I first saw the need to develop a relapse prevention protocol for compulsive overeaters, food addicts and binge eaters in the mid-1990s. These terms describe people who use eating and food to manage feelings and cope with life. Many of my patients also had chronic pain conditions with coexisting disorders and when both of those conditions were stabilized I noticed a pattern that many of them started using food to cope instead of for fuel and that sabotaged their pain management and addiction recovery.

I completed the first Food Addiction Workbook in 2001 but this year I wanted to address the entire spectrum of “Eating” and asked Dr. Shari Stillman-Corbitt, the Clinical Director of Sierra Tucson to co-author The Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook.  Dr. Corbitt brought a long history of working with eating disordered patients to our project and we believe it is now a much better instrument to help people with eating addictions to get and stay in a true recovery process. 

The Eating Addiction Relapse Prevention Workbook is designed to increase patients’ knowledge and understanding of the nature of eating addiction.  Some people may be a normal weight, if their metabolism is such that they don’t gain weight, or some of them may purge calories through excessive exercise. However, many of them will probably be overweight, or “see-sawing” up and down, as they try first one magic pill, diet or program, and then another. Some of them may be obese, the definition of which means that they are more than 20 percent over the weight suggested by actuarial tables. These people may know that they are destroying and distorting their body, but be unable to stop eating compulsively

This workbook is for compulsive overeaters, food addicts and binge eaters. These terms describe people who use eating and food to manage feelings and cope with life. Although the primary purpose of this workbook is to help patients develop a relapse prevention plan and create a schedule of activities to assist in that goal, we believe they must first develop a definition of abstinence that works for them and an effective recovery plan that is life enhancing which we refer to in this workbook as a Healthy Living Plan.

The first six exercises in this book are designed to take patients through a series of steps to make sure that they are stable in their recovery. Some of them may already be working a solid recovery program but we believe these exercises can also benefit them.  The last five exercises help patients identify and manage high risk situations that could set them up for relapse despite their commitment to their Healthy Living Plan (recovery) and develop an effective recovery plan designed to help them manage those high risk situations.

To read more about the workbook please go to my article Eating Addiction Needs a Strategic Relapse Prevention Protocol that you can download for free on our Articles page. To order this book or the Eating Addiction High Risk Situation List Pamphlet please go to www.relapse.org.

If you want to learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com. To learn more about how to develop an effective chronic pain management plan please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To look for my upcoming trainings please go to our Calendar page.

To read our latest Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. To sign up for Chronic Pain Solutions, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then receive an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

You see it in the media all the time now—the “evils” of smoking. If you review research from credible sources e.g., The American Heart Association, The Food and Drug Administration, or maybe WebMD you will find information that states—“Tobacco addiction, the second-leading cause of death in the world, is a culprit for approximately 5 million deaths each year or 1 in 10 adult deaths.”  For many who smoke it is much more than “just a habit.”

You can also go to the National Institute on Drug Abuse and check out their Research Report Series: Tobacco Addiction and review current scientific up-to-date research about the true nature of nicotine addiction.

What I haven’t seen very much concerns how smoking impacts chronic pain management.  Today I ran across a Blog site “Skills for Healthy Living: A Blog for Health Providers.”  One posting I saw was titled “Smoking and Pain” that was posted on June 19, 2008 by adiemusfree.  I want to include a few excerpts from that posting.  If you want to read the entire posting go to Smoking and Pain.

A large national study published in 2006, specifically looking at tobacco smoking and pain in the general population - quite different from our hospital patients, or those directly seeking treatment. Quoting directly from the abstract: “Former and current heavy smokers had higher odds for greater numbers of pain locations and for moderate and intense pain than never smokers after adjustment for analgesic medicament use and behavior-related risk factors.”

The findings suggest that former and current heavy smokers are more likely to report more pain locations and more intense pain than never smokers.  Well, that’s quite high odds! And sadly, it doesn’t seem to make a lot of difference whether you’ve stopped smoking or continue to smoke - the odds are still high.

Curious - some very strong pointers that smoking increases the risk of persistent pain and poorer recovery from acute pain, yet I’m not sure that I’ve ever heard that in public health messages about smoking, and I’ve not yet heard of quitting smoking efforts targeting people with chronic pain. Time for action? I think so.

To read more about my views about smoking please go to my article Smoking and Recovery Just Don’t Mix that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

If you want to learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com. To learn more about how to develop an effective chronic pain management plan please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To look for my upcoming trainings please go to our Calendar page.

To read our latest Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. To sign up for Chronic Pain Solutions, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

In my latest article posted to our Addiction-Free Pain Management® website I discussed the growing problem of prescription drug abuse and addiction.  However, despite what is being covered in the media only part of the problem is for people using this medication for legitimate chronic pain management.  There are also many people using prescription pain medication for non-medical reasons—to get high.  One of the fastest growing drugs of abuse/addiction for adolescents is prescription mediation. 

It is also a growing problem in pain management.  In fact as I cover in my latest article, according to researched published in Pain Physician Journal (2006), 90 percent of people in the US receiving treatment for pain management are prescribed opiate medication.  Of that number 9 percent to 41 percent had opiate abuse/addiction problems depending on which research study was reviewed.

I believe one reason so many people run into problems is due to lack of understanding about risk factors for an addictive disorder.  For example, if you have a pre-existing addictive disorder even if you’ve been in recovery (remission) for decades you are at much higher risk for abuse/addiction to your pain medication than the average person.  Also, if you have a family history of any addictive disorders including alcohol that also puts you at much higher risk.  Another risk factor is only using medication for pain management and not having a biopsychosocial treatment plan in place.

To learn more about risk factors please go to our News & Research page to review two new postings this month on addiction risks and increasing prescription drug problems.

If you want to read more about prescription drug abuse/addiction please go to my latest article Addressing the Problem of Prescription Drug Abuse/Addiction that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

If you want to learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System please check out our website at www.addiction-free.com. To learn more about how to develop an effective chronic pain management plan please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To look for my upcoming trainings please go to our Calendar page.

To read our latest Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. To sign up for Chronic Pain Solutions, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.