Community Drug Addiction Program- Kick-Off

Posted by Susan Gajewski 
on Oct 14, 2015
 
This week we had a presentation on the drug overdose issue. Jim G. opened the discussion with a personal account of how this issue has impacted him over the years. He has a passion to make a change with addicts. And he explained how you never know where an addict comes from – all family types are affected by this overdose issue. There is often a vicious cycle of rehab, then back home, then back to rehab, and so on.
 
Jim told us a story about a Saco resident who was a teen in the 70’s, had to raise all his siblings, experienced many deaths in the family, used lots of alcohol and drugs on a daily basis, lost many friends to addiction but is alive today because having a job and going to work saved this person. Education and mentoring made a difference in this person’s life. Let’s work together to make job readiness available today. Thank you to Jim for sharing this very personal story with us.
 
Andy G. explained that we need to decide as a club where we want to focus our time and resources on the drug abuse issue. He told us about the three levels of prevention:
 
  1. Primary – initiatives focused on the community as a whole, the general population.
  2. Secondary – initiatives focused on an at risk population.
  3. Tertiary – initiatives focused on people and groups already working with addicts and families of addicts.
 
Many Rotarians wanted to share their stories about what addiction means to them but Andy asked us to hold off on those for now so we could move on to figuring out where our club wants to go regarding drug abuse.
 
Andy asked everyone to write what we think our club should focus on and then place our sticky notes on the proper poster for primary, secondary or tertiary. We all took time to do this and Andy will compile all our thoughts for discussion next week.
 
Bill suggested we develop and ad hoc committee to work on these ideas. Thirteen Rotarians volunteered for this committee: Andy G., Mark T., Jim A., Heather M., Karen, Keith, Joe, Bernice, Paul, Jim G., Jeremy, Fausto and Bill.