History and main goals

We dedicate the AUA to all our patients, alive or deceased, and their families. Most of our knowledge and skills in dealing with these conditions we are getting from our everyday work with them.

In September 2001 Igor Koutsenok, MD has conducted his first workshop in Bulgaria entitled “Treatment of Addictive Disorders – From Ideology to Evidence-Based Practices”. This workshop has served as a beginning of the event we refer to now as “The Autumn University of Addictions”. Peter Vassilev, MD and mag. pharm. Georgi Dimitrov take part as lecturers in the workshop as well. In 2003 the Institut for Behavioral Strategies became a reality. It's goals are to lead the AUA and to support all the activities connected with the managment and treatment of the behavioral disfunstions.

During the last decade we have witnessed a rapid and very negative trend in substance abuse in Bulgaria . However, we have also witnessed a huge advance in our knowledge about the mechanisms and pathways of the addictive behaviors, as well as we have got strong scientific evidence on what works and what dos not in prevention and treatment of these disorders. As a result of this scientific expansion, our technologies became more complex, involving more and more professionals with different specialties. The individual treatment or prevention skills have become less important than the skills of working together with other professionals. Of course, we don’t know everything, but at this point of time we know enough to implement science-driven and evidence-based practices instead of doing things based on our ideologies and beliefs. The implementation of evidence-based strategies will increase our effectiveness as professionals and will help our clients in their recovery. Another considerable reason is cost-effectiveness. Science-driven technologies are cost-saving just because we pay much less for eventual mistakes. This consideration is particularly important in countries like Bulgaria, where the budget is quite limited.

So, therefore the main goals and objectives of the AUA follow the above mentioned thoughts. We would like to bring together professionals and students from different fields involved in dealing with addictions, to learn from each other, to outline some promising and/or potentially effective prevention and treatment strategies based on scientific evidence that we have so far. We would also like to go further and to outline some steps toward practical implementation of these strategies. It is much nicer being a part of the solution than a part of the problem. So, that is why we created the AUA, and we invite those of you who also would rather prefer to be a part of the solution and to stop being a part of the problem.