Reference · Cited definitions

Addiction Treatment Glossary

Plain-English definitions of the most-googled terms in addiction medicine. Each entry cites the primary public-domain source (SAMHSA, NIH, CDC, peer-reviewed journals) and links to where the term applies on RehabHive.

Primary-care framework
SBIRT (Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment)
A SAMHSA primary-care framework for early identification and intervention with people whose substance use puts them at risk — but who do not...
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Treatment placement standard
ASAM Criteria (Levels of Care)
The American Society of Addiction Medicine's framework for matching patients with substance-use disorders to the appropriate level of care (...
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Pharmacological treatment
MAT (Medication-Assisted Treatment)
The use of FDA-approved medications, in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, to treat substance-use disorders — most common...
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Co-occurring disorders
Dual Diagnosis
The simultaneous presence of a substance-use disorder and a separate mental-health disorder in the same person — most commonly depression, a...
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Childhood adversity measure
ACE Score (Adverse Childhood Experiences)
A retrospective count of how many of 10 categories of childhood adversity (abuse, neglect, household dysfunction) a person experienced befor...
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Why a glossary?

Addiction medicine has its own vocabulary — much of it acronyms (SBIRT, MAT, MOUD, PHP, IOP, ASAM, AUD, SUD) — that show up in clinician notes, insurance authorization letters, and treatment-plan documents. Knowing what these mean lets you read the paperwork, ask better questions, and verify your care against current best practice.

Each entry below is sourced to public-domain originals (SAMHSA Treatment Improvement Protocols, NIH/NIDA, CDC, peer-reviewed journals) and updated on the date shown. We don't paraphrase commercial proprietary frameworks; what's not in the public domain isn't in the glossary.