Codependency is a Toxic Myth in Addiction Recovery
The influence that the concept of codependency has had on addiction treatment and policy has been toxic — and its tenets are not supported by data.
Have you thought of restoring communication with family/whānau or friends?
I miss you in my life and you are still important to me.
Effects of ice on the brain and body, and implications for responding
Supporting people in recovery from addiction
Addiction treatment starts a recovery journey. In this video, Professor David Best (University of Derby, UK) explains how Recovery Capital increases the chance of ongoing recovery, and how health professionals can help people with this process....
How to support families and friends with a loved one using methamphetamine
Opioid Dependence
Stepping Forward: Session 1
Stepping Forward, with acknowledgement to Family Drug Support Australia. To find out more click here
Families Matter
Families need support to build coping and resilience – a recent interview discusses why Families Matter with Chris Lynch from Newstalk ZB – Click here to view
The importance of families, whanau and friends
Chronic Sorrow
When people talk about grief, they usually mean the loss they feel when someone dies. But other losses bring a type of grief with them too…
Concealed Stigmas and What Science Tells Us About Our Need for Support
Some things we choose to share with our family/whanau, friends, and acquaintances. Such things may include: our successes, family members’ successes, holiday plans and even just small everyday matters. Some things we cannot easily share, because there may be a stigma attached to them.
Love Has No Labels: The Rise and (hopeful) Fall of Tough Love
By Dee-Dee Stout
Dee-Dee Stout is Family Drug Support Aotearoa New Zealand’s Guest Contributor. She is a pioneering harm reduction therapist, educator, advocate and author.
With acknowledgement to Families for Sensible Drug Policy US
Harm Reduction Principles for Effective Parenting
By our Guest Contributor Barry Lessin
Barry Lessin is an addiction psychologist and public health advocate in Philadelphia, USA.
With acknowledgement to Families for Sensible Drug Policy US
Reinventing Recovery
By Dee-Dee Stout
Dee-Dee Stout is Family Drug Support Aotearoa New Zealand’s Guest Contributor. She is a pioneering harm reduction therapist, educator, advocate and author.
With acknowledgement to Families for Sensible Drug Policy US
Health Check: what makes it so hard to quit drugs?
Most people who use alcohol and other drugs do so infrequently and never become dependent (or “addicted” as it’s sometimes called). On average about 10% of people who use alcohol or other drugs are dependent. The rate is around 6% for alcohol, around 10% for cannabis and around 15% for methamphetamine.
Please Hear What I’m Not Saying
Don’t be fooled by me.
Don’t be fooled by the face I wear
for I wear a mask, a thousand masks,
masks that I’m afraid to take off,
and none of them is me.
Unbroken Brain
More people than ever before see themselves as addicted to, or recovering from, addiction, whether it be alcohol or drugs, prescription meds, sex, gambling, porn, or the internet. But despite the unprecedented attention, our understanding of ad...
Memoirs of an Addicted Brain
Marc Lewis’s relationship with drugs began in a New England boarding school where, as a bullied and homesick fifteen-year-old, he made brief escapes from reality by way of cough medicine, alcohol, and marijuana. In Berkeley, California, i...
The Biology of Desire
Through the vivid, true stories of five addicts, a neuroscientist explains how addiction happens in the brain, and what we can do to overcome it.
The psychiatric establishment and rehab industry in the Western world have branded addiction...
Beautiful Boy
What had happened to my beautiful boy? To our family? What did I do wrong?’ Those are the wrenching questions that haunted every moment of David Sheff’s journey through his son Nic’s addiction to drugs and tentative steps towa...
Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines
This New York Times bestselling memoir of a young man’s addiction to methamphetamine tells a raw, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful tale of the road from relapse to recovery. Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven. In the ye...
Dancing on a Razor’s Edge
A New Zealander – If Mandy Whyte had listened to the experts her son Hemi would probably be dead now or incarcerated. After years of trying to convince him to get to rehab and after being told by various agencies to back off and wait for ...
Where There’s Life There Really is Hope
Have you just discovered that someone you know is a drug addict? Are you heartbroken? Do you feel overwhelmed? If so, you are not alone. That is what happened to me. I thought I would have to bury my daughter by Christmas 2014. You can read the...
Rehabilitated
Rehabilitated is Valeria Tokoar’s raw account of growing up with insecurity and anxiety and with a personality that found it hard to resist temptation. Always looking for the easy way out, Valeria made one wrong decision after another unt...
Māori & Alcohol: A history
The first book on the subject of Māori and alcohol. It covers pre- and early contact with Pakeha, charting the introduction of alcohol into Maori society during the nineteenth century, the impacts of the New Zealand Wars, increased trade and co...
Get Your Loved One Sober
Coauthor Dr. Robert Meyers spent ten years developing a treatment program that helps Concerned Significant Others (CSOs) both improve the quality of their lives and to learn how to make treatment an attractive option for their partners who are ...
Mrs D is Going Without
A New Zealander – Lotta Dann was in trouble – her fun drinking habit had slowly morphed into an obsessive hunger for wine. One bottle a night was never quite enough. When she tried to cut down, she found it nearly impossible to have...
Coping and Conflict
Support for families faced with problematic alcohol and other drug use
An informative resource called A Guide To Coping is a valuable resource for families faced with problematic alcohol and other drug misuse in family/whānau ...