Maia Szalavitz is an award-winning, best-selling author and opinion writer, whose focus is on changing the narrative of addiction and recovery. Two of her books Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction and Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction, are among a long list of publications that address this issue.
In this podcast, Maia talks about:
- Her New York Times opinion piece about Oregon decriminalizing drug possession
- How external forces undermine internal motivation
- How the Black Lives Matter Movement shows the racial disparities in the justice system
- That criminal drug laws aren’t based on science and how emotions are decision algorithms
- The debate over decriminalization is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what actually works
- Explaining the analogy of addiction to that of falling in love or having a baby; people do crazy things
- People with addiction are not lazy, they are hurting
- Trying to punish our way out of addiction is not the answer
- Why it’s important to meet people where they are and welcome them to treatment
- Not calling doctor prescribed medication Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT)
- Why we need more expansive definitions of recovery
- How chronic pain patients are being negatively affected by the opioid epidemic
Additional resources:
- Stigmatizing language
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Mothers Against Drunk Driving
- William Miller
- Portugal Decriminalization of Drugs
- Stages of Change
- Dr. Nora Volkow presentation
- Abstinence Violation Effect
- Dr. Tom Horvath’s review of Undoing Drugs
- Maia Szalavitz speaks at the 2021 National Conference
Click here to find all of SMART Recovery’s podcasts
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