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Corresponding to the ten-year rise of a powerful grassroots recovery advocacy lobby, we’re also seeing a growing nationwide network of recovery community centers providing practical and vocational services in an environment characterized by activist Tom Hill as “recovery nurturing.” Meeting identified service gaps, these centers are responding with increased efficacy and sophistication to the acknowledged inadequacy of “treating a chronic disease as if a crisis intervention would be enough.”

Do peers have a unique way of connecting with clients? As the treatment of addiction moves inexorably toward inclusion in the larger healthcare system, with…

We can refuse to use shame as a tactic in dealing with a loved one’s addiction. We can replace it with acceptance, hope and love.

If you are new to Faces & Voices of Recovery, welcome. Take advantage of the wisdom and resources offered here.
And from one family member to another, take care of yourself and be patient with your struggles. Most of all, believe in recovery. It’s real.

I’m Merlyn Karst. After a long and successful career in corporate America and while living in California, I retired in the late eighties. I then worked as a consultant and dealt with my own issues resulting from misuse of the drug, alcohol. This led to my becoming an administrator of an alternative sentencing program dedicated to finding solutions other than incarceration for drug related offenses. I coined a phrase – providing reasons and resources to reduce recidivism. Finding a path to long-term recovery, for others and myself, has provided huge recovery dividends. I saw so much evidence that recovery healed families; it made a profound and lasting impression. I found myself to be a sort of “recovery ambassador. “

I hate the words. Enable. Enabler. Enabling. “He wouldn’t be in so much trouble if his parents didn’t enable him.” “She’s an enabler.” “I feel…

Most of us have become familiar with the concept of modern technology as a “double-edged sword”. Although we find many wonderful benefits in possessing a smart phone, tablet, computers of various forms, or gaming devices, we also have come to recognize there are drawbacks, limitations, and even concerns of various forms of “addiction” lurking in the shadows for those who may find themselves “over-indulging”.

William White’s 2006 work The Rhetoric of Recovery Advocacy: An Essay on the Power of Language is a powerful paper that suggests an essential focus for our recovery community work. He analyses the impact of the language that we apply to ourselves and that has been assigned to us by others.

Language helps to define us to ourselves, and shapes how others define us. Social policies and laws that are influenced by public perception are a result.

It is with great pleasure that Faces & Voices of Recovery announces the hiring of Patty McCarthy Metcalf as our new Executive Director. A long time Faces & Voices board member, Ms. McCarthy Metcalf is well known in recovery circles and widely respected nationwide as an advocate and recovery community leader. With intimate knowledge of the key aspects of our operation she can step in and immediately meet the day to day leadership needs at Faces & Voices.

I have written a good deal about the harmful effects of money on social movements – particularly about how recovery advocacy movements can be harmed…

Five organizations have received full accreditation status for their peer recovery support services programs from the Council on Accreditation of Peer Recovery Support Services (CAPRSS).

In its first-ever round of awards, CAPRSS accredited the Association of Persons Affected by Addiction (Dallas, TX); McShin Foundation (Richmond, VA); Minnesota Recovery Connection (Minneapolis, MN); PRO-ACT, a program of the Southeast Council of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA); and Stairway to Recovery, a program of Latino Health Institute (Brockton, MA).