The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc.
Pennsylvania Recovery Organization
Achieving Community Together (PRO-ACT)
|
Recovery in Our Communities
April 20, 2015
|
Bucks County Families Offered Free Naloxone Training April 27
+ Families in 5-county area offered Free Family Education Series
If someone you love has a drug or alcohol problem,
The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc., can help.
In addition to our ongoing family education and support series (outlined below), The Council has partnered with the Anna Straw Initiative to offer Naloxone Training to families in Bucks County, on Monday evening, April 27, at Deep Run Presbyterian Church in Perkasie.
To prevent fatal overdoses, the free Naloxone Training program was created in memory of Dave Messina, another young person in Bucks County who lost his fight to addiction. In the past year, there were 250 drug-related deaths in Bucks County alone, and that number doesn't include those who overdosed and survived.
Participants will learn how to recognize, prevent and respond to an overdose for heroine, oxycodone and other prescription drugs. Trainings also include a Naloxone prescription and kit, instructions on how to administer the overdose-reversal agent, and information on PA Act 139 and immunity from legal repercussions for getting help for a drug overdose. Funding for the program is provided by the Bucks County Drug and Alcohol Commission, Inc.
And, for families throughout our five-county area, The Council's Family Education Program offers a free three-part series and a unique support system for friends and family of a loved one struggling with addiction.
The next series kicks off in the first week of May, at 10 locations, including Deep Run on Mondays, May 4, 11 and 18, from 7:00- 9:00 p.m. The program is led by trained volunteers who have been through similar experiences. They offer confidential support, guidance, and resources to help find a road to recovery. And they offer hope, in a caring atmosphere with other people in the same situation who want to understand addiction and learn about the recovery process. The series is free, but contributions are welcome.
The other nine locations offering the program in May are in Bucks County (Bristol), Chester County (West Chester), Delaware County/Main Line (Media/Rosemont), Montgomery County (Colmar, Pottstown) and Philadelphia (North Philadelphia, Northeast Philadelphia, Northern Liberties).
The Family Education Program is part of a Council initiative called PROACT - Pennsylvania Recovery Organization Achieving Community Together - that provides advocacy and recovery support communities. The family program has helped more than 3,000 families since it launched in 2001.
Pre-registration is required for all programs. For information on upcoming dates and locations, please call our 24/7 confidential information and referral line at 800-221-6333, email helpline@councilsepa.org or visit www.councilsepa.org
|
How to Talk to Your Kids about Underage Drinking:
Early Education is focus of Alcohol Awareness Month
Underage drinking comes at a hefty price.
It accounts for 11 percent of all alcohol purchased in the U.S., resulting in 4,300 deaths and 190,000 emergency room visits each year.
It is the number one drug of choice for America's youth, usually consumed through binge drinking, and more likely to kill young people than all other illegal drugs combined.
Each April, during Alcohol Awareness Month, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc., rallies The Council and its other affiliates to join in a concerted effort to increase public awareness and understanding, reduce stigma, and encourage communities to focus on alcoholism and alcohol-related issues.
This is the perfect time to start having open and honest conversations with the youth in your life, to educate them on the severe consequences of alcohol abuse.
Peers, parents, internet or social media - after 35 years of research, it's still parents who have the greatest influence on a child's alcohol use. But the old "just say no" approach is just not effective.
The average child is taking his or her first drink at age 12, so you need to talk to your kids about it long before adolescence.
Tell them the risks. Tell them the consequences. Tell them how it creates extremely dangerous situations - for themselves and society - and point to the examples we see every day online and in the News.
Tell them how it is directly associated with traffic fatalities, violence, suicide, educational failure, alcohol overdose, unsafe sex and other problem behaviors, even for those who may never develop a dependence or addiction.
One in four children are exposed to a substance use disorder in the family, so tell them if that's part of their reality.
Let them know that addiction has a strong familial connection: it is an important message. Let them know the devastating problems it can cause for them and your whole family. Let them know that drinking before age 15 equates to a FIVE times greater risk of developing an alcohol use disorder at some point in their life.
Reducing underage drinking is critical for the health of our youth and our society.
It requires cooperation from parents, schools, community organizations, business leaders, government agencies - the entertainment industry and alcohol manufacturers and retailers - and young people themselves.
Share this article with someone you know to help us create awareness and encourage individuals and families to get help for alcohol-related problems.
Click here to visit our website and learn more about The Council's Intervention programs and resources for parents.
|
Volunteer for The Council/PRO-ACT !!
