As the Clinical Director of Training and Consultation for the Gorski-CENAPS® Corporation I am very excited to announce that SouthCoast Recovery is taking the first step towards the Gorski-CEANPS® Relapse Prevention Center of Excellence (COE).  This week I will be conducting the first staff training for the staff at SouthCoast in Dana Point California. On Saturday I conduct the first day of the Center of Excellence Evaluation.

This first training is a combination of an overview of the Gorski-CENAPS® Developmental Model of Recovery and 20 hours of our Denial Management Counseling competency certification training.

Dennis Larkin is the founder and developer of SouthCoast Recovery as well as two additional enterprises at the forefront of addiction and recovery services. He is a Certified Chemical Dependency Counselor C.C.D.C., Certified Life Coach M.L.E & E.L.E and Certified Addiction Treatment Counselor C.A.T.C. Dennis holds certificates in Drug and Alcohol Studies, Family Services, Victim Services, Corrections and Criminal Justice Studies and is Gorski Trained in Relapse Prevention and Denial Management. He is an active member of C.A.A.D.E. and is trained in meditation and yoga. Dennis resides in Dana Point, California with his fiancé Jackie and their Golden Retriever, Kona.  Please read below what Dennis says about SouthCoast or to learn more check out the SouthCoast Recovery Website.

“SouthCoast now has over 15 years continuous experience in creating innovative programs where a blend of clinical, holistic and spiritual approaches to addiction are our focus. In my effort to provide a healing environment for the chemically dependent individual that would encompass mind, body and spirit, we have to explore the practical part of getting a life and living in society on its terms. The spiritual aspects of treatment intervention must meet the unique demands of quality, specialized care for each individual.”

In addition to offering a training in denial management for addictive disorders, I have modified the Denial Management Counseling process for work with people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including addiction. To learn more about chronic pain management and denial please check out my article From Denial to Effective Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article 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.

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.

To see an online overview of Cognit delivering Addiction-Free Pain Management® please go to this Link for a free demo.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

My goal is to update our News & Research Page monthly to provide a synopsis of news stories and research or publications that are related to chronic pain management and prescription drug addiction treatment.  Below is a brief introduction of this months three posts.

Risks and Benefits of Acetaminophen: To begin I want to reiterate my belief that there is no such thing as a “bad” medication. How it’s used, what it’s used for and who uses it will determine either positive or negative outcomes. For most people, acetaminophen is something of a mystery as it appears in many combination cough and cold products, as well as prescription pain medications, such as Vicodin and Percocet. . .

Spinal Cord Stimulation for Chronic Pain Management: With all the concerns about the high toll prescription drug abuse and addiction takes, it is exciting to see recent research on a non-pharmacological medical approach to help alleviate back pain and increase quality of life. Electrical stimulation has been used in many different ways for decades, but there is now a newer procedure that is showing even better results. . .

Psychotherapeutic Approaches for Chronic Pain Management: Since 1996 I have been advocating the use of a multidisciplinary approach to chronic pain management, especially when accompanied with coexisting psychological disorders, including addiction. For many years I have encouraged participants at my trainings to include the use of a variety of non-medication based approaches for any chronic pain management condition, with pain focused psychotherapy topping the list. . .

Visit our News & Research Page to see the complete postings as well as an archive of past research.

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.

To see an online overview of Cognit delivering Addiction-Free Pain Management® please go to this Link for a free demo.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

The term pseudoaddiction is fairly new to the addiction treatment field but has been used in chronic pain management for quite some time now. What is important to remember is that even though pseudoaddiction looks like addiction, it is actually caused by an undertreated or mistreated chronic pain condition. However, my treatment plan for pseudoaddiction and addiction is identical. The major danger of pseudoaddiction is that if it is not adequately addressed, it will turn into full blown addiction—sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly.

In 2004 the American Academy of Pain Medicine, the American Pain Society, and the American Society of Addiction Medicine collaborated on defining pseudoaddiction: Behaviors that may occur when pain is undertreated.  Patients with unrelieved pain may become focused on obtaining medications, may “clock watch,” and may otherwise seem inappropriately “drug seeking.”  Even behaviors such as illicit drug use and deception can occur in the patient’s efforts to obtain relief.

To read my newest article on this topic please check out Differentiating Between Addiction and Pseudoaddiction that you can download for free on our Articles page.

You can learn 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.

To see an online overview of Cognit delivering Addiction-Free Pain Management® please go to this Link for a free demo.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.