Professor Shauli Lev-Ran, co-founder and academic director of ICA, the Israel Center on Addiction and Mental Health, speaking at the Jerusalem Post online conference, “A Nation in Trauma,” said the ongoing war has been an enormous and unprecedented national trauma. “As humans,” he noted, “we can’t bear those high levels of stress over a long period of time.”
ICA is a non-profit organization, serves as a multidisciplinary center dedicated to promoting a national response to addictions and the spectrum of substance use and addictive behaviors in Israel. The center fosters training for healthcare, welfare, and education professionals, innovative clinical services, resilience-based prevention programs, groundbreaking research, as well as raising awareness and reducing stigma.
Lev-Ran said that people frequently self-medicate to reduce high levels of psychological distress. As a result, there has been a significant increase in the rates of problematic substance use and addictive behaviors. “The more psychological distress, the more problematic substance use. And the more problematic substance use, the worse our coping mechanisms are,” he said.
A national plan to address traumatic addiction, suggested Lev-Ran, must increase awareness and reduce stigma. “Addiction always goes with stigma and high levels of self-criticism, embarrassment, and isolation. The first thing we have to do is increase awareness among the public, as well as professionals.”
Second, he said, professionals need to be trained to identify problematic substance use and addictive behaviors at an early point, provide brief interventions, and know when to refer to treatment. Finally, services need to be adapted to specific groups. “We need an integrative addiction and trauma-informed care across several populations and communities. What’s right for soldiers is not necessarily right for youth from the Gaza envelope. We have to adapt services, and we have to accompany all this with a lot of research to make sure that what we’re doing is effective, and a lot of policy to make sure that this is mandatory and not just depending on specific organizations.”
Lev-Ran noted that ICA is a key player in creating a nationwide integrative response, which includes screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment that professionals who deal with trauma today can learn, adopt, and practice within their organizations.
Written in collaboration with ICA