Table Of ContentNatural Therapies
for
OVERCOMING OPIOID DEPENDENCY
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Natural Therapies
for
OVERCOMING
O PI O I D
D E P E N D E N CY
Dr. Catherine Browne
Doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine
ß
Storey Publishing
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The mission of Storey Publishing is to serve our customers by
publishing practical information that encourages
personal independence in harmony with the environment.
Edited by Nancy Ringer and Sarah Guare
Art direction and book design by Alethea Morrison and Erin Dawson
Indexed by Christine R. Lindemer, Boston Road Communications
Cover illustration by © Koren Shadmi
Interior illustrations by Ilona Sherratt
Author photograph courtesy of the author
© 2018 by Catherine Browne
This publication is intended to provide educational information for the reader on
the covered subject. It is not intended to take the place of personalized medical
counseling, diagnosis, and treatment from a trained health professional.
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Contents
Acknowledgments..................................................6
Introduction: Why Consider Natural Therapies?......................7
PART 1: Natural Therapies to Combat Addiction 13
1 Opioid Dependency: A Breakdown ..........................14
2 Chinese Medicine: Healing Body, Mind, and Spirit ...........19
3 Acupuncture and Acupressure: Clearing Blockages
and Stagnation ................................................43
4 Herbs: Powerful Plant Medicines to Drive Recovery.............68
5 Essential Oils and Flower Essences: Therapeutic
Support for the Body and Spirit.................................98
6 Nutrition and Supplements: Rebuilding the
Body’s Reserves...............................................123
PART 2: Protocols for Treatment 139
7 Basic Protocols: Treating Addiction by Correcting
Elemental Imbalances.........................................140
8 Withdrawal: Managing Symptoms..........................171
9 Pain: Using Natural Therapies in Place of Narcotics .............180
10 Health Problems: Addressing the Long-Term
Effects of Opioid Use .........................................194
Notes ...........................................................212
Suggested Reading ...............................................227
Resources .......................................................230
Index ...........................................................231
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to my teachers, who have been patient, and to my patients, who
have been teachers. A special thanks to my teacher Kathleen Leavy, AP,
RN; she has graciously trained hundreds of acupuncturists and made
the world a better place.
I hold much gratitude in my heart for Barbara Fields, RN, who
took me under her wing and taught me manifestion at a higher level,
allowing me to bring my dreams to fruition.
I give a special thanks to William VanNess, MD, who invited
me into his opioid-free Pain and Rehab Institute. There he has been
demonstrating great compassion for patients while alleviating pain
without the use of narcotic drugs for decades, long before others recog-
nized the risks of opioid addiction.
Thanks to my mother, Evelyn Padgett, who has been a fearless
role model. Finally, I cannot begin to express my appreciation for my
children, Emmit and Olivia, who inspire me each and every day, and
for my amazingly supportive husband, Bill.
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INTRODUCTION
Why Consider
Natural Therapies?
You, or perhaps your family and friends, may be skeptical that
natural therapies could possibly be powerful enough to effectively
treat opioid addiction. What sort of natural therapies could hope to
compete with established medical and pharmaceutical protocols for a
destructive and debilitating health condition of such epic proportions?
As it turns out, high recidivism rates for opioid users indicate that
the traditional approach to addiction treatment — drug therapy (to
detoxify and/or to substitute for opioids), behavioral therapy, and
counseling — is not working; relapse rates are reported to be as high
as 91 percent.1 Meanwhile, an explosion of scientifically validated,
peer-reviewed studies, which you can find at such venerable sources as
the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed database, are proving that
natural therapies — treatments that use energetic healing, botanical
medicines, and mindfulness to stimulate, support, and heal the body’s
own systems of healing — can help opioid users successfully overcome
addiction, reduce withdrawal symptoms, and manage pain for the
long term.
In fact, natural therapies like acupuncture, acupressure, medicinal
herbs, essential oils, nutritional strategies, supplements, and meditation
have been so successful in clinical applications that they are presently
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being integrated into the treatment programs of major hospitals across
the United States. Western medical practitioners who have been
frustrated with the lack of viable options for easing pain, reversing
chronic disease, or combating opioid addiction have found that natural
therapies can effectively address these health issues. The reasons are
multifold:
• Natural modalities are effective medicine. As studies have
shown, they stimulate the body’s immune, endocrine, and
nervous systems, among other things, and provoke a powerful
healing effect.
• While pharmaceuticals are often designed to target a particular
deficiency or excess, natural therapies have a broad healing
impact. They can address the underlying causes of health
problems. Rather than masking or correcting symptoms, they
correct the root imbalance that led to the symptoms in the
first place.
• Natural therapies are wonderfully restorative. They support
patients not just physically but emotionally. Illness, whether
acute or long-term, including addiction, is hard on the psyche,
and these therapies have been proven to soothe the nerves and
brighten a patient’s outlook simply by virtue of their balancing
and normalizing effects.
• Natural therapies have few, if any, negative side effects, and the
remedies are generally less toxic and more cost-effective than
prescription drugs. Acupuncture, for example, is an excellent
alternative to pharmacological treatment for pain, with little risk
of side effects.2
• Natural therapies are not addictive. In contrast, Western
medications used to treat opioid addiction, such as methadone
and Subutex (buprenorphine), replace opioids with another
addictive substance.
INTRODUCTION
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• Natural therapies are effective at reducing or completely
eliminating withdrawal symptoms for people who are giving up
opioids.
• Following withdrawal, patients can turn to a plethora of natural
therapies to fully restore their health and vitality. These treat-
ments can also help prevent relapse; acupuncture, for example,
can play an important role not only in overcoming addiction but
also in preventing a return to it.3
A Difference in Perspective
Beyond the proven benefits of a holistic approach versus traditional
treatment, there can be a very real difference between the two
approaches in their perspective on addiction. In our culture, we tend
to assign a certain stigma to those who become addicted to drugs. We
assume some weakness in their willpower, some fault in their choices,
some contamination of their character that led them to become
addicts — and that will forever mark them as addicts.
Traditional 12-step programs, for example, require participants to
acknowledge that they are addicts and that their addiction is a lifelong
condition. The ostensible intentions are to instill a sense of humility
and accountability, to build character, and to establish a foundation
of self-awareness and strength. Those are all good principles, not just
for addicts but for anyone, in any situation. However, the concept
of addiction as a lifelong condition is outdated. Current science on
neuroplasticity (which we’ll discuss in chapter 1) tells us that our brain
has the potential to change and heal. That is, though our brain may
become wired for addiction, we can rewire it using holistic mind-body
therapies to eliminate the pathways of addiction. So, contrary to much
of the literature available from traditional treatment programs, addic-
tion is actually a curable disease.
People like to say, “Once an addict, always an addict.” But that per-
spective runs counter to Chinese medical theory and to my personal
clinical experience. As a holistic practitioner, I do not view patients as
INTRODUCTION
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