When bad news happens: Leadership and focus on patients keeps staff morale high

As they work doggedly to elevate the standing of the addiction counseling profession, the national and regional leaders of NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals continue to encounter industry trends that, if unchecked, threaten to diminish the perceived value of counselors. From the proliferation of medication treatment delivered absent counseling to the embrace of peer support services that lawmakers often confuse with therapy, many of today's hot‐button issues in addiction services would appear to make the task of counselors' advocates that much harder.     

Philadelphia says smoking ban has not led to treatment impact

Despite charges by Brooke Feldman and others (see “Advocate: Philadelphia smoking ban shuts some patients out of treatment,” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.32388 , ADAW, June 10), the number of people leaving addiction treatment in Philadelphia is up, not down, after the smoking ban, the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility services (DBHIDS) stated last week in a press release. The statement came out June 24, the day before a planned protest spearheaded by Feldman.