Opioids Related Content

Past studies found that motivation for suicide may contribute to opioid overdose deaths in people with opioid use disorder (OUD). In 2019, a research team at McLean Hospital found suicidal motivations are common just prior to nonfatal opioid overdose and occur along a continuum of severity. Hilary S...

When she is not working as the admissions coordinator at Fernside , Quinn Tremblay stays very busy. She enjoys spending time with family and friends, attending country concerts and sports events, and “making folks laugh.” She said that her Catahoula leopard dog Annie “always puts a smile on my face...

A new national study, directed in part by Roger D. Weiss, MD , chief of McLean Hospital’s Division of Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction , aims to create a model to predict who can successfully wean off their medication for opioid use disorder while also exploring how to help patients to continue some...

In the shadow of COVID-19, the opioid epidemic continues to wreak havoc on individuals and families in Massachusetts. An estimated 275,000 people in the commonwealth currently live with opioid use disorder, with about 10% receiving treatment. Tragically, approximately five people die each day in...

The College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) has presented McLean Hospital’s Bertha K. Madras, PhD , with its 2019 Innovator Award . Madras, the director of McLean’s Laboratory of Addiction Neurobiology, accepted the award on June 16, 2019, at CPDD’s 81st Annual Scientific Meeting in San...

We are pleased to announce important name changes for McLean’s Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse and its associated treatment program. As of Monday, March 2, 2020, the division will officially be known as the Division of Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction and the umbrella treatment program will be known...

A recent study published in Injury Prevention describes a method for categorizing self-injury mortality (SIM) to help us better examine national trends for today’s epidemics of suicide and drug-related deaths. This SIM study compared trends among non-Hispanic blacks and Hispanics with those of...

As part of its efforts to reverse the opioid crisis that continues to grip the nation, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has named McLean Hospital as a recipient of a grant through the Helping to End Addiction Long-Term Initiative (NIH HEAL Initiative). McLean’s award is one of 375 grant...

“That’s the outfit I wore when I overdosed and when I was discharged from the emergency room–the last day I used and the first day of sobriety.” - Ava Grieco Ava Grieco’s canvas shows her floating through a blue sky, arms wide and stippled with needle marks. A chain anchors her to a hypodermic...

Roger D. Weiss, MD , chief of McLean Hospital’s Division of Alcohol, Drugs, and Addiction; Adriana Bobinchock, senior director of Public Affairs and Communications at McLean; and Christine Tebaldi, PMHNP-BC , director of Clinical Business Development at McLean, joined Maine Senator Angus King this...

Self-injury mortality (SIM), a composite of all methods of suicide and estimated non-suicide deaths from drug self-intoxication, has surpassed diabetes as the seventh leading cause of death in the United States, prompting researchers to call for a new unified approach to SIM prevention. “It is time...

On June 22, 2018, McLean Hospital donated defibrillators to the Ashburnham, Massachusetts, fire and police departments. The donations were in recognition of the town’s support of McLean Hospital during the many years that McLean’s Addiction Treatment Center at Naukeag was based in Ashburnham. The...

When the White House assembled a commission to address how to combat the nation’s opioid crisis , the administration called upon current and former elected officials with a background in administration, law enforcement, and addiction. And Bertha K. Madras, PhD . A psychobiologist in the Division of...

The ultimate solution to the opioid crisis is answering the question of what causes addiction and whether it is possible to treat it more effectively or even prevent it. That’s the challenge Elena H. Chartoff, PhD , is taking on in her laboratory. As director of the Neurobiology of Motivated...

It was a problem we never used to speak about, something that afflicted those “down on their luck” or residents of “skid row” who could not cope with their lives. They dealt with those challenges with alcohol and drug abuse, the drug of choice frequently heroin. Today, addiction —particularly to...

This month, McLean Hospital’s longstanding Naukeag drug and alcohol abuse treatment program moved to an updated, larger location. The newly renamed McLean Naukeag at Prescott program is now located in Petersham, Massachusetts. Housed at Heywood Hospital’s Quabbin Retreat , McLean Naukeag at Prescott...

Bertha K. Madras, PhD , of McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School has been named to the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and the Opioid Crisis. Created through an Executive Order signed by President Donald J. Trump on March 29, the Commission will identify current strengths and...

An estimated 20% of all patients presenting with non-cancer related pain at a physician’s office are prescribed opioids, but which of these patients, especially those who use the medicine long-term to control chronic pain, are likely to become addicted? Understanding the characteristics of such...

Recent studies show more American adults are filling prescriptions for benzodiazepines and are receiving increasing quantities of medication throughout their course of treatment. At the same time, 31% of the nearly 23,000 prescription overdose deaths in 2013 involved this class of drug. “While...

Borden Cottage, scheduled to open in early 2015 in Camden, Maine, is the hospital’s newest residential treatment program for drug and alcohol addiction and the first McLean program to open outside of Massachusetts. Set on nearly 14 acres of lawns and gardens and overlooking Penobscot Bay, Borden...