In The Mix
Where I share a collection of things and topics of interest I am reading, listening to or talking about
Welcome to “In The Mix” where I share what has piqued my curiosity and interest, heard through the grapevine or landed in my lap in the past couple of weeks. A relevant curation of books, articles, websites, events, podcasts and such that might interest you too! I am a voracious & curious reader, explorer of innovation and thought leadership.
Recovery is the topic of the month. Top down and ground up. That’s the way we are collectively shifting the paradigm on addiction, treatment and recovery. The times have changed and continue to change as we as a society recognize that the failed war on drugs was a war on people and created the ideal conditions for pharmaceutical companies and alcohol companies to cause a genocide, a medical system failure and traumatize a generation. The good news is Recovery is taking over.
Ground up looks like de-stigmatizing addiction in our own families, our own belief systems and healing from the trauma caused by the opioid and addiction epidemic that pharma and alcohol companies created, the political war on drugs created and the systems that allow addiction to flourish created. It looks like our recovery as mothers, our Love as power to influence change at every level. In our family ecosystem, the culture and policy. Our recovery roots healing and wellbeing deep in the foundation of our families and our communities.
Top down looks like the Presidential Proclamation for Recovery Month and shining a BIG light on recovery nationally and putting significant funding into recovery supports. You can read about the Actions Taken by the administration in areas of harm reduction, prevention, treatment and recovery and drug supply reduction.
Mobilize Recovery might be coming to your town. If not, you can follow along on twitter and see how grass roots organizations (ground up) and major corporations (top down) like Google are making recovery widely known so we can see that we are in fact “surrounded by recovery” and that recovery is accessible no matter where you are or who you are. The founders of Unity Recovery in Philadelphia launched RecoveryVerse in the Metaverse on Friday, a wild innovation in accessing recovery support. People are SO creative!
Shatterproof is doing incredible “radical social change” work on stigma within the medical system, communities and workplaces. Stigma remains the greatest barrier to recovery. You can read the strategic plan here. It gives me a large measure of comfort to know that there are people devoted to working on stigma in a strategic, evidenced based, well-researched way since it is impossible for me to work on everything. I can do my part but I can’t do all the parts. (that’s part of me being balanced, boundaried, healthy and in recovery from over committing, over extending, over helping and people pleasing behaviors)
I was in a meeting last week with our county health department discussing a new “first alert” system designed to alert the community when there is a spike in overdoses coming from reports out of the hospital system. The topic of “rainbow fentanyl” came up and the recent DEA press release about “rainbow fentanyl” in the drug supply. A person in charge of disseminating information asked if we, the community stakeholders, thought that the information should be shared locally. I raised my hand and said, “As a mother of a teen, I would want to know that information so that I could share it with my daughter who might also share it with her friends.” (my 17 year old daughter carries Narcan and we talk openly about drugs and alcohol in our family) There was some discussion about “it not being reported that it was in our local drug supply so we don’t need to raise alarm,” except that we, in the harm reduction and recovery organization I lead, were getting reports of it from people using drugs that we were providing safer use supplies and naloxone to. I asked if hearing from the people using drugs themselves was not credible enough for them. A week later, the information flowed out to the school system community in the Principal’s weekly email, along with resources for help, how to recognize and overdose and where to get Naloxone. I was SO pleased to see the awareness raising and the actionable solutions happening upstream, out in the open, not in secret. Harm reduction means talking honestly about risk. It’s ok to say, “I know you’re using drugs or if you’re using drugs, there are ways to minimize risk. Here are some ways to be safe.” or “tell your friends, just in case.” This says, “I care about you and your wellbeing.” People who participate in harm reduction services are five times more likely to enter treatment or embark on a path of recovery. It makes sense to talk about safety.
All this to say, we are in a paradigm shift, a culture change, a radical social movement and our way of being as mothers is part of a larger way of being that will prevail. My faith has always been in the power of my love and I believe love always wins. It looks like to me that LOTS of people are devoted to love and recovery.
Take Care My Dears,
Shelly