“I’ve never really done drugs… I only drink.” It’s something I hear all the time—and it reveals more about our culture than people realize. Alcohol has been carved out as the exception, the “acceptable” drug, even as the science becomes harder to ignore. From rising alcohol-related deaths to emerging links with cancer and brain decline, the truth is catching up: alcohol isn’t safer, it’s just more normalized.

Twenty four year old Tyrah Davis died in a jail cell while suffering from opioid withdrawal. Her death was not inevitable. Severe withdrawal can cause relentless vomiting, diarrhea, and dehydration that require medical care, sometimes as simple as IV fluids and monitoring. Instead of compassion, public reaction in some corners has been filled with blame and contempt. Addiction is a medical disease, not a moral failure. Tyrah’s death exposes a deeper problem in how our systems and our culture respond to people who are sick and suffering.

Cannabis research is increasingly contradictory, leaving clinicians in a difficult position. While some studies suggest potential benefits, others highlight significant mental health risks. In this evolving landscape, certainty can be misleading. This article explores why clinicians must approach cannabis conversations with nuance, humility, and a focus on individual client context.

A major new meta analysis of more than 540,000 participants found that spirituality is associated with a measurable reduction in harmful alcohol and drug use. Yet in addiction treatment, professionals often divide into hostile camps, harm reduction versus faith based care. The data suggest a different path forward. We do not need ideology. We need options. Clients deserve access to evidence informed care that includes spirituality when it fits and harm reduction when it saves lives. Expanding choice is not compromise. It is responsible practice.

A 10 year Swedish cohort study shows that expanded harm reduction, opioid agonist therapy, and naloxone distribution were associated with significant declines in overdose and all cause mortality. This article explores what happens when harm reduction is implemented at scale and what healthcare systems must do next.

Emerging research is challenging the assumption that cannabis helps long term trauma recovery. A 2026 study in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that individuals with PTSD and cannabis use disorder who achieved 12 weeks of abstinence experienced significantly greater reductions in PTSD symptoms than those who continued using. In early recovery, presenting data like this is not about coercion. It is about informed consent, clinical transparency, and helping clients make decisions grounded in evidence rather than assumption.

New national data confirms what many clinicians see up close: substance use risk is higher across sexual minority groups, and the risk is not limited to “LGB.” Using the first NSDUH wave to include expanded sexual identity categories and adolescents, Yang and colleagues show elevated odds of use and prescription misuse among people who identify as bisexual or gay/lesbian, and also among those who use a different term or are unsure of their identity. The message is not to stereotype, but to respond: if our services are not explicitly LGBTQIAA-affirming, we are building barriers for people with higher measured risk and higher lived exposure to stigma. Compassionate, targeted screening and truly safe treatment environments are not extras. They are core clinical infrastructure.

For generations, we were taught that maternal death was driven by hemorrhage, infection, and hypertension. But new national data reveal a sobering shift. The leading cause of maternal death in the United States is now unintentional drug overdose. Violence follows close behind. Obstetrics was built to manage medical complications of pregnancy. It was not built to solve addiction, untreated trauma, domestic violence, or structural stigma. If we continue to approach maternal mortality as a problem confined to delivery rooms, we will continue to lose women to causes that lie outside them. Saving mothers now requires something more. It requires expanding compassionate, family-centered addiction treatment that allows pregnant women to seek help without fear of separation from their children. If overdose is leading maternal death, then addiction treatment is no longer peripheral to maternal health policy. It is central.

Minnesota’s Medicaid fraud crisis is real. But when enforcement mechanisms lack built-in protections for clients, vulnerable adults lose their housing while investigations stall. We can prosecute fraud without abandoning the people these systems were designed to serve.

Decades of alcohol use do not simply create bad habits. They reshape the brain systems responsible for reward, impulse control, and decision-making. This article breaks down a dense neuroscience study on alcohol use disorder and the endocannabinoid system and translates it into practical, clinician-friendly insight. If you have ever wondered why motivation alone fails, why relapse risk spikes under stress, or why structure matters more than willpower early in recovery, this is the neuroscience that helps explain why.

The idea that someone is unfit to be a therapist simply because they vote MAGA is not just philosophically flawed—it’s practically dangerous. In this response to recent public discourse, I argue that ethics are measured by conduct, not ideology, and that therapy is strongest when clients can choose from a wide range of clinicians who meet professional standards.

Brittany Herrington didn’t lose years with her son because she refused help—she lost them because the system refused effective treatment. Kentucky’s Family Preservation and Accountability Act recognizes a hard truth we’ve ignored for too long: punishing parents for addiction often punishes children most. Real accountability treats addiction, preserves families when safe, and prevents trauma instead of creating it.