There has been a significant upward trend in funding for nonprofit companies in the U.S. according to the Harvard Business Review. Non-profits, the Business Review says, have become America's biggest employer. There are almost one million non-profit organizations in the social sector, and donors, polls reveal, want to elevate the game beyond simply funding homeless shelters and food pantries. They want to end homelessness, hunger and drug addiction. Too ambitious? Perhaps, but … [Read more...]

                Is it odd, or is it God? You are sitting at your desk trying to balance your checkbook and discover there is $2,000 missing. You panic and call the bank in a rage which becomes elevated when the automated system ignores your loud entreaties. You retaliate by tricking the system into thinking you want to open a new account and once you have a live operator you demand an immediate audience with a real person at the … [Read more...]

                North Dakota first lady Kathryn Helgaas Burgum, 55, wife of Republican Governor Doug Burgum sometimes weeps when she talks about her recovery from alcohol addiction, a journey that began more than 16 years ago. "The emotion,” she says, “just comes through because I am so grateful.” Before their marriage in December, 2016, shortly before her husband took office, Kathryn worked for various companies as a … [Read more...]

                    The late Dr. Conway Hunter used to sponsor an annual, four-day Thanksgiving retreat at St. Simons Island off the Georgia coast for people in recovery from substance addictions, mainly alcohol. In November of 1990, I joined a contingent from Little Rock led by the late Dr. Don Browning and his wife, Joanne, to the retreat. I was about ten years sober, and felt in need of a spiritual jolt. A … [Read more...]

America’s growing opioid epidemic and untreated mental illness are having a devastating impact on communities nationwide. Nearly 10 million adults, research shows, have serious mental illness, and 20 million have a substance use disorder. Drug overdoses alone now top annual death rates from car crashes and gun violence. Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), formed in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, a year after the failed prohibition experiment, has been a huge success and provides a sturdy foundation as far … [Read more...]