-
Better Pain Management is Essential for Reducing Addiction to Prescription Painkillers
Limiting use of prescription painkillers has become a major public health goal in the United States in large part because these drugs now cause more overdose deaths than cocaine and heroin combined. (1,2) Much of this effort focuses on persuading physicians to limit the frequency and the amount of...
-
Brief Overview of Treatment and Prevention of Substance Abuse and Mental Illness
Substance abuse and psychiatric conditions frequently co-exist. According to NAMI, most mental health services are not adequately equipped to address both conditions. This makes treatment and prevention of substance abuse in the presence of mental illness a challenging task due to several moving...
-
Drinking for Two: Why We Need to Prevent Alcohol Use During Pregnancy
It was forty years ago that Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) was first diagnosed by Drs. David Smith and Kenneth Jones at the University of Washington, when a group of babies born to different mothers who consumed alcohol during pregnancy were noticed to have similar physical and behavioral problems....
-
Early Childhood Social-Emotional Development: Building Healthy Foundations for A Lifetime of Success
A seminal publication in 2000 From Neurons to Neighborhoods, The Science of Early Childhood Development has established the importance of early childhood experiences on lifelong well-being (JP Shonkoff & DA Phillips, Eds., 2000). Ongoing research continues to demonstrate that the early years in...
-
Embracing Harm Reduction
Many of the people we serve in supportive housing use drugs and alcohol; some in ways that disrupt their lives. That is a fact. Behavior change is hard. That is a truism, and a fact. It is our job as supportive housing providers to serve people who may have struggled for most of their lives with...
-
Food Addiction: Chemical Dependency’s Twin
Most addicts start on the path to addiction using food as the first drug. The addict “to be” starts life with a genetic predisposition. Whatever was happening in the future addict’s life to set him/her on the addiction journey (with this genetic vulnerability), happened at an early age. The...
-
BHN Winter 2014 Issue
"Substance Use and Mental Illness Prevention and Treatment Services” Articles in This...
-
The NYSPA Report: A Salute to Behavioral Health News
The New York State Psychiatric Association (NYSPA), the state affiliate of the American Psychiatric Association, applauds and congratulates the Board of Mental Health News Education, Inc. for its decision to broaden their publication’s mission to address issues related to alcohol and substance...
-
The Recovery Movement in New York State
What an exciting time to work in behavioral health! Practitioners are in a new frontier of best practices based upon significant research that provides a growing understanding about brain disease and appropriate interventions in behavioral health and recovery. The growing strength and influence of...
-
The Three A’s of a Successful Agency
In a time of diminishing resources and ever-changing regulations, today’s providers are entering a new era of care characterized by increased oversight activity and a shift in service delivery from volume-based to value-based, among other changes. Success in the new environment will require more...
