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Old 03-11-2018, 12:59 PM
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Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: new jersey
Posts: 3,523
10 yr Member
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Wide-O View Post
His thread will be about recovery from addiction, and the ways some of us have decided to "pay it forward", and put the help and experience we had to good use.

Personally I have not gone through the channels/groups many people go through, so I wasn't familiar with the "landscape" in my country. But I always wanted to do something with a) my own experiences and b) the countless talks/discussions I had both on- and off-line in the last 5 years.

In the beginning of this year I bit the bullet, and decided to search for a way to get active in helping other addicts. I wasn't sure how & why, and was thinking about it until someone who will remain nameless (Hi Pam! ) kicked my butt and told me to stop procrastinating.

Piqued, I did a search on the internet for volunteers/places/groups where I may be of good use. I found a very obscure and 90's-looking website that actually seemed to have a good idea, and I called the single number on that page.

The short story is that almost 2 months later I am knee deep into participating in that project. The name of the non-profit organization is "Verslavingskoepel" - which translates roughly as "Addiction Dome": it is a place that unites all the different self-help groups and professionals who come in contact with people who suffer from addiction.

We will be officially registered this month, and the board of directors will be comprised of four "experience holders" as we call them - people who have had an addiction and found a way out - and 4 professionals. These are 2 GP's who have always been interested in helping addicts, a neurologist who was very frustrated by how difficult it was to treat (mainly) alcoholics, and the head of an official state sponsored mental health organization. These numbers in the board are no accident, but stand for the idea that the experience holders and the professionals have an equal say/importance/role, and by working together, will be much more effective in providing help.

Even though we aren't officially "open for business" yet, we already have quite a few people and organizations knocking at our doors. Somehow, the idea that this combination of people will lower the threshold has set foot in the mind of just about everybody who is involved in addiction treatment, and many see this as a great opportunity.

We have hospitals, ER's, police, and other organizations asking us for our help, to reach the people they encounter by using a combination of the usual staff (social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists) with "people who have been there". These people (of which I am one) will try to make contact (on call, or as a permanence) with the addicts that are brought in, to tell them their story, but also point at all the other stories and ways of people who have managed to get their life back on track. We do not recommend one single form of treatment or group, but try to instill the thought that it is possible to recover as early on as possible, and also try to find the best path forward (which could be AA, or CBT, or any of the existing models and organizations). Obviously, we are also there for the families and friends.

The program started in 2012 by one single brave person - who was with AA for 30 years - who was convinced there had to be better way to help addicts; everybody staying in their own corner, with their own absolute truths clearly wasn't that way. So he started contacting people all over the country, had countless talks and meetings - sometimes hours and hours about the meaning of a single word. He also contacted people from the medical and mental health world, and slowly, very slowly, he managed to get this movement together, and have all these groups agree that working together would be the best way forward. I can not begin to tell you how impressed I am with his dogged work, his patience, and his vision. Over those years, he has made good contacts with all the self-help groups, doctors, neurologists, local governments and police, the academic world, and even our national government. The idea is not to replace all these groups, but to work with them.

That first phone call I made? That was to this guy. We talked for 2 hours, and found that we had a lot in common, and were almost mirrors when it came to how we thought about addiction treatment.

From the next day onwards, my life & agenda (and e-mail inbox) changed radically. Apart from the meetings, I could also use my experience in IT to build them a new internal forum (like this one) to make it easier and faster to communicate, rather than to work with chain-emails (which got lost, people had wrong versions of documents etc.) and physical meetings (meaning people had to drive from all over the country). Mind you: this is all non-profit, so all the costs come out of the pockets of the people who participate. Oh, and a new website will go live too.

The physical meetings were often with 30 to 40 participants (all sponsors, or people who want to help or stay in touch), which is not ideal either...

We are now also preparing all our internal documents, charters, rules, and a big press-release (including social media) to get the word out and our name known.

While our work is still somewhat "local" (a province), it is everybody's expectation (even from the government) that we will work towards a nation wide model.

Perhaps early to say this, but I have been asked to be the vice-president of this new org - the president would be a GP. Nothing is in stone yet, and I still have to think whether I truly want it, what it would mean in terms of time, responsibilities, pressure (...), and there will also be a general meeting where there will be a final vote (although - for reasons of anonymity mostly, there are more positions than candidates at the moment; also, they want some "young blood" (ahem) to take it from here and put in our energy and enthusiasm. Many of the people who have joined the "movement" are 60 or even 65 plus.

It will be a balancing act between having the pleasure to finally being able to do something *useful* again - and actually helping people - and taking on too much - which has brought me in trouble before...

That's the intro. I kindly invite other people who are working in recovery to join this thread too - it's not about me, but about the whole concept of recovery, the possibilities, the efforts, and the fact that helping other people also has the benefit of helping yourself. "Volunteering heals" is one of our mottoes. I also welcome all comments, all people who might be interested in going the same way, and also criticism, as nothing is perfect.
Way to go!
On the way to keeping it alive
One day at at a time
Way to go!!
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"Thanks for this!" says:
PamelaJune (03-11-2018), SecondChances (03-15-2018), Wide-O (03-12-2018)