Oregon Recognizes September as Recovery Month

Friday, August 29, 2014

Shelby Sebens, GoLocalPDX Reporter

Recovery Month

September is Recovery Month, a recognition of treatment and prevention of addiction.

September is the month to focus on treatment and recovery from drug and alcohol abuse.

This will be the 25th year for National Recovery Month, a time to focus on the benefits of treatment and prevention.

"Recovery is about mental, emotional and spiritual healing,” said Ray Brown, Program Manager of Outreach and Accessing Success at Relief Nursery in Eugene, on the Oregon Health Authority’s website.

Brown got his job with Relief Nursery after recovering from his own addiction struggles with weed, alcohol and methemphetamines.

“I wanted to be dead a few times,” he said on the site. “It was pretty intense times. I remember waking up in a booth of the bar and thinking I’ll never see my kids grow up,” Brown says. “I was 30 years old and living in a bar. Nobody wanted anything to do with me.”

Brown received treatment at Willamette Family Treatment Services and has since recovered and made his way up the ranks at Relief Nursery.

This year’s theme for Recovery Month is “Join the Voices for Recovery: Speak Up, Reach Out.” It encourages people to openly speak up about mental and substance use disorders and the reality of recovery, and promotes ways individuals can use to recognize behavioral health issues and reach out for help, according to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Services Administration. SAMHSA describes recovery month as “a national observance that educates Americans on the fact that addiction treatment and mental health services can enable those with a mental and/or substance use disorder to live a healthy and rewarding life.”

Multnomah County estimated in its proclamation recognizing the recovery month last year that 50,000 or 9 percent of county residents suffer from substance abuse problems.