Feb. 19, 2024 – We’ve seen multiple societal changes in our lifetime, from fashion trends to laws, to name just two, and as I wrote in my last post, there have been a number of changes to the thinking in the addiction field. To accommodate those changes, it appears that the meaning of the word “sober” has changed.
According to a February article in the New York Times titled “What Does Being Sober Mean Today? For Many, Not Full Abstinence,” to be sober previously meant totally abstaining from alcohol and all other intoxicating substances. Today, it’s “used more expansively, including by people who have quit drinking alcohol but consume what they deem moderate amounts of other substances, including marijuana and mushrooms,” according to the article. That’s a sea change in how some people think about sobriety.
Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a division of the National Institutes of Health, was one of the people interviewed in this article. I have admired her work on addiction and the brain ever since I learned about her years ago. These days, she says, it’s unrealistic to say that “the only way out of an addiction is total and full sobriety” for all patients and that it’s OK for some people to substitute marijuana for highly addictive drugs like opioids.
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