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+Addiction | May 10, 2011

Perspective: The Debate Over Anonymity in Addiction Recovery

By Maia Szalavitz

Should addicts and alcoholics remain anonymous about their recovery? Eighteen years ago this month, I wrote my first op-ed for the Washington Post‘s Sunday Outlook section, arguing against that idea. It was headlined “Addicted to Anonymity; It’s Time for Recovering Users to Join the Drug Debate.”

+Addiction | March 2, 2011

Is Dr. Drew More Like Charlie Sheen than He Thinks?

By Maia Szalavitz
Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images

Could Dr. Drew Pinsky be following Charlie Sheen off the rails? Recently the “Celebrity Rehab” host claimed that Sheen was “in an acute manic state” — a public statement which teeters on the bounds of psychiatric ethics (more on that after the jump).

+Addiction | February 15, 2011

Can You Use Crack ‘Socially?’ Addiction Myth Watch: Charlie Sheen Edition

By Maia Szalavitz
Riccardo S. Savi/Getty Images

The subject of addiction swirls with myths and misinformation. It doesn’t help that so many people seem to believe that their own struggle with addiction — or a few drop-ins to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings — make them unquestionable experts on the topic.

+Addiction | September 23, 2010

How Religion Was Edited Out of AA’s Bible: Early ‘Big Book’ Manuscript Soon to Be Published

By Maia Szalavitz
Bozena Cannizzaro

The “Big Book” of Alcoholics Anonymous has long been seen as holy writ by AA members. But for the first time ever, recovering alcoholics, scholars and the public will have access to the original manuscript, including editorial comments written in the margins that shaped its first edition.

+Addiction | September 20, 2010

Lindsay Lohan’s Relapse and Court-Mandated AA

By Maia Szalavitz
REUTERS/Al Seib/Pool

Imagine that you had cancer and a judge mandated that you receive a treatment first introduced in the 1930s — one that had been described, by the world’s leading medical evidence–review group, as having “no experimental studies [that] unequivocally demonstrated [its] effectiveness.”

+Addiction | September 8, 2010

Recipe for Longevity: Social Drinking or Just Going to AA?

By Maia Szalavitz

We’re so used to thinking of pleasurable things as “sinful” and “bad for you” that when the popular media, or science for that matter, attempts to validate our guilty pleasures — such as my colleague John Cloud’s excellent piece about recent research showing that heavy drinkers outlive teetotalers — skepticism runs high.