Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Opioid Misuse Strategy 2016
The mission of CMS’s Opioid Misuse Strategy is to impact the national opioid misuse epidemic by combating non-medical use of prescription opioids, opioid use disorder, and overdose through the promotion of safe and appropriate opioid utilization, improved access to treatment for opioid use disorders, and evidence-based practices for acute and chronic pain management.
Confidentiality of Substance Use Disorder Patient Records
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is issuing this final rule to update and modernize the Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Records regulations and facilitate information exchange within new health care models while addressing the legitimate privacy concerns of patients seeking treatment for a substance use disorder. These modifications also help…
Drugs, Brains, and Behavior: The Science of Addiction
For much of the past century, scientists studying drugs and drug use labored in the shadows of powerful myths and misconceptions about the nature of addiction. When scientists began to study addictive behavior in the 1930s, people addicted to drugs were thought to be morally flawed and lacking in willpower. Those views shaped society’s responses…
Evidence-Based Strategies for Preventing Opioid Overdose: What’s Working in the United States
Readers can use this document as a general reference for evidence-based practices that have been successfully implemented in the U.S. and are effective in reducing rates of opioid overdose. This document also provides readers with straightforward explanations of how and why these strategies work, summaries of major research on these topics, and examples of organizations…
Facing Addiction in America: The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health
This Surgeon General’s Report has been created because of the important health and social problems associated with alcohol and drug misuse in America. As described in this Report, a comprehensive approach is needed to address substanceuse problems in the United States.
Finding Quality Treatment for Substance Use Disorders
This fact sheet serves as a guide for individuals seeking behavioral health treatment. It provides three necessary steps to complete prior to utilizing a treatment center and the five signs of a quality treatment center, which include a review of the accreditation, medication, evidence-based practices, position on the role of families, and support networks.
Guidance to States: Treatment Standards for Women with Substance Use Disorder
This guide is meant to assist States in creating their own, State‐specific, treatment standards for women with SUDs. For each element, NASADAD has summarized the existing State standards and selected other resources pertaining to the service element.
Journal of Drug Issues
According to nationally representative surveys, approximately 23 million Americans aged 12 or older meet diagnostic criteria for a past-year DSM-IV diagnosis of substance abuse or dependence (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2008). Substance-related conditions confer a massive burden of disease, huge social costs,and a financial impact which far exceeds that of highly…
Opioid Use in Rural Communities
Opioids are prescribed for pain relief; most recognizable are morphine, hydrocodone, oxycodone, and fentanyl. Opioids also include the illegal drug, heroin. Opioid use disorder (OUD) (to include prescription drugs and heroin) is the fastest growing substance use problem in the nation. During 2008-13, 4.7% of U.S. residents ages 12 and older reported using non-medical opioids…
Parable of Two Programs
Once upon a time there existed two organizations pledged to offer hope and help to individuals and families affected by alcohol and other drug problems. The first, which we shall call Hubris, used its massive communications and marketing machinery to assert its claim as the Alpha and Omega of addiction treatment and recovery support. Hubris…
Partial Recovery
In 2006, Ernie Kurtz and I collaborated on our first paper explicating multiple pathways and styles of addiction recovery. The article was later included in the first recovery management monograph and published in the International Journal of Self Help and Self Care. Included within the paper was a discussion of the variations in depth of…
Principles of Drug Addiction Treatment: A Research-Based Guide (Third Edition)
Drug addiction is a complex disorder that can involve virtually every aspect of an individual’s functioning—in the family, at work and school, and in the community.
The ASAM National Practice Guideline for the Use of Medications in the Treatment of Addiction Involving Opioid Use (Interpretation)
This ASAM Practice Guideline pocket card is intended to aid clinicians in their clinical decision-making and patient management. The Practice Guideline pocket card strives to identify and define clinical decision making junctures that meet the needs of most patients in most circumstances.
The ASAM Practice Guidelines for the Use of Medications in the Treatment of Addiction Involving Opioid Use
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) developed this National Practice Guideline for the Use of Medications in the Treatment of Addiction Involving Opioid Use to provide information on evidence-based treatment of opioid use disorder.
