The Council on Recovery Responds to Disaster, Offers Counseling Help to Those Affected by the Storm

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The Council on Recovery is open and providing immediate help to people with addiction and mental health disorders who have been affected by #TropicalStormHarvey. Counseling is available now at our main facility, 303 Jackson Hill Street, Houston, 77007. Call 713.942.4100.

The Council has also deployed teams of social workers and counselors to shelters throughout the area to assist those in need.

The Council is open for all regularly scheduled 12-Step meetings. Check the Meeting Schedule. We are also making space available to 12-step groups that may have been displaced by the storm. Contact venue@councilonrecovery.org or call 281.200.9335.

The Power of Opioid Addiction: Even Overdosing Doesn’t Deter Subsequent Use

Oioid Heroin 2A five-year study  by the University of Pittsburgh on opioid use before and after an overdose reported that the “brush with death” did little to reduce continued use of either prescription opioids or heroin. The research also indicated that, despite receiving medical attention, those who had overdosed continued to have high opioid use, signaling a weak response by the healthcare system to the problem.

The report published in the JAMA Research Letter found that intervention has been shown to reduce overdose risk, but that potential intervention opportunities represented by overdoses are often underutilized. The research letter found evidence of similar under-utilization among Medicaid patients, who are three times as likely as their commercially-insured counterparts to have an overdose in the first place.

Statistics reveal that for every fatal opioid overdose, there are approximately 30 nonfatal overdoses. The Council on Recovery offers intervention and treatment options to people struggling with opioid addiction, as well as the co-occurring mental health disorders that often accompany addiction. The Council offers clinical assessments and referrals to the most effective treatment options, including Healing Choices, our intensive outpatient treatment program. Call 713.942.4100 for more information or contact us online.

New Study Shows Increase in Alcohol Use & High Risk Drinking is a Public Health Crisis

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A new study published by the Journal of the American Medical Association, (JAMA Psychiatry), shows that increases in alcohol use and high-risk drinking, especially among women, older adults, racial/ethnic minorities, and the socioeconomically disadvantaged, now constitute a public health crisis. Continue reading “New Study Shows Increase in Alcohol Use & High Risk Drinking is a Public Health Crisis” →

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 12

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 12 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

The Star Wars series, now in its 7th rendition of prequels, base story, and sequels, talks of a series of fictional cosmos-wide struggles between the forces of good and evil.  The base story portrays how the Galactic Empire ruled by Emperor Palpatine, is building a Death Star which can destroy entire planets. It is this Death Star which Palpatine intends to use to crush the Rebel Alliance seeking to overthrow the oppressive Empire.  A core element of the story is the idea of a powerful energy, a Force, underlying the totality of all things.  Key warriors in this cosmic struggle, called Jedi, supporting the Rebel Alliance, have the ability to tap into the Force and use it for good purposes to serve the people of the cosmos.  But others, warriors in service to the Emperor, have migrated over to a Dark Side of the Force and are using it to advance the power of the Empire.

It is eerie how this idea of a “Force,” with a good and dark side, could be used to describe the spiritual, psychical elements of addiction and recovery that we struggle to understand in our pursuit of recovery. Continue reading “The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 12” →

Council’s “Back to School” CEU Workshop for Teachers, Counselors, and Parents to Focus on Vaping, Pornography, Teen Trauma, & Tech Addiction

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The Council on Recovery is sponsoring its 6th annual Back to School CEU Workshop on Friday, August 11, 2017, 8:00 A.M. to 4:30 P.M. in the Hamill Foundation Conference Center, 303 Jackson Hill Street, on The Council’s main campus. The yearly workshop brings together experts in adolescent high-risk behavior, substance abuse, addiction, and co-occurring mental health disorders to teach counselors, teachers, and parents how to help teenagers deal with these problems.

The always well-attended Back to School Workshop will cover a full spectrum of the most prevalent and serious issues facing adolescents today. Topics to be explored in-depth include:

Continue reading “Council’s “Back to School” CEU Workshop for Teachers, Counselors, and Parents to Focus on Vaping, Pornography, Teen Trauma, & Tech Addiction” →

The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 11

Guest Blogger and long-time Council friend, Bob W. presents Part 11 of a series dealing with Alcoholism and Addiction from a Mystical, Mythological Perspective, reflecting Bob’s scholarly work as a Ph.D. in mythological studies.

In Norse Mythology, encompassing the mythic stories of many of the ancient northern European cultures, the tales of Siegfried and Brunhilde are very present. To many of us, they are most familiar in various parts of Richard Wagner’s cycle of operas, Der Ring des Nibelungen, composed and premiered in the middle of the Nineteenth Century in Germany.  Siegfried and Brunhilde are star-crossed lovers, enduring all kinds of hardship, treachery, and misfortune in efforts to be together, only to die vaingloriously, in the end, unable to overcome the difficulties fate has put before them.   For some of our own brethren, caught in the never-ending trappings of the disease of addiction, Continue reading “The Lifelong Quest For Sobriety…The Ultimate Hero’s Journey—Part 11” →