Over the last 25 years, Stephen M. Taylor, MD, MPH, has treated countless people with substance-use disorder and other addiction illnesses. But he has never treated an “addict.”
There’s no such thing as an addict, said Dr. Taylor, who serves as chief medical officer at Pathway Healthcare’s Behavioral Health Division in Birmingham, Alabama. “There is such a thing as a person with the illness of addiction or a person with a substance-use disorder.”