Addiction
Common Questions & Answers
Signs of alcohol addiction include strong cravings; the inability to curb your drinking; dropping the ball on major obligations at work, school, or home; needing to drink more to feel the effects of alcohol; and withdrawal symptoms.
Drugs and alcohol can disrupt the pleasure circuits in your brain, making you believe you need to use more and more of the substance. It can also cause anxiety and stress when you’re not using them.
Yes, it is a treatable disorder. Depending on the nature of your addiction, treatments may include medications, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or group counseling, and in-patient and out-patient treatment programs.
There are several types of therapy that can help people modify their behavior. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), motivational enhancement therapy, family therapy, and 12-step support programs.
Yes — it’s not poor judgement or a moral issue. Pleasure-seeking activities can start out as a choice, but over time, chemical changes in the brain drive the compulsive need to continue to use the substance or engage in unhealthy behaviors.

Heidi Green, MD
Medical Reviewer
In her private practice, Dr. Green provides psychiatric consultative services and offers an office-based buprenorphine maintenance program to support recovery from opioid addictions. She enjoys offering lifestyle medicine consultation to those interested in maximizing their emotional and physical health by replacing unhealthy behaviors with positive ones, such as eating healthfully, being physically active, managing stress, avoiding risky substance use, improving sleep, and improving the quality of their relationships.
At the opioid treatment programs, Green serves as medical director, working with a team of counselors, nurses, and other medical providers. The programs provide evidence-based treatment (including buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone) for persons suffering from opioid use disorders (such as addictions to heroin, fentanyl, or prescription pain medications).
Previously, Green has worked in community health and mental health settings where she provided consultation to behavioral health teams, integrated care teams, substance abuse intensive outpatient programs, and a women’s perinatal residential program. She also enjoyed supervising residents in her prior role as assistant consulting professor to the department of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine. During her training at the UNC department of psychiatry, she was honored to serve as chief resident, clinical instructor of psychiatry, and psychotherapy supervisor.
Green is passionate about the years we can add to our life and the life we can add to our years through lifestyle medicine! She focuses on maintaining her own healthy lifestyle through work-life balance, contemplative practices, and eating a plant-based diet. She finds joy through a continual growth mindset, shared quality time with her partner, and time spent outdoors backpacking and mountain biking.

Allison Young, MD
Medical Reviewer
Allison Young, MD, is a board-certified psychiatrist providing services via telehealth throughout New York and Florida.
In addition to her private practice, Dr. Young serves as an affiliate professor of psychiatry at Florida Atlantic University Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine. She previously taught and mentored medical trainees at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She speaks at national conferences and has published scientific articles on a variety of mental health topics, most notably on the use of evidence-based lifestyle interventions in mental health care.
Young graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a bachelor of science degree in neurobiology and theology. She obtained her doctor of medicine degree with honors in neuroscience and physiology from the NYU Grossman School of Medicine. She continued her training at NYU during her psychiatry residency, when she was among a small group selected to be part of the residency researcher program and studied novel ways to assess and treat mental distress, with a focus on anxiety, trauma, and grief.
During her psychiatry training, Young sought additional training in women’s mental health and cognitive behavioral therapy. She has also studied and completed further training in evidence-based lifestyle interventions in mental health care, including stress management, exercise, and nutrition. She is an active member of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, through which she helps create resources as well as educate physicians and patients on the intersection of lifestyle medicine and mental health.
- Addiction. Cleveland Clinic. March 16, 2023.
- Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction: Treatment and Recovery. National Institute on Drug Abuse. July 2020.
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