September is Recovery Month and this year the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) celebrates the 30th anniversary of this addiction awareness campaign. It marks three decades of spreading the message that treatment is available, and people can and do recover—every day.
Generally, medical doctors struggle with drug or alcohol addiction at similar or possibly slightly higher rates than the US population as a whole. It’s hard to get at the real numbers as physicians certainly have strong reasons not to be open about any substance use disorder (SUD) they may have.
“In 2017, more than 47,000 Americans died as a result of an opioid overdose, including prescription opioids, heroin, and illicitly manufactured fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid,” the National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in January. “That same year, an estimated 1.7 million people in the United States suffered from substance use disorders related to prescription opioid pain relievers, and 652,000 suffered from a heroin use disorder.”
Timmy Brooks had many things going for him as a kid. Before 2014, he was a young, square-jawed lacrosse talent from a leafy Philadelphia suburb. Timmy seemed to be the perfect student with a bright future, but secretly he was plagued by anxiety and episodes of depression. Instead of seeking help, he did what many others have tried before him. He started to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol.
A former Louisiana State University student was recently found guilty of negligent homicide in the death of an 18-year-old fellow student. Maxwell Gruver was pronounced dead on September 14, 2017, after an alcohol-related hazing ritual while pledging at a fraternity the day before. Four students were indicted in 2018 on charges stemming from the incident.
The opioid epidemic that has driven fatal drug overdose numbers to new record highs year after year shows no signs of abating any time soon.
Ethics is a set of moral principles that govern a person's behavior. Most people acquire such a set of principles from their family and their teachers early in life. All too many, however, seem to forget their moral moorings when pursuing career goals.
Polysubstance opioid overdose is increasingly common in the US, concludes a new study led by Boston Medical Center's Grayken Center for Addiction. It shows that opioid-related overdose deaths involving another substance is now the norm, not the exception, in Massachusetts.
Approximately 130 Americans die every single day of an opioid-related overdose in America, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Federal and local law enforcement officials have been working hard trying to disrupt the flow of illicit opioids. It becomes a more difficult task if medical professionals are directly involved in the criminal distribution of narcotic drugs.
“Medicated-Assisted Treatment (MAT) is the use of FDA-approved medications, in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, to provide a "whole-patient" approach to the treatment of substance use disorders,” reads the description of MAT on the website of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Agency (SAMHSA).