Answer Addiction

Tag: addiction treatment

  • Inside The Methadone Clinic Boom

    Inside The Methadone Clinic Boom

    “We haven’t seen such a dramatic increase in the industry since the 1970s,” says one expert.

    The methadone treatment industry has exploded from 2014 to 2018, growing more in those four years than in the past two decades, the Boston Globe reports. 

    In the past four years, according to Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) data, the industry has added 254 new clinics. The clinics allow for the administration of methadone, which is a type of long-acting opioid that can help short-acting opioid users manage withdrawals and allow them more time to detox, WebMD states.

    “We haven’t seen such a dramatic increase in the industry since the 1970s,” Mark Parrino, president of the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, told the Globe. 

    Critics of methadone treatment say it is just replacing one substance for another. Yngvild Olsen, an addiction doctor in Baltimore and board member of the American Society of Addiction Medicine, tells the Globe that needs to change.

    “There has been an underlying stigma against methadone for so many years that the industry naturally maintains a low profile,” she said. “Even now, access to methadone is highly geographic. It depends on where you live.”

    Indiana, Maryland, and New York have been at the forefront of states with access to methadone treatment, implementing dozens of new clinics in the past two years alone. Ohio and Florida plan to follow suit with expansions in the works.

    There are some states where laws limit the availability of such clinics. These include Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wyoming. 

    Even so, the clinics are becoming more common, as in the past four years Medicaid has expanded its coverage and reimbursement for such services for low-income adults. And, in 2020, Medicare coverage of the treatment for those 65 and older will begin as part of the Opioid Crisis Response Act, meaning the need could become even greater. 

    If a state wishes to open such a clinic, they must apply for a license, Parrino tells the Globe.

    While there are other medications to assist in curbing opioid withdrawals, such as buprenorphine, methadone is the most highly regulated. 

    The Globe reports that often, patients are given methadone through a plexiglass shield. Patients are often screened to make sure they are not combining methadone with other drugs. At first, they are only given the medication in the clinic, under the watch of a professional. Eventually, some patients are allowed take-home doses. 

    In contrast, buprenorphine can be prescribed for 30 days at a time by doctors, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants and is viewed as the more obvious treatment by some. 

    “There’s no question that better access to methadone maintenance would save lives,” Andrew Kolodny, co-director of opioid treatment research at Brandeis University, told the Globe. “But for an addiction epidemic that is disproportionately rural and suburban, an intervention that relies on people visiting a clinic every day isn’t the best option. Buprenorphine would be better, but it’s not growing quickly enough.”

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Inside Switzerland's Addiction Treatment Experiment

    Inside Switzerland's Addiction Treatment Experiment

    One Swiss organization is finding success with a treatment model centered around medical-grade heroin. 

    With some treatment models still offering fairly dismal success rates, specialists are broadening the parameters of what successful treatment looks like. In Switzerland, an injection center attached to the Geneva University Hospitals is conducting an experimental heroin-prescription program (PEPS). Patients addicted to heroin check in daily for their Swiss laboratory manufactured diacetylmorphine, or heroin.

    Switzerland’s 1,500 patients at 22 PEPS centers have all failed previous attempts to end their heroin addiction with drug-replacement therapy. Patient Marco, aged 44, was quoted in The Nation: “Methadone didn’t work for me. The side effects were terrible, and I didn’t get any tranquilizing effect. So I was taking other drugs on top of it. I’ve been registered here for the last six months. I’ve put on weight, and cut my heroin use by 80%. Eventually, I want to get clean.”

    Here is a new model for success: instead of complete and immediate sobriety, the goal is to slowly wean the patient off of heroin, while also providing treatment for the underlying issues of addiction during the course of the program.

    Meanwhile, the patient is receiving medical-grade heroin at highly controlled doses and is in much less risk of dying from an overdose, and at no risk of contracting a disease (such as HIV) or dying from tainted drugs or dirty needles. The patients are also much less likely to be involved in criminal activity around their drug addiction. The program offers “an easier, softer way” toward sobriety.

