Sep 25, 2020 5 min read

out of lemonade Preston Robinson – A Cut Above We’re we basically were very overwhelmed that he took that on, preston is a realy great kid, his grandmothers has done a great ojob of helping him and heflsf overcoming losing a child to addiction.

Duaghter got out of rehab, went to a hotel,never came back. Rhonda is stuggling but she’e certnainly nel[ing preston, Harmony was formed in 2017. She died i in 2017 and wasn’t compelted yet. 

Seh and i are stragiting a support center at Harmony, small, overdose is happening, hpapening at greater rate than it has before. Anecdoatally, from center, obituaries of young people veryday, overdose and suicides. Westomroeland county has a websie thtat is point in time, up until today. Wash Co. People have asked me that, the two reporters, had a long talk with ashley bishop about rate and what we’re seeing, swept under the carpet,

Not seeing anything about the addiction

It’ws the iolsation, for wppoeplw ieht meental health an dadiciton, AAmeetings, church, whatever you choose to get through addictiona is all about beieng around other people, face to face contatict poeple need to get through porblems is not availabale at htt his time. People have phones wit h data or braodband, people who hve $ to buy wi fi, people went to sheetz to use wifi, virtual appointments are wondeful for people that can afford it, but my concern is, as we developm more prorams at harmon i sthis is going on for a while, how doe we reach wpeople without acess to techonoloyg, people are losing jobs, service industry, unfortuanatly, a lot of those popel are in recover and have mental health issue, unemployement rate, there are jobs out there, the system set it up yo can get extra $on unemployment, so instread of getting a job, they’re not working. Families even if you had support with families, they’re struggling with covid, person with mental healhs issues is tourgh.

We have to take care of ourselves as caregivers, sturggle not being out with friends and framily, it’s not ideal , people

The help is different – family doctor is virutal, they’re not seeing people, people are afraid to go to the hospital because of COVID, person refusused to go to ER for addiction. The system is working on mobile detoxing, where someone styas in touch with you on a daily basis.

We have done the Zoom meetings, it’s on our website, virtual meetings all the time, we actualy had noon vitrual meetings, got into the NA national calendar, we had 2 people from austrialia one day and 2 from england one day. People taking advantage of it. That’s very big in the recovery community but you have to have the technology.

Biggest challenge is governor guidelines kieep changing, we have our downstaris, we can hold probably 60 people, we’re now under 25 gathering limit, had to split up meetings, some meeting goes outside, we have to follow 25 and social distane,e

Masks have been an issue, the meetings pay us rent through donations we get, we are all volunteer staff, we don’t have people tehre all the time, we’ve put up signs and have them sign waiver statements, we have to protectur ourselves since we’re non-profit.

50%of our board members are in recover, they’re fighting for people to be able to come to meetings, that’s what keeps them clean and sober sometimes, being in recover.

Going through strategic pannling , got grant from Stoughton, how do we contineue to provide services to everyone who needs them? We’re going to have to change the way we do busienss, how do we continue to offer serivces to everobydwho needs it.

We’re going to figure out a way to virutally help with job searches, reachign out to community resource to hlep us reach out to people to makes sure they have what they need, social determinants.

Right now we have 12 board members, we have a coordinator in recovery that omes there no a daily basis, we have 13 there, then we have voutneers thwo help clean and other thigns, 25 actual volutnerrs help with facility and program.

I’m just in awe, that i became invovled in Nov., became repesident in Jan., Justin is one of our board members, Quicken loans he works for, we got

accepted, were in national fundraiser competition, rasied the most money, achieved 3 of the bonues, we’ve raised more than $40,000 in month of Aug, uvoerehwlemed by the poepole who help us to do what we do. PReston 1,100 he raised. We didn’t think we’d get that, overwhelming response from failies who lsot children or are struggling with faminy member in addiction.or people in recocvery.

Rhonda put in the obituary that her daughter died of addiction, one of the first to do that.

There was an overabunace of fentanol, so meht is being cut with fentanol, narcan is still very important, and for people using others than opioids, fentanol is being used to cut other drugs. Latest deaths in washignton are fentanol, it’s out there .

Rehabs are closing acrpss the country becasue they’re scared of COVID. It’s a very very tough time for people with additciont and looking for treatment. At ;east on a virtual call you can see someone, on phone its’ hard to connect.

Gotta go to the nnext step and see indivicudally what people need in addiction and recovery, it’s not cookie-cutter.

Problem – in walmart at 2 p.m., what kind of therapy can i do with you at walmart, treatmen centers can’t bill. What are the We’ve decided to go through strategic planning process so we are all on the same page, we’ve got some money to work with now and want to make sure we are reacing popele and meeting people where they’re at.