09-17-2023 GAR - Flipbook - Page 6
6 A Special Advertising Section of Baltimore Sun Media Group | Sunday, September 17, 2023
The Journey to Recovery
Maryland Addiction Recovery Center Helps Addicts and Their Families
By Margit B. Weisgal, Contributing Writer
E
li Webster is a recovering heroin addict. “And
I always will be,” he explains. “No matter how
long I abstain, I know that I could
revert, become addicted again, in
a heartbeat. It’s why we never say
‘cured’ when we talk about it.”
If you’ve never suffered from an addiction, it may be hard to understand
the struggles involved in giving it up,
in modifying your behavior, in letting
go of something that has been a huge
part of your life, often for a very long
time.
Photo above: Adobe stock
Zach Snitzer, co-founder of the
Maryland Addiction Recovery Center (MARC), gets it. “Most people,”
Snitzer explains,“are familiar with the
28-day programs to treat addiction,
designed to help an individual with
substance use disorder (SUD) through
the initial withdrawal period. But
then they leave that safe residential
program and are forced to jump start
living their lives without substances.
A month is a short time and only provides the individual, new to recovery,
with a small taste of what lies ahead.
What few people talk about when
treating addictions is that, despite
recognizing it is a chronic, long-term
problem, not all programs offer longterm solutions. We do.”
Addictions abound. They are not
always related to substance use disorder or opioid use disorder (OUD),
although chemical addictions are ones
we often hear about. Others are behavioral disorders, like eating, gambling, sex, social media and shopping.
When managing addiction, there
are two models, two distinct ways to
address and treat it. The first is recognizing – really admitting – that addiction is a disease of the brain, which,
in turn, dictates how it is treated; the
second says addiction is a lifestyle
choice, which offers nothing in the
way of assistance. The second has
been disproven many times, but some
people still believe it.
The American Society of Addiction
Medicine (www.asam.org) provides
this short definition: “Addiction is a
primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry.” An article in Nature/
Neuropsychopharmacology
says,
“Denying that addiction is a brain
disease is a harmful standpoint since
it contributes to reducing access to
healthcare and treatment, the consequences of which are catastrophic.”
Thus, the average lay person may
MARC
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