January 12th, 2021
By Catherine Robertson Souter
As stay-at-home orders surged, restaurants and bars closed, and social events went virtual, Americans turned more and more to a trusty old friend, alcohol, to help ease the transition. Nightly Zoom cocktail parties became all the rage, with the apt title “Quarantini,” applied to just about anything one wants to drink during lockdown. According to a Nielsen report, alcohol sales increased by 54 percent for the week ending March 21. Online sales of alcohol increased by 262 percent and world health leaders began to warn the public about the health risks of the increased alcohol use they were seeing. A [More]
Tags: coping, addiction, alcohol use, pandemic, quarantine, alcohol consumption
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August 26th, 2019
By Phyllis Hanlon
Since 2015, the New Hampshire Department of Corrections (NHDOC) has had a Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) program in place in its facilities to help those with substance and alcohol use problems maintain abstinence. The success of that program, as well as others in New England, prompted the department to expand its existing coverage. Laura Montenegro, NHDOC’s public information officer, explained that the expansion of the MAT program kicked off in June at the Northern New Hampshire Correctional Facility (NNHCF) in Berlin and will expand to two other facilities in the near future. A licensed drug and alcohol counselor and a medical [More]
Tags: New Hampshire, substance use, medication-assisted treatment, alcohol use, MAT program, buprenorphine, sublocade, acamprosate, medications, NH State Prison for Men, NH Correctional Facility for Women
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July 5th, 2019
By Margarita Tartakovsky, MS
In May, the Rhode Island Foundation awarded $2.6 million in grants to six non-profit organizations to fund behavioral health care services in the state. According to Jenny Pereira, vice president of the grant program at the R.I. Foundation, behavioral health is a high priority. In August 2018, the Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner created the Behavioral Health Fund with funding from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island. The latter has committed to providing $5 million in funding. Overall, their focus is on preventing behavioral health problems before they arise, and identifying conditions or concerns in their earliest [More]
Tags: mental health issues, mental illness, behavioral health, Rhode Island Foundation, grants, non-profit organizations, alcohol use, post-traumatic stress
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