Our Winter 2016 newsletter is online

The Winter 2016 edition of Odyssey House News is now available online. Read about our newest supportive housing building, client success stories, grant renewals, and more. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook wall. Click here to read it (pdf). If you'd like to receive a copy in the mail, please email your contact information to info(at)odysseyhouseinc.org.

Deaths and broken lives from drug overdoses

In today's edition of The New York Times, Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provetcomments on a recent article ("Drug Overdoses Propel Rise in Mortality Rates of Whites," front page, Jan. 17) on the rising death rates for young white adults, driven by the opioid epidemic.

Deaths and Broken Lives from Drug Overdoses To the Editor:   The dramatic increase in drug overdose deaths is not new to drug treatment. For several years treatment providers have been racing to save the lives of young Americans addicted to opioids as what started as a surge in prescription drug abuse morphed into a full-blown opioid epidemic. It is also not news that intensive residential and outpatient treatment services are in short supply, and what resources are available in many parts of the country are often prohibitively expensive for the vulnerable populations who need them the most. That today's vulnerable addicts now include growing numbers of young white Americans highlights the tragedy of opioid addiction as a great equalizer. Decades of experience treating young people from inner-city communities ravaged by drugs has shown us that recovery is a multistep, time-consuming process that, for the fortunate ones who are helped quickly enough, starts with overdose-prevention injections and detox, and continues with medically assisted treatment, behavior therapy and continuing community-based support. Anything less just doesn't work and is merely a Band-Aid that will inevitably lead to the loss of more young lives - tragically, lives we know how to save.   PETER PROVET President and Chief Executive Odyssey House

The year ahead

Experts' Contributions: “Hopes and Fears” 2016

Leaders in the field of drug treatment share their predictions for 2016 and the challenges ahead. See Dr. Provet’s below. Click here for the full report.

         

The escalating opioid epidemic among middle-class Americans drew unusual attention last year to our field across a wide public sphere of elected officials, leaders of medical and scientific communities, members of criminal justice and law enforcement agencies, and the mainstream media.

While this attention is welcome, we need to make sure the urgent need for treatment is reflected in the stabilization and expansion of services for vulnerable populations. As states (including New York, with high-need, disadvantaged populations) look to contain costs under Medicaid managed care, we must work hard to ensure that the federal block grant is maintained, the IMD [Institutions for Mental Diseases] exclusion is eliminated and parity under the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is fully enforced. Without these essential provisions built in to federal and state budgets and policies, nonprofit organizations that provide the bulk of safety net services will find it harder and harder to meet the increased demands for care.

At Odyssey House, we have been preparing for the impact of managed care for quite some time and have established new systems to both contain costs and streamline care. These include: electronic health record keeping and linkages with hospital and other community-based providers; evidence-based practices and medication-assisted treatment; and extended outpatient and housing support services.

My hope as we look to 2016 is that we will not only continue to provide quality care for disadvantaged substance abusers (who often require intensive residential services in order to have a chance at achieving and maintaining a functional life), but that their needs will be reflected in the ongoing national debate on how best to treat addiction and its accompanying social ills.

Peter Provet, Ph.D.

President & Chief Executive Officer

Our Summer 2015 newsletter is now available!

The Summer 2015 edition of Odyssey House News is now available online. Read about our renovated medical clinic, latest art show, new services and more. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook wall. Click here to read it (pdf). If you'd like to receive a copy in the mail, please email your contact information to info(at)odysseyhouseinc.org.

And don't forget to join us on September 19th for our 10th Annual Run for Your Life celebration!

"Housing & recovery are joined at the hip"

In today's edition of The New York Times, Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provet comments on a recent article examining New York City's response to an earlier investigative report (A Choice for Recovering Addicts: Relapse or Homelessness, May 30, 2015) on the deplorable conditions of three-quarter homes. 

 

Housing for Addicts

To the Editor:

Your investigative report on "three-quarter" homes (front page, Aug. 3) exposes flaws in a system that places vulnerable people with substance abuse and/or mental disorders in living situations with providers who at best do nothing to support their recovery, and at worst propel them toward drug use and chaos through crowded, substandard living conditions.

