A small site, written slowly, since 2009.
How To Get Off Painkillers is an independent editorial project published from Aliso Viejo, California. It exists because the writing we needed when we were tapering didn't exist in a form a tired, frightened person could actually use.
Who's behind it
The site is owned and edited by Andrew P. Brock, who launched it in the summer of 2009 after his own three-month taper from a long-term hydrocodone prescription. He still writes the articles, reads the reader mail, and answers as much of it as one human can.
What we don't do
We don't sell a program. We don't take referral fees from treatment centers. We don't run sponsored posts disguised as advice. We have never accepted payment from a pharmaceutical company. Our writing is supported by a small amount of contextual display advertising handled by mainstream networks, plus the occasional book the editor recommends from his own shelf.
What we do
Long-form, plain-language editorial writing on prescription painkiller dependence: how it develops, what a structured taper actually looks like, what families can and can't usefully do, which non-opioid pain tools have the strongest evidence behind them, and what life on the other side of all this tends to look like for the people we hear from.
Our editorial standards
- Sourced. Every claim about clinical practice is checked against current CDC, SAMHSA, NIDA or peer-reviewed guidance.
- Reviewed. Medical articles are reviewed by a licensed addiction medicine physician before publication.
- Updated. Older articles carry a "last reviewed" stamp and are pulled or rewritten when guidance changes.
- Corrected publicly. If we get something wrong, the correction goes at the top of the article in plain sight.
If you read one thing, read the articles.
The site is its writing. Everything else is just framing.
Browse the articles