Spring 2024
Contingency management works, so why isn’t it being widely used?
A program that rewards people to avoid the behaviors they’re trying to quit has great potential for addiction. » More ...
Drug treatment
Spring 2024
Substance use and addiction
Substance use disorders and addiction touch everyone’s life, and Washington State University researchers are treating the problems with empathy. » More ...
Spring 2024
How to talk about substance use
Messages to prevent and combat substance misuse must be crafted correctly. » More ...
Fall 2016
Kristi Molnar-Nelson takes back her life
Veteran Kristi Molnar-Nelson invited us to a counseling session with her psychiatrist Matt Layton, a Washington State University clinical associate professor, at a Spokane methadone clinic where she’s being treated for opioid addiction.
Video by Rajah Bose
Read more about treatment for opioid and heroin addiction in “The Epidemic.”
Read about WSU’s research into understanding the prevention and treatment of addiction, and studies into the neuroscience of addiction.
Fall 2016
The Epidemic
“This program saved my life,” he says as he enters the room. Kris, 37, is in the Spokane Regional Health District methadone clinic where he has come for treatment of heroin addiction since 2008. The intense, dark-haired man speaks openly, earnestly, as if he has nothing left to lose.
Kris says his journey into addiction began, “Quite simply, by a doctor.” Struggling with pain from a minor car accident in 1999, he was prescribed increasingly stronger doses of hydrocodone and OxyContin over a nine-year period. The FBI eventually raided the unethical physician and closed his practice, leaving patients like Kris stranded and facing withdrawal when … » More …