HELP RECOVERY CONNECTIONS REACH THE CHURCHES

Good Morning Recovery friends and Brother and sisters in CHRIST

            Recovery Connections was birthed a year ago with one purpose in mind and that is to set the captives free in other words help those struggling with addiction find there way and empower them to maintain sanity and sobriety. A year or two ago the Council of Drug Alcohol of Pennsylvania put together a training designed just for Clergy and the response was overwhelming. Most families and individuals who struggle with addiction go to local churches for help and most churches have no idea on how they can help or where they can send these folks to get help .I have done some research and there are an estimated fourteen thousand churches in Pennsylvania. That is a lot of churches and it is my personal mission to equip and educate these churches and this is where I will need your help. I cannot afford fourteen thousand stamps fourteen thousand envelopes fourteen thousand sheets of paper and a couple dozen ink cartridges. I have been in contact with two great organizations who have sent me brochures with the info the churches are going to need. I could do one letter and make copies but I feel it needs to be more personal so I did more research and I have pastors names and addresses. My intro letter with the information will be made personal and hard to disregard or ignore.We have added a Donate button on the blog and we will send a receipt for your tax purposes. A church is only as good as the the tools it has in the LORDS tool box. PLEASE GIVE TO HELP SPREAD THE MESSAGE OF RECOVERY AND HOPE.  

Address joseph-recoveryconnections.blogspot.com

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Communities Start to Organize Against Heroin

By Join Together Staff | January 28, 2013 | 1 Comment | Filed in Community Related & Drugs

Communities across the country are beginning to organize town hall meetings, support groups and campaigns to discourage the growing use of heroin, The Christian Science Monitor reports.

Heroin, once mainly seen in poor urban areas, is now increasingly used by young people in wealthy suburbs, small cities and rural towns, according to the newspaper. “You would have to go pretty remote to find a place that didn’t have this,” Kathleen Kane-Willis of Roosevelt University in Chicago, who has tracked heroin use since 2004, told the newspaper. “It’s just everywhere.”

A study published last summer in the New England Journal of Medicine found that as OxyContin abuse has decreased now that the painkiller has been reformulated to make it more difficult to misuse, many people have switched to heroin.

Parents say they are having a difficult time finding treatment for their children’s heroin addiction. They are forming support groups to help one another. Some are turning to the Internet to find support from other parents.

Advocacy groups are trying to address heroin overdoses by pushing for state laws that give people limited immunity on drug possession charges if they seek medical help for someone suffering from an overdose. Most of these Good Samaritan laws protect people from prosecution if they have small quantities of drugs and seek medical aid after an overdose. These laws are designed to limit immunity to drug possession, so that large supplies of narcotics would remain illegal. Advocates are also supporting rules that allow doctors to prescribe the overdose antidote naloxone to families of people addicted to opioids.

Many Parents Not Concerned About Children’s Misuse of Narcotic Pain Medicines

By Join Together Staff | January 28, 2013 | Leave a comment | Filed in Parenting, Prescription Drugs & Youth

A survey of parents finds just one-third are very concerned about the misuse of prescribed narcotic pain medicine by children and teens in their community, according to HealthDay. Only one-fifth are very concerned about the misuse of these drugs in their own families.

The national survey of more than 1,300 parents with children ages 15 to 17 was conducted by the University of Michigan Mott Children’s Hospital. According to the findings, 38 percent of black parents, 26 percent of Hispanic parents, and 13 percent of white parents are very concerned about the misuse of narcotic painkillers in their own families. Misuse of these medicines has been shown to be three times higher among white teens than black or Hispanic teens, according to the researchers.

They found 41 percent of parents favor a policy that would require a doctor’s visit to obtain refills on these medications. About half said they do not support a requirement that unused pain medicines be returned to a doctor or pharmacy.

According to the survey, 66 percent of respondents strongly support requiring parents to show identification when they pick up narcotic painkillers for their children, and 57 percent strongly support policies that would ban obtaining prescriptions for the medicines from more than one doctor.