    Yves Saget, an addiction nurse, told The Nation, “Addiction happens when taking drugs becomes the only strategy for dealing with difficult situations. We don’t say ‘fix’ here, we say ‘treatment. The brain becomes dependent, and needs heroin to maintain its balance. At this center, we are treating 63 patients with diacetylmorphine. Medical heroin is pure, unlike the drug you buy in the street, which is cut with caffeine, paracetamol, and other substances. Street heroin isn’t satisfying, so addicts often take other narcotics with it, or alcohol, or psychotropic drugs such as benzodiazepine. Our dosage, which is individually tailored, allows patients to live as normal a life as possible.”

    Switzerland had a crisis in the 1980s when heroin use suddenly rose dramatically. The Swiss police tried to limit the criminal issues arising around this drug use by confining heroin uses to areas that soon became known as “needle parks.”

    The Swiss government decided they must act. Ruth Dreifuss is a Social Democratic former president of the Swiss Confederation. She told The Nation that at the time of the peak crisis, “We created a forum that brought together the federal state, the cantons, and the affected cities to allow the different actors to get to know each other’s viewpoints. Open drug scenes couldn’t be allowed to continue, but shutting them down would mean finding other solutions. Everything we’d tried had failed. The doctors prescribing methadone suggested allowing them to prescribe heroin. Methadone has been prescribed in Switzerland since the 1960s, so we were mentally prepared.”

    So began Switzerland’s program of prescribing heroin to people with addiction for whom replacement therapy had failed. A four-pillars policy was created, including prevention, therapy, risk reduction, and repression. The first injection centers for prescription heroin opened in 1994, most of them in Switzerland.

    Today, public hospitals as well as private, state-funded centers run the injection centers.

    The program has been a success. Drug-related crime has seen an “exceptional reduction,” according to a study by the University of Lausanne’s Institute of Forensic Science and Criminology. The number of people with addiction involved with police interaction has fallen by two-thirds.

    “Crime linked to heroin has almost disappeared because the drug is now available for free,” Regula Müller, social-affairs counselor for the city of Bern, told The Nation.

    In addition, heroin dealers have lost their customer base, and prices of the drug are low, making selling heroin a less attractive gamble. The personal gain for those addicted to heroin and those who love them have been enormous, with HIV positive rates at less than 10%, from 50% in the ’90s. And numbers impossible to argue with: drug-related deaths of those under 35 years old fell from 305 in 1995 to 25 in 2015.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • New Subtypes Of Depression Discovered

    New Subtypes Of Depression Discovered

    For a new study, researchers set out to identify the subtypes of depression using “life history and MRI data.”

    New research sheds some light on why not all depression can be treated with medication, according to Medical News Today. 

    Researchers from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST) in Japan have identified three new depression subtypes. 

    According to Professor Kenji Doya of the Neural Computation Unit, there has always been speculation about different subtypes of depression, but it had never been proven. 

    A research team led by Doya studied data from 134 participants, half of which had recently been diagnosed with depression. Through questionnaires and blood tests, the research team gathered information about each individual’s life history, mental health, sleep pattern and other potential stressors in their life. 

    The team utilized functional MRI scanners to gather information about each person’s brain activity. In doing so, they mapped 78 brain regions and the various connections between them.  

    First study author Tomoki Tokuda, a statistician at OIST, says the challenge in this research was developing the right tool.

    “The major challenge in this study was to develop a statistical tool that could extract relevant information for clustering similar subjects together,” he said, according to Medical News Today.

    Tokuda was able to create a new statistical method from which researchers could categorize more than 3,000 “measurable features”—such as childhood trauma and level of depressive episode—into five data clusters.

    In doing so, researchers found that three of the five data clusters connected to different subtypes of depression. Additionally, the brain imaging shed light on the “functional connectivity” of brain areas connected to the angular gyrus, which is the region of the brain that has to do with procession language, numbers, spatial cognition and attention. 

    The connection could predict whether or not SSRIs—the most common type of antidepressant—could effectively treat depression. 

    According to the researchers, one of the subtypes that did not respond to medication correlated with “high functional connectivity as well as with childhood trauma.”

    The other two subtypes of depression did respond to medication. Researchers found that this subtype had low brain connectivity and no instance of childhood trauma.

    The results of this study could help doctors predict how effective certain medications and treatments may be for a patient, according to Doya.

    “This is the first study to identify depression subtypes from life history and MRI data,” said Doya, according to Medical News Today. “It provides scientists studying neurobiological aspects of depression a promising direction in which to pursue their research.” 

