Chronic pain and substance use disorders frequently co-occur. The pharmacological treatment of pain is complicated in individuals with substance use disorders because of the potential for abuse and diversion of many prescription pain medications. One potential approach is to use a combination of cognitive-behavioral and acceptance-based strategies…

This article presents abstracts from the 2011 AMERSA National Meeting. It includes 2011 best abstracts on research, programmatic, and curricular presentations.

In order to examine risk factors for attempting suicide in heroin dependent patients, a group of 527 abstinent opiate dependent patients had a psychiatric interview and completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire. Patients who had or had never attempted suicide were compared on putative suicide risk factors. It was found that 207 of the 527…

The biological mechanisms of nicotine dependence are described, the prevalence of tobacco dependency among those using other mood-altering drugs is examined, and the most efficacious way to address this dependency is discussed. New data on the relationship of smoking addiction to other addictions are examined. Topics include: (1) "Tobacco…