The Power of Your Story
Kevin Love isn’t the person you usually turn to for inspiration. The 6’10” sharp-shooting power-forward for the Cleveland Cavaliers is a remarkable basketball player, but until recently he has not been known as a guy who motivates the masses. No, he’s the guy who advertises the power of milk as a way to build protein, […]
An Important Conversation about Addiction
The New York Times article (A Different Path to Fighting Addiction, published July 3, 2014) discussing CMC and our book Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change has generated so much important commentary. We are grateful to have the opportunity to start a conversation about all the options available to people who struggle […]
Chiara de Blasio’s Bold Admission & The New Way to Think About Addiction & Treatment
In a recently released video, Chiara de Blasio, daughter of New York City’s new mayor, talks about her struggles with substance abuse and depression. In it, Ms. de Blasio speaks eloquently and personally about the struggles she had, how she thought about her drinking/pot smoking, how she justified its use, and how hard it was […]
A Change in Treatment Begins with Increased Consumer Knowledge
David Sheff, author of Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy, and Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, wrote a small piece on Time.com about the need for more treatment programs to use evidence based treatments for substance abuse. In the author’s box at the bottom, there is a very common disclaimer, […]
Changing the Focus of Substance Abuse Treatment
This is part 2 of two responses to the New York Times article about Dr. Carl Hart’s research at Columbia University. You can read Part 1 here and the the original NY Times article here. Some of the work of Carl Hart, an experimental psychologist at Columbia University, was described in the NY Times recently, and […]
Rethinking “Addicts”
This is part 1 of two responses to the New York Times article about Dr. Carl Hart’s research at Columbia University. You can read Part 2 here, or the original NY Times article here. Stereotypes are pretty dangerous things. They bias opinion about a group of people, and are the basis for racism and bigotry. […]
NY Times Advocates for Evidence Based Treatments
It’s great to see the New York Times bringing to light a phenomenon CMC psychologists know all too well: there are many types of psychotherapy that have demonstrated effectiveness, however, these are typically NOT the treatments clients receive. Some of the barriers are lack of therapist training, therapist belief systems (therapy as art, therapy as […]
Book Review: Inside Rehab
An alert! CMC makes a book recommendation! As providers of evidence-based treatment for substance use and compulsive behaviors, we have been heartened and encouraged by the very recent publication of a new book about the treatment field, “Inside Rehab”, by Anne Fletcher. It is an incredible book that details almost everything you will face as […]
The Role of Glucose in Decision Making
When we are helping our clients identify craving patterns (the thoughts, emotions and physical pull back toward a substance or behavior) and the decisions they make in response to them (i.e., do I respond to the craving with use, or do I use other skills to distract and diminish my cravings), we almost always ask […]
What is Willpower?
What is willpower? Some sense of self-control, resilience, ability to stick to a goal in spite of obstacles? It’s actually more of a folk wisdom term but it has a lot of power in our culture and psyches. In the popular press, people with a “lot of willpower” are thought to be strong, competent and […]