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • One Washington County Is Treating The Opioid Crisis As A Natural Disaster

    One Washington County Is Treating The Opioid Crisis As A Natural Disaster

    What if the government used the natural disaster coordinated system to mitigate the opioid epidemic?

    In Snohomish County in Western Washington, officials are taking a unique approach to the opioid crisis by declaring it a life-threatening emergency, as if it were a natural disaster.

    As overdose deaths are threatening more lives than hurricanes and mud slides, they say it makes practical sense. Ty Trenary, former police chief in Snohomish County, thought that his rural community was not affected by the drug crisis.

    Trenary told NPR that at the time he thought, “This is Stanwood, and heroin is in big cities with homeless populations. It’s not in rural America.”

    A new poll by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health showed the truth: 48% of people said opioid addiction in their communities has worsened over the past five years.

    After Chief Trenary toured the local jails, he realized the problem was enormous. He witnessed over half of the jail inmates withdrawing from heroin or other opioid drugs.

    “It took becoming the sheriff to see the impacts inside the jail with heroin abuse, to see the impacts in the community across the entire county for me to realize that we had to change a lot about what we were doing,” Trenary told NPR.

    The idea to go the natural disaster route was the brainchild of Shari Ireton, the director of communications for the sheriff’s office. In 2014, a massive landslide in Washington killed 43 people. As the communications director, Ireton was in charge of organizing the press for field trips to the worst areas of landslide damage.

    “It was amazing to see Black Hawk helicopters flying with our helicopter and a fixed wing over the top of that,” she told NPR. “All in coordination with each other, all with the same objective, which is life safety.”

    Ireton had a moment of inspiration: what if the government used the natural disaster coordinated system with everyone working together, across government agencies, to treat the opioid epidemic?

    The county loved the idea, and a group was formed called the Multi-Agency Coordination group, or MAC group. The group follows FEMA’s emergency response playbook and is run out of a special emergency operations center.

    MAC includes seven overarching goals, which include reducing opioid misuse and reducing damage to the community. The goals are dissembled to smaller, workable steps, such as distributing needle cleanup kits and training schoolteachers to recognize trauma and addiction.

    MAC is too new to understand the scope of the group’s impact on the community just yet. Those being helped will surely feel that it is a positive direction for Washington and for addiction treatment.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Lawmakers, Healthcare Facility Clash Over Treating Inmates With Addiction

    Lawmakers, Healthcare Facility Clash Over Treating Inmates With Addiction

    Is the risk of overdose higher in prison or upon release?

    A fight is underway in the state of Vermont over the execution of legislation designed to provide treatment for prison inmates with addiction.

    S.166, which was signed into law in May 2018, provides treatment with buprenorphine to inmates with the approval of a doctor—but legislators were dismayed to find that the medication was only being provided to inmates who were within weeks of their release dates.

    At the heart of the argument is the determination of medical necessity for treatment. 

    State Senator Tim Ashe, who was the bill’s main sponsor, told the Burlington Press that holding back treatment until a release date is counterintuitive. “For people who are serving relatively brief sentences, those who suffer from addiction should be getting the treatment and not having arbitrary deadlines,” he said.

    Centurion Managed Care, the state-contracted company assigned to provide health care for Vermont inmates, said the deadlines are in place to avoid increased risk of overdose after release.

    Risk of overdose is low in prison, according to Annie Ramniceanu, director of mental health and addiction services for the state Department of Corrections (DOC)—and therefore buprenorphine is not medically necessary until the risk is higher upon the inmate’s release. “Just because you want it doesn’t necessarily mean you meet that medical necessity,” she said.

    Ramniceanu’s position has health care advocates and criminal justice reform groups up in arms.

    Tom Dalton, executive director of Vermonters for Criminal Justice Reform, filed a complaint with the Department of Health’s Board of Medical Practice against Centurion’s medical director, Dr. Steven Fisher, that claimed that inmates are suffering due to the company’s directives and have taken to using buprenorphine smuggled into prisons.

    “Many high-risk incarcerated patients who are self-identifying as struggling with addiction and asking for help are unable to access treatment,” wrote Dalton in the complaint. “Some are being released back into our communities untreated.”

