Dr. Stephen (Steven) Klein

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467 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 2 Jul

Dr. Stephen (Steven) Klein’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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RECOVERable: Mental Health and Addiction Experts Answer Your Questions · Ozempic and Cravings: How GLP-1 Drugs Work for Addiction · 2 Jul 2026 podcast

But for me, I start from the place that addiction is a high morbidity, high mortality condition.

So when I'm weighing the potential risks and benefits, the side effects, all of that, especially in the realm of treating things like cocaine use disorder, methamphetamine use disorder, which have no FDA approved indications or FDA approved medications.

I think for me, the calculus becomes a little bit easier sometimes.

Again, 10% to 12% of Americans trying these medications, the safety data for me kind of speaks for itself.

I then take the next step and to say, so where we are right now, if someone's agency has been taken away enough that they're sitting in front of me in residential treatment facing grave consequences, why shouldn't I make something else available to them?

Mm-hmm.

especially because the accessibility of these medications as being evidenced by people like Serena Williams and Oprah are available to people who can afford them.

So for me, part of my mission, part of my life's work at care and treatment centers is making the medications available to people who want to try them as part of their recovery and then helping them through the decision-making process, the continuation, and also more importantly, learning a different song.

Thank you so much for asking that question.

It's one that I answer almost every day, and it's really important.

For me, I break down that GLP-1s have really three dosing windows.

Luckily, the first and the lowest is with cravings.

The middle is for type 2 diabetes.

And then the extreme is for the treatment of obesity, where you have to be really up in the higher doses to lose those 10, 15, 20% of your body weight.

So I think for someone who doesn't have weight to lose or weight loss is not part of their goals and not part of what they see for themselves, we stay at the lower end of the dose.

Luckily, some of the studies that I mentioned earlier were at that lower end.

For example, semaglutide is...

has a few commercially available doses, 0.25 milligrams and 0.5 milligrams.

The study in JAMA psychiatry only went to 0.5 milligrams.

We've found in our experience of prescribing these medications at that dose, people are not pathologically losing weight.

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