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When are fun and games anything but?
Get a GRIP! |
Gallatin Responsive Interventions Partnership (GRIP)
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On this page:
About GRIP |
Screenings and Brief Interventions
Alcohol in the Workplace |
Alcohol and Health
Alcohol and Our Faith Community |
Resources
Learn more:
GRIP E-News
GRIP Parent Resource Guide
Montana Alcohol-based Health Promotion (MAhP)
Partnership
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What has the Gallatin Responsive Interventions Partnership
worked toward?
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GRIP's worked to institute a paradigm shift,
in which our entire community sees alcohol misuse as a serious health and social risk,
and takes ownership of this issue.
GRIP�s goal was to establish screenings and brief interventions
for alcohol and other drugs in various employment, healthcare,
educational, and faith community settings throughout Gallatin
County. We hoped that our strategy will lead to an increase in the
number of community health and self referrals for substance use disorder
programs and services in Gallatin County.
GRIP's core leadership team
met every month and consisted of leaders from the healthcare,
addictions, educational, business and faith communities.
GRIP�s staff included Shaun Phoenix, Project Coordinator,
and Jenna Caplette,
Marketing Consultant and E-Zine editor.
GRIP began as part of the nationwide
Demand Treatment
initiative organized by
Join Together
to increase the number of people who get alcohol and drug brief
interventions and quality treatment in American communities. Join
Together is primarily funded by a grant from the Robert Wood-Johnson
Foundation to the Boston University School of Public Health.
In 2002, Gallatin County was chosen as one of 29 cities nationwide to
initiate strategies designed to increase access to substance abuse
treatment. The program enables consumers, family members and local
leaders to take direct action against discrimination and the other
barriers that prevent three million people a year from getting treatment
that could help them recover from drug and alcohol disease.
In 2004, the Montana Department of Health and Human Services funded GRIP
to continue their work in Gallatin County, while mentoring two additional Montana
Partnerships in Butte and the Tri-County area that includes Anaconda,
Phillipsburg, and Deer Lodge.
Together they founded the Montana Alcohol-based Health Promotion (MAhP) Partnership
GRIP lost its funding in June 2006. Montana has applied for a
federal SBI grant that would allow five counties to do the work that
GRIP began.
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What are Screenings and Brief Interventions?
Why do them?|
Recommended Steps |
Alcohol
Screening Tool
Benefits of Treatment
| A Consumer's Guide to
Treatment |
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Screenings
are procedures to recognize individuals with a substance abuse
disorder or at risk for this disorder before obvious manifestations of the disorder are
apparent. Not a definitive diagnostic tool, they can signal the need for further
evaluation or a brief intervention.
What are Brief Interventions?
Brief interventions are a series of up to four short counseling sessions to discuss
problem drinking and its health risks. These sessions may last from five to fifteen
minutes each; the entire intervention doesn't usually take more than one hour.
Why do Screenings and/or Brief Interventions?
One in five men and one in ten women who visit their primary care providers meet
the criteria for at-risk drinking, problem drinking or alcohol dependence. When
patients are found to be at-risk or problem drinkers, health care providers can
significantly reduce alcohol use and health related problems by providing Screenings
and/or Brief Interventions.
Recommended Steps
Recommended screening and brief intervention procedures include four steps:
Step I. ASK about alcohol use.
Step II. ASSESS for alcohol-related problems.
Step III. ADVISE patient to decrease substance use.
Step IV. MONITOR patient progress.
CAGE
The CAGE instrument has been shown to be both sensitive and specific to
identifying persons who meet criteria for alcohol abuse and dependence.
Questions asked include, In the past year:
- Have you ever felt you should Cut down on your drinking?
- Have people Annoyed you by criticizing your drinking?
- Have you ever felt Guilty about your drinking?
- Have you ever had a drink first thing in the morning to steady your nerves
or get rid of a hangover (Eye-opener)?
One or more �yes� responses constitutes a positive screening test.
Free online screening tool
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Try our free, online, alcohol use screening tool.
Benefits of Treatment
Alcohol and other drug addiction is a treatable disease, and recovery is possible.
Addiction is a chronic illness. When treated as such, the relapse rate is comparable
to those associated with treating other chronic health problems, such as
hypertension, diabetes and asthma.
An extensive body of federally-funded research shows that, with treatment,
primary drug use decreases by nearly half. In addition:
- Criminal activity decreases by as much as 80%
- Numerous studies show that for every dollar invested in treatment, taxpayers save approximately $7 in future costs
- Untreated alcoholics� health care costs tend to be close to 300% higher than
those of someone without substance use disorders.
- Reported alcohol and drug-related medical visits decline by more than 50%
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Alcohol in Your Workplace
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Eighty-five percent of problem drinkers work-
7.4% of full time workers,
aged 18 to 49, have drinking problems. That�s a national
figure. In
Montana, where awareness of new information on alcohol use and abuse
is
often lacking, percentages could very well be higher. Much higher.
Effective Policies-
Do you have a policy in place? That's one of the first questions a trainer who
comes to teach your management team about intervening in employee alcohol
misuse and abuse will ask.