Contact one of our Volunteer Coordinators:Central Bucks: Email or call Rick at 215-345-6644
Volunteer Training Schedule
Volunteer Orientation TrainingApril 10, 2015 1 pm - 2:30 pm at Central Bucks Recovery Community Center
Group Leadership/Facilitation Training
April 8, 2015 1 pm - 3:30 pm at Southern Bucks Recovery Community Center
April 9, 2015 10 am - 1pm and 5 pm - 8 pm Philadelphia Recovery Training Center
April 24, 2015 1 pm - 3 pm at Central Bucks Recovery Community Center
Please contact the volunteer coordinator for questions or to attend.
|
|
AT OUR CENTERS
FASD: Implications for Children and Adolescents - April 9, 2015, 9:00 am - Noon at Southern Bucks Recovery Community Center, 1286 Veterans Highway, Bristol, PA 19007. Get an in-depth look at Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and how tools such as alcohol screening can assist in reducing the number of children born with FASD. Approved for 3 PCB credit hours. To register email or call David at 215-230-8218 x3162. Click here for details.
Expungement Clinic - April 27, 2015 3:00 - 4:30 pm at Central Bucks Recovery Community Center, 252 W Swamp Road, Unit 12, Doylestown. Get the information you need if you believe your criminal charges are keeping you from gaining meaningful employment. To register email or call Rick at 215-345-6644 x3151.
Planning to Sustain Recovery - every Tuesday 7 - 8:30 pm and every Thursday 10 - 11:30 am at Central Bucks Recovery Community Center (CBRCC), 252 W Swamp Road, Unit 12, Doylestown. Educational support group to help individuals in all stages of recovery plan goals and action steps to sustain recovery. To register email or call Jeanne at 215-345-6644 xt. 3120.
Gateway to Work every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday at 11:00 am at SBRCC, 1286, Veterans Highway, Unit D-6, Bristol; Mon. - Fri. the first week of the month at PRCC, 1701 W Lehigh Ave., #6, Philadelphia, PA 19132; 2nd and 4th Mondays of the month at 11:00 am at CBRCC, 252 W Swamp Road, Doylestown. Get help with resume building, barriers to employment and motivation. Contact Rick at 215-345-6644 xt. 3151 or email for more information.
|
|
|
|
| |
Save the date! Gather your team, consider sponsorship!
PRO-ACT Recovery Walk
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Register free; Form a team; Join the Honor Guard; Donate; Volunteer; or become a Sponsor by
|
AmazonSmile is a simple and automatic way for you to support your favorite charitable organization every time you shop, at no cost to you. When you shop at smile.amazon.com, you'll find the exact same low prices, vast selection and convenient shopping experience as Amazon.com, with the added bonus that Amazon will donate a portion of the purchase price to The Council.
- Go to www.smile.amazon.com
- Log in with Amazon account info or register if you are a new member
Type in The Council of Southeast Pennsylvania, Inc. and click SEARCH
We will come up, hit SELECT
- Amazon donates 0.5% of the price of your eligible AmazonSmile purchases to The Council.
|
|
|
|
|
| DONATE | Donations help us to reduce the impact of addiction for more individuals and families. The Council is a 501(c)(3) organization. |
|
|
Thirteen is generally said to be an unlucky number, but troubled comedian Andy Dick is hoping to change that, as RadarOnline.com has exclusively learned that he is now in rehab for the thirteenth time! Dick, 49, entered SOBA Recovery Center in Malibu three months ago, an insider told Radar. "Andy is doing really good right now. He is a clown, but he is also a total sweetheart and is trying really, really hard at sobriety,"the insider revealed. On Monday, he wrote, "Nothing beats a sober Monday,"tagged with @sobarecovery.
Seeing actors drink alcohol in movies seems to increase the likelihood that teens will drink and have alcohol-related problems, a new study suggests. The findings fit with a growing consensus of evidence that teens are more likely to engage in various risky behaviors that occur in the films and TV shows they watch, said study author Andrea Waylen, a senior lecturer in social sciences at the University of Bristol in England.
Saturday's Grand National saw people placing bets that won't bet again this year. For others, that first win can spark an addiction more hidden than alcoholism, one reformed gambler says Jonathan de Burca Butler. For them, the English Grand National is the only occasion they set foot inside a bookies shop. Horse selection is often made on a whim; its name evokes a memory or the jockey is wearing your favourite colour. Traditionally, punters stick a pin in the list of runners and riders and hope for the best. There are winners and losers and, for the majority of us, that will be that until next year.
"We have been somewhat silent on mainstream topics even if they were related to the space we're in," says Hazelden Betty Ford's Nick Motu. "We've shied away from controversy. We now have an obligation as the largest nonprofit to take a stand on controversial issues such as marijuana legalization."... Motu adds that while Hazelden Betty Ford will continue to participate in advocacy activity spearheaded by other organizations around the country, its leaders did not feel it would suffice simply to attach its advocacy efforts to an existing national organization or other mechanism in the field. 