The Irrationality of Addiction Treatment
The most cursory review of the history of addiction treatment reveals a long tradition of inadvertent harm in the name of help (iatrogenic illness). Such treatment insults span bleeding, purging, and toxic, mercury-laden medicines in the 18th century. They include the fraudulent boxed and bottled home cures and the use of cocaine to treat morphine…
The Surgeon General’s Spotlight on Opioids
All across the United States, individuals, families, communities, and health care providers are struggling to cope with the impacts of the opioid crisis. Opioid misuse and opioid use disorders have devastating effects.
Webinar: Innovative Approaches for Addressing Opioid Overdose & Opioid Use Disorders in Hospital ERs
This webinar highlighted three successful models that connected emergency department patients who suffered an overdose to treatment. For more information about the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy: www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp
White Paper: Opioid Use, Misuse, and Overdose in Women
This White Paper was developed to serve as a starting point for a September 2016 national meeting hosted by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women’s Health (OWH) to examine prevention, treatment, and recovery issues for women who misuse, have use disorders, and/or overdose on opioids. This effort builds on…
“Life in Recovery”: Report on the Survey Findings
As a first step to documenting the benefits of recovery to the individual and to the nation, Faces & Voices of Recovery (Faces & Voices) conducted the first nationwide survey of persons in recovery from alcohol and other drug problems. The survey was developed, conducted, and analyzed in collaboration with Alexandre Laudet, Ph.D., Director of…
10 Reasons to Fund Peer Recovery Support Services
Infographic designed to assist with advocacy efforts to fund and sustain recovery support services.
2012 Recovery Capital Scale Psychometrics
Sociological work on social capital and its impact on health behaviours have been translated into the addiction field in the form of ‘recovery capital’ as the construct for assessing individual progress on a recovery journey. Yet there has been little attempt to quantify recovery capital. The aim of the project was to create a scale…
2017 Census and Definitions for Recovery Support in Higher Education
The research undertaken by Transforming Youth Recovery for the 2017 Census and Definitions for Recovery Support in Higher Education includes activities intended to update definitions and descriptions for the services and resources that directly support students in recovery at institutions of higher education. A census was undertaken to ascertain the number of institutions offering services…
2018 Recovery Voices Count Toolkit
The Recovery Voices Count campaign is part of Faces & Voices ongoing work to build a powerful recovery advocacy movement by supporting nonpartisan civic engagement in local, state, and national elections. The goal is simple: to support recovery community organizations and their communities in developing and sustaining a constituency of consequence – an organized voice…
2019 National Drug Control Strategy
The Strategy provides the strategic direction necessary for the Federal government to build a stronger, healthier, drug-free society today and in the years to come by drastically reducing the number of Americans losing their lives to drug addiction. The overarching goal of the Strategy is to save lives by engaging in a comprehensive approach that…
38 Assets For Building Collegiate Recovery Capacity
These assets reflect the potential college specific people, places, and groups that can be assembled into practices to help students in recovery thrive in the fullness of the college experience.
A Lesson from Recent Vaping Deaths
Federal officials have tentatively identified the potential source of recently reported vaping-related respiratory illnesses and deaths. The culprit appears to be vitamin E acetate, a substance long used as a nutritional supplement and topical skin treatment but whose oily consistency may make it quite toxic when inhaled via vaping. While these findings are preliminary and…
A National Survey of Criminal Justice Diversion Programs and Initiatives
Across the United States, criminal justice systems are managing record numbers of people with rates of substance use and mental health disorders that are exponentially higher than those of the general public. In recent years, a confluence of factors has created fertile ground for broad-based improvements to criminal justice policy and practice, including overburdened courts,…
A Public Health Strategy for the Opioid Crisis
Drug overdose is now the leading cause of injury death in the United States. Most overdose fatalities involve opioids, which include prescription medication, heroin, and illicit fentanyl. Current data reveal that the overdose crisis affects all demographic groups and that overdose rates are now rising most rapidly among African Americans. This publication provides a public…