Dr. Adedapo Oduwole

Medical Director for Addiction Services

Dr. Adedapo Oduwole is the most recent addition to the Lighthouse Care Center medical staff, coming from Mercy Hospital System in Janesville, Wis., in 2009. Dr. Oduwole is well-versed in multiple areas of adult psychiatry but is most passionate about addictions work, and serves as the Medical Director for Addiction Services at Lighthouse.

Dr. Oduwole has several strong beliefs and guiding principles about addictions that serve the clients he sees well. First, he believes that each client should be provided an individualized treatment plan that clearly focuses on that persons most pressing issue(s) at the time of admission into the Lighthouse. Just as no two fingerprints are alike, no two clients are alike and so each deserves a treatment plan specifically tailored to his or her needs.

Furthermore, it is often the case that the individual who has an addiction issue also has a psychiatric diagnosis, whether it is a case of anxiety, depression, panic attacks or post-traumatic stress disorder. The combination of an addiction and a psychiatric disorder simultaneously is known in the mental health field as having a “Dual Diagnosis,” as there are two separate issues that need to be addressed. To treat only one condition is to do a disservice to the client and leave them only partially healed. Dr. Oduwole aggressively moves to treat both conditions when they are present.

Another long held belief Dr. Oduwole holds is that virtually all diagnoses, whether they be of an addictive nature or psychiatric, require a two-pronged approach to treatment. Medication can go a long way toward helping a client out of crisis situation, but it is not the full answer. Therapy with a professional counselor is also needed. The opposite is also true in that therapy, whether it is one-on-one or in a group setting, without medication management, seldom provides a complete solution to any mental health or addiction situation. The professional literature bears this out time and time again that the best results occur when both modalities are used, and Dr. Oduwole encourages this with virtually all of his clients.

A guiding principle for addiction treatment that Dr. Oduwole adheres to is that breaking one addiction only to create another is counterproductive to the client’s well-being and not good medical practice. For instance, the use of a benzodiazepine such as Xanax to break an alcohol dependency issue often times will only result in a subsequent addiction to Xanax. The client may actually wind up being much worse off as a result. Dr. Oduwole sets up his treatment plan so as to avoid this being the case, choosing to use medications that do not result in further complications for the patient.

Finally, when it comes to addictions in particular, not one size fits all. Some clients may be true-blue Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) 12-step proponents, thus requiring at least some belief in a higher power to help in the healing process. Someone else may have no belief in a higher power or savior and choose to believe that they can will their way to sobriety along with a little help from a physician and an addictions therapist. Conversely, a third client may have an abundance of faith and belief in a God who is all-knowing and all-loving and that will aid in their being able to break the addiction that grips them. Who is right? Everyone. No one person is forced into believing or having to conform to a treatment program or model that seems too rigid or prohibitive. Dr. Oduwole has many tools that are clinically sound and that can be utilized to help just about any client and allow the individual to grow and heal in a way that works for them. In just about every avenue of life, there are multiple means to solving any problem and addiction is no different.

Dr. Oduwole received his medical education at the University of Ilorin in Ilorin, Nigeria. Upon coming to the United States he completed residencies in Internal Medicine and Psychiatry at Bronx Lebanon Hospital in Bronx, N.Y. He subsequently also completed a Fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry at the Bronx facility. Among his current credentials, Dr. Oduwole is a Diplomat of the American Boards of Addiction Medicine, Addiction Psychiatry, Psychiatry and Internal Medicine.

Dr. Oduwole is a strong proponent of Suboxone for breaking the addiction to opiates and has expertise in new treatments and relapse prevention strategies for alcohol, opiate and stimulant abuse. In the late 1990s at the Bronx Hospital he was part of a team that tested and researched Suboxone as a new treatment for breaking opiate addictions. He currently is a treatment advocate for Outpatient-Based Opiate Treatment (O.B.O.T.), a nationwide program that allows other physicians to contact and ask questions of Suboxone experts regarding the administration and maintenance of Suboxone.