Call 888-647-0579 to speak with an alcohol or drug abuse counselor.

Who Answers?

NY reforms treatment of addiction, mental illness

The vast majority of New Yorkers struggling both with mental illness and substance abuse don’t get treatment for both conditions at the same time – a barrier that can result in relapse, discontinued treatment and, in some cases, suicide.

It’s a problem that’s gone on for years because of a flawed Medicaid coding system, and now a joint effort of the Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services and the Office of Mental Health is trying to help the 90 percent of people who couldn’t get simultaneous treatment. Health officials say 1.4 million New Yorkers experience both mental illness and substance abuse.

“We’ll save lives,” said Michael Hogan, commissioner of the state Office of Mental Health. “We have roughly three suicides a day in New York of people, 90 percent of whom we know from psychological autopsies had a mental illness at the time. And it’s not just mental illness, it’s very often drinking or drug use.”

A $3.2 million grant from the National Development and Research Institutes Inc. will help train mental health workers and substance abuse workers to treat people who struggle with both problems. The entire structure of treatment will be reassessed, including screening, assessment, rehabilitation, discharge, and ongoing care.

People struggling with addiction and mental illness often don’t feel motivated to go to multiple state agencies seeking help for problems that may overlap, said Karen Carpenter-Palumbo, commissioner of Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services.

“It is finally taking a person-centered approach to care, and saying emphatically,’If you need treatment for a dual diagnosis, you will get it,'” she said.

In the past, patients have been turned away when seeking help for mental health problems while in drug treatment, and the other way around. Medicaid simply didn’t pay for people to get both kinds of help at once.

“If you were going to treat people with both sets of problems, you would have to go to both sets of agencies and get two different licenses,” Hogan said. “You’d have to have two different waiting rooms, you would have to have two different bathrooms, for Pete’s sake.”

The services will be integrated at all of New York’s 1,223 licensed mental health and substance abuse outpatient treatment centers.

“The illusion (was) that you could deal with your depression, that you could deal with your bipolar disorder, and when that was fixed, then you can go deal with your drug problem,” Hogan said. “We just know that that does not work.”

source: http://www.examiner.com

More Treatment & Detox Articles

Drug rehabilitation center

Number of drug addicts around the globe is increasing day by day. There is no specific age limit, gender difference or even financial discrimination when it comes to drug addiction. The habit of drug addiction is very fatal and also destroying the morale of the society. Therefore, it is very necessary to provide timely help….

What Factors Help People to Stay in Treatment?

When your addicted to drugs or alcohol the entire process of treatment is a difficult and challenging process that takes time and effort. Various changes must be made emotionally, physically, personally and financially to assure the overall successful recovery of an addict and all these changes can be difficult to deal with psychologically not to….

The long reach of alcoholism within the family

Millions of Americans suffer from the psychological and physical disease of alcoholism. The resulting emotionally destructive impact on the children of alcoholic parents and the family unit is enormous. Alcoholic parents usually act out their addiction in one of two negative ways: violent and abusive behavior or emotional unavailability and neglect. People who grow up….

Warning over early exposure to alcohol

Giving children alcohol at an early age increases their risk of becoming drink-dependent at a later stage in life, according to new research. The claim challenges the long-held notion that introducing children to alcohol in small measures over time may prevent teenage binge drinking. The new study, by the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse….

Types of California Treatment Centers

The number of drug-induced deaths in California totaled out at 4,178 in 2006, according to a report by the California Drug Control Update. Within the same year, 4,306 people died in car accidents and 3,268 people died from firearm-related incidents. With drug-induced deaths coming in at a close second, this number amounts to 11.4 out….