Episode 98 • The Weight of Air with David Poses

The expression goes, “Sometimes you gotta fight fire with fire.”  In the realm of the opioid crisis in America, that can be a suggestion to start an inferno. A pill for a pill? Does it even make sense?  We commonly  make the association with illegal drugs such as heroin when the topic is brought up, but many opioids are regulated by the FDA for the use in treatment for pain and derived naturally from the opium poppy plant.  Statistics show that 95% of opioid addicts have a co-occuring mental disorder.  The world is dealing with a disease that can be treated with drugs such as buprenorphine. It was this exact drug that helped David Poses kick a heroin addiction that overtook nearly two decades of his life and kept him successfully sober for more than ten years. David gives a very detailed and poignant account of his battle in the highly anticipated memoir, “The Weight Of Air,” from Sandra Jonas Publishing available to sign up for pre-order and debuting July 6, 2021. He's also shared his knowledge in speaking engagements and bylines in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, NY Daily News, The Doctors and more.  The Weight of Air details how Poses led a double life, fueled by addiction and mental illness. The memoir pulls back the curtain of highly publicized and popular treatment facilities (including AA, Celebrate Recovery, and rehab) to show why the relapse rate is so high.  The book highlights the need to address mental health early on, and the connectivity of science to cure- not cause more pain.   The Weight Of Air is a raw and darkly comedic first person account of addiction, probing into the disregard for science and evidence in treatment, prevention and drug policy, racist catalysts behind US drug laws, and reasons that -despite its proven efficacy- Buprenorphine is inaccessible to the vast majority of 20 million addicts. Nobody wants to be labeled as a junkie. Our system is designed to punish, not save.  David Poses is on a mission to change this.