    Dalton’s stance is echoed by other public figures, including Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo, who in a Facebook post from October 17 wrote, “Treat every prisoner who needs it with buprenorphine, methadone or Vivitrol as best fits them (Vermont is at least trying)”—as part of a list of strategies to combat the regional opioid epidemic that has gained national attention.

    DOC Commissioner Lisa Menard told the Burlington Press that the department is working to fully implement S.166 in the prison system, including a recent expansion of treatment to inmates who have reached their minimum release date, and treating inmates with longer sentences with other forms of medication-assisted treatment (MAT). 

    For Dalton, however, it’s the core issue that needs changing. “Their ignorance is killing people,” he said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Should Liquor Stores & Pot Dispensaries Be Allowed Near Rehabs?

    Should Liquor Stores & Pot Dispensaries Be Allowed Near Rehabs?

    A Boston city council member is proposing that pot dispensaries and liquor stores shouldn’t be allowed to open near addiction treatment centers.

    In East Boston, city officials are considering a proposal to open a pot dispensary on the same block as a healthcare facility where patients are treated for drug and alcohol addiction.

    City Councilor Lydia Edwards is proposing that state law should not allow such close proximity of the two diametrically opposed businesses.

    As the crisis of addiction in the United States continues to escalate with overdose deaths increasing yearly, some believe the U.S. needs laws setting boundaries between pot and alcohol stores and recovery centers.

    In Boston, a half-mile buffer is required between marijuana facilities—meant to protect the city from having entire blocks focused on pot sales—and state law allows municipalities to impose 500-foot buffers on marijuana facilities around K-12 schools.

    However, it’s unclear if this would extend to allowing cities and towns to legally increase the size of such buffers or to include other facilities—such as addiction treatment centers—in the law.

    Edwards said that Boston should consider banning marijuana and liquor stores from opening near addiction treatment centers. She has requested a hearing on the possibility of these zones. Other industry groups responded quickly that “buffer zones” could be illegal.

    According to The Boston Globe, Edwards argues that people trying to recover from addiction require protection from the presence of marijuana and alcohol. Edwards added that she supported the legalization of marijuana—Boston residents voted largely in favor of a 2016 ballot initiative that created a commercial cannabis market.

    “I would equally be concerned if a bar was opening up next to a substance abuse treatment [center], or if a liquor store was,” Edwards told The Globe. “I’m not trying to put in red tape or further convolute the access to this burgeoning industry, but the fights are happening, the tears are flowing, and people are tense about this. I think it’s a citywide conversation we need to have.”

    The marijuana company Omnicann is attempting to open a retail pot shop in a two-story space in East Boston. The North Suffolk Mental Health Association is two doors down and operates an addiction treatment center.

    Omnicann, led by Arish Halani, is offering to meet with North Suffolk leaders and to promise that the marijuana shop will not have its product in window displays.

    “We’d like to be a model for how a cannabis retail facility and an abuse treatment facility can co-exist and maybe even help each other,” said Jim Borghesani, an Omnicann spokesman.

    The direct impact on those seeking addiction treatment who find their treatment center a few doors down from a store that dispenses drugs or alcohol is not proven.

    “As always, there isn’t as much data as we’d like to inform policy,” said. Dr. Eden Evins, the founding director of Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Addiction Medicine.

    Edwards said Boston should create a registry of potential marijuana facilities to alert prospective operators that their desired locations are close to another facility.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • What’s Actually Happened Since Trump Declared An Opioid Emergency

    What’s Actually Happened Since Trump Declared An Opioid Emergency

    Critics say the emergency declaration was more for show than to actually resolve the crisis.

    A year ago, President Trump declared a national public health emergency because of the opioid epidemic, vowing that doing so would streamline responses to a health crisis that killed more than 70,000 Americans last year.

    However, a new report shows that the declaration has led to little change. 

    The report, prepared by the Government Accountability Office, found that the administration has used just three of 17 available authorities that are activated when the government proclaims a public health crisis. These authorities include, for example, waiving certain administrative processes in order to quicken responses in an emergency.

    The Trump administration used one authority to more quickly field a survey of healthcare providers about their prescription practices. The results of the survey will help inform policy decisions going forward, the administration said.

    Secondly, authorities waived the public notice period for approval of two state Medicaid demonstration projects related to substance use disorder treatment, which was intended to speed up implementation of the projects, allowing the states to test and evaluate new addiction-related services delivered through Medicaid.

