Sobriety for sale. Easy terms

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Let’s begin marketing sobriety.

I mean as a nation, a leader of the free world, let’s face the facts.

Drug abuse is killing us, literally, and we need to stop it, grow up and get sober.

When you think about it, sobriety is a great product—it lengthens lives, helps restore families, saves money, and adds friends.

If you are living sober, the odds are that you will keep your job, your family and your friends and be better able to handle adversities that will inevitably intrude. And it’s “one day at a time.” Don’t underestimate the power of that simple phrase.

As a nation, we’ve been knocking ourselves out trying to reduce the supply of drugs—a difficult assignment—when we should be focusing on reducing the demand and promoting the many benefits of drug free living.

The Federal government should help individual communities deal with the problem as their main contribution to recovery.

Case in point, as a first step in ratcheting up his Food and Drug Administration’s role in confronting the opiode drug problem, Scott Gottlieb announced in this morning’s paper the creation of an “Opioid Steering Committee” made up of senior FDA officials to develop new strategies for confronting the epidemic.

 

An Opioid Steering Committee? Yikes!

With all due respect, we don’t need more federal programs to solve the drug problem, we need individual communities to become more active in confronting the problem at the grass roots with some financial support from the feds.

We have a lot going for us. We Americans tend to be entrepreneurs, impatient with those who tell us we can’t do something and eager to try out our own ideas. So when drugs intrude, let’s take advantage of our genes.

The Harvard Business School’s book, “Entrepreneur’s Tool kit,” defines an entrepreneur as someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it.”

Further enlightenment comes from Author Peter Drucker who once wrote, “The non profit institution neither supplies goods nor services [like a business] nor controls [like government]. Its product is neither a pair of shoes nor an effective regulation. Its product is a changed human being.

            Our mission at our non-profit company, One Day at a Time, is to change the lives of those who are addicted to alcohol and other drugs by selling them sobriety. Our main audience is Little Rock, Arkansas.

We can knock ourselves out trying to interrupt the supply of drugs, and while those efforts should be continued at some government level, they won’t do much to reduce the demand.

Think about Alcoholics Anonymous. It was founded more than 80 years ago in Akron, Ohio by two barely functioning drunks: Bill Wilson, a stockbroker and Dr. Bob Smith, a physician. In effect, they invented a way for drug addicts to get well. No charge but with small donations encouraged for those able to contribute.

Shortly after, Lois Wilson, Bill’s wife, formed Al Anon, a vital program for the spouses and children of alcoholics.

Today these two programs—AA and Alanon–are available world wide. They are free, faith-based and they work. Millions have sobered up because of AA. But we need to do more.

Individual churches, until recently, have been late in their response to the recovery need, and other Christian organizations like the Salvation Army and Union rescue missions and more recently, Teen Challenge, have responded to the need.

Now we have Evangelical Christian churches responding. Think of the creation of the Celebrate Recovery program 25 years ago at California’s Saddleback church and the rapid rise and the many contributions of Fellowship Bible Church in Little Rock including pastor Robert Lewis’s founding of the international Men’s Fraternity ministry.

So let us re-imagine recovery from addictions as Bernie Marcus, founder of Home Depot re-imagined American home improvement in the seventies or as Sam Walton re-imagined retail sales of just about everything.

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The Little Rock “Roundtable” recovery plan

 

            Our proposal is to help create a Christian faith-based organization that will mobilize the substantial assets of our community in a freedom from drugs initiative. We have named it “The Roundtable,” evoking, as it does, positive feelings of compassion, steadfastness, courage, honor, chivalry and nobility.

Members of our proposed “Little Rock Roundtable” will represent Christian churches, hospitals, schools, businesses, prison systems, veterans groups, lawyers, legislators and others. Some will be in recovery themselves.

We have also been influenced by Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” and by the extraordinarily positive response of communities, including my hometown of Summit, N.J. to the challenges of World War II.

            Members of the Roundtable, as we envision it, will be men and women of faith with a special interest in helping people overcome their addictions to alcohol and other drugs.

Community assets and focus

            Little Rock’s assets include excellent hospitals (dealing with both mental health and drug addiction problems), community-focused and entrepreneurial churches, traditional 12 step programs and a history of proactively dealing with addictions dating back to 1940. The plan is focused on:

1. Reducing the demand for alcohol and other drugs by promoting recovery while maintaining adequate law enforcement protection to limit the supply.
2. Forming collaborations with organizations with complementary objectives such as the Christian-based City Connections,
3. Promoting healthy lifestyles in spirit, mind and body,
4. Encouraging the interest and support of the current Arkansas administration, which has challenged the state to respond more proactively to the drug problem.

            Ultimate healing, we believe, comes from God. Our role in the process at ODAT is to provide information and encouragement through our website, books and social media with six specific needs in mind. The need for:

 

1. Mental health evaluation: People who have depression, anxiety, attention deficit disorder and other mental health issues often try to treat them with alcohol and illegal drugs. Candidates for recovery must be tested for these mental health issues and, where indicated, be referred to doctors for treatment.
2. Addiction treatment: Recovery from addictions requires abstinence and a change in life style. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), founded ninety years ago, is the model and is available around the world and free. Its program is spiritually based and a big part of the benefit is the relationships it promotes. Treatment facilities, an option, provide more structure for recovery, but they can be costly.
3. Christian resources: there are more than 2 billion Christians in the world. Many churches today, mainly protestant, are becoming more proactive and entrepreneurial in addressing the addiction problem.
4. Physical fitness: alcoholics and other alcoholics are usually in poor shape physically and should include an exercise plan in their recovery program. When done with others at gyms or in running, cycling, tennis and skiing clubs, it becomes especially effective because of the personal interactions. I trained for and ran in two marathons—New York and Dallas- and numerous 10 k’s and 5 k’s. I also work out at the Little Rock Athletic Club for an hour and a half at least five days a week.
5. Employment: a major obstacle to recovery and growth is the lack of a job. We want to help churches and others respond to this need.
6. Families and friends: Relationships are a casualty of alcoholism and other addictions and must be dealt with. Reputable treatment facilities usually involve family members in the recovery process. Al-anon meetings are widely available and effective.