Recovery Archives — 100 Days in Appalachia

Recovery

Every weekend, Ainsley Bryce, the executive director of Holler Harm Reduction, sets up a syringe exchange in the back parking lot of a Dollar General in western North Carolina, where people seek help across state lines. Photo: Stacy Kranitz/For 100 Days in Appalachia

Recovery

‘Harm Reduction Saves Lives’: Meet the Appalachians Doing the Work

by Taylor Sisk, Photography by Stacy Kranitz on March 30, 2023 Comments are Disabled

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov. The numbers are now frighteningly familiar: More than a million Americans dead from a drug overdose in the past two decades. More than 100,000 of those deaths came in 2021, […]

Brooke Parker (left), a care coordinator for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program, is joined by Joe Solomon and Sarah Stone in Charleston, West Virginia. The program is a federal initiative that provides HIV-related services nationwide. Photo: John Raby/AP Photo

Recovery

HIV Outbreak Persists as Officials Push Back Against Containment Efforts

by Taylor Sisk on January 12, 2023 Comments are Disabled

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov. Brooke Parker has spent the past two years combing riverside homeless encampments, abandoned houses, and less traveled roads to help contain a lingering HIV outbreak that has disproportionately affected those […]

Recovery

Experts: Peer Recovery Is Valuable Yet Under Sourced Resource in Addiction Treatment

by Taylor Sisk on September 22, 2022 Comments are Disabled

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov. There is no simple roadmap to recovery from a substance use disorder; no fixed destination toward which to steer. Certainly, there are mile markers in recovery, and there are those […]

Dr. Jonathan JK Stoltman speaks to a group of West Virginia University journalism students about the importance of language choice in stories about addiction. Photo: Justin Hayhurst/West Virginia University

Recovery

Commentary: Here’s How You Can Improve Reporting on Addiction

by Jonathan JK Stoltman on October 21, 2021 Comments are Disabled

We’ve all seen the call to action: “If you or someone you know is in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255.” This is an omnipresent sentence whenever the media mentions suicide. You see it at the beginning or end of a news story, or before the credits […]

Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Photo: David Smith/100 Days in Appalachia

Recovery

Journalism About Addiction Often Perpetuates Stigma. So, We’re Going to Fix It.

by Jonathan Stoltman, Ashton Marra & Kristen Uppercue on September 28, 2021 Comments are Disabled

Recovery from addiction is possible. For help, please call the free and confidential treatment referral hotline (1-800-662-HELP) or visit findtreatment.gov. Over the past 20 years, every corner of our country has been experiencing an opioid epidemic. Tens of thousands of our neighbors, family members and friends have been taken from us. […]

Clarksburg is a community of about 15,000 people in North Central, West Virginia. Pictured here in 2019, the once thriving community has been struggling economically over the past several years and has experienced an uptick in substance use. Photo: Jesse Wright/100 Days in Appalachia

Recovery

COVID-19 Accelerated This W.Va. Community’s Efforts to End Homelessness

by Taylor Sisk on May 5, 2020 Comments are Disabled

COVID-19 has forced Lou Ortenzio to assume a new role. “My new job,” Ortenzio, executive director of the Clarksburg Mission in Clarksburg, West Virginia, said, “is getting here in the morning, finding people clustered around and having to tell them, ‘You’ve gotta go.’” The mission offers emergency shelter to up […]