Excerpted from a past issue of The Carlat Addiction Treatment Report, Matthew Goldenberg, DO, Founder of Professionals Health Solutions and assistant professor of psychiatry at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, offers the following advice:Enhance your patients’ courage. Many people with SUDs may not think of themselves as brave, but it takes guts...

In The Carlat Addiction Treatment Report, David Rosengren, PhD, President of the Prevention Research Institute, gives the following tips on how to conduct motivational interviewing:Be curious, not an expert.Training and expertise can get in the way of our really hearing the client’s story. For example, a client says, “I don’t...

For patients who smoke intermittently, you should start with nicotine replacement therapies, such as nicotine lozenges or gum, which can be used on a PRN basis.Patients who smoke more frequently, such as several times per day, will need consistent nicotine replacement from a patch to prevent the peaks and troughs...

Although there’s been a lot of discussion about gabapentin’s abuse potential, gabapentin substance use disorders are pretty rare, with one study finding that only 2% of 44,148 patients using gabapentin alone met criteria for sustained overuse (Peckham et al, Pharmacotherapy, in press). The one area where you should show caution,...