While still considered a public health crisis, there is a bit of hopeful news in the fight against the opioid epidemic. For the first time since the crisis hit in the 1990’s, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports overdose deaths dropped in 2018, down four percent from 2017. And yet, that lower number still accounts for more than sixty seven thousand Americans who lost their lives to overdoses, close to an annual record high.

Dr. Anna Lembke knows we have a long way to go before declaring the opioid crisis in hand, or addiction in general, but chooses to be optimistic that these first signs of progress are indicators we’re on the right track. As the Medical Director of Addiction Medicine at the Stanford School of Medicine, Chief of the Stanford Health Care Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and Associate Professor of  ...