    Finally, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) increased support for research on opioid use disorder treatments and gave out information on opioid misuse and addiction.

    The Department of Health and Human Services said that more authorities haven’t been used because many of the abilities enabled by the state of emergency declaration are not applicable to the opioid epidemic. Instead, they are designed for response to infectious diseases or natural disaster. 

    “HHS officials determined that many are not relevant to the circumstances presented by the opioid crisis,” the report reads. However, the potential for additional responses will be reviewed. “Officials told GAO they will continue to review the authorities as the opioid crisis evolves and in the context of HHS’s other efforts to address the opioid crisis.”

    Still, critics of the administration say that the fact that so few resources have been utilized shows that the administration’s declaration was more for show than in hope of solving the problem. 

    “Communities are desperately in need of more help to address the opioid epidemic. President Trump, as this report shows, has broken his promises to do his part,” Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) said in a statement reported by Vox. “I’ve asked this administration time and time again to show what actions they are taking to meaningfully address this crisis. No response. To me, it looks like empty words and broken promises. Hand-waving about faster paperwork and speeding up a few grants is not enough — the Trump Administration needs to do far more to stop the opioid epidemic.”

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    View the original article at thefix.com

  • White House Launches Treatment Program For Moms With Opioid Addiction

    White House Launches Treatment Program For Moms With Opioid Addiction

    The program will streamline care and reduce healthcare costs for mothers and children who are affected by opioid addiction.

    The Trump administration announced this week that it will begin a program to address opioid abuse among pregnant and postpartum women, in an attempt to address health complications related to addiction and reduce the number of infants born dependent on opioids.

    Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar announced the model during a conference on Tuesday.

    “The M-O-M model, for ‘Maternal Opioid Misuse,’ will partner with state Medicaid agencies to integrate a wide range of services for pregnant and postpartum women struggling with opioid misuse, to ensure not only their health, well-being, and recovery, but protect the health of their children as well,” Azar said, according to Medpage Today.

    In a press release about the program, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services said that it is designed to streamline care and reduce healthcare costs for mothers and children who are affected by opioid addiction.

    “Too many barriers impede the delivery of well-coordinated, high-quality care to pregnant and postpartum women struggling with opioid misuse, including lack of access to treatment and a shortage of providers in rural areas, where the opioid crisis is especially destructive,” Azar said in that release. “The MOM model will support state Medicaid agencies, front-line providers and healthcare systems to help ensure that mothers and infants afflicted by the opioid epidemic get the care they need.”

    The program will be tested in up to 12 states over the next five years. As the opioid epidemic has unfolded, complications from addiction have become a leading cause of maternal death. In addition, the number of babies born dependent on opioids has increased sharply, from 1.19 cases per 1,000 hospital births in 2000, to 5.63 in 2012, according to The Washington Post. Those infants can have lifelong complications from being exposed to opioids in the womb.

    Azar said that the MOM model is the latest step that the Trump administration has taken to make real changes to how opioid addiction is addressed.

    “We believe in evidence-based treatment, we believe in a public-health approach to this epidemic, and we believe in approaching addiction as a disease, never a moral failing,” Azar said.

    The health secretary added that early indications show that opioid overdose deaths seem to be plateauing this year. Although he acknowledged that too many people are still dying from opioid addiction, he said that there are signs of progress.

    “Since President Trump took office in January 2017, the number of patients receiving buprenorphine, one form of medication-assisted treatment, has increased by 21%… [and] from 2015 to 2017, we have seen a statistically significant decline in the number of Americans who misuse prescription opioids,” Azar said.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • "That's So Raven" Star Orlando Brown Enters Rehab

    "That's So Raven" Star Orlando Brown Enters Rehab

    Since his Disney days, Brown has battled substance use disorders and has had multiple run-ins with the law.

    Orlando Brown, former star of the Disney Channel’s That’s So Raven, has entered treatment for substance use disorders and mental health, after his Hollywood friends got together to stage an intervention on his behalf. 

    According to TMZ, Brown’s childhood friend, former Death Row artist Danny Boy, organized the intervention, which took place earlier this week. Danny Boy reportedly contacted producers Wendy Wheaton and Tommy Red, who helped connect Brown with a rehab. 

