Voice of the Recovery Community Award
Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) is the recipient of The Joel Hernandez Voice of the Recovery Community Award!
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Rally for Recovery! 2008
Start planning your 2008 Rally for Recovery! event. This year's Rally for Recovery will take place on September 20, 2008! Learn more...
Event: Rally for Recovery 2006
FAVOR chair says discussing addiction holds key to helping others
Betty Solomon
The Greenville News
September 6, 2006
Jane Pressly calls herself a "born advocate." Pendleton Place and the Council to Prevent Teen Pregnancy have been two causes Pressly has been involved with since their beginning. But when she realized in 1990 that she had a drinking problem, Pressly turned her attention to her own recovery and eventually to helping others who were experiencing similar addictions.
"I consider myself knowledgeable and curious, a health nut," Pressly said. "But if I didn't know much about the recovery process, I figured others didn't either. I looked at my community and knew there were others like me who weren't getting help."
Pressly, who has been in long-term recovery from alcoholism since January 1990, chairs FAVOR of Greenville, a non-profit advocacy organization focusing on taking the message of recovery to those in the community. The acronym FAVOR -- Faces and Voices of Recovery -- reflects Pressly's belief that recovering addicts who are willing to expose themselves by talking about recovery are the key to changing the community's attitude about the problem.
"Those of us who are in recovery know the miracle," Pressly said. "This is a treatable illness, and recovery is possible.”
Pressly said the idea of starting FAVOR grew out of years of working in the community, including a three-year term on the board of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission. A 2003 commission study convinced her that Greenville needed to address the question of how it as a community was going to make a difference in the treatment of addiction.
FAVOR, a group with a membership of those in long-term recovery who could be a voice, was her answer. In addition to directing the 120-member Greenville group, Pressly is involved in helping organize a state organization that oversees the four chapters that now exist around the state. Three additional chapters are in the process of organizing.
Immediate goals for FAVOR of Greenville include sponsoring events that will draw attention to the possibility of recovery, organizing a speakers bureau to provide speakers for community and civic groups, and an ongoing advocacy for treatment programs.
"One of our goals is to get people into treatment early by identifying addiction earlier. We need to be able to provide treatment on-demand -- when people recognize they have a problem, not a month later."
Pressly said she believes that for too long recovery has been "the invisible part of addiction." Being willing to admit that addiction is "a chronic illness -- a brain problem" is key to recovery, she said.
"When I tell people about my recovery and about FAVOR, they tell me about a brother or a sister or a mother or father. The problem goes back generations. But we want them to know that treatment and recovery can restore what addiction has taken away.”
Concert, walk coming soon
Betty Solomon
The Greenville News
September 6, 2006
September is Recovery Month, and FAVOR of Greenville is sponsoring the first Concert for Recovery on Sept. 15 at Larkin's on the River, Dow Amphitheater, featuring Southern Kross. Special guest will be Miss South Carolina 2006, Shelley Benthall. The event begins at 7 p.m. with refreshments, and entertainment is from 8-10 p.m.
Greenville's first Walk for Recovery is planned for Sept. 16, with registration beginning at 9 a.m. at Shelter 5 in Cleveland Park. The walk begins at 10 a.m.
The presenting sponsor for both events is The Spinx Company Inc. For more information, call 299-0779.
Sharing experiences can be helpful to healing
Erika Johnson Spinelli
The Greenville News
September 6, 2006
Being an alcoholic is often a very public disease, and very socially acceptable. Being a recovering alcoholic, however, is a shameful and embarrassing condition.
Or is it?
On April 21, 2002, I had my last drink. It was a full-bodied Merlot, at least that's what it looked like as I threw it up in the toilet. At the tender age of 32, I'd had enough. Seventeen years of binge drinking and blackouts had finally taken their toll. I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.
As my mother will tell you, I overshare. (See above.) Therefore, most people who know me know that I'm a recovering alcoholic. And because of my age and my profession, this revelation is revealed soon after meeting me. I don't know anyone else my age who doesn't drink. And most social activities for people my age involve drinking.
