Addiction
Taking away benefits from heroin users won’t solve anything
It was reported today that Ian Duncan Smith is threatening to stop heroin addicts from being able to claim incapacity benefits. About a hundred of my patients are heroin users and they are all signed off work. IDS pointed out that it was unfair that hardworking tax payers were paying for the addictions of others. This may well be true but is an attempt to force heroin users in to gainful employment really a viable option?
By Dr Ben Daniels | Health, Notebook, Opinion | Wednesday, 23 May 2012 at 5:39 pm
Mitch Winehouse: If you want to stop taking heroin, there’s very little help available
“Nobody should know what it feels like to bury a child”, Mitch Winehouse states ruefully. “The natural process is that you bury your grandparents, your parents, but to bury a child…” he trails off, before composing himself and adding that Amy was in fact cremated. “Everybody has to deal with it in their own way. Some people deal with it positively and some people deal with it negatively.”
By Anna Nathanson | Arts, Notebook, Opinion | Thursday, 3 May 2012 at 4:02 am
Addiction: My experience of rehabilitation in the UK
Amy Winehouse’s death has put drug addiction and rehabilitation back in the spotlight. Her biggest hit, Rehab, tops the charts, but our national approach to and policy for treating addicts desperately needs to top the media agenda.
By Stephen Smith | Notebook | Tuesday, 9 August 2011 at 10:00 am
Breaking the Taboo: Tackling drug addiction
Mitch Winehouse met with MPs this week to urge them to give addicts more chances to get better by focusing on rehabilitation and not criminal justice. The controversial subject of drug addiction has been brought up once more with the death of Mitch’s 27-year-old daughter, singer Amy Winehouse, and when some one dies so young it is impossible not to wonder: is it time for a new approach?
By Nicole Froio | Notebook | Tuesday, 2 August 2011 at 11:24 am
The urge to purge – Bulimia and addiction
It is disgusting. It is desperate. It is dangerous.
You may understand the logic behind Bulimia. A person wishes to eat and not have to deal with the weight gain that comes with that, so they puke. It makes sense. It may even be possible to comprehend why this may become habit, or you may have [...]
By Ilona Burton | Health, Notebook | Monday, 27 June 2011 at 4:19 pm
Name that MP
Brett Arends at The Wall Street Journal, in explaining why he does not want an iPad for Christmas, drops this anecdote:
Someone I know — now, as it happens, a British member of parliament — once sat down to play Civilization, a role-playing game [right], on a PC one Saturday evening and didn’t finish until three [...]
By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 23 December 2010 at 9:50 pm
The final hit? Anorexia and addiction
Getting clean is much easier said than done. The term, usually used with reference to coming off drugs or alcohol, could also be used to describe recovery from an Eating Disorder – a process of leaving something so damaging behind, despite feeling as though you have nothing left without it. Although Anorexia is an illness, [...]
By Ilona Burton | Notebook | Wednesday, 4 August 2010 at 1:25 pm
Most viewed
|
|
Latest from Independent journalists on Twitter