Monday, September 5, 2016

"Sometimes There Isn't A Next Time"

This moving letter from a grandmother, originally published in the Delaware County Daily Times, had such an impact that I wanted to share it with as many people as possible.
If you have any concerns about your kids, please contact me at 484 431 2931, or email me at KenWilliamsRecovery@gmail.com

http://www.delcotimes.com/article/DC/20150902/NEWS/150909924

Thursday, September 1, 2016

The Comeback Kid

THE COMEBACK KID

Yeah, it's been a while.

I haven't posted anything on my Recovery page for a long time. Honestly, for a while I didn't know if I would ever post anything here again. It's been a tough time. I considered myself retired, but not really, not deep down.

I wasn't retired. I was sick. And sad. It was a really tough time. A lot of you know the story, and I am very grateful for the ways in which you have stuck by me.

But there's a point in all of our lives when, even in the midst of suffering, circumstances force you to raise your head from your own grief and look around at what's going on.

For forty years I have been a drug counselor. I've worked with addicts and their families. I've worked inpatient, outpatient, halfway houses and Intensive Outpatient. I've been an interventionist, a group therapist, a family counselor and for a time, God help us all, an administrator. I've also been an advocate and a very vocal critic of the way people with substance use disorders and their families are treated in our society. I've also worked with defense attorneys as an evaluator and expert witness in custody and criminal cases involving drugs.

And, as many of you know, I am a recovering addict, and my own struggles with addiction, I believe, inform my work with others. I believe in recovery from addiction as a practical reality, not an abstraction.

Recovery is my passion.

So, my “retirement” is at an end. It felt awfully self-indulgent to be idle when kids are dropping dead in an opiate epidemic of insane proportions, while the pharmaceutical companies profit both from the drugs fueling
the addiction and the medications that treat it. I didn't get into this work to be on the sidelines.

I'm back. Call me at 484 431 2931. Email me at KenWilliamsRecovery@gmail.com

I'll work with you.