Background Briefings

For a period of four years from 15th November 2004, I wrote a bi-weekly series of Background Briefings for Drink and Drugs News (DDN), the leading UK magazine focused on drug and alcohol treatment. Here are links to 38 of 72 Briefings; each contains a link to an original pdf. This page was originally posted some time ago on my Recovery Stories website. At the time I posted them, I said would slowly upload all other Briefings. I better get off my backside and do that!

Drugs in Society
On the one hand, we tell our young people not to take psychoactive drugs and to keep away from people who are selling drugs. On the other hand, doctors and others are constantly encouraging us to take psychoactive drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry—some of which are addictive—for a variety of conditions.

Psychoactive Drugs and the Drug Problem
Introduces psychoactive drugs and describes a simple classification of drug type based on their major mode of impact on the mind. The multitude of factors that influence the way that a drug can affect a person, and ultimately can contribute to a drug problem are influenced.

Alcohol Dependence
Looks at the cluster of seven elements that make up the template for which the degree of alcohol dependence is judged.

Drug, Set and Setting
The effects that a drug has on a person are not just dependent on the drug itself, but also on factors related to the person (the set) and the physical and social setting.

Drug Choices and the Loss of Choice
Various factors contribute to the initiation and early use of drugs and alcohol. As time passes, other factors also influence whether substance use continues. The vast majority of people who use drugs or alcohol do so without any problems. However, long-term drug or alcohol use can lead to addiction in a significant minority.

Psychoactive Drugs: From Absorption to Elimination
Factors that can influence indirectly the way that psychoactive drugs impact on the brain and influence behaviour. Describes examples of individual differences in drug response that can arise from these factors.

Historical Perspective: Opium, Morphine and Opiates (Part 1)
Traces the history of the opiates, from use in Summarian and Assyrian civilisations through to the Opium wars between China and Britain and the cultural impact of opium smoking by Chinese in the Californian gold fields.

Historical Perspective: Opium, Morphine and Opiates (Part 2)
Continues a brief history of the opiates, which includes describing the different responses of the United States and Britain to opiate problems in the earlier parts of the 19th century.

Historical Perspective: Opium, Morphine and Opiates (Part 3)
Concluding a brief history of the opiates by looking at the massive increase in heroin use that occurred in America and the UK during the later parts of the 20th century.

Historical Perspectives: Cocaine
Traces the history of cocaine, linking the Incas, Freud, Thomas Edison, Sherlock Holmes and Coca Cola.

The Regulation and Control of Drugs, Part 1
Describes factors that have influenced the development of laws regulating recreational drug use, in particular influential happenings in America.

The Regulation and Control of Drugs, Part 2
Continues to look at the development of laws regulating recreational drug use, in particular in America, which has influenced world drug policy so strongly.

Should Recreational Drug Use Be Criminalised? (Part 1)
Explores the regulation and control of drugs by looking at philosopher Douglas Husak’s views on the justice of US drug laws.

Should Recreational Drug Use Be Criminalised? (Part 2)
Continues to look at Douglas Husak’s arguments about prohibition and its consequences.

The Harms and Risks of Substance Use
Reflections on the harms and risk factors related to drugs, alcohol and solvents.

The Drug Experience and Beyond: Amphetamine
The experience of taking amphetamine, including the subjective pleasurable experiences of initial use, amphetamine-induced anxiety and psychosis, and withdrawal symptoms following long-term use. Also includes a brief consideration of the various factors that can influence the amphetamine experience.

The Normalisation of Recreational Drug Use, Part 1
British youth culture and the role of drugs and alcohol among adolescents during the 1990s.

The Normalisation of Recreational Drug Use, Part 2
Continues to look at British youth culture and the role of drugs and alcohol among adolescents during the 1990s.

Hidden Heroin Users
Describes an important research study conducted by Roy Egginton and Professor Howard Parker at the end of the 1990s that illustrated the life experiences of a group of young heroin users, and offered a practice and policy framework for intervening in their drug journeys to social exclusion.

The Drug Experience: Cocaine, Part 1
Exploring the dynamic world of heavy cocaine use as revealed in a provocative, high-quality study by Dan Waldorf and colleagues. This research, conducted in the US in the 1980s, challenged many of the prevailing myths about cocaine.

The Drug Experience: Cocaine, Part 2
While cocaine is portrayed as having a very high addiction potential, the majority of people who use the drug do not have a problem. Research by Dan Waldorf and colleagues reveals a number of social and social psychological factors that influence how a person uses a drug.

The Drug Experience: Cocaine, Part 3
Dan Waldorf and colleagues were ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the relative ease with which so many cocaine users managed to quit. Their research emphasises the importance of one’s personal and social identity in influencing drug use.

The Drug Experience: Heroin, Part 1
Setting the scene for forthcoming Briefings on the heroin experience. Emphasises the necessity to consider the role of drug, set and setting when considering the impact heroin has on lives.

The Drug Experience: Heroin, Part 2
The initial experiences of heroin users who go on to have their lives seriously affected by their drug use.

The Drug Experience: Heroin, Part 3
The experiences of heroin users who have their lives seriously affected by their drug use, focusing on heroin withdrawal.

The Drug Experience: Heroin Part 4
The experiences of heroin users who have their lives seriously affected by their drug use, looking at how they live with their addiction.

The Drug Experience: Heroin Part 5
Starts to look at the process of recovery from dependent drug use, as described in seminal research by James McIntosh and Neil McKeganey.

The Drug Experience: Heroin Part 6
Continues to look at the process of recovery from dependent drug use, as described in seminal research by James McIntosh and Neil McKeganey.

Drug Experience: Heroin Part 7
Research by Patrick Biernacki in the mid-1980s shows that people can recover from heroin addiction without treatment.

Drug Experience: Heroin Part 8
Patrick Biernacki’s research reveals the strategies that people employ to stop using heroin without accessing formal treatment. 

Drug Experience: Heroin Part 9
Focuses on how former heroin addicts deal with heroin cravings as revealed by Patrick Biernacki’s research in the mid-1980s.

Drug Experience: Heroin Part 10
Patrick Biernacki emphasises the importance of identity change and gaining the acceptance of the non-addict world in recovering from heroin addiction.

Some of My Favourite Reads
Books that have facilitated my understanding of addiction, recovery and treatment, and have inspired me.

Some More of My Favourite Reads
More books that have facilitated my understanding of addiction, recovery and treatment, and have inspired me.

Conditioning Models of Addiction, Part 1
How the processes of operant and classical conditioning, as well as positive and negative reinforcement, are involved in problematic substance use and addiction.

Conditioning Models of Addiction, Part 2
Describes two of the three models pertaining to the involvement of classical conditioning in problematic substance use and addiction.

Conditioning Models of Addiction, Part 3
How stimuli associated with the pleasurable effects of drugs can strongly influence behaviour.

Some of this stuff I’d write differently, or at least a little differently now, but hey, there’s still some good stuff in there. Brings back some great memories interacting with Claire Brown of DDN. Such an amazing magazine that has stood the test of time.