First responders with addiction or mental health needs face many barriers that keep them from seeking treatment, from stigma and lack of time to a fear of being perceived as weak or unfit to serve. This reality helps to explain why, when at least 60 percent of first responders report they need treatment, less than half ... Read More
Featured in Experts
Peer Support for First Responders: Insights from an Expert
The Benefits of Integral Breathing for Relapse Prevention
Relapse prevention is an important conversation for anyone in recovery. Ideally, it starts during treatment. The goal is to learn and practice new coping skills for managing stress and other triggers in life after rehab. Many of these tools, (exercise, therapy, support groups, etc.), are well-known for their ... Read More
What It’s Like to Respond to an Overdose Emergency
Trigger Warning: This article contains language about overdose that could be triggering for some people. The overdose epidemic in this country has continued to outpace itself. Drug overdose deaths, most of which were opioid-related, hit a new high in 2022. For every one of these 109,000 deaths, there were many ... Read More
The Science Behind the Overdose Dangers of Relapse, From an Expert
Drug overdose is now a leading cause of death in this country, according to the Centers for Disease Control. It is also a public health crisis that has left families in grief, decimated whole communities, and prompted an urgent nationwide search for solutions. Dr. Albert Castellon, M.D., has devoted much of his ... Read More
Social Media and Teen Mental Health: Thoughts from an Expert
In June 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General called on Congress to require health warning labels on social media platforms. Dr. Vivek Murthy said the mental health stakes would be high for teens (ages 13-17) if the government did not act quickly to protect these young consumers. And there was precedent for such warning ... Read More
Help for Complicated Grief, from an Expert
It is a universal human experience. Still, some grief is especially messy, distressing, and hard to move through. “Complicated grief” affects 7-10 percent of bereaved people, according to the National Institutes of Health. Grief can look very different between individuals, so there is no “right” way to grieve. ... Read More
Burnout Among Corrections Officers: An Expert’s Insights
Somewhere during our interview, Sonny Silva paused to paint this frightening scenario: Imagine that a major fight breaks out in the chow hall, and one inmate is stabbing someone on one side of the hall while another set of individuals are stabbing each other on the other side of the mess hall. There are 200 inmates in ... Read More
Going “No Contact” with a Loved One: A Therapist’s Advice
Updated June 21, 2024 Sometimes going “no contact” with a loved one is necessary for the sake of a person’s mental health, yet discerning when and how to do that can be difficult. For some people, cutting off ties with a close friend or family member seems extreme, even though circumstances may call for it. For ... Read More