Recovery Advocacy News, Issues & Miscellaneous Musings (Oct 2022)

9 min readOct 11, 2022

This was originally published for Hazelden Betty Ford’s monthly Recovery Advocacy Update. If you’d like to receive our advocacy emails, subscribe today.

Curation with occasional commentary by Jeremiah Gardner

🔊 LISTEN: On the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Betty Ford Center in California, Vic Vela of Colorado Public Radio — in a Here & Now episode distributed across the U.S. by NPR — took a look at Betty Ford’s enduring legacy as the First Lady of Recovery. It’s a great profile on an amazing woman, whose legacy we are honored to carry forward in new ways to new generations and more families.

📕 READ: It’s not just Sober October. It’s also National Youth Substance Use Prevention Month.

📕 READ: Paolo del Vecchio, MSW, has been named director of SAMHSA’s new Office of Recovery.

🌐 BROWSE: The U.S. Department of Labor has launched a new Recovery-Ready Workplace Resource Hub.

📕 READ: The U.S. House passed the Mental Health Matters Act, which would allow the Department of Labor to levy fines for violations of the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act.

📕 READ: A short, four-year-old voice mail from President Biden to his son, who was reportedly struggling with addiction at the time, got into the hands of media. Faces & Voices of Recovery CEO Patty McCarthy says it was “a wonderful example of how to talk to your loved ones who need help.”

📕 READ: Hazelden Publishing is honored to be the selected publisher of the next edition of The ASAM Criteria, a book of standards at the center of America’s addiction treatment ecosystem.

📕 READ: Speaking of our friends at ASAM, they released new public policy statements on 1) optimizing telehealth access to addiction care, and 2) substance use and substance use disorder among pregnant and postpartum people.

📕 READ: McKinsey & Company’s work with opioid makers is well known, but its work with cigarette and vaping companies has escaped public scrutiny … until now.

📕 READ: Can a brain implant treat drug addiction? Trials in West Virginia continue, and reporter Zachary Siegel covers in depth.

📕 READ: In New Jersey, state investigators allege that some addiction treatment center operators and recovery industry employees engaged in “appalling and in certain instances potentially unlawful practices,” from over-billing insurance companies to patient brokering.

📕 READ: Even as alcohol-related deaths have soared to record highs in the last few years, alcohol taxes — shown to curb drinking at the population level — have fallen to the lowest rates in a generation. The New York Times explored this issue by looking at Oregon, where lawmakers have enacted policies that instead make it easier to drink, and where our friends at Oregon Recovers continue to lobby for a hike in alcohol taxes.

🔊 LISTEN: ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt chatted with 4x PGA Tour winner Chris Kirk about stepping away from golf to deal with alcohol and depression issues. Chris talks about when he realized he needed help, the road to recovery, and what it’s like to love the game of golf again.

📕 READ: President Biden pardoned “all current U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who committed the offense of simple possession of marijuana in violation of the Controlled Substances Act.” He also called on governors to issue similar pardons regarding state marijuana offenses and forecasted that he will ask the Department of Justice to review how marijuana is scheduled under federal law. Here’s a brief explainer of the pardon. Because the President has not announced any change in his opposition to legalizing and commercializing marijuana, some — including Smart Approaches to Marijuana founder Kevin Sabet — touted the recent moves as evidence that “we don’t have to legalize a Big Tobacco-backed industry in order to change marijuana laws.”

📕 READ: Meanwhile, in what the Chicago Sun-Times cheekily dubbed a “pot twist,” a national cannabis chain that is being sued for nearly $1 million in back rent says a federal judge can’t order it to pay up because its business isn’t even allowed to operate under federal law.

📺 WATCH: The Administration invited recovery advocates to the White House for a Recovery Month Summit. Read the recap.

📺 WATCH: Hazelden Betty Ford Trustee Susan Ford Bales talks with Nancy Brinker, founder of the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, about Betty Ford’s courageous advocacy for breast cancer awareness and addiction recovery.

