New techniques in drug treatment

There's a temptation to believe that problems like addiction (whether to alcohol, drugs or other destructuive behaviors) will always be with us and there's not much we can do about it. However, that latter isn't true: we're making advances in drug treatment even as we seem to be finding more addictions that require such treatment. Some such advances are as a result of basic knowledge advancing: others as a result of advances in the pharmocopeia.

But perhaps the most interesting advances in drug treatment are coming from an acknowledgement that many addictions, while they might be to entirely different substances, have at their core the same problems. It can be simply that addiction itself is built into the addict and it can also be seen that others have underlying problems which need to be solved over and on top of that of the addiction itself. Dual diagnosis is the term usually used to describe that latter procedure.

But perhaps the most interesting point is that if all (or many, or most) addictions have the same or similar root causes then perhaps what works for one addiction will work for others. Perhaps the AA 12 step program will work for those addicted to drugs as well? And indeed there are encouraging signs that it does. This isn't to say that we simply send drug addicts off to AA for their drug treatment: far from it. We might want heroin users to be placed on methadone....as well as using an adapted 12 steps program.

But as I say, this point that addictions have more in common with each other than they differ means that we can begin to look at integrated and holistic methods of dealing with them. Click through to find out about a treatment center that does just that.

Fort Hood victims list

No one really has a full Fort Hood victims list as yet: the military haven't released one and no one else is really in a position to know.

However, one newspaper has been doing sterling work in trying to piece together a Fort Hood victims list: the San Antonio Express. Here's their list so far:

Killed

Michael Grant Cahill, 62, of Cameron — formerly of Spokane, Wash., — was a physician's assistant who was working on the post as a contracted civilian

Staff Sgt. Justin M. DeCrow, 32, of Plymouth, Ind.

Reservist John Gaffaney, 56, of Serra Messa, Calif.

Spc. Jason Dean Hunt, 22, of Tipton, Okla.

Sgt. Amy Krueger, 29, of Kiel, Wis.

Pfc. Aaron Thomas Nemelka, 19, of West Jordan, Utah, was killed.

Pfc. Michael Pearson, 21, of Bolingbrook, Ill.

Russell Seager, 51, of Racine, Wis.

Pvt. Francheska Velez, 21, of Chicago. She was pregnant.

Military physician assistant Juanita Warman, 55, of Pittsburgh

Spc. Kham Xiong, 23, of St. Paul, Minn.

Wounded

Chief Warrant Officer Chris Birmingham of Eclectic, Ala., was shot three times.

Sgt. Patrick Blue III, 23, of Belcourt, N.D., was hit in the side by bullet fragments during the attack

Amber Bahr, 19, of Random Lake, Wis., was shot in the stomach.

Keara Bono Torkelson, 21, of Ostego, Mo., was shot in the back left shoulder.

Alan Carroll, 20, of Bridgewater, N.J., was shot three times.

U.S. Army Reserve Dorothy “Dorrie” Carskadon of Rockford, Ill., was critically injured.

Staff Sgt. Joy Clark, 27, of Des Moines suffered a gunshot wound

Spc. Matthew Cook, 30, of Binghamton, N.Y., was shot in the abdomen

Staff Sgt. Chad Davis of Eufaula, Ala., was wounded.

Pvt. Joey Foster, 21, of Ogden, Utah, was shot in the hip

Cpl. Nathan Hewitt, 26, of West Lafayette, Ind.

Justin Johnson, 21, of Punta Gorda, Fla., was shot in the chest and leg.

Staff. Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, of Richmond County, N.C., was shot multiple times.

Shawn Manning, 33, formerly of Redman, Ore., was shot six times

Army 2nd Lt. Brandy Mason, of Monessen, was wounded.

Reserve Spc. Grant Moxon, 23, of Lodi, Wis., was shot in the leg.

Sgt. Kimberly Munley, 34, of Killeen is the Fort Hood civilian police officer who was shot multiple times by the suspect.

Warrant Officer Christopher Royal of Elmore County, Ala., was shot three times.

Maj. Randy Royer of Dothan, Ala., was shot.

Pvt. Raymondo “Ray” Saucedo, 26, of Greenville, Mich., had a bullet graze his arm.

George Stratton III, 18, of Post Falls, Idaho, was shot in the shoulder.

Patrick Zeigler, 28, of Orange County, Fla., was critically wounded.

As you can see, there's still problems with this method. What they've been trying to do is read every newspaper story on the matter (of which there are tens of thousands) so as to try and piece together that Fort Hood victims list. But they've only got 11 dead there, while the reports themselves say there were 13 killed.

It looks like we'll not have a definitive victims list from Fort Hood until the military release one.