Recovery Iowa
Recovery Iowa seeks to raise public awareness that alcohol, drug, and gambling disorders are a public health issue, seeks to eliminate the stigma associated with addiction and recovery, and seeks to improve awareness about substance use recovery issues.
The Recovery Iowa site features wonderful and motivating quotes borrowed from your recovery stories. Personal stories are powerful, educational, and inspirational for those in recovery, those unfamiliar with the power of recovery, and for those not yet in recovery. Help raise awareness about the value of recovery by telling your story. You can email your story to Recovery Iowa and we'll publish it on this site during Recovery Month.
Buy the Mobile MORE Field Guide to Life iPhone app by Hazelden, a groundbreaking iPhone application designed to provide a full year of recovery support
The Field Guide to Life app offers the best of a Hazelden web-based program of personalized continuing care, to the entire sober community. With this app, you'll be able to progress through the stages and 12 Steps of recovery over the course of one year. Using your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch, work through each of the three volumes, which are paired with relevant Steps, to gain the essential skills to help you grow and thrive in early recovery--or to renew your journey at any time. Available from iTunes for $6.99. [Read more]
September is Recovery Month!!
It's Worth It!
Recovery Month promotes the societal benefits of treatment for substance use and mental disorders, celebrates people in recovery, lauds the contributions of treatment providers, and promotes the message that recovery in all its forms is possible. Recovery Month spreads the positive message that behavioral health is essential to overall health, that prevention works, treatment is effective and people can and do recover. [See National Recovery Month Website and Iowa Recovery Month page]
Why New Year’s Resolutions Can Be a Bad Idea
It’s pretty human to use significant days as “turning points” – and that is all well and good for some people. For others, however, using these days for a supposed total change in lifestyle can be problematic. I think this can be particularly true for people in recovery. Why? Because many of us have absurd expectations. Combine that with an all-or-nothing kind of personality, and you have a recipe for repeated failure. [Read article in Addiction Recovery Blog]
I Will Do It My Way! Addiction and Defiance
Defiance is a part of many addict’s recovery process: especially early on in the process. Andrew T. Martin, in an article in Recovery Today online, explains how defiance can impede the recovery process, as well as how to deal with it. [Read article]
November Webcast. The Road to Recovery 2011: A Showcase of Events. Premieres: 11/02/2011:
Building on the 2011 National Recovery Month (Recovery Month) theme- "Join the Voices for Recovery: Recovery Benefits Everyone!"- this episode features footage, photos, and interviews of participants from events held around the country as individuals, families, and entire communities unite in celebration of Recovery Month. In addition, the show highlights the positive and affirming message realized by millions of Americans: Treatment is effective and people can and do recover! Watch the webcast
Recovery Month 2011
Another successful Recovery Month has passed, and now you have the opportunity to thank, congratulate, or just tell someone you’re thinking of them by sending a Recovery Month E-Card! You can send customized e-cards through the SAMHSA Recovery Month website, http://www.recoverymonth.gov/Home/ECards/ChooseDesign.aspx.
Many pathways to recovery have beneficial outcomes
A SAMHSA research report based on interviews of those in recovery, Pathways to Healing and Recovery: Perspectives from Individuals with Histories of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems, conveys a deeper understanding of the recovery process. The study reveals that many and varied pathways to recovery work. "One of the most important lessons to emerge during the discussion of pathways is the importance of finding the right pathway or pathways for the individual. Many discussed trying multiple methods to address their addiction, and failing, often several times, before they found the pathway that worked for them. " [Read the report]
12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery
There are as many ways to mess up recovery as there are alcoholics and addicts, but this article presents twelve common misguided beliefs and attitudes working behind the scenes in relapse, and provides a useful guide for working through these problems. [Read more]
What do you say to someone who drinks too much?
Are you concerned that someone you care about is abusing alcohol or other drugs? Discussing the issue with your loved one can be difficult if they become defensive and deny they have a problem with alcohol or other drugs. To help you speak to your loved one, Hazelden has created several conversation guides to lead you through an honest and compassionate approach. [Click here for guides]
Gay Men and Substance Abuse
This Hazelden article outlines some of the unique challenges faced by gay men struggling with substance abuse and addiction in Gay Men and Substance Abuse. [Read more]
SAMHSA Military Families Initiative
The Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) supports America’s service men and women—Active Duty, National Guard, Reserve, and Veteran—together with their families and communities by leading efforts to ensure that needed behavioral health services are accessible and that outcomes are positive. [Read more]
New Site for Consumers on the Health Care Law
The Health Care and You Coalition,
an advocacy group comprised of some of
the country’s leading organizations that represent consumers, patients,
physicians, nurses, hospitals, and pharmacists, recently launched a new
website
to help understand the many changes that are beginning to occur under the
Affordable Care Act. The new site,
Health Care and You, aims to provide the
public with easy-to-understand information about the health care legislation.
Self-help
and recovery titles for your eReader from Hazelden
Hazelden now offers hundreds of book titles as e-books.
Visit the Hazelden bookstore for more details and to browse through the
e-book selection.
