| Sharon Dembinski |
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| #1 |
Hi Bill!
Thanks so much for your wonderful book! Your written words are as inspiring as your spoken words. I have had the privilege of hearing you speak at several events.
One thing that concerns me is that advocates for MAT, specifically methadone advocates, can't seem to get their organizations to work together collaboratively. They seem to fight for top position and waste their energy on that fight rather than fighting for pts and propelling the movement forward. I believe they (we) could be so much more effective if we could work together toward a common goal.
Methadone pts are, in my opinion the most stigmatized group of recovering people and really need a strong advocacy group or coalition of groups working for them.
Any ideas??
Thank you for all you do!
Sharon Dembinski, RNP, CMA
Discovery House
Methadone Support Org
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| Bill White |
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| #2 |
Hi Sharon,
As you suggest, the stigma attached to methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) has been particularly intense for MMT clients, their families and those working in MMT programs. This stigma has pervaded the the larger culture and even treatment and recovery communities. One of the unique aspects of the new recovery advocacy movement is its open embrace of multiple pathways of recovery, including medication-assisted recovery. The intensity of the stigma attached to methadone has made it difficult to initiate and sustain an advocacy campaign focused on this issue, but we are beginning to make some progress as we get powerful voices like that of Lisa Mojer Torres (See her interview elsewhere on this site). As difficult as it can be to develop strong local recovery advocacy organizations, it is even more difficult to develop and sustain strong organizations focused on the legitimacy of medication-assisted recovery.
I think we will see the strengthening of existing organizations or new organizations as a pioneering generation of individuals and families step forward to put faces and personal stories on medication-assisted--and methadone-assisted--recovery. A second factor that will help this will be the development of very recovery-focused models of medication-assisted recovery as are being developed in New York City and Philadelphia. There is a hidden world of methadone maintenance that few outside MMT clinics see--individuals for whom other treatments did not work whose lives have been positively transformed by MMT and who live very full productive lives. The lives reflected in these untold recovery stories will be invisible to the mainstream culture and to treatment and recovery communities until a vanguard of individuals cast off what some have called "their dirty little secret" and publicly declares the role methadone has played in their recovery. When the time is right, many will be called to this role, and we as a larger movement need to be prepared to support them.
Bill White
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| Carol Sholiton |
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| #3 |
Hi, Sharon and Bill.....what a great resource this forum is!
My name is Carol Sholiton and I am the founder and director of Methadone Support Org. (MSO)...one of the non-profit advocacy organizations of which you speak. MSO is pretty much the "new kid" on the block.....have been in existance for a little over 3 years, but worked in the methadone and hcv community for maaaaany years.
I have been bending over backwards to try and work with the other advocacy groups.....but it ain't easy, lol. However.....recently 3 of the larger groups.....MSO included...met in DC to work on making a new ROSC guide to be used in all of the OPT settings. Soooo....at least it's a start! We are all also in a group called PSCEP (Patient Support and Community Education Project).....under SAMHSA/CSAT ( http://dpt.samhsa.gov/patients/pscep/ 
Right now more than ever it's IMPERATIVE that the advocacy groups get together with ALL of their members in tow...to fight the stigma generating from the outer fringe groups....the "Methadone haters" that are spewing half truths, exaggerations and down right lies about what MAT is all about.
Thanks to both of you for all you do!......Carol
__________________________________ CAROL SHOLITON Founder/Director Methadone Support Org. Or Our Mirror Site...... |
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| Bill White |
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| #4 |
Hi Carol,
I wish you the very best in these efforts. I think we will see great progress in the next few years related to advocacy of medication assisted recovery. Do keep us posted on future activities of MSO.
Bill White
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| Melissa Wann |
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| #5 |
Hi Guys....
Thanks for bringing that up Sharon and Carol. I have one question, and this goes to Bill. Bill, What do you think of being able to be a "Certified Methadone Advocate?" Yes.....taking the course is imperative if you do not know anything at all about advocacy yet. However, this is where 'I" seem to see where all the groups are not working together. NAMA is the only Organization that has this event, an all day course on becoming a CMA for 100 dollars and the event (course) is ONLY held at the AATOD conference every 18 months, and the AATOD conference is not even plausible for some 1 1/2 yrs when it comes around again.... but I get to the conference the day "of" the course and after teh course has already begun and almost over. Sometimes when I arrive it is over completely...and so I am always too late to register and get into the class....or too tired if I try to fly early that morning to make an 8am to 5pm course.
What I am getting at & I apologize for the rambling, is...."Do you find it a necessity to become a CMA" Bill? And, if so, do you have any ideas you can suggest to me that I can bring to the boards of the "Four Main MMT Advocacy Org.'s" so that necessarily need to be cheaper, although cheaper is always good...but easier to get to & therefore making it easier to learn the skills needed to be an affective Methadone Advocate?
Thanks in advance for any suggestions Bill.
Sincerely.......~Melissa
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| Melissa Wann |
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| #6 |
I am sorry, part of my main sentence got wiped out of that last post in the last paragraph and I do not see an edit button anywhere so I hope you were able to understand what I was asking Bill. Oops. Thanks......~Melissa |
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