📕 READ: The DEA warned recently that young people are being targeted with brightly colored ‘rainbow fentanyl.’ Some advocates and experts criticized the warning as a “War on Drugs” trope, saying drug dealers are not wasting their time on kids with no money or by giving away pills in Halloween baskets (as some speculated about online). While true, as it relates to Halloween, there is also a long history of substances — from alcohol to marijuana to cigarettes, etc. — being marketed to young people and made to look more benign than they are. Probably something to learn from both the warning and the reactions. We certainly should be wary anytime addiction-related policies and dialogue become focused on drugs — especially specific drugs — more than people.

📕 READ: It has been two years since Cracker Barrel started selling alcohol, and some customers feel that the decision is ruining the restaurant chain.

📺 WATCH: We’re so proud and fortunate to have Tessa Voss as our leader at the Betty Ford Center. Thanks to Palm Spring Life for recognizing her with a great profile and video in its new 40 Under 40 feature.

🎉 CONGRATS: This year’s America Honors Recovery award winners, presented at the Faces & Voices of Recovery summit in St. Paul, are: the Clean Cause Foundation (Innovations in Recovery); H. Westley Clark, MD (Distinguished Lifetime Achievement); Peter Hayden, PhD (Excellence in Equity & Justice); and the late Tom Hedrick, Marc Johnigan, Paul Molloy and Dillon West (all Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in memoriam).

📕 READ: Additional congrats to the winners of SAMHSA’s first-ever behavioral health Recovery Innovation Challenge.

📕 READ: Hazelden Betty Ford mental health professional Jenny Schmidt has been recognized as a Hidden Hero by the Elizabeth Dole Foundation.

🔊 LISTEN: Most hospitals don’t have addiction specialists on call, and that needs to change.

📕 READ: The NIAAA has released The Healthcare Professional’s Core Resource on Alcohol to help healthcare professionals provide evidence-based care for people who drink alcohol. Anything to help primary care get more involved in helping people with substance use disorders is fantastic.

🌐 BROWSE: The folks from Smart Approaches to Marijuana have launched a new advocacy organization that will address a broader range of issues. Check out the Foundation for Drug Policy Solutions website.

📕 READ: NIH is taking steps to support more research on peer and community-based recovery supports, active recovery communities, and recovery modalities that integrate multiple services, such as recovery residences. Expanding research on recovery is important to justify funding and, one day, insurance reimbursements for these critical services.

📕 READ: The Guardian looks at AA alternatives and asks: do they work?

📕 READ: NAATP shared its new strategic plan, Leading the Way to Recovery, that will guide the addiction treatment association’s industry service and leadership through the year 2025.

📅 SAVE THE DATE: We are grateful and excited that the third annual Grant Fuhr Celebrity Invitational golf tournament, benefitting the Betty Ford Center campus transformation, has been scheduled for May 5–6, 2023.

📕 READ: Indiana is revising its policy on treating nurses addicted to opioids after federal prosecutors determined a nurse taking a prescribed opioid was wrongfully denied access to the state’s treatment program.

📕 READ: Accessing behavioral health care can be tough enough, but when the options listed in insurance directors include “phantom providers” that aren’t actually available to provide services, the frustration and potential consequences mount even more.

📕 READ: A new Addiction Policy Scholars Program launched during National Recovery Month with a three-day event in Washington, D.C.

📕 READ: We recently said goodbye to Tim Sheehan, PhD, a longtime clinical leader and mentor who guided the transformation of Hazelden’s pioneering addiction counselor training program into an accredited graduate school many years ago and whose legacy will live on for generations in therapeutic spaces around the world.

📺 WATCH: To kick off National Recovery Month, three nonprofits hosted an online screening and discussion of the new film, The Creative High, whose director Adriana Marchione we previously profiled. Watch the discussion.

🔊 LISTEN: With the news of the passing of five-time Major League All-Star Maury Wills, our friend Neil Scott went back into his “Recovery Coast to Coast” archives to share an in-depth interview with Maury, who called recovery from addiction his “greatest success.” We also enjoyed returning to the Betty Ford Center Awareness Hour archives to hear Maury in a talk he entitled “Stealing Back My Life.”

🌐 BROWSE: Hazelden Betty Ford is now offering a free program for Native American families affected by addiction.

📕 READ: In this Friday Flashback, our friend Farhia Budul writes about providing culturally responsive recovery support and advocacy in Minnesota’s East African immigrant, refugee and Muslim community.

📕 READ: Happy 25th anniversary to Hazelden Betty Ford in Chicago!