Imagine you are a diabetic, complaining to your doctor’s office manager about poor treatment you’ve received by the doctor’s staff. How would you feel if the office manager said something like this?

“That’s just your disease talking. Your perceptions are wrong because your diabetes wants you to feel resentment and self-pity. Your diabetes wants to give you an excuse to go back out there and eat a bunch of sweets. Your diabetes has you confused. You really weren’t mistreated. Your thoughts and feelings aren’t real.”

Sounds kind of nutty, doesn’t it? Yet people with addiction are sometimes told similar things by their treatment programs.

While it is true that addiction can damage the structure and function of the brain, patients don’t lose all their higher brain functions and often have very accurate perceptions.

This week I encountered a patient who said workers at his opioid treatment program discounted his legitimate…