On The Road Again

It’s Ginger here - just home from two major roadtrips with Melissa. Last week we attended the SAAS (State Associations of Addiction Services) in Chicago, only to turn around and head to Williamsburg, Virginia to attend the VSIAS (The Virginia Summer Institute of Addiction Studies). The SAAS is a nationwide conference for executives in the addiction service field and the workshops were geared toward management issues. We met a broad spectrum of addiction service providers and others who work to make sure employees and staff are kept up to date on how to best serve their clients. And I even ran into my next door neighbor from Charlottesville! It’s a small world out there. Let us not forget the food in The Windy City (my home town). I ate my weight in Mexican, Greek and Italian and came home with a load of new contacts, new ideas and a new dress size!

Last night we returned from The Virginia Summer Institute, where we participated in the role of “exhibitor” for the very first time. This is a statewide conference where counselors, therapists and others can take classes to keep up their credentials and The Second Road had its first booth. Richard also joined us for a day of filming recovery stories from anyone who wanted to share their experience, strength and hope. We showed a 12 minute video (which will be up on the site in the near future) and also were able to show the attendees our pre-launch website. The response was overwhelming and our committment to getting the interactive site up and running has been fueled by the response from everyone with whom we spoke. We were told how much this site is needed - by everyone from counselors and therapists to people in recovery. As I write this our programmers are working on the final stages of “whatever it is they do” so that we can be fully operational by September, which is also Recovery Month. Programming is like speaking Esperanto with an Irish brogue, so I stay out of the meetings where the cyber nerds perform their magic.

Next week Melissa will be attending a conference held by The Association of Recovery Schools, an amazing organization that has opened over 30 schools (both at the high school and college level) for kids in recovery. We’ve been asked to work with them in getting their message out so that other kids can have the same benefits as those who are enrolled in these great learning programs. I am supposed to be in the office, but……… when the cat’s away………

Later, Gator!