It is troubling to all of us who provide treatment services that people who leave our programs with the tools to live sober and independent lives are just one bad placement away from falling back into addiction. But the fact is that housing and recovery are joined at the hip.

Within long-term recovery, however, stable housing is necessary but not sufficient. Quality outpatient and recovery services are essential to maintaining successes achieved in what can otherwise devolve into a chronic relapsing disorder. That some corrupt providers may exist should not obscure the fact that hundreds of others offer critical community-based services that allow thousands in recovery to flourish.

PETER PROVET

President and Chief Executive

Odyssey House

New York, April 3, 2014

Recovery and the holidays

This article by Dr. Peter Provet, president and CEO of Odyssey House, originally appeared as a guest post on the Office of National Drug Control Policy's "Pushing Back" blog in 2009.

For individuals with substance use disorders, the Holiday Season brings ambivalent feelings, at best. Memories of past disappointment, pain, and emptiness – and the self-destructive attempts at self-medicating them – are close at hand. Anger towards others and guilt for one’s own failures drive the addict to try to forget. The “party,” followed by subsequent “runs” and “binges,” are largely the addict’s attempt to forget, to erase a painful past, while pretending that momentary intoxication will cure years of emotional and physical suffering.

Like so many psychological defenses, however, “forgetting” the past – sweeping it under the rug – is ineffective. Without insight, resolution, and closure, the addict’s destiny is to repeat: to repeat patterns of maladaptive behaviors fueled by wish fulfillment and the press for instant gratification.

The addict in treatment learns and relearns this day after day. At Odyssey House, we liken treatment to constantly holding a mirror up to the addict’s face. It is through seeing oneself deeply – one’s attitudes, personality style, motives, social skills, work ethic, family responsibilities – that renewed memories can be evolved, a new sense of self forged, and hope for the future restored.

Treatment does work, though it is hard work. First and foremost it takes commitment, as recovery is a lifelong task.

Just as the Holidays are a time of increased relapse, they can also be a time of resolution and resolve. Individual addicts can commit or recommit to a sober life and families can participate in that commitment. Just as every addict has gone through a long course of struggle and compromise, so has the family.

The family has experienced great hardship and tried so many approaches to help their addicted loved one. Love, support, encouragement, anger, limit-setting and separation are just some of the common familial reactions to the addict. And just as the individual addict has lived on an emotional roller coaster, so too has the family. And just as the individual can not simply forget – obliterate – the past, neither can the family.

Families need to go through their own healing process and should, whenever feasible, be involved in their loved one’s treatment. Analogous to the addict’s process, the family must also seek resolution and closure. Respect for the addict’s commitment to sobriety and the recovery process is essential – however, it must be tempered with moderate expectations, where understandable skepticism only slowly gives way to optimism and confidence.

Throughout the Holiday Season at Odyssey House, we try our best to be mindful of these complex individual and family issues, all the while staying diligently hopeful. Celebrating the redemptive nature of the human spirit is as important in the world of recovery as it is anywhere.

Drug abuse in the elderly

In his letter in Saturday's New York Times, Odyssey House President Dr. Peter Provet writes that the number of those who fit the criteria for substance abuse is expected to double in the next five years.

The people included in " More Older Adults Are Struggling With Substance Abuse" (Business Day, Oct. 4) are to be commended for coming forward to speak about a growing problem that affects the well-being of millions of Americans.

For too long, addiction has been dismissed as a moral failing, and sufferers have been blamed, shunned and arrested. The stigma of addiction is such that many older people whose lives have unraveled because of alcohol and/or drug abuse do not get the help they need until a crisis alerts caregivers to the urgency of the situation.

For the lucky few with access to private insurance or resources to pay for treatment, the prognosis is positive, and the long-term health, economic and family struggles can be reversed. But this is not the case for the overwhelming majority of older adults, and the situation is likely to get worse, as the number of those who fit the criteria for substance abuse is expected to double over the next five years.

Public treatment programs that offer a range of low-cost residential, outpatient and peer recovery services are a necessary and wise investment.

