Substance Use Disorder Bridge Clinics

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Mass General Brigham Bridge Clinics are welcoming, easy-to-access outpatient centers designed to support each person on their journey to recovery from alcohol or drug addiction. We offer walk-in or scheduled care, providing a range of services including medication for addiction treatment, counseling, peer support, resource navigation, mental health care, and harm reduction services.

Paul Chen, emergency medicine doctor, talking

Effective medication for addiction treatment

Effective medications are available for treating many types of addiction. For opioid addiction, medication has been shown to lead to the highest recovery rates and can reduce the risk of death by more than 50%. Buprenorphine is the only lifesaving medication for opioid addiction that can be prescribed right in a doctor’s office.

To learn more, watch this video below or visit any Mass General Brigham Bridge Clinic to speak with a provider about your treatment options.

Bridge Clinic locations

To get care for substance use, please visit one of the locations listed below.

Recovery coaches provide peer support

A recovery coach is a person who themselves is in recovery from a substance use disorder. They have a shared lived experience with a person who's trying to access care. They are an essential nonclinical member of the Mass General Brigham Bridge Clinics care team.

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United Against Racism

Through our United Against Racism initiative, we’ve increased access to SUD care by 47 percent among Black patients, 111 percent among Hispanic patients and 90 percent among non-English speaking patients.

We need to challenge the ideology that if you are continuing to struggle with SUDs, it’s because you’re weak or unmotivated. This leads to people staying disconnected and dying from a preventable health condition. We would never expect a patient with cancer to will themselves into remission.

Sarah Wakeman, MD

Senior Medical Director for Substance Use Disorder

Mass General Brigham

Sarah Wakeman, MD, Senior Medical Director for Substance Use Disorder at Mass General Brigham

Individual, human-centered care

Historically, patients battling substance use disorders (SUDs) have faced punishment and stigma. “There’s a very racist approach to drug use when it’s happened in communities of color, with mass incarceration and mandatory minimum sentences,” explains Sarah Wakeman, MD, Senior Medical Director for Substance Use Disorder at Mass General Brigham. While the public discourse around addiction is changing, many still view SUDs as bad behavior or a moral failing. Instead, Dr. Wakeman clarifies, it’s a disease that requires medical treatment. “We need to challenge the ideology that if you are continuing to struggle with SUDs, it’s because you’re weak or unmotivated. This leads to people staying disconnected and dying from a preventable health condition. We would never expect a patient with cancer to will themselves into remission,” she says.

Instead, evidence-based SUDs treatment is a multidisciplinary, collaborative effort. “Our goals are to support individuals on their own self-defined recovery journey. It depends on the individual person. And fortunately, we do have effective medication therapy for both opioid and alcohol use disorder. It’s the one thing that’s been shown to save people’s lives and it improves recovery rates far and away higher than any other type of treatment,” says Dr. Wakeman.