New group aims to help addicts
Organizational meeting to be held Sunday afternoon
TROY, N.Y. >> Local residents are being invited to join a new group hoping to address drug and alcohol addiction.
A preliminary meeting of the Rensselaer County Recovery Community Organization will take place from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sun- day at Victorious Life Christian Church on 5th Avenue. The group is looking to involve people in recovery for substance abuse, families impacted by addiction and community partners looking to address what organizers say has grown into a public health crisis.
“We are eager to work with community partners, people who are the existing infrastructure,” said Jennifer Wilks, one of the group’s organizers, who is also active in the Celebrate Recovery program. “We’re here to fill in the gap and be able to specifically utilize recovery persons and their attributes to help those who are struggling to make it.”
The guest speaker for the first meeting will be Laurie Quinn of Friends of Recovery New York, one of the organizers of the Columbia County Recovery Community Organization.
“FOR-NY is a new type of statewide organization that does advocacy for recovering individuals and people seeking treatment,” explained Wilks. “Each county has made some effort to develop a net- work of community partners, including the voices of those who are actually recovering, to be able to increase the amount of peer support for people who are in treatment or are either trying to enter treatment or transition out of treatment.”
Wilks said the local group will meet at least once a month and has several goals.
“The overall goal will be, one, that there’s some measurable healing for each person who is there and that it is meaningful to them and that their hope is increased,” said Wilks. “Also, we would need to measure impact, since one of
the other goals is to raise more awareness and also to reduce the stigma of being in recovery.”
Event organizers also are hoping to embrace the idea that being in recovery is not a bad thing and is actually a step in the right direction.
“It’s not a bad thing to be in recovery; it’s actually a good thing to be in recovery,” said Wilks. “We’re trying to embrace that, for people not to be ashamed about going into recovery.”
Wilks said the group is looking to fill the gaps to existing solutions, and she is hopeful the group will achieve that for people living in Rensselaer County.
“We’re not looking to duplicate treatment,” said Wilks. “We’re not looking to duplicate anything that is already offered. We’re looking to identify the gaps that exist and see how people who are already in recovery can actually help within the systems”.
For more information on the program, visit http://docs.google.com/a/digitalfirstmedia.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdvXi2nuKC APXcPKJqd3SV6wX253OVgFWaMo6pPTxa_lEePhw/viewform?c=0&w=1.