Check out a Free Demo of Addiction-Free Pain Management®

We now have an overview of the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System Powered by Cognit. To see an online overview of Cognit delivering APM please go to this Link for a free demo.

Cognit is a powerful web-based recovery tool using Terence T. Gorski’s 40 years of expertise in addiction recovery and relapse prevention as well as my 27 years of work with people living with chronic pain management conditions including coexisting psychological problems including addiction.

Cognit provides individuals, treatment centers and other organizations who offer addiction and/or mental health treatment with web-based educational and self-awareness tools. Cognit supports and enhances all stages, as well as modalities, of treatment and recovery for people who suffer from addiction and related mental health issues. The Cognit process combines educational content, self application E-Workbook exercises, session quizzes as well as self-awareness inventories that were developed by Cognit co-founder Wayne Blampied.

The Cognit system acts as a support umbrella from pre-treatment, to the earliest stages of treatment and all the way through late recovery. No matter what course recovery takes, Cognit supports the entire process. The true value of Cognit is in its ability to assist in the treatment process by offering effective, consistent, science-based, easy to use educational content and its ability to assess and quantify a patient’s progress.

You can learn about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website http://www.addiction-free.com/ If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

Personal Impowerment for Effective Chronic Pain Management

I believe an important part of effective chronic pain management is understanding everything you can about your pain and then learning some effective tools that will allow you to respond in an appropriate way so that you can improve the quality of life. Whenever you experience pain, it is always appropriate to ask: "What is my pain trying to tell me?" Remember, pain is trying to tell you that something is wrong, that you should find out exactly what it is, and find a way to address it—not mask it.

Our pain system is a crucial component of our makeup and essential to our ongoing survival. Could you imagine how bad it could get if we didn’t have pain receptors and kept putting ourselves in situations that could seriously damage our body? Imagine that you’re in the kitchen talking on the phone and you put your hand down on a hot burner. Without pain receptors your first indication that something was wrong would be your flesh burning.

Knowledge is Power

To effectively manage a pain condition it is important that you understand exactly what is going on with your body. When you are in pain you experience both physical and psychological symptoms. To understand the language of pain, you must learn to listen to how the pain echoes and reverberates between the physical, psychological, and social dimensions of your human condition. Pain is truly a total human experience that affects all aspects of human functioning.

Personal empowerment is the best—and only—way out

When you are in pain for a long period of time you can begin feeling victimized by your pain. You hate your pain. You want to escape from your pain and are willing to do anything to obtain relief. Unfortunately, the way out for many people leads to self-defeating behaviors, including abusing pain medication.

To learn more about effective chronic pain management please check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website http://www.addiction-free.com/ If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you're in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

We Need To Improve Chronic Pain Management

Reducing the burden of uncontrolled chronic pain is a societal necessity, a medical challenge and an economic requirement. Chronic pain, if not recognized and treated as a chronic illness, takes an enormous personal toll on millions of patients and their families, and leads to increased health care costs.

Chronic pain can also compromise the productivity of the U.S. workforce. Although the impact of pain on patients and on society is among the most serious of public health concerns, chronic pain has been largely left out of the current national debate on health reform. The nation must take the necessary steps to re-define chronic pain as a unique chronic illness and must immediately address this public health crisis.

To learn more on the need to improve both access and quality of chronic pain management please check out our News & Research post this month on Chronic Pain Management Must Improve.

You can learn more about chronic pain management and the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website http://www.addiction-free.com/ If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you're in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

An Attitude Gratitude - AKA Counting My Blessings

As we begin a new year I always look back at the past year to remind myself of all that I’m grateful for. This is a simple process for me as I complete a daily gratitude journal of 5-10 specific things I’m grateful for each day. At the end of each month I review all of the days and pick my top 20 Gratitudes for that month. Now as the year ends I review each month’s top 20 and pick the top 20 things I’m grateful for that year.

You may be wondering; what does gratitude lists have to do with chronic pain management? A LOT! When people live with chronic pain on a daily basis they can become discouraged, frustrated, and very depressed. One of the tools I use and teach to my patients is to look at what they're grateful for in every situation.

I also want to encourage people to focus on what they want—not what they don’t want. So instead of the focus being I don’t want to hurt or live with this unbearable pain; I encourage people to instead focus on enjoying what they have and what they are grateful for.

Of course chronic pain management is not that simple but I believe that focusing on gratitude is a necessary component for any one living with chronic pain. To learn about some roadblocks for effective chronic pain management and ways to overcome adversity please read my latest article Overcoming Obstacles for Effective Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people in chronic pain and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their pain and coexisting psychological disorders including depression or addiction effectively please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.


To learn about my upcoming trainings you can check out our Calendar page.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Nine Sleep Hygiene Tips for More Effective Chronic Pain Management

I’m often asked by patients and people at my trainings "when someone has chronic pain and addiction, what can they do for sleep problems because they can’t safely take many of the sleep medications." Well first of all I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to become dependent on sleeping pills. If you look at the patient education information on most sleep medications you will see that it tells you that they are not intended for chronic use.

So what do you do when you live with chronic pain and need to sleep? Do you give in and use potentially dangerous sleep medications or just suffer? Most authorities recommend practicing good sleep hygiene, along with becoming very familiar with their sleep deprivation problem (i.e. understanding the cause). Sleep hygiene refers to the habits, environmental factors, and practices that may influence the length and quality of your sleep. These include bedtime, nighttime rituals, and disruptions to one's sleep. These are typically represented by simple guidelines meant to effectively promote a good night's rest.