"I must admit that even as I type, I'm not entirely sure if I will, in fact, send this," her email begins. "I'm just a wee bit intimidated, and I'm truly afraid after I ask you my question that I will find myself on the receiving end of, well, basically a response fitting to that of a complete and utter f--king moron."
For 40 years, smoking cigarettes has been as fundamental to Will Self's way of life as eating and sleeping (often much more so). Lately, though, he's a changed man, thanks to a new addiction: vaping. According to our orally fixated correspondent, the pleasures of the plastic fag are many. So start sucking now, smokers, before someone tries to ban them.
"It's a crass, corporate greedy move to put put a brand name like Ben and Jerry's on a beer," says Bruce Lee Livingston, executive director and CEO of Alcohol Justice, an alcohol industry watchdog consumer group. "It's bad for children - who will start looking at beer as the next step after ice cream."
"'Alcoholism' made its debut in the lexicon around 1900, associated almost exclusively with 'crime' and 'dreams' - coincidentally around the time that Sigmund Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams was published," Recovery.org notes. "However, the association with crime was soon eclipsed by concern over 'chronic' alcoholism and 'death'/'deaths' related to alcoholism, which ballooned in the 1920s during the height of the prohibition movement." 
The purpose of the following open letter written by Olivia Kirks, is to provide insight about the disease of addiction. In it, she shares her own experience with opiate addiction. Having battled drug abuse since 2006, Olivia proudly attests to being clean and sober since July 17, 2014. To those who suffer with us and because of us: First of all, you need to know that my addiction is not your fault. It's nothing you did or did not do. Mom, it's not because you worked so much or didn't have dinner with me every night...
The Tottenville resident, a former drug abuser himself, has written several songs highlighting Staten Island's prescription pill epidemic. I just wanted to write something for his family so Joey would never be forgotten," Stroh said. He says he has known too many friends who died from drug overdoses, and he hopes his music can inspire some addicts to seek help. The deeply personal track chronicles the damaging effects drug abuse has had on Porcello's family as well as on Stroh.
...That's why there's so much excitement in the recovery world lately about oxytocin. In human studies, a synthetic, inhalable version of the hormone seems to quell alcohol cravings. And it does this not by making people dependent on yet another drug (Ativan and Valium are the classic detox helpers) but by actually killing the urge ... Last month, researchers reported that drunk rats given oxytocin immediately started acting sober, an odd discovery that hints at still more avenues for manipulating the brain chemistry of alcoholics.
Ninety-eight people have been hospitalized in the span of a month due to drug overdoses suspected of being caused by Spice, according to the Alabama Department of Public Health. Spice is the street name of synthetic cannabinoids. It is also known as K2, Spice Gold, Sence, Genie, Zohai, Yucatan Fire, Smoke, Sexy Monkey, Black Mamba and Skunk. The substance consist of dried plant material sprayed with synthetic cannabinoids. It mimics the effects of marijuana because its chemicals stimulate the same areas of the brain.
Authorities said both King and Ebat exhibited physical signs of recent methamphetamine use. While searching the vehicle the deputies found a glass meth pipe and two plastic containers with meth residue inside the glove box. In the trunk of the car, the deputy found a variety of items used to manufacture methamphetamine, including lighter fluid and bottles of sulfuric acid based drain cleaner.
...while programs that use Methadone and Suboxone have been successful in helping those addicted to drugs maintain their employment and lead reasonably normal lives, those programs do not help people kick their drug habits. Instead, the drug addicts are given a different drug that avoids some of the woeful effects of heroin, OxyContin and other opiates. However, this also can increase the risk for drug overdose, as users may attempt to overpower the Naltrexone by taking more opiates.
Dysregulation is a hallmark of trauma. If we are regularly exposed to frightening situations and we aren't able to process, understand or gain comfort for our fears, our bodies can become sensitized and wired for overreactions. We go from zero to ten and... Traumatized people can have trouble living in four, five, and six; that middle ground where thinking feeling and behavior operate as a fairly integrated whole. In Twelve Step rooms the phenomenon of dysregulation is intuitively referred to as "black and white thinking."
Did you know goats, hyenas and gibbons all engage in oral sex? Or that Vesalius (the "father of modern anatomy") was unable to locate the clitoris? Or that the human penis is rare among mammals in that it doesn't include skeletal support and consequently it is more closely linked to the brain? And this is just the start (cue the punch lines here).
Often times, people get caught up in the glitz and glamour of alcohol. Cocktails for every occasion, drinks that smell good and look pretty, and the fact that alcohol is a drug is promptly forgotten. That's why once a year it's good to remind people about the dangers and health implications associated with alcohol. April is alcohol awareness month.
