Virtual meeting
Via Zoom
Description
The holiday season can be challenging and stressful when trying to navigate the pressures associated with this time of year. For many, alcohol consumption significantly increases between Thanksgiving and New Year's for a variety of reasons, including family dynamics, increased social gatherings, holiday traditions, and increased feelings of loneliness, sadness, or isolation. This training will review strategies on how to avoid or reduce alcohol consumption and discuss techniques for how to talk about one’s alcohol use during a particularly stressful time of year.
Intended audience
Providers, nurses, social workers, other clinical staff, and non-clinicians.
Speakers
Sarah Axelrath, MD, FASAM
Sarah Axelrath is a primary care, addiction, and street medicine physician at Colorado Coalition for the Homeless' Stout Street Health Center in Denver, CO. Dr. Axelrath has worked in the fields of homelessness and harm reduction for more than a decade, both in direct service roles as well as in policy advocacy to expand legalized syringe access and naloxone distribution throughout Colorado. After graduating from the University of Colorado School of Medicine through the urban/underserved training track, she completed both her internal medicine residency and addiction medicine fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. There, she also worked with Boston Healthcare for the Homeless to offer mobile, low-threshold harm reduction and addiction treatment services on the streets of Boston. She has since returned to her home state where she serves as an advisory board member for the Colorado Drug Policy Coalition advocating for non-carceral, public health and human rights-informed approaches to substance use. She provides full-time primary and specialty addiction care to people experiencing homelessness and living with substance use disorder by "meeting them where they're at" - in the clinic, at the shelter, or on the streets.
Objectives
At the end of this training, participants will have the knowledge necessary to:
- Discuss potential causes for why alcohol consumption increases during the holiday season.
- List at least 3 interventions to reduce the harm of alcohol consumption.
- Identify strategies for how to discuss alcohol use, reduced consumption strategies, and avoidance of triggers.
Sponsored by
Boston Medical Center Grayken Center for Addiction TTA, Department of Public Health, Bureau of Substance Addiction Services (DPH/BSAS)
Accreditation information
Please read the Accreditation Information section on the training registration page for more information and to learn about the requirements for receiving credit or a certificate of completion.
Audience
Providers, nurses, social workers, other clinical staff, and non-clinicians.
