National Call-In Day

I am reprinting this in full from Faces and Voices of Recovery. Click on the National Call-In Day  link in my Resource List to find phone numbers of your own legislators and call--call every day, not just today.

Action Alert

Call your US Senators and Representative on June 17!

We need your help to expand opportunities for people to get the help that they need to recover from addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

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Organizations from the alcohol and other drug prevention, treatment and recovery communities have joined with allies from the mental health community to work to ensure that the health responses to addiction and mental illness are included in any national healthcare reform proposals considered by Congress and the Obama Administration.

Background: Members of Congress and the Obama Administration are hard at work on proposals to reform the nation's health care system. Because of how Congress is organized and how health-related issues affect so many different parts of our economy, there are five Congressional Committees who are part of the debate. In the Senate, they are the Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committees. In the House, they are the Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means and Education and Labor committees. They have started to draft legislation and the process is moving forward quickly.

Committees will be marking up or reviewing, the draft bills over the next few weeks and Congressional leadership is hoping to schedule House and Senate votes on the legislation before members of Congress go home in August.

So far, all of the draft healthcare bills or proposals include some mention of addiction and mental health. However, the serious discussions are just getting underway and strong advocacy will be needed to make sure that the full continuum of addiction and mental health services are included and will be available for people seeking recovery, just like any other health condition.

WHO TO CALL: YOUR US SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE. Enter your zip code in the field above to get their phone numbers and use the talking points provided on the following page when you call.

DO IT NOW--I am, MotherWarrior

Rep. Patrick Kennedy to Treatment

Thank God there is one member of Congress we can count on. Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) has consistently fought for legislation that requires insurance companies to treat mental health on an equal basis with physical illnesses. That law was passed last October and goes into effect January 1, 2010.

But that's not the only reason he is our friend. He is an elected official who has publicly admitted that he has addictions and a mental illness, regularly seeks help for their treatment, especially in times of stress, and educates the public that recovery from the disease of addiction is a lifelong process.--AND HE GETS VITAL LESGISLATION PASSED!

I don't know about you, but I couldn't ask for more transparency in a member of Congress.

Thank you Rep. Patrick Kennedy for your contributions and your example. MotherWarrior

Heroin in the Heartland

Last Sunday's New York Times (May 31, 2009) featured a story about heroin in Ohio on the front page. The article--War Without Borders, In Heartland Death, Traces of Heroin's Spread, by Randall C. Archibald--uses a small town in Ohio as an example of how Mexican drug cartels have brought heroin to America's heartland. 

Yo! It's been in the heartland for a long time. My son was using it 5 years ago in Wisconsin. I know parents on the Parent Advisory Board of the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, who have lost children to heroin and whose children have struggled with it for years. A good friend in Wisconsin lost her son to a heroin overdose just months ago. 

The spread of heroin is terrible, but the lack of treatment facilities and opportunities for recovery is also bad. I was able to send my son across the country for long-term treatment after Midwest treatment facilities failed to keep him safe for long enough for him to withdraw and get some distance from cravings. (A month is not a long enough treatment cycle.)

The article mentions the surprise of seeing drug dealing going on in the parking lot of a grocery store at an upscale parking lot. Why should that be any more of a surprise than drug dealing going on in our schools? It has gotten to the point that when I see a teenage boy with a backpack riding a bike in an upscale suburban neighborhood rendez-vous with another teenage boy in a parking lot, I presume it is for a drug deal. When I look at middle school boys playing basketball I wonder how many of them will be shooting heroin in a few years.

One of the men arrested and sentenced for the sale of the heroin that resulted in the overdose death of a young man in Ohio said he never intended for anyone to die from heroin--and that he did not know someone could die from heroin. Anyone who is around heroin users knows that fatal overdoses happen. The mindset of the drug user is that it won't happen to them (or they don't care if it does if they are high) just as the mindset of the drug dealer is that they won't get caught.

If you need the New York Times to tell you that heroin is in your small town or suburb, you are in denial. It is everywhere. And it can be fatal.

Ask legislators to help provide more and better treatment in your town. MotherWarrior

Uh Oh, Obama: Spend on Demand for Services, not on Stopping Supply

Obama--did you ok this or was it someone in your administration who slipped it through?

Obama's first drug budget's overemphasis on supply-side issues like crop eradication to control opioid traffic at the expense of substantially increasing funding for treatment programs is disappointing.

