Emory Addiction Center expands adolescent services as child overdoses see slight uptick

Emory University

May 18th, 2026

As a featured guest on "Closer Look," Emory addiction psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Mathias discusses how a multi-million-dollar expansion of the Emory Addiction Center will increase treatment services, strengthen prevention and early invention for adolescents with substance use disorders. (LaShawn Hudson/WABE, Emory Healthcare and Mart Production)

Dr. Joe Mathias, the director of outpatient addiction services at Emory Healthcare, understands the layered intersection of substance use disorder and mental health in adolescents. He says it’s often said that “the opposite of addiction is connection.”

Mathias, an addiction psychiatrist and an associate medical education director for the Addiction Alliance of Georgia, works directly with youth and their parents to figure out the best treatment plan.

Georgia Department of Health data from October 2025 shows an almost 2%, year-to-year increase in the number of kids between the ages of 10-14 being taken to the emergency room for drug overdoses.

”Parents are just so concerned, and a lot of them, they don’t know what to do in these scenarios,” explained Mathias. “This is the first time in their life that they’ve ever encountered a situation where their child is really struggling, whether it’s with their mental health or starting to see some telltale signs of addiction, too.”

Mathias said taking the right step comes with its own challenges, due to a lot of stigma that still exists for addiction treatment.

“And that is something that we’re trying to break down barriers for and educating the community on what addiction treatment might look like, and it’s never early to seek help, either,” said Mathias.

On Monday’s edition of “Closer Look,” Mathias talked with program host Rose Scott about a new multi-million-dollar expansion of the Emory Addiction Center, which aims to strengthen prevention, early intervention and treatment services for adolescents with substance use disorders. The initiative includes the construction of an additional 7,000-square-foot space for the center’s adolescent outpatient program.

“It was always in the back of my mind that this is where I wanted treatment to go,” said Mathias. “And with our partnership with Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, we have been able to screen better when kids come into the ER setting and identify a very high risk of developing a substance use disorder. And that, in turn, has led to quite a lot of referrals, and which is what led to our expansion at the Emory Addiction Center to focus really on adolescent addiction treatment.”