"Let's meet for drinks," I suggested. A frightened look crossed my friend's face.
"You didn't start drinking again, did you?" he asked me.
"No, I drink all kinds of things: Diet Coke, tonic, club soda, tea, water, and the list goes on."
I made my point.
I have learned that telling my story -- much to my mother's chagrin -- has protected me. I have strengthened old friendships and grown new ones by sharing my experience. It has enabled me to remain steadfast on this path, and allowed me to meet for drinks, sit at the bar, eat wings and listen to the band. My friends have become valiant defenders of my sobriety, taste-testing drinks to ensure their virginity and shielding me from situations that would test my resolve. I would not still be in recovery without their support.
I am not looked upon with shame and pity, but rather with shock and awe. I hear words of congratulations, questions about how I do it, and concern for my next non-alcoholic beverage need.
I have never been excluded from an event, or shunned from an activity because I have told my story. On the contrary, it has opened both professional and personal doors.
That's why I was perplexed when William Moyers challenged FAVOR group members this winter to tell someone they knew that they were recovering addicts. I thought, hmmmm ... everyone who knows me knows I'm an alcoholic. But many addicts keep it a secret, fearing rejection and humiliation from peers, family and friends. And so laypeople -- and addicts -- don't know what a recovering addict looks like. Laypeople don't know the success stories, and addicts don't know what the possibilities are.
Alcoholism -- I am an alcoholic and always will be -- is a disease I manage every day. Some days I feel successful and triumphant, and others, I feel like a miserable, weak, shameful failure. I thought, perhaps that's how many recovering addicts feel every day. I've been lucky to have friends, family, managers and coworkers who have accepted me, forgiven me, encouraged me and protected me in times of triumph and crisis.
Now it's my turn to show addicts that you are accepted, forgiven, encouraged and protected.
Addicts find FAVOR with those in recovery
Betty Solomon
The Greenville News
September 6, 2006
David Childs knows something about recovery. For the past 30 years, he's been a recovering alcoholic. When he met Jane Pressly, director of Faces and Voices of Recovery, a year and a half ago, he knew he'd met a kindred spirit.
"We know the same people, and I instantly liked what I heard about FAVOR's goals of going after the stigma associated with addiction," Childs said. "Too often you hear people say 'if you'd just straighten up your act' or 'if you'd just find Jesus.' But addiction is a disease. It may cause us to do immoral things, but it's not immoral in itself."
Childs said he knows that addiction treatment works. His 28-day stay in a Greensboro treatment facility in 1976 turned his life around.
"My first marriage ended in divorce, and although my drinking wasn't the only reason, it didn't help. My life was pretty crazy, and I had relationships that needed mending, but now (my life's) pretty wonderful."
What Childs learned about his own addiction is what he hopes FAVOR can communicate to those in the community. Addiction is like any other chronic disease with the possibility of relapses, but "a relapse is not the end of the world."
"There's so much more available today, more aftercare, and there are many, many ways today to get sober. Doctors understand the disease better today."
Childs hopes FAVOR will become better known in the community, especially through two special events scheduled for September, which has been designated nationally as Recovery Month. The FAVOR concert on Sept. 15 and the Walk for Recovery on Sept. 16 are a beginning, Childs said. He's also helping to create a speakers bureau that will help to get the message out to community groups and churches.
"We're training volunteers and developing a talk that will make sense depending on the audience we're addressing."
Childs said a longer-term goal for FAVOR is to work to clear up inequities in the system, such as policies that exclude treatment programs from coverage by corporate insurance plans. "We're not a political organization, but we will lobby for better treatment."
Childs' role has expanded from being a board member with FAVOR of Greenville to also being vice-chair of the state FAVOR organization.
"We want people to know this is a disease. And with treatment we can achieve a successful life. We're knocking down the stigma of alcohol and drug addiction. We want people to know it's you and me. We're just people who had a problem with a disease, and now we're telling you our story. I think people are listening."
Copyright 2005 The Greenville News.