Healthcare and 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 difficult when prescription drug abuse/addiction present; often because of a mismanaged chronic pain condition that may be either under treated and over treated. We know from the research on people using pain medications for chronic pain that about 1.5 to 20%, depending on the study used, will have substance use disorders (i.e., abuse or addiction). Using a conservative 10% estimate, over 10 million chronic pain sufferers will experience substance use disorders.

Therefore, an important goal of this workshop will be to focus on identification and effective intervention and treatment of prescription drug abuse for chronic pain patients. This will be accomplished in part by discussing how to identify the most common red flags of prescription drug abuse, and the denial patterns patients use to avoid recognizing and/or dealing with their prescription drug abuse/addiction, as well as becoming familiar with common pain management drugs of abuse.

Since chronic pain includes both physiological and psychological pain symptoms, the participants of this presentation will learn how to differentiate between the two types of symptoms; how effective implementation of a multidisciplinary and integrated pain management approach can increase positive treatment outcomes by addressing the synergistic effect of pain and chemical dependency issues; and what components are necessary to treat the synergistic symptoms of pain and addiction, which include medication management, emotional/ psychological management, and non-pharmacological pain management.

1. Understand the treatment obstacles faced by patients with pain and coexisting addictive disorders
2. Explain the importance of utilizing an integrated multidisciplinary treatment approach to treat the Addiction-Pain Syndrome®.

1. Identify the three (3) core components necessary for positive treatment outcomes.
2. Identify the ten (16) most common prescription pain management drugs of abuse.
3. Identify the twelve (12) denial patterns used by clients who are using/abusing prescription medications and exhibiting other self-defeating patterns of behavior.

1. Identify the twenty-three (23) Red Flags that indicate that clients are using their prescription medication problematically.
2. Develop and implement the three (3) synergistic core treatment components of APM® necessary to address the Addiction-Pain Syndrome®.
3. Identify the ten (10) most common prescription pain management drugs of abuse.
4. Identify the twelve (12) common denial patterns and be able to help patients identify and manage their personal denial patterns that lead them to self-defeating behaviors.
5. Understand and be able to implement the Formula for Success with this population.