New research on the importance of sober living houses
A recent study finds that the “lack of a living environment that supports sustained recovery is a major obstacle to successful treatment of substance abuse disorders in out-patient programs." [Read more]
Achieving healthy friendships: A lifeline to sobriety
Saying good-bye to old friends can be painful, but if those friends don't support your recovery, you need to move on. [Learn how]
Reprinted from The Partnership's Start Talking
Recent news about bath salts can leave parents wondering which substances are on their teen's radar. Soon thoughts may swirl through your mind: Do any of his friends smoke pot? Has he been offered a joint? Do her friends get drunk? Does she? Of course, the only way to know the answers to these questions is to come out and ask. But we know this isn't as easy as it sounds. One way to start the dialogue with your child is to use Teachable Moments.
Keep in mind that kids who learn about the risks of drugs from their
parents are up to 50% less likely to use than those who don't get that message
at home. So, while your chats may not be without their awkward moments, they're
definitely worth it.
Medication in Recovery
According to a recent Harvard Mental Health Letter article, nearly two million Americans are dependent on or abusing opioid pain relievers—nearly twice as many as are addicted to cocaine. Because opioid painkillers target the same brain receptors as heroin, causing euphoria, they carry the risk of addiction, the article states.
You have a cold, you can't sleep, your back hurts. What medications are safe for those who are recovering from alcohol or other drug addiction? [Learn more]
If you're in recovery, is it OK to take pain medication? Dr. Marv Seppala, Hazelden's chief medical officer, answers eight common questions. [Learn more]
Should You Talk to Someone About a Drug, Alcohol, or Mental Health Problem?
For many persons who struggle with substance abuse, mental health disorders, or both, deciding to talk to someone and seek treatment can be a tough choice to make. This brochure lists 12 questions people can ask themselves to help identify the existence of a behavioral health problem and provides guidance on what to do next and where to find additional information. [Download the Brochure Now]
Real Warriors Get Help
Read SAMHSA article explaining one of SAMHSA’s Strategic Initiatives which focuses on Military Families. The goal is to support America’s service men and women and their families and communities by leading efforts to ensure needed behavioral health services are accessible and outcomes are successful. Links to resources and related articles. [Read more]
Buy an iPhone app based on Hazelden's best-selling meditation books
Focus on your sobriety anywhere, at any time, with Hazelden's new mobile applications featuring best-selling daily meditation books, Twenty-Four Hours a Day, Each Day a New Beginning, A Day at a Time, Food for Thought, and Touchstones. The new apps feature the complete collection of thoughts, meditations, and prayers from these popular books used daily by millions of people around the world. Available from iTunes for $4.99. [Read more]
Buprenorphine During Pregnancy Better than Methadone for Reducing Newborn's Opiate Withdrawal Symptoms
Babies born to opioid-dependent women treated with burprenorphine during pregnancy had significantly fewer withdrawal symptoms than those born to women treated with methadone. [Read more]
Validating Yourself
Claudia Black, Ph.D., in this article from the Courage to Change Newsletter, explains how to break from the old rules and begin healing from the fear, shame, and chaos of being raised with addiction. [Read article]
Cultivating Resiliency
In this article from the Courage to Change Newsletter, author Brené Brown considers why some people seem more able to cope with stress and trauma in a way that allows them to move forward with their lives. [Read article]
News on Drug-Assisted Treatment for Opioid and Heroin Addicts
The National Institute on Drug Abuse announced the Federal Drug Administration's approval of Vivitrol for opioid dependence as well as the results of a study that shows promising findings for an implantable form of buprenoprhine, another extended-release treatment. [Read more]
The Way Home Transitional Housing Program
The Way Home, providing long-term transitional housing for families in
recovery from substance abuse, currently has apartments available. Read
The Way Home brochure for more information
about the program. The Way Home is located in Cedar Rapids, IA, and is a program
of ASAC Housing.
New
Law Strengthens Coverage for Addiction Treatment
Millions of Americans who need help for addiction to alcohol or other drugs have an important new resource: their own health insurance.
A new federal law expands access to treatment by prohibiting most insurance plans from restricting coverage or imposing unequal limitations on treatment for addiction and mental illness. Plans are now required to match coverage for addiction treatment and mental health treatment to coverage for medical or surgical care - including out of pocket expenses, deductibles, and co-payments.
Download Hazelden's brochure, Coverage for Addition and Mental Illness: Now It is the Law 
explaining the impact of the new parity law on
coverage for addiction treatment
Words Matter - from Faces and Voices of Recovery
New research has confirmed what recovery advocates have been working to change – the language that we use to talk about people with addiction and/or people in recovery and their family members. It makes a difference, even for health care professionals working in addiction treatment. “We found that referring to an individual with ‘abuser’ terminology evokes more punitive attitudes than does describing that person’s situation in exactly the same words except for using ‘disorder’ terminology,” says John F. Kelly, PhD, Associate Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Addiction Medicine, who led the study. “Reducing the use of such stigmatizing terms could help diminish the shame, guilt and embarrassment that act as barriers, keeping people from seeking help. The authors noted that even though the World Health Organization acknowledged ‘abuser’ as a stigmatizing term 30 years ago, it remains in common usage. [READ MORE]