Head of the House of St. Francis is in the U.S.

Edwin came to the U.S. in May and has been having wonderful experiences here since that time.  We will get him to write something for this blog.  He is currently on a visit to the Center for the Study of Addiction and Recovery at Texas Tech University and spent about two months studying Recovery Dynamics with Larry Gaines at Serenity Park in Little Rock, Arkansas.  He was then under the care of Dr. Al Mooney and Chris Budnick at the Healing Place of Wake County located in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Edwin then made a presentation at the Oxford House Convention held in Washington, DC and went to Willingway Hospital and the Center for the Addiction Recovery at Georgia Southern University in Statesboro, Georgia.  He spent time with Emily Eisenhart, Director of the Center for Addiction Recovery and discussed her possible next visit to Ghana in 2014.  Edwin is interested in the new movie "The Anonymous People" which is "out to change the addiction conversation from problems to SOLUTIONS. An independent feature documentary about the over 23 million Americans living in long-term recovery from alcohol and other drug addictions.

Edwin says that Ghana has a lot to learn from the film which  deals with "Deeply entrenched social stigma and mass participation in widely successful anonymous 12-step groups have kept recovery voices silent and faces hidden for decades. The vacuum created by this silence has been filled by sensational mass media depictions of addiction that continue to perpetuate a lurid public fascination with the dysfunctional side of what is a preventable and treatable health condition. Just like women with breast cancer, or people with HIV/AIDS, a grass roots social justice movement is emerging. Courageous addiction recovery advocates have come out of the shadows and are organizing to end discrimination and move toward recovery-based solutions. The moving story of The Anonymous People is told through the faces and voices of the citizens, leaders, volunteers, corporate executives, and public figures who are laying it all on the line to save the lives of others just like them." 

Edwin will try to take a copy of the film to Ghana.