    Brown has a long history of trouble with the law, which seems to be connected to his substance use. In September, Brown was arrested for breaking into Danny Boy’s Las Vegas restaurant, Legends Restaurant & Venue.

    At the time, Danny Boy told TMZ that Brown had recently been released from the hospital and needed somewhere to stay, so Danny Boy said he could stay in the restaurant.

    However, Brown triggered security alarms by wandering around the kitchen and attempting to change the locks in the restaurant. Danny Boy notified the police, saying he believed that was the best way to get Brown the help he needed. 

    At the time, TMZ reported that Brown’s bail was set at $13,000 and he remained in jail. However, he made bail at some point, because on Sunday police were called to a hotel where Brown had been in an argument. That call didn’t result in an arrest, but it did prompt Danny Boy to organize the intervention that reportedly led to Brown getting treatment. 

    Since his Disney days, Brown has battled substance use disorder and has had multiple run-ins with the law. In 2014, a woman called police saying that Brown had showed up at her home and threatened her. 

    In the tape of the 911 call, a man is reportedly heard saying, ”Tell him Orlando Brown is crazy… I’ll kill you, your mama, your daughter, everybody… Come outside!”

    The woman told the dispatcher, ”I know him, we’re acquaintances… The other day, he made some passes at me — the boy is 28, I’m 40 — he made some sexual passes at me and I declined them, and now he’s upset. Bottom line. He’s a known actor and he’s a known alcoholic, and he sounds very intoxicated.”

    In 2016, Brown was arrested for being in possession of methamphetamine and assaulting his girlfriend. He was charged with possession of a drug with intent to sell, having contraband in jail (felonies) and misdemeanor domestic battery and obstruction of justice.

    View the original article at thefix.com

  • Recovery Program Uses "People Power" To Help Those With Addiction

    Recovery Program Uses "People Power" To Help Those With Addiction

    “My biggest motivator is to pass that gift of hope and possibility on to others,” says one Minnesota Recovery Corps volunteer.

    Minnesota is piloting a new program that’s harnessing the “people power” of AmeriCorps to support local addiction-recovery efforts.

    Minnesota Recovery Corps (MRC), an offshoot of AmeriCorps, was launched in 2018. MRC volunteers (or “recovery navigators”) are deployed throughout the Twin Cities to help people who are new to addiction-recovery.

    Some of the MRC volunteers are in recovery themselves. “My biggest motivator is to pass that gift of hope and possibility on to others,” Valerie Gustafson, who is nine years sober, told MinnPost. “I wanted to be more open in my recovery and I want to help others in their recovery.”

    “I’m an AA guy, but I don’t force that on anyone,” said Peter Solberg, another volunteer. “I try to find what works for them and help them to be successful with that pathway.”

    The program started with 15 “navigators” and is still growing, says Audrey Suker, CEO of ServeMinnesota, the organization tasked with administering and funding AmeriCorps programs in Minnesota.

    A survey of AmeriCorps members revealed the meaningful impact that the service work had on volunteers in recovery themselves. “We heard powerful stories from individual AmeriCorps volunteers,” said Suker. “They told us that their work with our organization gave them a sense of purpose and helps them get back on a career trajectory.”

    The pilot program’s potential for growth is limitless. “The deeper we get into it the more I can see the potential that exists of aligning the program with people who want to give a year of their life to serving others in need,” Suker told MinnPost.

    One example of harnessing AmeriCorps’s “people power in action” is recruiting the 1,000-plus volunteers already working in schools to teach a curriculum of addiction-awareness to K-12 students in Minnesota.

    Volunteer Peter Solberg started volunteering with MRC two-and-a-half years into his recovery. He has since been assigned to the Minnesota Department of Corrections, working with men who are “ready to re-enter society but still have chemical dependency issues.”

    This is one example of a population in need of MRC’s services. As Solberg explains, “About 94% of the people who are re-entering have chemical dependency issues. The guys I work with are all high-risk recidivists.”

    It’s all about helping the men find hope within themselves. “What these guys are missing in their lives and the reason they keep coming back to the system is that they don’t have hope, period,” said Solberg. “I go back to their childhood and we talk about their dreams and the things that got them excited. Suddenly you have an individual who has cracked open the door and can see the light on the other side.”

    View the original article at thefix.com