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Recovery in the News
Miami Rally for Recovery aims to offer hope to addicts
Toluse Olorunnipa
The Miami Herald
September 12, 2009
A social networking website for people recovering from addiction is hosting a rally for recovery Saturday at Bicentennial Park.
At one time in his life, Ken Pomerance might have woken up to find himself in jail, hung over or on a strange sofa surrounded by unconscious addicts and drug paraphernalia.
These days, he's up every day at 6 a.m., sending out hundreds of personalized ``happy anniversary'' e-mails to recovering addicts, congratulating them for another year of being clean, sober and stable.
Pomerance, of Fort Lauderdale, is the co-founder of InTheRooms.com, a social networking website designed for people recovering, or seeking to recover, from various forms of addiction.
Saturday, the group is hosting the South Florida Rally for Recovery at Miami's Bicentennial Park. Pomerance said he hopes this rally -- the first of its kind in South Florida -- will allow members of the recovery community to come out of the shadows and celebrate their sobriety in public.
``Our whole goal in this is to have a vision of hope,'' said Pomerance, whose site hosts recovering alcoholics, drug users, gamblers and overeaters. ``We want people who are struggling with their own addictions to look at all these people and say, `Wow. Isn't that powerful'?''
The rally begins at 9 a.m. with a 5K walk across the MacArthur Causeway and around Watson Island. A daylong festival follows with games, music and speeches by prominent members of South Florida's recovery community.
Broward County drug court judge Giselle Pollock said she planned to tell the crowd about how her struggle with alcoholism motivated her to become a judge.
``I know that I would not have become a public figure if it wasn't for my recovery,'' said Pollock, who has been in recovery for 17 years. ``I have no problem talking about it. It's about hope.''
The drug-free, alcohol-free event concludes with a concert headlined by Eric Burdon and The Animals.
Richie Supa, a former guitarist with Aerosmith who now makes his home in Fort Lauderdale, will perform In The Rooms, which he wrote for the recovery-themed website.
`ON THAT JOURNEY'
``The inspiration for the song came from all my years of being on that journey,'' Supa said. ``It parallels the life of everyone else who has struggled with a drug or alcohol addiction.''
Along with co-founder Ron Tannebaum, Pomerance created InTheRooms.com with the vision of bringing together a community of people recovering from different types of addictions.
He got the idea for the site in 2007 after sending a heartfelt message to a woman who revealed on the photo-sharing website Flickr.com that her daughter was struggling with a drug addiction. Pomerance posted a letter detailing his own personal battles: Drug and alcohol addictions that led to frequent arrests. He was a constant source of embarrassment to his father, the Miami Beach police chief.
At age 29, Pomerance checked himself into South Miami Hospital's addiction treatment program as a last resort. It saved his life, he wrote.
The day after he posted the letter, his in box was filled with responses from dozens of users, thanking him for his openness and sharing their own personal struggles with drugs, alcohol and gambling.
That's when the former drug counselor and Internet start-up founder knew he had found his niche.
``All of a sudden I realized, `My God, we don't have a place to go and share this without a stigma,' '' he said. ``I said, `Wow, if there was only a platform where we could do this.' ''
The next day, he asked Tannebaum what he thought about ``a Facebook for people who are in recovery.''
Tannebaum's response was an emphatic ``Let's do it.''
Two years later, the two are at the helm of the fastest-growing online recovery community in the world. More than 45,000 users from 50 countries have registered with the site, representing more than 132,000 collective years of ``in recovery'' time. Members of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous and other fellowships converge on the site to access its recovery-themed resources, music and news. There's a list of 12-step programs, a database for fellowship meetings and ``interventionists'' available for online chatting.
`MORE COMFORTABLE'
But the website's most effective feature may be its network of thousands of everyday people at different stages of recovery all over the world.
``Because of the anonymity of the Internet, people feel a lot more comfortable,'' said Gabriel, a member of Narcotics Anonymous. ``When you're in a fellowship meeting in person, some people feel a little intimidated, especially if they're new.''
Gabriel, a 29-year-old Miami native, said that during his six months on InTheRooms.com, he connected with dozens of strangers dealing with the pulls of drugs or alcohol, sometimes reaching them just before they relapse.
While he wouldn't think of sharing his story with a stranger in a coffee shop, Gabriel said, he never hesitated to send personal messages to acquaintances in cyberspace.
Tannebaum and Pomerance are hoping the positive atmosphere at the rally will encourage people in recovery to feel as comfortable in public as they do online.
``It rang so true that our community needs a platform,'' said Tannebaum, who has been drug-free for 26 years. ``This is what we need to put a successful face on recovery.''
Copyright 2009 Miami Herald Media Co. All rights reserved