Dr. Morse explains the importance of treating addiction like a chronic illness Medicine The
When Dr. Eric Morse told his colleagues he was going to do an addiction fellowship, they didn’t understand his interest in that eld. In Dr. Morse’s experience, there’s a stigma attached to substance abuse services within the medical community. Some doctors believe addiction is a mental issue rather than a chronic illness. Dr. Morse, who now oversees four medication-assisted treatment clinics, says there is no evidence to support this belief. “It’s been proven that addiction is as much of a disease as diabetes is,” says Dr. Morse, a board-certi ed addiction psychiatrist. “If you have a disease, you want to go to a doctor for it.” INADEQUATE TREATMENT Dr. Morse graduated from Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine and completed his residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Starting his training in Maryland, where recovery services were more widespread and advanced, he led several methadone clinics before returning to North Carolina and opening the rst Morse Clinics center in 2006. That’s when it became clear to him that substance abuse was not being treated properly in North Carolina, naming a signi cant lack of resources and awareness as possible causes. His clients were reluctant to consider maintenance programs, only inquiring about them after years of failed attempts at recovery through non-medical practices. Viewing maintenance programs as a last resort is a misconception that Dr. Morse hopes to end. “We really need to be providing maintenance therapy rst. There’s only a 10% chance of recovery with programs like NA or AA alone. With medical treatment, the chance of recovering is 60%. Not recommending treatment that has been proven as more effective is close to malpractice,” says Dr. Morse. The disconnect between medicine and addiction is
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