Drugs, Alcohol, and Addictions

Case Studies and Examples

• You Never Think Your Child Will Be An Addict (Refinery 29)
• My Dad Overdosed on Opioids on Purpose (Vice)
• After his first overdose, my husband promised it wouldn’t happen again. (The Los Angeles Times)

Addiction & Medical Model

• Patterns of Addictive Behavior (Psychology Today)
• How addiction hijacks the brain (Harvard Mental Health Letter)
• Why the Disease Definition of Addiction Does Far More Harm Than Good (Scientific American)

Addiction and Alternative Perspective

• Release the Kratom: Inside America's Hottest New Drug Culture (Wired)

• The “addiction spectrum” challenges you to think about substance abuse differently (Well and Good)

• Science suggests there's no such thing as an 'addictive personality' — here's why (Business Insider)

Addictive Substances

• These Are the 5 Most Addictive Substances on Earth (Curiosity)

• We took a scientific look at whether weed or alcohol is worse for you — and there appears to be a winner (Independent)
• The deadlier drug crises that we don’t consider public health emergencies (Vox)

Alcohol Demographics & Risk Factors

• There are four types of drinker (The Conversation)
• Alcohol Abuse Is Rising Among Older Adults (The New York Times)

Drug Use Data

• Livescience.com: Declining Life Expectancy in America 'May Be the New Norm' (Live Science)

• America’s drug overdose crisis is by far the worst among wealthy countries (Vox)

• American workers hit 10-year high for drug use: survey (New York Post)
• America leads the world in drug overdose deaths — by a lot (Vox)
• CDC: Drug Overdose Deaths Hit New High in 2015 (Healthcare Dive)

Drug Use Culture

• Gay Men Are Dying From a Crisis We’re Not Talking About (The New York Times)

• Benzodiazepines might be a 'hidden element' of the US' overdose epidemic (CNN)

• How to Be Human: Talking to People with Addiction or Substance Use Disorders (Healthline)

Alcohol Culture

• Kids see you when you're drinking (Reuters)

• Inside country music’s complex — and increasingly lucrative — love affair with alcohol (The Washington Post)
• I lost my mother to alcoholism and it made me realize the major problem surrounding addiction (Business Insider)
• Americans Are Drinking More Than Ever and It’s Costing the U.S. Billions (Fortune)
• The media has a problem with alcoholism (The Guardian)

Alcohol Users Social Factors

• There are four types of drinker – which one are you? (The Conversation)

Alcohol & Gender

• What We Get Wrong About Women & Alcoholism (Refinery 29)
• How Mommy Drinking Culture Has Normalized Alcoholism for Women in America (Babble)

Alcohol & Victims

• Things You Only Know If You're the Adult Child of An Alcoholic at Christmas (Grazia)
• Far More U.S. Children than Previously Thought May Have Fetal Alcohol Disorders (The New York Times)
• Letter to … my dad, whose heavy drinking is out of control (The Guardian)

Alcohol Policies

• Scientists back lowering drunken driving threshold to .05 (New York Post)
• Is It Time to Lower the Legal Drinking Age? (Alternet)

Illicit Drug Policies

• The Federal Agency That Fuels the Opioid Crisis (The New York Times)

Race, Ethnicity & Addiction

• The gentrification of addiction (The Inquirer Philadelphia)

Sex, Sexual Orientation, Gender & Addiction

• Violence against women is overlooked in its role in opioid epidemic (The Conversation)

Cocaine

• Cocaine I s Killing Black People Almost As Much As Prescription Opioids Kill White People (Newsweek)

Opioids Use Data

• We now have more proof that drug companies helped cause the opioid epidemic (Vox)

• The opioid epidemic is so bad it's driving down life expectancy in the US (The Verge)
• Heroin Addiction Costs US More Than $50 Billion Per Year (Newsweek)

Opioids Demographics and Risk Factors

• Overdose Deaths, 2017 (The New York Times)

• Opioid deaths differ by race and age (Axios)
• Why The Opioid Crisis Is Moving From Rural America To Kill African Americans In Cities (Blavity)
• Why are minorities so invisible in America's opioid crisis? (The Week)
• Opioid abuse in the U.S. is so bad it’s lowering life expectancy. Why hasn’t the epidemic hit other countries? (The Washington Post)

