| Mental Health Board Asking For Replacement Levy
The executive director of the Mental Health and Recovery Board met with Muskingum County commissioners today to ask them to put a replacement levy on the March ballot.
The levy would be a 10 year levy and would replace the levy the board has had for the past 20 years.
�For somebody who owns a $50,000 home tax value wise it would be the difference between right now
they're paying a little over $11 a year, it'd go to $17 a year,� said Rod Hollingsworth, executive director.
Hollingsworth said they are going to work harder this election to inform voters about the services they provide.
�The Mental Health Board is basically an administrative oversight board and funding board and we provide services through Six County, Thompkins Child and Adolescent and Muskingum Behavioral Health Services and that includes mental health services and drug and alcohol services,� he said.
Drinking bans spark exodus from territory
HUNDREDS and possibly thousands of Aborigines are leaving the Northern Territory, sometimes with whole families in tow, to escape the Federal Government's tough anti-alcohol laws. Coober Pedy's independent Mayor, Steve Baines, said that the South Australian town - about 400 kilometres from the Northern Territory border - had experienced a 10 per cent increase in its permanent population of 3000. Alcohol bans - part of the national emergency response to protect children from sexual abuse - have led to "huge numbers of people hanging around the main street with packs of dogs and nowhere to go", he said. "We estimate there are 300 extra homeless people in Coober Pedy and Ceduna [in the state's west] has the same, and that's on top of the transient people we normally get … if that happened in Adelaide it would be an uproar." He said men, women and children were sleeping in the street or in packed houses with 20 to 30 relatives, which was damaging tourism and putting a strain on police, health services and Centrelink.
St. Joseph’s hosts Russian specialists
SARANAC LAKE � St. Petersburg, Russia�s House of Hope on the Hill, is the country�s only free alcohol treatment center that uses the principles of Alcoholics Anonymous in a 28-day program.
The Center has served approximately 2,500 people from 110 cities across Russia as well as patients from a few of the former Soviet states.
To further strengthen their programs, three addiction specialists: Board member and well-known Russian artist Dmitri Shagin; Senior Counselor Sergei Agafonov; the Center�s Director Dr. Svetlana Moseeva, and their translator, Alexander Alexandrov have spent 10 days studying St. Joseph�s Rehabilitation Center�s recovery programs and business practices.
The group is particularly interested in the Family Services Session, which serves as an intervention technique to educate family members and the resident about the destructiveness of the disease.
Addiction treatment called life’s most difficult challenge
Ed. note: This is the fourth instalment of a five-part series tracing a tale of drug addiction and rehabilitation in recognition of National Drug Awareness Week (Nov. 18-24). Addiction treatment goes on behind closed doors and becomes a cocoon for addicts to become wrapped up in affirmations, 12 steps, and of course, their demons. �It�s the most difficult thing you�ll ever do,� says Dale Gordon, director of treatment for the territory�s Alcohol and Drug Services unit, and a recovering addict himself. �There�s probably as many ways to recover as there are addicts, he said. �There�s no one way to recover, but a good way to recover is treatment.� Recovery is a process by which first, one goes through a physical detoxification where the body rids itself of the substance. The harder part, Gordon said, is learning how to handle all the pain that the user has typically masked with drug highs �You have to want to stop, and you have to stop believing drugs are the answer to your pain,� he said.
Alcohol, drug abuse likely by depressed
WASHINGTON -- Young adults with depression are more likely to start smoking cigarettes, use illicit drugs and abuse alcohol and pain medication than their peers, according to a study released today. In the past year, 3 million young adults in the United States have suffered one or more major depressive episodes, according to the study by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The study found that these depressed young adults were 60 percent more likely to have started smoking cigarettes than others in their age group who had not experienced depression. .
Waianae Mental Health center gets $100,000 grant
Hale Na`au Pono (Wai`anae Coast Community Mental Health Center) has been awarded a $100,000 grant from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to support Ho`okaulike (Creating Balance), an alcohol and drug treatment program with substantial native Hawaiian cultural values. OHA's contribution will help open services to 100 more Native Hawaiians and their families along the Wai'anae Coast, health center officials said. They said many Native Hawaiians who have followed a path of substance abuse are without adequate cultural anchors upon which they can bring about adequate individual or family recovery. Through the support of contributions like that of OHA, Hale Na`au Pono's Ho`okaulike program can now provide outpatient substance abuse services to Native Hawaiian men and women 18 years and older without resources to cover the cost of such services.
Long-term site sought for drug court treatment
The Washington and Madison County Drug Court Treatment Center is in need of a permanent home, said Circuit Court Judge Mary Ann Gunn. Drug court participants previously received treatment through Decision Point � a Springdale-based substance abuse treatment center � but as of Oct. 31, the program discontinued receiving services. So to Gunn, setting up a center for the drug court seemed like the natural step. � I�ve been thinking about this for several months and just decided that now was a good time, � she said. � I felt like it was in the best interest of our participants and our program. � The treatment program has since found temporary housing at the Jones Center for Families in Springdale, which opened its doors on Nov. 5. Gunn said the program received its temporary license through the Arkansas Department of Alcohol and Drug Prevention.
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