The recent Senate hearings regarding Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh have brought up the topic of alcohol overuse, and especially the issue of the alcoholic blackout. This post covers what alcohol-induced blackouts are and aren’t, and how to differentiate them from simply passing out from too much alcohol.Alcohol is a...

Adolescents are generally healthy, and they don’t tend to present with pancreatitis or other adult diseases that can be possible clues to a substance use issue. A lot of times adolescents with SUDs don’t hit the surface until they have a legal or a school consequence.The following is some advice...

The TOSCA study focused on children with severe ADHD, who also met criteria for oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) or conduct disorder (CD). These children tend not to do as well with stimulants alone and often end up being prescribed antipsychotics, typically second generation antipsychotics (SGA’s). TOSCA was devised to help...

Treatment resistant depression (TRD) is not untreatable. The challenge is to keep hope alive and the patient engaged in their recovery, writes Editor-in-chief Chris Aiken in the July/August issue of The Carlat Psychiatry Report. In addition to using antidepressants as part of treatment, Dr. Aiken says you should recommend the...