“Recent estimates are that one in four high school seniors have ever used a narcotic pain medicine. However, parents may downplay the risks of narcotic pain medicine because they are prescribed by a doctor,” Sarah Clark, Associate Director of the Child Health Evaluation and Research Unit at the University of Michigan, said in a news release. “However, people who misuse narcotic pain medicine are often using drugs prescribed to themselves, a friend or a relative. That ‘safe’ prescription may serve as a readily accessible supply of potentially lethal drugs for children or teens.”

FDA Panel Votes to Toughen Restrictions on Hydrocodone Combination Drugs

By Join Together Staff | January 28, 2013 | 1 Comment | Filed in Government, Healthcare, Prescription Drugs & Prevention

A Food and Drug Administration (FDA) advisory panel voted Friday to strengthen restrictions on hydrocodone combination drugs, such as Vicodin. The panel recommended that the FDA make the drugs more difficult to prescribe.

Supporters of the panel’s recommendation say it could help reduce addiction to painkillers, The New York Times reports. The agency is likely to adopt the panel’s proposal, the article notes.

The panel made the recommendation in a 19-to-10 vote. Opponents were skeptical the proposal would be effective against prescription drug abuse. They also were concerned the changes would make it more difficult for patients in chronic pain to obtain relief. At the two-day FDA hearing about the proposal, opponents noted it would require frail nursing home residents to make a trip to the doctor’s office to obtain pain prescriptions.

The proposal forbids refills without a new prescription, as well as faxed prescriptions and those called in by phone. Distributors of the drugs would have to store the drugs in special vaults. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants would be banned from prescribing the drugs.

Some panelists said the proposal could have the unintended effect of increasing abuse of other drugs, such as heroin.

“Many of us are concerned that the more stringent controls will eventually lead to different problems, which may be worse,” said Dr. John Mendelson, a senior scientist at the Addiction and Pharmacology Research Laboratory at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco.

The FDA convened the panel at the request of the Drug Enforcement Administration. If the FDA accepts the panel’s recommendation, it will be sent to the Department of Health and Human Services, which will make the final decision.

Living Free Every Day®

Ruled by Rage

Today's Scripture
"Discipline your son while there is hope, but do not [indulge your angry resentments by undue chastisements and] set yourself to his ruin." - Proverbs 19:18 
Thoughts for Today
This week we are looking at five types of dysfunctional families (described in The Thin Disguise by Pam Vredevelt) that can lead to the development of eating disorders. Perhaps you or someone you know has a loved one struggling with an eating disorder. Or perhaps you will identify some potentially harmful characteristic that needs to be addressed in your family.
In the "Rageaholic Family" only the parents (one or both) are allowed to express feelings. The predominant feeling is rage or anger. Unfortunately, the children are taught to believe that they are responsible for that anger. Mothers in rageaholic families may have anger and rage from their family of origin, and in some cases the daughter becomes an "emotional receptacle" for that rage. Although the mother is in actuality angry with herself and her parents, she pushes that anger onto her daughter.
Children in rageaholic families learn to repress their anger completely. This repressed anger can cause stress, bitterness and depression, leading to many types of inappropriate behavior.
(Note: We are grateful to Pam Vredevelt for her keen insights.)
Consider this …
Although there are appropriate times to discipline our children—always in love—we are not to be controlled by anger. And sometimes anger vented on children does not even relate to their behavior—it comes from a parent struggling with rage or bitterness caused by something else altogether. Today's scripture makes it clear that angry resentments and undue chastisements can lead to our child's ruin.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for sometimes taking out my anger on my children. Help me to admit when I've been wrong and allow my children to see that they are not at fault for my unfair words and actions. Help me to be sensitive to my children's honest feelings and to allow them to feel safe in expressing them. In Jesus' name …
These thoughts were drawn from …
Seeing Yourself in God's Image: Overcoming Anorexia and Bulimia by Martha Homme, MA, LPC. Written by a counselor with experience helping those with eating disorders, this study is born from her own struggles in adolescence. The group challenges members to find their identity in Christ as they overcome this difficult struggle. This guide offers understanding of distorted body image, denial, and the family systems influence. It also explains how to break free of social pressures and how to restore the temple and tie the recovery process together. A companion booklet Seeing Your Loved One in God's Image, can be used as a quick reference guide dealing with issues associated with eating disorders. Note: This curriculum was written especially for small groups, and we encourage people to use it that way. However, it can also be used effectively as a personal study for individuals or couples.
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