[setrofim_]

First of all, thank you for sharing your experience. It was insightful, and I completely agree with your criticism of the article.

I would like to make a small, and perhaps somewhat pedantic comment regarding your last statement:

>In my own humble opinion the only "science" that matters on this subject are the opinions of those whom have lived it and recovered. Go survey the opiate addicts that didn't end up dead and find out what worked for them.

There is a problem of silent evidence and survivor bias here. What is important is not what they did that led to their recovery, but what they did differently (or, more generally, what was different in their circumstances) from those that tried to recover, but didn't.

So, IMHO, what is needed is not _just_ the opinions of those that recovered, but a longitudinal study to identify which, out the many factors that were involved in the recovery process, have been the most instrumental.

[Ntrails]

> There is a problem of silent evidence and survivor bias here. What is important is not what they did that led to their recovery, but what they did differently (or, more generally, what was different in their circumstances) from those that tried to recover, but didn't.

That's assuming they did anything different at all. It could just be that there is not a one size fits all treatment for this problem, and part of the solution is to match the right treatment for each particular addict.

[CodeWriter23]

While I agree with your points about collecting empirical and unbiased data, I want to point out that when it comes to opioids, "Science" is moving the goal posts. They are measuring social acceptability of a subject while under the influence of doctor-prescribed dope, while ignoring the numerous addicts who maintain similar levels of social acceptability while using Street dope, then declaring their method a "success".

[setrofim_]

Yes, fair point. This is a common problem for social studies. One must keep in mind and be explicit about the population the study sample is drawn from; and very cautious about extrapolating the findings to other populations.

[fsloth]

Not only what they did differently. It might be something they didn't do as well. Since data is laking any personal effort might be completely irrelevant and only the environment might make the difference. I presume there is a large personal effort involved but we don't know.

On survivorship bias: the B 17:s in 2nd world war that generally are used as the practical example of this principle had bullet holes exactly in those parts of the plane that were fine. The parts that had not taken a beating in the survived planes were the ones that needed more armourplating.

So, where are the psychological bullet holes in those who've not beaten addiction?