I will have been sober for exactly 32 years this week. It’s a joyful anniversary, one that I’m sharing only to inspire others who may need to quit drinking but don’t think they can. more

This Christmas, will a new Smith & Wesson be under your tree? more

The drug addicts’ brain scans that Dr. Stephen Dewey takes appear in psychedelic shades of red, yellow, green and blue, each indicating a level of brain activity — or inactivity. Red means excited. Blue is dormant. Dewey is the laboratory director for behavioral and molecular neuro-imaging at the North Shore-LIJ Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. In that capacity, he’s put hundreds of addicts’ brains to the test — the positron emission tomography test, that is — seeking to understand precisely what happens to the mind when a pot smoker lights up or a heroin junkie shoots up. And, he has found, it isn’t pretty. more

The teenager, a student at Calhoun High School, had a “severe case of alcohol poisoning,” said Calhoun Principal Nicole Hollings in an email to parents on June 12. He drank at a “large gathering” of Calhoun seniors in the woods between Brookside School and the Meadowbrook State Parkway, Hollings wrote. more

Opioid-based medications and heroin are being abused in epidemic proportions. To combat the large number of Long Islanders dying of heroin and other opioid-related overdoses, the Bellmore-Merrick Community Parent Center; the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District; the Bellmore, Merrick, North Bellmore and North Merrick elementary school districts; and the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence will host a free Narcan training for parents, families and community members. more

One of Long Island’s largest nonprofit substance-abuse treatment agencies received three grants this winter that officials said will help them teach young people about the dire consequences of … more

School-aged children can use someone to talk to. Someone they can share their thoughts, goals and fears with who genuinely cares and wants what’s best for them. more

A former Bellmore resident and Kennedy High School alumnus was recently named executive director of one of Long Island’s largest non-profit drug- and alcohol-treatment agencies. Steve Chassman, … more

I can’t explain precisely how I determined which college I would attend. The process was more art than science. more

Jeffrey Reynolds, the executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said he will be resigning from the organization at the end of June to become the president and chief executive officer of the Family and Children’s Association, a move that Reynolds said was “the most difficult decision I’ve made in my life.” more