With the economy being in such a turmoil one of the areas impacted is healthcare.  Of course getting healthcare coverage has been problematic for quite some time but now it’s even worse.  Today someone living with chronic pain is probably not getting effective treatment due to cost containment, managed care, and HMOs. 

Although there is sufficient research and common sense supporting multidisciplinary treatment interventions for someone living with chronic pain just try to get it authorized or covered.  This is very troubling due to the fact that earlier multidisciplinary intervention and treatment will save significantly over a relatively short period of time. 

When someone doesn’t get their chronic pain condition adequately addressed several problems can occur.  One problem is the pain condition leading to a lower level of functioning and impaired quality of life.  This can lead to serious grief/loss and depression.  Another risk is with under-treated chronic pain is people tend to turn to dangerous alternatives to seek relief such as doctor shopping to get more meds.  Others may start using alcohol to cope while others may turn to illicit drug use to seek relief.

I believe that the risk of addiction or other psychological dysfunction is significantly amplified if people don’t obtain an effective chronic pain management plan in the first 6 months to a year.  As I listen to a since of helplessness from many participants at my trainings and gleaning the same desperation from reading emails from many visitors to our website leads me to want to let people know that despite all the obstacles we can still make a difference.

I want to let you know that there is hope.  People living with chronic pain can improve their situation.  We are doing our part to address this need for cost-effective help by making my Addiction-Free Pain Management® (APM) publications and APM™ phone coaching available at reasonable rates and you can go to our Article Archive Page to download over three dozen free articles.  You can visit our Publication and Coaching pages for more information about those cost-effective options.

One example of phone coaching we offer is our one year APM™ Continuing Care Coaching for people completing a residential or outpatient treatment program.  This type is offered in three Phases including an individual 1 hour phone intake consultation session and three one hour individual exit interview telephone coaching sessions after each phase.  Optional “as needed” individual telephone coaching sessions may be added for an additional fee.  All sessions are conducted by phone through a conference call service. 

We also offer APM™ Relapse Prevention Coaching and this usually requires a three month commitment.  This also includes an individual 1 hour phone intake consultation session to determine each person’s needs.  People need to obtain my Addiction-Free Pain Management® Workbook and APM™ Recovery Guide as an integral component for any of our APM™ coaching services.  You do NOT need to have problems with addiction or be in recovery in order to benefit from these services.

To see if APM™ coaching might benefit you (or your clients, family members, friends, etc.) please Click Here to complete and submit our APM™ Coaching Questionnaire.  If you have any questions or would like more information, please give us a call at (916) 575-9961 or go to our Coaching page on our website.  We also offer phone assessment and treatment planning consultation to any healthcare providers.

To learn about dealing with the psychological component of chronic pain check out my article Coping with Anticipatory Pain 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 are in recovery and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing your pain and medication effectively go to our Publications page and check out my book the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

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.

Living with chronic is a major challenge for most people—I know it is for me.  One of the reasons so many people struggle concerns not identifying all the coexisting conditions or problems that could be interfering with effective chronic pain management.  I cover these in-depth in my publications (e.g., Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders and the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide) and this month my new article is entitled Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article Page.

I want to just post the bulleted highlights of that article here.

The Problem

• * Undiagnosed Coexisting Disorders

• * The Denial Blindfold

• * The Depression and Isolation Pit

The Solution

• * Knowledge is Power

• * Pain is our Friend—not our Enemy

• * Treating the Bio-Psycho-Social Components of Pain

• * The Addiction-Free Pain Management® System

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

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

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 most people the upcoming Holiday Season is a time of hope and celebration.  For others it is a dreaded time of year because they don’t enjoy a life-style that matches the media hype regarding this season.  For People in recovery from any addictive disorder it can be a major high risk situation for a relapse.  For people in recovery from eating addiction the holiday season is even more problematic.

Earlier this year I wanted to address the entire spectrum of “Eating Addiction” 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.

With the Holidays on us it’s crucial to learn to manage high risk situations for using food to copy or escape instead of food.  The last five exercises in the Eating Addiction Workbook help people 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 purchase this book or the Eating Addiction High Risk Situation List Pamphlet please Click Here.

To listen to a recent radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

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.