Elephant in the Room: Alcohol, Addiction and Recovery

Alcohol is deeply woven into American culture and its health risks often go unrecognized or minimized. Join us as we explore alcohol use disorder as a major public health issue impacting our region. You’ll hear from clinicians, public health experts, recovery professionals and a Vermonter who shares his lived experience on how alcohol affects individuals, families and communities across Vermont and northern New York. Peter Jackson, MD, director of the Addiction Treatment Center at UVM Medical Center, and Mallory Richardson, a certified recovery roach with Turning Point of Central Vermont who works in the emergency department at Central Vermont Medical Center (CVMC), explain why alcohol use disorder is uniquely challenging to treat, why alcohol withdrawal is among the most dangerous and potentially-lethal experiences, and why many people delay seeking help. Eva Patrick, a public health specialist at CVMC and program manager of Central Vermont Prevention Coalition, and Marissa Patrick, NP, a primary care nurse practitioner at CVMC and the architect of the hospital’s primary care treatment pathway for alcohol use disorder, discuss Vermont’s high rates of alcohol consumption, the underuse of medication-assisted treatment, and how strategies for treatment and support are shifting. Chris Collins, a father and recovery advocate from Washington, Vermont, shares his powerful personal journey of addiction and recovery following a devastating motorcycle accident that left him with severe nerve damage.