Updates

This animated video explains how nicotine in e-cigarettes affects the brain. It shows how the more a person vapes, the more nicotine they need to get the same feeling and avoid feeling sick. Quitting is hard, but there are resources to help.

This animated video explains what nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) is and how it can help young people to quit vaping. It provides a general understanding of how NRT works and what the process looks like.

Through a Community-Based Participatory Research approach, the Growing Resilience team is partnering with rural communities to build capacity for sustainable trauma-informed interventions that support substance use disorder prevention for youth.

Together with schools, community members, and tobacco and substance use disorder treatment specialists in rural areas, we are developing educational programs and resources to address teen vaping. This project focuses on supporting teens in quitting e-cigarettes and equipping health care providers with educational resources.

There isn’t a “one size fits all” approach to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). To help each person find the right fit with their health care provider, the Welcoming Recovery project aims to make all three Food and Drug Administration-approved medications for OUD—methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone—available in rural areas.

For the Growing Resilience initiative, we are partnering with rural communities on trauma-informed approaches to support substance use disorder prevention for youth. Learning from schools, families, health care providers, social service agencies, and others, we are collaborating with communities on relevant evidence-based interventions.

Beth has been in recovery for 31 years. She says, "It doesn't happen in one day. It takes a long time to gain the fortitude, to get healthy, to be grateful, to be clean and sober."

Nicholas Nacca, MD, cares for patients in the ED and also has a background in addiction medicine. When working with patients with SUD, he tries to learn more about their experiences, and he encourages other providers to have these discussions.

Gary has been in recovery for 22 years. He has many nieces and nephews and loves being “Uncle Gary.” “I love my life,” he says.

Now in recovery from SUD, Chris says, “My life has become so much more than I ever expected it would be. I have a sense of purpose. I have beautiful relationships in my life.”

Charles has been in recovery for 38 years and helps individuals with SUD as an addiction therapist. “Recovery is my work, it’s my ministry,” he says. “Recovery actually works, but you have to work at it.”  

Javier cares for his children and works at an HVAC company. An ED doctor helped him connect with an outpatient program and start his recovery. He had “been stigmatized before,” he says, but he did call the program “because it really showed me that somebody cared.”