Tolerance. That's A Good Thing, Right?-
Supervisor and coworker tolerance of alcohol and drug use, misuse, and abuse can
be an underground attitude that taints the health of your workplace. Too often,
business owners and human resource professionals tolerate a problem as a way of
coping with situations that for one reason or another, no one wants to address.
Sometimes it just seems easier to work with an employee as they are, particularly
in low level jobs with a high turnover rate.
Companies Struggle with Workplace Addiction -
50 percent of businesses surveyed said they lacked the expertise to detect an
addiction problem in the workplace. In addition, 25 percent of the respondents said
they would be less likely to hire someone who is recovering from an addiction.
"The disconnect in all of this is the fact that too many HR directors don't know how
to recognize the problem and access treatment," said William Moyers, vice -
president for external affairs at Hazelden, a Minneapolis-based treatment center.
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Alcohol and Health
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Did you know?
- 1 in 5 Americans have a drinking pattern that puts them at risk?
- The amount and frequency of alcohol use play a big role in health
problems like liver disease; cancers of the mouth, stomach and
breast; and addiction.
- Alcohol disease is treatable.
- Alcoholism is the third leading cause of preventable death
in the United States.
- Families with an alcoholic member have twice the average
health care bill that other families do, and healthcare costs of
untreated alcoholics are 100% higher non-alcoholics.
- Americans spend two times as much buying chocolate as they do to treat
alcoholism.
- For every dollar invested in treatment there is a savings in
health costs of four to twenty-three dollars.
- In Gallatin County, treatment needs are 10.8 times higher
than treatment demand. That means, many who need help are not getting
it.
- The US Government defines moderate drinking for the general
population, age 65 and under as: Men � No more than 2
drinks per day. And, no more than 4 drinks on any one
occasion; Women � No more than 1 drink per day. And, no
more than 3 drinks any one occasion.
1 drink is: a five ounce glass of wine; a 12 ounce can of beer; or
1.5 ounces of 80-proof spirits) If you cannot hold your use to these levels or
less, you should not drink.
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Alcohol and the Faith Community
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Presentation to Gallatin Valley Interfaith
Association -
Whether your theological tradition approaches substance abuse from a
moral, disease, temperance, psychological or social education model, the
more important question is, How do we speak honestly and act
effectively with this very large, very prevalent elephant in Montana�s
living room?
The answer lies in raising the level of education around substance use
and risky behavior and by linking those who already are dependent or
addicted with resources that can assist them in recovery.
Faith leaders learn to spot alcohol abuse -
from Bozeman Daily Chronicle, January 29, 2004
A woman who consumes just seven alcoholic drinks a week may be
endangering her health. For a man, the number is higher. He can have 14
drinks a week, but then the danger starts.
Those are just two of the startling facts that the Gallatin Valley
Interfaith Association learned this week at a training session on how to
identify people struggling with substance abuse. Read
the full article.
Restoring the Joy of the Season -
For many, holiday church services may be their main connection with the
opportunity to experience the peace of the season. "The reality is
that in our culture, alcohol is used in the celebration of the
holidays," Wickstrom says, "When it's abused and people become
abusive, that�s a violation of the spirit of the holiday.
Core Competencies -
Core Competencies
for Clergy and Other Pastoral Ministers in Addressing
Alcohol and Drug Dependence and the Impact on Family Members as reported
by an expert consensus panel meeting through SAMSHA (Substance Abuse and
Mental Health Services Administration).
Alcohol Awareness bulletin or insert -
Many people are unaware that alcoholism is a disease.
They are unaware of how treatment for alcoholism works . . . or even unaware
that there is treatment. This community
bulletin or newsletter insert sheet can be downloaded free by churches,
temples, mosques and other faith groups.
Resource for Faith Leaders -
Resources for Faith Leaders,
from "The Anti-Drug."
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Resources
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Alcohol Cost Calculator -
Problem drinking, including alcoholism, reduces the productivity of your workers
and
increases your health care costs. This calculator will compute just
how much
alcohol is costing your business.
Alcohol
Screening Tool -
You can link to this tool from your business website
Ensuring Solutions -
Too many obstacles keep people with alcohol problems from seeking and getting
help. Ensuring Solutions studies the wide range of solutions to these obstacles and
provides tools to help bring down barriers to treatment.
Join Together
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Original funder for the GRIP project hosts a free email newsletter --
its a tremendous resource.
MAhP -
The website for Montana's statewide SBI project includes many additional
resources, including complete information on training people to do SBI.
Marketing your non-profit -
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It's never enough for a project to be simply worthwhile.
It needs also to feel attractive. You want to pull people toward your work, rather
than pushing them in through the front door.
Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention Overview -
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has identified three
priority initiatives to help reduce driving while impaired (DWI) and to
focus greater attention on the impaired driving problem.
Project Mainstream -
Project Mainstream focuses on improving public health by enhancing training in
substance abuse for health professionals.
SAMHSA.Gov-
The SAMSHA site provides employees and their families with credible, reliable
information and resources about alcohol, drugs, mental health, and physical health.
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