PETER PROVET

President and Chief Executive

Odyssey House

Dr. Provet on Robin Williams

Robin Williams' death tragically underscores how depression combined with substance abuse create a common ground for suicide. Fame, fortune - and in Mr. Williams' case, comedy - cannot prevent such self-inflicted tragedy.

Stigma still pervades meaningful societal consideration of suicide. Akin to substance abuse, it is commonly seen as an individual's choice and as such engenders less empathy and concern than other forms of mental illness.

Science is illuminating important truths - both pertaining to the frequency and demographics of suicide and its biological/genetic basis. For example, suicide is a leading cause of death among people with substance use disorders. It has been convincingly demonstrated that mood disorders, such as depression and manic-depressive illness, also greatly increase the risk of suicidal behaviors. Prevention strategies must continue to explore and identify the genetic, biological, hormonal, and social correlates of suicide.

Mr. Williams gave so much of his life to making others feel joy and laughter.  Hopefully, his death will encourage us to learn far more than we currently know about suicide and help us to reduce the increasing frequency of this voluntary, final act.

Peter Provet, Ph.D.
Odyssey House President & CEO
Board Member, National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention

The Summer 2014 newsletter is now online

The Summer 2014 edition of Odyssey House News is now available! Read about our supportive housing openings, the latest art show, new grants, and more. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments or on our Facebook wall. If you'd like to receive a copy in the mail, please email your contact information to info(at)odysseyhouseinc.org.

Mentally Ill, in Prison and Outside

In Saturday's edition of The New York Times, Odyssey House President & CEO Dr. Peter Provet is one of several experts commenting on a recent article examining the growing number of people with severe mental illness who are coming into contact with the criminal justice system in the absence of adequate health care services.

To the Editor:

In "Police Confront Rising Number of Mentally Ill" (front page, April 2), there is no mention of the intersection of drug abuse and mental illness, and how such use exacerbates psychiatric symptoms and leaves the individual far more unstable, symptomatic and volatile (though not necessarily more violent.)

As services for the mentally ill retract, greater disturbance will be evidenced, and increased demands will be placed on emergency personnel, police officers and prison guards. Unfortunately, it often takes a tragedy to secure adequate treatment funding to confront one of our biggest social challenges: the degree to which self-harm and harm to society are compounded by untreated and undertreated substance abuse and mental health disorders.

PETER PROVET

President and Chief Executive

Odyssey House

New York, April 3, 2014

A time when marijuana is legal

In response to Bill Keller's column, "How to Legalize Pot," in The New York Times, Dr. Peter Provet comments on the implications of legalizing marijuana.

A Time When Marijuana is Legal

To the Editor:

Bill Keller suggests that legalization of marijuana is a foregone conclusion. The voters in Washington State and Colorado have proposed that one way out of an intransigent public health problem, costly law enforcement, spiraling prison costs and reduced tax revenues is to legalize a known addictive substance.

It is wishful thinking, however, to believe that a government-regulated marijuana marketplace will raise enough money to offset the harm that today’s highly potent drug inflicts on communities across America.

The only chance we have to get ahead of the coming epidemic is by adequately financing treatment programs so the infrastructure of marijuana production, distribution and retail is matched by broad-based community services.

PETER PROVET
President and Chief Executive
Odyssey House

Investing in jails to reduce recidivism

In a letter in the New York Times, Dr. Peter Provet comments on a private funding initiative to reduce recidivism among adolescent men incarcerated at Rikers Island.

  

Investing in Jails

To the Editor:

Re "Goldman to Invest in City Jail Program, Profiting if Recidivism Falls Sharply" (news article, Aug. 2):
While we applaud creative financing for social service programs, we need to be careful how we build systems for identifying appropriate metrics for success, given these complex social behaviors where relapse and recidivism are a frequent part of the process.

That said, nonprofits are eager to partner with private industry when the goal is to augment government money.

Typically, private foundations serve this role, and with their support many organizations run innovative and results-oriented programs where a return on investment, in the form of improvements in the lives of the program participants, is built into the project.

That this initiative takes it a step further by providing an investor with a financial incentive to tackle difficult societal problems is a challenge the nonprofit sector is demonstrably ready to meet.

PETER PROVET President and Chief ExecutiveOdyssey HouseNew York, Aug. 4, 2012