Finding Recovery Through Primary Care

Finding Recovery Through Primary Care

How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This episode of Beyond Substance focuses on how everyday healthcare can quietly become a lifeline for people living with substance use disorders. You’ll hear primary care physician and addiction medicine specialist Dr. Maria Robles explain why treating substance use in GP-style clinics matters so much.

She notes that about a third of adult patients in primary care likely meet criteria for a substance use disorder, yet many have never been offered meaningful help. For her, the turning point was realising, "People don’t come to me because they don’t want to feel better," and that care should be available where people already feel safest. Dr.

Robles walks through practical steps: routine screening for alcohol, nicotine and drugs, the use of medications such as buprenorphine, and access to social workers, therapy groups, peer recovery coaches and specialist programmes for pregnant patients. She stresses harm reduction and rapport, choosing language that supports people rather than shames them and treating substance use like any other chronic health condition.

The episode also brings in nurse Sam Furling, whose own opioid addiction was hidden behind a "double life" of parenting, nursing and crippling anxiety. Her accidental overdose at work forced everything into the open and led her into treatment. Now in recovery and working in primary care, Sam says, "Addiction doesn’t discriminate. It’s like cancer. It’s a disease. And it doesn’t care," and describes how her lived experience lets her connect with patients who feel judged or dismissed.

Throughout, co-hosts Dean Babcock and Jodi Miller emphasise trust, compassion and the idea that primary care can be a starting point for honest conversations and ongoing support. If you’ve ever wished your regular doctor could be part of your recovery team, this episode may prompt you to look at that relationship in a new way.