Shortly before 9am on Wednesday, September 1, 2010, Foundation for Recovery staff gathered at the Las Vegas City Hall on the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Stewart Avenue. The building exemplifies 1960’s modernist architecture. As Foundation staff (Chairman Stuart Smith, Executive Director Jeff Horn, Development Director Christal Krehnovi, Operations Manager Megan Smith, Archivist Caitlin Baumford, Special Events Coordinator Gwen Bowen, Development Coordinator Casey Fry, Community Activities Assistant Fred Booher, and Community Activities Coordinator Brian Mendiola) entered the City Council Chambers we were all excited to be kicking off National Recovery Month by receiving a proclamation from the City Council.

Anyone who doubts the impact of twelve-step recovery on our society need only look as far as the 2007 Newberry Medal winner, The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron.  The guidance of the program originally developed by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous has become such a pervasive part of our culture that it even plays an important role in what was voted by the American Library Association as the best children’s book of 2007, now available for purchase at the Foundation for Recovery Store.

Seventy-five years since the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous, many of the basic principles of 12 Step programs are well-known throughout American social and popular culture. One of the most recognizable aspects of 12 Step programs is the complete abstinence from alcohol and other drugs when in recovery from chemical addiction. It may come as a surprise to learn, then, that various intoxicating substances historically were often used in the medical community to treat addictions to other substances. Even Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, bought into this theory, prescribing cocaine as a treatment for his morphine-addicted patients, ultimately becoming a cocaine addict himself.

Sunday, July 11th marked the 50th anniversary of the publication of Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Told from the viewpoint of six-year-old Scout Finch, the novel tells the story of Scout, her brother, Jem, and their lawyer father, Atticus, as they deal with the reactions of their neighbors in Maycomb, Alabama to Atticus’s defense of Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman. While most people recall the book as an examination of racism in 1930s Alabama, the novel’s compassionate view of addiction and recovery is often overlooked.

There are half dozen articles on Ozzie`s  DNA on Google.  At first I thought it was a waste and pathetic and only reinforced the negative stigma of addiction.  But after rolling it around for awhile, I find the whole thing interesting, entertaining and am really curious to know what the outcome will be......and if this information will be published.