Addiction center opens early to combat “people medicating themselves to deal with this pandemic”

Officials at a new drug research and treatment facility that opened this week in Riverhead Town said they did so earlier than expected based on indications that the COVID-19 pandemic is creating challenges for people struggling with drug and alcohol addiction.

“What we see is a tremendous need for our services during this time,” said Andrew Drazan, co-founder and chief executive officer of the Wellbridge Addiction Treatment and Research Center in Calverton. “There’s isolation, despair, depression, high anxiety, there’s liquor stores with lines going around the block. Even for those who don’t struggle normally, we’re finding that people are medicating themselves to deal with this pandemic.”

Drazan cited a recent study from The Well Being Trust, a national foundation based in Oakland, California, that advocates for mental, social and spiritual health, which predicted that conditions created by the pandemic, such as isolation and unemployment, could lead to 75,000 deaths nationwide from drug or alcohol abuse and suicide.

Wellbridge — which has partnered with Northwell Health, New York State’s largest health care provider, on the project —opened May 18, weeks ahead of a debut scheduled for early summer, though Drazan said others in the industry had urged them to push the opening back to September because of the coronavirus outbreak.

The inpatient facility cost $90 million and includes a detoxification facility, primary care section, research laboratories and a wellness center. It has six buildings, measures 133,917 square feet and has 80 rooms and 130 beds. It has the capacity to treat up to 80 patients when fully staffed, and stays can range from 30 days for rehabilitation to an extended stay of 60 or more days.

Dr. Harshal Kirane, Wellbridge’s medical director, said the most telling factors for the potential for increased addiction rates the center had been seeing include high jobless numbers. Kirane added that access to inpatient services for substance use disorder care is also a problem because some facilities that treated such disorders were repurposed to meet COVID-19 specific needs.

“Individuals that would otherwise be accessing care in a hospital or rehab setting right now are really struggling to find those kinds of services,” Kirane said.

Richard Buckman, a founding member of the Long Island Recovery Association, an addiction advocacy group in Hauppauge, said certified recovery peer coaches trained by the association told him many of the clients they work with are using alcohol and drugs again.

“To our population, this pandemic is the perfect storm,” Buckman said. “The solution for addiction is community to eliminate isolation, and the fact that everybody is being forced into isolating has hit another level of anxiety.”

Steve Chassman, executive director of the Westbury-based Long Island Council on Alcoholism & Drug Dependence, said that the opioid and substance abuse in past years — which peaked in 2017 when police departments and medical examiners in both Nassau and Suffolk counties recorded 614 fatal opioid overdoses in both counties — hit long Island hard, creating “a breeding ground for substance use.” As a result, he said treatment and research centers have become more essential in helping those with addiction.

“That substance abuse crisis disproportionally impacted Nassau and Suffolk County,” Chassman said. “So the fact that right here on the East End that there is another qualified treatment center for Long Islanders to access is an absolute good.”

Staying well at Wellbridge

• The $90 million center includes a detoxification facility, primary care section, research laboratories and wellness center.
• Wellbridge officials said the facility will have several procedures in place to assure safety during the pandemic, including temperature screening, assessment tools, requiring the use of masks, strict social distancing and hand hygiene procedures.