Opioid Epidemic

• The True Cause of the Opioid Epidemic (The Atlantic)

• What People Don't Know About Heroin (Rolling Stone)
• The Myth of What’s Driving the Opioid Crisis (Politico)
• Don't blame addicts for America's opioid crisis. Here are the real culprits (The Guardian)
• How Opioids Started Killing Americans (Bloomberg)
• Want to understand how big pharma created the opioid epidemic? Read this report. (Vox)
• The truth about the US ‘opioid crisis’ – it is too easy to blame doctors (The Guardian)
• How America’s prisons are fueling the opioid epidemic (Vox)

Opioids and Physicians

• Opioid Marketing Payments To Doctors Fall (NPR)
• Doctors Who Hate Drug Users Are Fueling the Opioid Crisis (Vice)
• We're treated like drug addicts: The healthcare system is failing people who live with chronic pain (Business Insider)
• Doctors who go to lower-tier medical schools prescribe more opioids (Business Insider)

Heroin Users & Addiction

• Surgeon General Urges Americans to Carry Drug That Stops Opioid Overdoses (The New York Times)
• Inside the secret lives of functioning heroin addicts (CNN)
• Heroin use fuels surge of ER visits among California millennials (The Press Enterprise)

Methampetamine

• Meth, ‘the Devil’s drug,’ is back and killing more people than ever (Atlanta Journal Constitution)

Marijuana

• Legal marijuana cuts violence says US study, as medical-use laws see crime fall (The Guardian) 

Children, Teens, and Young Adults

• Vaping now an epidemic among US high schoolers (CNN)
• Teens: Pretty Sober, Except For Marijuana And Vaping (NPR)
• Young adults dependent on marijuana and alcohol less likely to achieve life goals, study finds (Life Sciences)
•  2 of a Farmer’s 3 Children Overdosed. What of the Third — and the Land? (New York Times)
• Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs With Smartphones? (New York Times)
• Kids turn violent as parents battle ‘digital heroin’ addiction (New York Post)
• The opioid crisis is straining the nation’s foster-care systems (The Washington Post)
• The opioid crisis is making grandparents parents again (Vox)

Aging Populations

• The other big drug problem: Older people taking too many pills (The Washington Post)

Sobriety, Rehabilitation & Addiction Treatment

• Alcoholics Anonymous vs. Other Approaches: The Evidence Is Now In (The New York Times)
  

• Here are four reasons America’s addiction treatment system is broken. (Vox)

• “Mom, When They Look at Me, They See Dollar Signs” (Mother Jones)
• Clean, Sober and $41,000 Deep in Out-of-Pocket Addiction Recovery Costs

• Sobering Truth About Addiction Treatment in America (Psychology Today)
• Why some people swear by Alcoholics Anonymous — and others despise it (Vox)
• The Irrationality of Alcoholics Anonymous (The Atlantic)
• A shocking overdose photo exposed her addiction — and may have saved her life (The Washington Post)
• All Work No Play Life at a Rehab Work Camp (Reveal)
• We Asked People Why They Got Sober (Vice)
• I stopped drinking, and it made some of my friends uncomfortable (The Washington Post)

Substances and Work

• How The Opioid Crisis Is Depressing America's Labor Force (Vermont Public Radio)
• Nearly half of working-age American men who are out of the labor force are using painkillers daily (Quartz)
• More American Workers Are Testing Positive for Drugs (The Wall Street Journal)

Internet and Technology Addiction

• This is how technology turns us into addicts (World Economic Forum)

• The Truth About 'Video Game Addiction' (Kotaku)
• World Health Organization says video game addiction is a disease. Why American psychiatrists don't (Los Angeles Tines)
• Internet Addiction Ups Risks Of Other Mental Health Problems: Study (Tech Times)
• Smartphone addiction could be changing your brain (CNN)

Global Policy

• Europe’s solution to the drug crisis is working. Why won’t America follow it? (Quartz)
• Portugal’s radical drugs policy is working. Why hasn’t the world copied it? (The Guardian)