Guest MINDSETTER™ Bilotta: Educating the Community is the Key to Combating Addiction

Wednesday, September 07, 2016

Guest MINDSETTER™ Joanne Bilotta, The Journey to Hope

A recent spike in overdoses in Rhode Island drives home the fact that while we are making some progress, there is much more we must all do, if we are going to stop the epidemic of addiction that plagues our state and the rest of the nation. In my view, as someone who works on the frontlines of our addiction crisis as part of a substance abuse treatment center, essential components of the solution are educating the whole community and generating more widespread community involvement.

Recognizing this fact, we at The Journey to Hope, Health and Healing are joining forces with Westerly Hospital and Westerly Public Schools in organizing and sponsoring a community forum on addiction.

The goal of the forum is to arm parents, first responders and community members with the information needed to recognize signs of addiction as well as to prevent teenagers from becoming addicted in the first place.

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Gaining a real understanding of the sources of addiction will have the added benefit of reducing stigma—which sometimes prevents people from seeking the treatment they need. We must all learn that addiction is a brain disease and that people struggling with addiction should be treated with the same dignity as people with diabetes or recovering from a heart attack.

Towards that end, Dr. Ruth Potee, an expert in adolescent and adult addiction, will share the latest information on the developing teenage brain and its impact on risk taking, identifying the signs of drug use and addiction, treating addiction as a brain disease and treatment options available, and providing practical advice for how to use this information to safeguard our youth and community. Representatives from local community support agencies will be available at the event to answer questions and provide information about community resources.

The forum will be held on Thursday, September 8 from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. in the hospital’s Henry J. Nardone Conference Center. Attendees will have a chance to enter a raffle prizes drawing, that includes an autographed Gronk Jersey and Taylor Swift photo.Light refreshments will be provided. Phoenix House is providing the prizes and contributing the refreshments. Working with YourRide Transporter Service, The Journey to Hope, Health, and Healing will provide free transportation to the event for those who need it. To arrange for a ride, please call 401-596-0969.

Based on the feedback we receive about this community forum, we plan to refine the model and organize these kinds of forums in more Rhode Island cities and towns. Stopping this epidemic of addiction begins with all of us getting educated.

Joanne Bilotta is Director of Business Development and Outreach at The Journey to Hope, Health, Healing, which provides substance abuse counseling and mediation assisted treatment at clinics in Johnston, Providence and Westerly For more information, visit www.TheJourneyHHH.com.

Related Slideshow: #50 to #1: Doctors in RI with the Most Medicare Prescription Claims

The following information was found on ProPublica, which performs investigative journalism for the sake of the public interest.

The doctors listed here self-identified internal medicine as their primary specialty, and are sorted from the lowest amount of Medicare prescription claims filled in 2013 (the latest data year available) to the highest amount of Medicare prescription claims filled during that time frame.

Guest MINDSETTER™ Bilotta: Educating the Community is the Key to Combating Addiction

Related Slideshow: #50 to #1: Doctors in RI with the Most Medicare Prescription Claims

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