Our kids are waiting for treatment to address their active addictions, as well as for aftercare and recovery services to help them maintain their sobriety so that they can comply with abstinence from drugs to fight the powerful disease of addiction. We need to deal with "the war on drugs" at home as well as at our borders.

Anyway, it's more like a war with legislators who won't authorize enough money for training of providers, educating families, funding treatment and recovery facilities and programs.

This is why we gotta be MotherWarriors. Don't give up. Be a squeaky wheel and grab your legislators whenever you can and tell them what we need--More and better treatment facilities and better training for providers as well as more aggressive prevention efforts. 

Thank you. MotherWarrior

The Cost of Substance Abuse

Please go to this link to inform your state's leaders about the true cost of substance abuse.

http://members.jointogether.org/campaign/truecost/8uxgui7rojwmb5e3?

The website jointogether.org (see my resource list) has set up a convenient way to correspond with legislators to inform them about a new report by the National Center of Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University that shows that over 15% of all state spending goes to substance misuse and addiction and its consequences; and that 94% of this spending goes to pay for the enormous hidden burden of alcohol, tobacco, and other drug problems on a wide range of state services like health care and criminal justice -- while less than 3% goes toward prevention and treatment programs that would help.

Ask your governor and state legislators to read and act on this report.

Sometimes you gotta get government's attention with numbers. They don't seem to get that it would make more sense to spend more on prevention and recovery than on criminal justice.

Thank you for your help, MotherWarrior

Project Sticker Shock--Alcohol Warning

Imagine walking into a liquor store or down the aisles of bottles that are now so prominently displayed in grocery stores and seeing a warning on alcohol reminding those who would abuse the 21-year-drinking age that it is illegal to provide minors with alcohol or use a fake ID to purchase alcohol. Project Sticker Shock sends teenagers (accompanied by adults) to participating retailers to place a colorful warning sticker on liquor bottles, cases of beer and wine coolers. The details vary from state to state, but the message is Know the Law: It is illegal for any person over 21 to provide alcohol for minors. Then the sticker lists fines and jail sentencing.

I love it! Project Sticker Shock asks merchants to display the labeled alcohol for a month with the intention to, for example, prevent dangerous alcohol abuse during prom season. Stickers are also placed on the walls and elsewhere as a permanent reminder if the retailer agrees. 

Thank you whoever thought of this straightforward educational strategy and to the retailers who responsibly participate. This action may not change attitudes among advocates of lowering the drinking age, but it does inject some reality into the consequences for breaking the law AND convey the message that the community is on alert and it does not approve of facilitating underage drinking. 

I cannot find a central website for the project. Different states have information if you google--Illinois, Virginia, Maine, and New Hampshire, for example. Google the project and gather information. Then organize and act.

Naysayers will protest that this program alienates teens and encourages covert binge drinking. I say purchasing alcohol for minors is not only illegal, it is child abuse as it contributes to impairment of judgment, both short-term and long-term. That would also be interesting information to put on a big yellow sticker. 

Project Sticker Shock has my blessing. MotherWarrior

 

Faces and Voices of Recovery activities

Faces and Voices of Recovery is a wonderful organization for generating hope for family members of addicts.  You will get an education on their website (see resource links). When I checked in recently I saw that Faces & Voices has joined with A&E Network and other organizations, including Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which is family-oriented, to sponsor a Recovery Rally in September 2009 in New York City. 

Applicants to be delegates for that rally must have at least 10 years of recovery and be active in their local recovery community. (You can apply at www.therecoveryproject.com/delegates.) I wrote the Executive Director inquiring whether AlAnon family members who have over 10 years of recovery and service in their state can apply. 

If not, I think we should hold our own rally for recovery. There is no question that families have to recover right along with their addict; especially with youth addicts. If there is no family recovery, the chances for sustained sobriety for a family member living at home are decreased. What is our addiction? We are often addicted to the addict, or co-addict to the addict. We contribute to their addiction environment when we are uninformed about the disease, the symptoms, treatment and recovery. We also work hard for our emotional sobriety to allow and support the addict in working their program of recovery while we work ours.

Last year, Recovery Delegates from each state and the District of Columbia joined over 5000 people on the Brooklyn Bridge, forming a human bridge of recovery at the September Recovery Rally.

I would like to see families, especially parents of youth addicts, but siblings, grandparents, and guardians as well, also form a human bridge. We are in this together. 

Aren't we? MotherWarrior