Healthcare professionals as well as mental health and addiction treatment providers are on the front line to accurately assess, intervene upon and develop appropriate treatment plans for the impaired patient with a chronic pain condition. This can become more and more difficult when prescription drug abuse/addiction is present. For years the numbers of people experiencing chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders including addiction have been increasing significantly. According to research 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.

On December 7-9, 2009 Dr. Stephen F. Grinstead
and NCADD Sacramento Presents The Addiction-Free Pain Management® 20 CEU Hour Certification School

On November 13, 2009 Dr. Stephen F. Grinstead
and Ms. Sonia Ahmadzai, LMFT Presents
Managing Resistance & Denial In Chemically Dependent Clients

On December 14-18, 2009 Terence T. Gorski: Developer of the Gorski Developmental Model of Recovery
With Co-Sponsor Challenges Presents The Relapse Prevention Therapy Certification Training

Optional Competency Certification Available

A highlight of this RPT Certification Training is that it is being taught by Terence T. Gorski and Dr. Stephen F. Grinstead, which gives participants an excellent opportunity to learn from the developer of these two powerful models – Terence T. Gorski, world recognized in Relapse Prevention and Dr. Stephen F. Grinstead, developer of the APM System.

Are You Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired?

On January 11, 2010 Join Dr. Grinstead, An Internationally Recognized Expert in Preventing Relapse,
For A Day of Relapse Prevention Planning

To learn more about these trainings on our Training News Update please Click Here. You can also go to our Training Calendar to sign up for any or all of these great training opportunities.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, 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.

For many years I have been very outspoken about the need for people in recovery from an addictive disorder to stop smoking. If they are also undergoing chronic pain management stopping is even more crucial. About five years ago I was working with a doctor at a Sacramento pain clinic who had done extensive research on the negative effects smoking has on chronic pain management. Today I want to share about a study that demonstrated that people who were living with neuropathic pain and continued to smoke were actually amplifying their level of pain. This was published in 2005 by the Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine Volume 28(4): 330-332. I’m going to insert a portion of that report below.

The first subject rated his pain as 4/10 when not smoking and 7/10 when smoking. The pain subsided 30 minutes after smoking was discontinued. He noted an immediate increase in neuropathic pain when smoking. The second subject quit smoking for 1 month and immediately noted that the pain disappeared, rating it 0/10. After he resumed smoking, his radicular pain was 8.5/10 in the morning and 5/10 in afternoon.

This particular study focused on people with spinal cord injuries (SCI) and neuropathic pain, but the findings could translate to any type of neuropathic pain, whatever the trigger or pain generator was. I have seen many patients quit smoking over the years and almost all that stopped reported an improvement in their pain levels. Many of them did not have SCI or neuropathic pain, but even so they reported improvement in their chronic pain management as a result of stopping smoking.

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

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, 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.

I believe it is important for people living with chronic pain to understand that sometimes what you most fear you actually create. When you live with chronic pain you hurt. Doing certain things can make you hurt worse. So you come to believe that these things will always cause you to hurt. In other words, you associate those things with pain. You believe that every time you do those things, you will have pain. Because you believe that you are going to hurt, you can actually activate the physiological pain system just by thinking about doing something that you believe will cause you to hurt. This is called anticipatory pain.　

Once the physical pain system is activated, the anticipatory pain reaction can actually make your pain symptoms worse. Whenever you feel the pain, you interpret it in a way that makes it worse. You start thinking about the pain in a way that actually makes it worse.  You tell yourself that the pain is “awful and terrible,” and that “I can’t handle the pain.” You convince yourself that “it’s hopeless, I’ll always hurt, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”　

This way of thinking causes you to develop emotional reactions that further intensify or amplify the pain response. The increased perception of pain causes you to keep changing your behavior in ways that create even more unnecessary limitations and more emotional discomfort. This can make you feel trapped in a progressive cycle of disability.　

In 2007 I wrote published an article titled Coping with Anticipatory Pain that is on our Article Archive.  A couple of months ago I decided to publish a new article titled Moving Beyond Anticipatory Pain for Effective Chronic Pain Management, that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you’re in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, 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.