The former National Hockey League star talked to TreatmentMagazine.com about taking responsibility for his alcohol use disorder and emerging as a recovery advocate By Jason Langendorf Chris Therien played 12 years in the National Hockey League, earning NHL All-Rookie honors in 1994-95, leading the Philadelphia Flyers to the 1997 Stanley Cup Finals and logging more games played than any defenseman in Flyers history. During his playing career, he found himself battling worsening alcohol use disorder (AUD), before eventually seeking help through Caron Treatment Centers. Now a recovery advocate fo ..read more

When combined with TMS therapy, the technology has been shown to ease the withdrawal process considerably By Jenny Diedrich Two technologies starting to be more widely used in addiction treatment are showing great promise in quelling opioid use disorder (OUD). When used together, the Bridge Device and transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a noninvasive therapy targeting the brain, serve as a one-two punch for patients entering treatment for opioid addiction, according to Antonello Bonci, MD, president and founder of GIA Miami and Vita Recovery. Bonci is a pioneer in the study and use of TMS ..read more

In some ways, the future of the field hinges on the answer to that question This post is reprinted with permission from one of TreatmentMagazine.com’s go-to blogs about addiction, treatment and recovery: Recovery Review. By William Stauffer How we think of addiction and recovery has changed in America, largely due to the New Recovery Advocacy Movement (NRAM). The future of NRAM and SUD Peer Services are inseparably intertwined. SUD Peer Services originated out of NRAM as a primary objective. In “An Open Letter to SAMHSA and the SSA’s On Inclusion—Our History and A Cautionar ..read more

Plus: A promising decline in teen alcohol use, and the effectiveness of Canada’s safer opioid supply programs By Mark Mravic Community is an essential element of recovery wherever someone might find it—even on the internet. That’s the conclusion of researchers from the U.K. who analyzed the activity of members of a popular opioid recovery forum on Reddit over six years and found a correlation between participation in online communities and declines in episodes of relapse. Also this week, the Monitoring the Future survey shows a two-decade drop in alcohol use among American high school seniors ..read more

Other underserved areas in the U.S. would be wise to look closely at what this safe space means to the Hartford County, Md., community By Jennifer Taylor When The Clubhouse by Ashley opened its doors to Harford County, Md., adolescents two months ago, there was plenty to celebrate—movie nights, yoga, cooking, arts and crafts, games and a book club. But for families seeking a safe place for their children to relax, grow and learn outside of school, the opening of the after-school and summer program brought more of a sigh of relief than anything else. The Clubhouse, a renovated 3,500-square-foot ..read more

The innovative program Regional Transition Navigator, created by West Virginia University, places its focus on early prevention By Jason Langendorf As overdose death rates among young people continue to spike, stakeholders in the treatment community are placing greater emphasis on early prevention of drug use and mitigating the social factors associated with substance use disorder (SUD). Among the latest efforts: a West Virginia University program broadly designed to improve health outcomes among at-risk adolescents and young adults. The Regional Transition Navigator program wil ..read more

Plus: Bipartisan support for federal SUD funding, and more treatment industry news By Mark Mravic New & Next: Workforce COVID, the Overdose Crisis and Workforce Burnout A new study out of Canada details how the twin public health crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the opioid epidemic crisis continue to have a profound effect on addiction recovery workers, causing unprecedented levels of burnout. The report, by the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction (CCSA) and applicable to the U.S., found that harm reduction workers—broadly defined as anyone working to reduce negative conseque ..read more

Monoclonal antibodies are the key to the equation By Jason Langendorf As overdose deaths from methamphetamine use continue to climb in the U.S., driven in part by the effects of the pandemic, researchers believe they may have achieved a breakthrough in treating methamphetamine use disorder—using the same medical therapy that showed effectiveness in treating the COVID-19 virus. A clinical trial using monoclonal antibodies to treat meth addiction is showing promise in settings across the country where the trial research is being conducted, including a hospital emergency room in Everett, Wash., t ..read more

Look for the national recovery advocacy organization to roll into a community near you By Alison Jones Webb “All change happens locally,” Ryan Hampton declares. He’s the creator of Mobilize Recovery, a national recovery advocacy organization. He’s also the author of two books on the addiction crisis, American Fix and Unsettled, and he’s passionate about local solutions. “If what we were doing was working, we wouldn’t be where we are today,” Hampton says. “Are we really seeing public health solutions that are community-driven and filling the gaps that need to be filled?” Mobilize Recovery and i ..read more

The field still has further to climb, the CEO of High Watch Recovery Center says in this video By the editors of TreatmentMagazine.com Jerry Schwab knows something about the evolution of addiction treatment. As CEO of High Watch Recovery Center in Kent, Conn., he works in a time capsule of sorts. High Watch, founded in 1939, is the oldest 12-step-based substance use treatment center in the world. From what Schwab has seen, the addiction treatment and recovery field has made much progress over the years, but its evolution is far from complete. In this video he says, “Addiction is a disease that ..read more