Brian Samford

Brian Samford, PhD, LMFT, LCDC

Clinical Director

With extensive experience in the behavioral health field, Brain Samford brings a fresh perspective to his role as Clinical Director.Brian is a structural family therapist, who views addiction in the context of systems.He believes that addiction does not occur in isolation, but rather in the context of a contributing system.Brian is a graduate of Texas Tech University.He has worked for Vernon State Hospital, John T. Montford Psychiatric Unit, DePaul Center, and Southwest Institute for Addictive Diseases.As Clinical Director of Starlite Recovery Center, he is responsible for the development and implementation of all clinical programming.At the foundation of his philosophy is the desire to emphasize the importance of needing others to recover, clearing the wreckage of the past, and being of service to others.

Brian Samford, the director of DePaul Center in Waco and a licensed chemical dependency counselor, said that Limbaugh, like most people with an addiction, was probably embarrassed to ask for help or admit that he had a problem.Sooner or later, however, addiction is a race you just can't win, he said.

"Eventually it's going to catch up with you," Samford said.
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Samford said many prescription drug addicts will self-inflict injuries - slam a knee or elbow against a wall or the ground, for example - to get prescription medicine from doctors.One woman he heard about, when desperate, would have a tooth pulled by a dentist just to get a hydrocodone prescription.
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OxyContin abuse may not be taking up law-enforcement's time locally, but at DePaul, Samford said, the number of patients treated for abuse has risen steadily in the past couple of years.
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Samford said the majority of prescription medicine abusers are not people who take a painkiller for the first time.

"That's a fallacy that I think a lot of people believe, that there are all these innocent people out there that just happen to get dependent on prescription medicine," he said."It's just not that way.
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A recovering painkiller addict and his or her doctor must be very careful with any subsequent treatment for pain, Samford said.Any prescription must be monitored closely by not only the doctor, but also by family members, and should be a very short-term treatment, he said.
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Kicking an OxyContin habit cold-turkey would be like coming down off heroin, Samford said.Cramps, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and "a feeling that they are going to die" are all physical effects of that kind of abrupt detoxification, he said.

"There are certain medicines that are given to help ease the physical pain of detox, but it's still not an easy week or two, especially if they're trying to kick an opiate dependency," Samford said.