If sleep problems persist after implementing sleep hygiene practices, it may then be the time to seek medical help. But what is sleep hygiene? Below I’m putting 9 sleep tips that I found on About.com , a website devoted to educating people about back and neck pain. If you want to see more about sleep hygiene please go to that website and type in “Sleep Hygiene.”

1. Relax before bedtime


2. Make sure your bedroom is quiet, dark, cool, and comfortable


3. Make sleep a priority: don’t sacrifice sleep to do daytime activities


4. Get up and go to bed at the same time every day, even on weekends


5. Avoid caffeine and other stimulants


6. Don’t smoke - in bed or at all


7. Exercise every day, but avoid doing it 4 hours before bedtime


8. Bedrooms are for sleeping and sex, not for watching television or doing work


9. Don’t take naps

I’ve been helping people with this problem for a long time and have actually used most of interventions listed above. One of the tools I also recommend for many of my patients is to use headphones with relaxation techniques, soothing sounds or music to help them to sleep. I also teach people relaxation response techniques that take about 7-10 minutes and one of the positive side effects is a reduction in their sensation of pain.

If you want more information on chronic pain management and sleep problems please go to our website and check out my article Chronic Pain Management and the Role of Sleep Disturbances , that you can download for free on our Ariticles page.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you or a loved one is undergoing chronic pain management, especially if you're in recovery or believe you may have a medication or other mental health problem and you want to learn more effective chronic pain management tools, please go to our Publications page and check out my books; especially the Addiction-Free Pain Management® Recovery Guide: Managing Pain and Medication in Recovery. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

To listen to a radio interview I did conducted by Mary Woods for her program One Hour at a Time please Click Here to go to this interview.

Chronic Pain Management and Addictive Disorders

According to researched published in Pain Physician Journal as recently as 2006, 90 percent of people in the US receiving treatment for pain management were prescribed opiate medication. Of that number 9 percent to 41 percent had opiate abuse/addiction problems. The research also stated that 16 percent of pain management patients experienced illicit drug use along with their prescribed medication, and as high as 34 percent in other research they reviewed. These numbers give a picture of the overall problem of chronic pain abuse/addiction problems in the general population. What is harder to quantify is the extent of this problem in the recovering community.

Whenever I asked the following question at trainings, “How many of you know someone in long-term recovery who has relapsed over pain management issues?” most of the audience raises their hands. The reasons vary, but more often than not they either take the wrong medication or too much. Others try to tough the pain out and end up relapsing back to their original drug of choice.

Living with chronic pain is difficult for anyone, but especially for someone with coexisting abuse, addiction or other psychological disorders. They can become severely depressed and discouraged. Healthcare providers often become confused and frustrated when their treatment interventions are ineffective and frequently blame their patients. The problem of managing pain and medication in recovery continues to grow and healthcare professionals are left with the challenge of how to effective address it. Given the biopsychosocial nature of addiction and chronic pain, it is imperative to understand both conditions and implement a multidisciplinary treatment plan.

To learn more about the need for teamwork for effective chronic pain management check out my article The Need for Multidisciplinary Chronic Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website www.addiction-free.com. If you are working with people undergoing chronic pain management and want to learn how to develop a plan for managing their chronic pain and coexisting psychological disorders; including depression, addiction and other coexisting psychological disorders effectively; please consider my book Managing Pain and Coexisting Disorders: Using the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.

Chronic Pain Management and Addictive Disorders

People with chronic pain who develop substance use disorders due to taking medication present a difficult challenge to treatment professionals. Many health care providers see no difference in treatment outcomes when these people are treated either in a pain clinic for their chronic pain condition or at an addiction treatment center for their substance use disorder issues.

In either case the prognosis ranges from poor to fair at best. However, I believe it is possible to increase the probability of a more successful treatment outcome by creatively combining existing chemical dependency and chronic pain treatment methods using a multidimensional, non-traditional approach I’ve named the Addiction-Free Pain Management® (APM) System.

The APM™ system is a treatment approach that uses a biopsychosocial model to integrate the most advanced pain management methods developed at the nation’s leading pain clinics, with the most effective treatment methods for addictive disorders developed at the nation’s leading chemical dependency treatment programs. The result is a unique integration of treatment methods that combine proper medication management with non-medication techniques to insure both chronic pain management and addiction treatment. This leads to relief of pain while lowering or eliminating the risk of addiction or relapse.

People with a chronic pain and addiction diagnosis have specific needs that are different from the typical chemically dependent person or the person who suffers only from a chronic pain condition; therefore, a specialized APM™ approach needs to be formulated and implemented. In addition to the pain and substance use, abuse and/or addiction screening, this approach assesses for the psychological issues present before any prescription medication abuse, new psychological problems arising from the pain and subsequent addiction, as well as finding innovative treatment modalities for this particular population.

To learn more about chronic pain management and denial please check out my article From Denial to Effective Pain Management that you can download for free on our Article page.

If you would like to see my upcoming trainings and especially to learn about my 20 hour (three days) Addiction-Free Pain Management® Certification Training on December 7-9, 2009 in Sacramento California designed to teach treatment strategies for people living with chronic pain and coexisting disorders including disorders including addiction please Click Here and scroll down to the December 7-9, 2009 for the description and how to sign up.

You can learn more about the Addiction-Free Pain Management® System at our website http://www.addiction-free.com/ If you are working with people in chronic pain or are living with chronic pain and have any resistance or denial and want to learn how to develop a plan for helping to identify and manage denial please go to our Publications page and check out my book the Denial Management Counseling for Effective Pain Management Workbook. To purchase this book please Click Here.

To read the latest issue of Chronic Pain Solutions Newsletter please Click here. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, please Click here and input your name and email address. You will then recieve an autoresponse email that you need to reply to in order to finalize enrollment.