing recovery both within and outside of various treatment facilities. The book will appeal to a range of scholars, postgraduates, and undergraduates engaged in critical, methodological, and empirical studies of recovery, drug use, and policy.

Untold stories of people with substance addictions who have recovered without formal treatment Despite the widely accepted view that formal treatment and twelve-step groups are essential for overcoming dependencies on alcohol and drugs, each year large numbers of former addicts quietly recover on their own, without any formal treatment or participation in self-help groups at all. Coming Clean explores the untold stories of untreated addicts who have recovered from a lifestyle of excessive and compulsive substance use without professional assistance. Based on 46 in-depth interviews with formerly addicted individuals, this controversial volume examines their reasons for avoiding treatment, the strategies they employed to break away from their dependencies, the circumstances that facilitated untreated recovery, and the implications of recovery without treatment for treatment professionals as well as for prevention and drug policy. Because of the pervasive belief that addiction is a disease requiring formal intervention, few training programs for physicians, social workers, psychologists, and other health professionals explore the phenomenon of natural recovery from addiction. Coming Clean offers insights for treatment professionals of how recovery without treatment can work and how candidates for this approach can be identified. A detailed appendix outlines specific strategies which will be of interest to addicted individuals themselves who wish to attempt the process of recovery without treatment.