They are training a new specialty for Docs specifically to treat addiction disorders and they have a remarkable tenet that I don't think will cover everybody. And reading the article in depth it seems to go against all Psychiatrists, and groups like AA, when in fact it does not. Don't get me wrong. Some people do have psych problems separate from their addiction and it's results. But I agree with them, in my case anyway, that some or many alcoholics and addicts are not suffering from a mental illness just because they got addicted. Those that are afflicted with mental illness/'s can be treated for those separately from the addiction treatment. What I did find interesting is their having doctors specializing in addiction that are focusing on the body not the mind per se except as a physical treatment. I will follow them to see what they end up doing but a lot makes sense to me.
Here is a tiny excerpt from the article in Today's Times and a link to the whole thing. There is a lot more in the article.
Excerpt:
"Increasingly, the medical establishment is putting its weight behind the physical diagnosis. In the latest evidence, 10 medical institutions have just introduced the first accredited residency programs in addiction medicine, where doctors who have completed medical school and a primary residency will be able to spend a year studying the relationship between addiction and brain chemistry.
“This is a first step toward bringing recognition, respectability and rigor to addiction medicine,” said David Withers, who oversees the new residency program at the Marworth Alcohol and Chemical Dependency Treatment Center in Waverly, Pa."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/11/he...ddictions.html
For those not interested no sweat but it is an interesting schema to me. In fact I think it is HUGE!