Category Archives: Recovery

IntheRooms.com Officially Announces “South Florida Rally For Recovery”

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South Florida Rally For Recovery intherooms.com

Just this week, the social networking site especially dedicated to people in addiction recovery, In the Rooms (intherooms.com) announced that on September 12th of 2009 they will be hosting the South Florida Rally For Recovery in honor of the 20th Annual National Alcohol and Drug Addiction Recovery Month (Sept). The official In the Rooms Rally for Recovery charity walk logo is located above in black.

Thus far, In the Rooms (ITR) has announced that the recovery rally will take place around Biscayne Bay in the Downtown area of Miami, FL and will consist of the following segments (the following is quoted directly from intherooms.com):

1) The Walk – Show your support for recovery and stand up for what you believe in! Be an advocate and walk with us to show what recovery is, that today we are healthy and productive members of society!

2) The Festival – All day in Bicentennial Park, we will have wonderful food, great speakers, recovery music, exhibits, special guests and surprises.

3) The Concert – At the end of the day, we will be having Richie Supa perform his PRISM Award winning song, In The Rooms; in addition we are also having a special surprise guest, so stay tuned!
For further updates on South Florida Rally For Recovery, please check back often.

Switzerland Passes Legislation for Legal Heroin Program

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Switzerland Heroin Program

The overwhelming majority of Swiss citizens have voted to make their comprehensive heroin program permanent. The program, which began in 1994, is composed of 23 centers to which heroin addicts may attend and get two daily doses of heroin. The doses are carefully administered with clean needles under the supervision of a nurse and the heroin used is produced in government laboratories.

Even though the addicts selected to receive these services have been previously unresponsive to therapy, the heroin program also provides psychiatric and counseling services.

The program has been praised for its reduction of “out in the open” heroin users in Switzerland, as well as reducing crime and improving the health and lives of addicts.

Trial programs modeled after the Swiss one are being put into effect or being considered on countries all over the world, including Spain, Australia, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada. Still, some United Nation countries have criticized the program saying it may encourage drug use.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Pushes to Make Drugs Illegal

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Drugs Illegal in Colombia

Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, has introduced an amendment that aims to make drug possession illegal in Colombia. The Colombian congress already began discussing the illegality of drugs in Colombia earlier last week.

As it stands currently, Colombia citizens (of legal adult age 18+) are permitted to legally possess 20 grams of marijuana, 1 gram of cocaine and or 2 grams of synthetic drugs, ecstasy. Drugs current status was the result of a 1994 Constitutional court ruling.

In a recent speech, President Uribe stated that there was a contradiction in the fact that Colombia claims to be waging war on drugs (using billions of US dollars), while allowing domestic possession of drugs. During his 6 years of presidency, Uribe, has put forth various efforts to evoke this reform. However, he has always faced resistance from congress members, who believe the illegalization of drugs in Colombia would be a violation of Colombian’s freedoms.

The new amendment is less punitive than the ones previously introduced. However, if passed, drug possession would be considered a misdemeanor, not a felony, and would result in the intervention of a “therapeutic court”, involving judges, doctors, and psychologists.

In the Rooms Youtube Channel

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In the Rooms Youtube Channel

The new social networking website IntheRooms.com, which dedicates itself specifically as a support network for those in recovery, now has a channel on youtube.com that is filled with all kinds of pertinent recovery videos.  To be specific, there are exactly 37 videos currently, which range from an NBC 6 interview with the founders of In the Rooms, Kenny Pomerance and Ron Tannenbuam, to several videos that feature Father Martin.

For those unfamiliar with Father Joseph Martin, he was an ordained priest based out of Baltimore Maryland, who was an alcoholic that made a full recovery and spent the rest of his life advocating animatedly for the Alcoholics and Narcotic Anonymous fellowships.  Unfortunately, Father Joseph Martin passed away earlier this year (2009).  He is most famous for his “Chalk Board” talks that helped champion addiction recovery for so many individuals who sought to overcome the disease of addiction.

A Global Recovery (aglobalrecovery.com) invites everyone around the globe, who may be reading this article (as well as everyone who isn’t), to visit the In the Rooms Youtube Channel at: http://www.youtube.com/intherooms.  We also invite everyone to get as much support as possible by joining the online community of InTheRooms.com.  There, you can get in contact with plenty of support from the over 30,000 fellow recovering members from all around the world.

AB 1019: California Alcohol Tax Bill Put on Hold

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California Alcohol Tax Bill

The California state government was set to enact Bill 1019, which would have proposed a fee on alcohol companies in order to allocate collected funds of approximately $1.4 billion to programs that help Californians alleviate alcohol-related harm, such as car accidents, deaths, illnesses, injuries, and crime (domestic violence).

Democrat Assemblyman Jim Beall, Jr. from San Jose, the author of AB
1019 (Alcohol Related Services Act), recently said: “The industry must start paying its fair share for the problems their products cause. If this fee and the program it pays for prevents another child from being born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome or prevents another senseless DUI fatality it will have paid for itself and more.”

The kinds of programs that AB 1019 was originally designed to fund were in the five areas most impacted: alcohol treatment, alcohol prevention, hospitalization, trauma care, and law enforcement. Most Californians seemed to be in agreement with Jim Beall, Jr. that the proposed $1.4 billion that would have been collected would have paled in comparison to the estimated $38.4 billion dollars in damages that the alcohol industries’ products cause yearly in the state.

