Saving Jake: A Family Memoir of Opioid Addiction

* Author D’Anne Burwell will be a featured speaker at an ACS Educational Symposium March 5th, 2016 covering Substance Abuse Issues and Treatment.  D’Anne is a local Bay Area author, speaker and mentor; frequenting addiction recovery meetings and working tirelessly in the community to raise awareness about drug crises. Below is a review of her newly […]

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World Suicide Prevention Day 2015

  In recognizing World Suicide Prevention Day, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) highlight ways to be aware of those at risk of suicide and how to help them get to lifesaving help.   Reaching out to those at risk of suicide According to the recently released World Health Organization (WHO) […]

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What’s Self-Esteem Got to Do With It?

By: JoAnn Kukulus, MS Clinical Psychology/MFTI, ACS Clinical Intern If esteem (as in “my esteemed colleagues…”) is the value and worth one applies to people, places, and situations then it naturally follows that ‘self-esteem’ is the value and worth an individual applies to herself or himself.  We can frame a picture of how we feel […]

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Salinas High Crowns its first Transgender Prom Queen

Image: Crowns for the Cause, Effie Horning Interview by: Roberto M. Robledo    In an interview with The Salinas Californian, the 18-year-old related her story of transition. It is a story of hardship, violence, hatred, love, joy, tears, laughter, pride and acceptance. •The Salinas Californian: When did you become Angie? Angie Esteban:“I kind of already […]

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A Different Method to Coping with Stress in High School Academics

Image: CollegeDegrees360, Stressed Student  Author: Mayra Vargas, MFTI, Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment Program   It’s not news that academics have become a stressful full-time job for teens as they compete to be the best of the best for the top colleges in the country. This may cause stress, anxiety, and/or depression due to the overwhelming feelings of trying to […]

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Stressed Out? Music is the Cure!

Image: Stephen McLeod Blythe – Muzak Stephanie Olano ACS Outpatient Counseling Program Clinical Intern Music has played a very important role in my life. From the time I was 10-years-old I could list the various bands that were heavily influenced by The Beatles. Adults found this impressive, but I found this knowledge strange and confusing because they […]

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Stress management for beginners – and the rest of us!

Image: Miguel Virkkunen Carvalho By Charlotte Villemoes, LMFT On-Campus Counseling Program Site Director, Woodside High School Every day, all of us experience some sort of stress. Most of the teens I meet in my private and professional life will at some point talk about how stressed they are; they talk about feeling overwhelmed by school demands, […]

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What is the Choking Game?

By Beverly Reyes ACS Outpatient Counseling Services Intern Source: http://tweenparenting.about.com/od/healthfitness/f/ChokingGame.htm Question: What is the Choking Game? Answer: The choking game is a dangerous practice of tweens and teens in which they self-strangulate in order to achieve a brief high. The high is the result of oxygen rushing back to the brain after it’s cut off by the practice of strangulation. […]

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A Parent’s Guide to Teen Depression

Source: http://www.pamfblog.org/ Meg Durbin, M.D. a board-certified internist and pediatrician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation Although being moody and irritable is often normal for teenagers, depression is not simply a side effect of growing up. Depression is a serious medical condition that affects approximately one in five teens before they reach adulthood and is the leading […]

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Part 2: Inside the Mind of a Youth Facing Depression: Recovery

image: Laura Smith “How Fun” Continuation of “Part 1:Inside the Mind of a Youth Facing Depression” Note: This essay was authored by a local student to document a personal experience with depression. The writer, with parental support, was able to access professional help. Significantly, the author felt they could not share this experience openly, fearing […]

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