The “Regulatory Mitigation Fee” (Tax), AB 1019, originally called for the following breakdown: An increase of $1.07 per gallon of beer; $2.56 per gallon of wine containing 14 percent alcohol or less; $4.27 per gallon of wine and hard cider containing more than 14 percent alcohol; and $8.53 per gallon of 80-proof-liqour.

Roughly, the fees would have broken down to about a dime per drink (12-ounce serving of beer, 1.5 ounces of 80-proof-liquor, or a 5 ounce glass of wine). The fee was to be assed directly by the manufactures that distribute the alcohol. However, it remained unknown whether retailers would have passed the heightened cost for alcohol products onto consumers.

Nonetheless, the California state government announced that AB 1019 (Alcohol-Related Services Act of 2009) had been revised by its author Jim Beall, Jr. and turned into a two-year bill for discussion next year.

Recovery Nation Helps Couples Coping with Sex and Porn Addiction

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Recovery Nation

The online self-help resource, Recovery Nation, recently announced its newly launched, web-based initiative, called Couple’s Workshop, to help couples cope and move forward through problems stemming from sex and porn addictions.  Jon Marsh, founder of Recovery Nation, describes the Couple’s Workshop by saying, “This workshop is for those couples who have already made the decision to heal their partnership–be that as friends, parents, or lovers.”

Couple’s Workshop utilizes similar health-based recovery techniques found in traditional addiction recovery programs and partner’s healing workshops.  More so, Recovery Nation’s new sex and porn addiction, recovery program also looks to rebuild a healthy sexual life with a partner beyond addiction management.  It does so by providing over forty free lessons that guide couple’s in the development of partnership communication skills as well as trust and intimacy rebuilding.

While some may feel “shock, fear, confusion, disgust and ignorance” about their sexual addiction problem as mentioned on the Recovery Nation website, which tends to act negatively in “guiding the recovery response as well,” the site also mentions that the provided resource of the Couple’s Workshop will “assist you, your partner and/or anyone seeking to fully understand the sex, love and porn addictions in such a way as to facilitate a permanent recovery and/or healing process.”  For more information, visit the website at: http://www.recoverynation.com

Results of Portugal’s Decriminalization Data Show Not Enough is being Done

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Drug Decriminalization

An article recently published in the journal, “Scientific America,” cited statistical information from the Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. that validated the success Portugal has had in lowering crime, and reducing HIV cases and drug addiction, since it decriminalized drugs in 2001. However, the data cannot conclude that the cause of such reductions where the direct result decriminalizing drugs.

In fact, some would argue that the decriminalization of drugs in Portugal created an environment where drug use was promoted because possession and use of hard drugs like heroin, cocaine, and marijuana were not illegal. Either way, the fact remains that Portugal found a drug policy that is effective and beneficial to society. It is no wonder that Portugal has done so, because the direct result of the decriminalization policy was progressive government action that funded and backed recovery programs fully.

Thus, it stands that the decriminalization of drugs is not required to create a national drug policy that is effective and beneficial to society, but rather, any country in the world could yield the same results as Portugal, if they were willing to spend the funds to implicate the same kind of proactive government policies that are committed to placing drug abusers into proper treatment centers.

What is IntheRooms.com About?

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IntheRooms.com

For those unfamiliar, IntheRooms.com is the number one trafficked recovery social networking site on the web. Presently, InTheRooms has more than 40,000 members with a combined recovery time of over 100,000 years. Every day, members at IntheRooms.com share that wealth of knowledge across fellowship lines and international borders. It is common for an NA member to befriend a AA member and share recovery experiences and support the other 23 hours a day between official fellowship meetings. IntheRooms’ mantra is H.I.T.C.H. which stands for Help, Inform, Touch, Connect and Heal. The message applies to those already in recovery, those seeking Recovery and family, friends and allies who support recovery around the globe.

InTheRooms.com was created using the latest in web-technology in order to build the most comprehensive online social networking site on the net. In the Rooms members can post photos, chat online, and befriend other members in recovery worldwide. Additionally, IntheRooms lets members choose particular fellowships to join, offers virtual meetings, speaker libraries, daily meditations and affinity groups that make IntheRooms.com the leading innovator of online recovery networking.

As an organization, IntheRooms.com strives to stay active in the recovery community. Just recently, InTheRooms teamed with A & E’s Interventionists from the hit show, “Intervention,” to create a resource for families and friends of those with the disease of alcoholism and addiction. The new website offers personal advice and regular informative articles from A & E Interventionist Ken Seeley, Jeff VanVonderen, and Candy Finnigan. You can check it out at: http://intervention.intherooms.com.

Lastly, the In the Rooms foundation does its best to organize and present charitable recovery events for the public. Most recently announced was the First Annual IntheRooms.com “South Florida Rally for Recovery.” It will be held Sep. 12th, 2009 on Biscayne Bay in Downtown Miami, FL as part of National Alcohol and Addiction Recovery Month.

Dealing with Addiction on a Global Level

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It’s obvious that addiction is by no means a problem that is restricted to the United States. Here at A Global Recovery, we take a global look at resources that offer help for addicts and people suffering from mental health issues.

At www.addictiontoday.org you’ll find a directory of addiction-treatment units, a comprehensive list of self-help support groups, articles on methodologies/techniques, recovery communities, campaign help and much more. The website was created to promote, support and enhance long-term sustainable recovery from addictions of all types.