'Cycle Of Pills To Heroin: Drug Trends In Our Community' Dialogue In Basking Ridge, June 11

The Bernards Township Municipal Alliance Against Substance Abuse is hosting the final of three dialogue nights next Wednesday, June 11th. These dialogue nights are in response to the feedback from the March 13th Town Hall meeting entitled “Cycle of Pills to Heroin: Drug Trends in Our Community”.

This month’s program will take place on Wednesday, June 11th  from 7:00 pm until 8:30in the Warren Craft Room at the Bernards Township Municipal Building. The title of the finale program is “The Discipline of Recovery: Getting & Staying Clean, Sober Living and Support, Tough But Not Impossible”.

 “We took the feedback from our Town Hall meeting and are offering three concentrated dialogue nights before summer begins,” says Carol Bianchi, Township Committee Member and Municipal Alliance Chairperson, “We wanted to continue the conversation we started that evening with the panel and keep it open to the public. We hope community members will come out to these dialogue nights to learn more about substance abuse and how to combat it”.

This month’s program will detail the schematics of recovery, focusing in the Bernards Township community. Several of the people in recovery from the original “Cycle of Pills to Heroin: Drug Trends in Our Community” program will be back to go more into depth of their recovery and journey to staying clean. Additionally, representatives from both Al-Anon and Sunrise Detox Center will be present to speak about resources available to residents in our town.

The first dialogue night was on Wednesday, April 30th  and was entitled “The Dilemma: Prom, Graduation and Parties”. That evening featured speakers Detective John Neiman and Officer Steve Matthews from the Bernards Township Police Department, as well as Brenda Esler from EmPOWER Somerset. The dialogue was focused on local laws and ordinances as well as how to talk to your children about drugs and alcohol. 

The second dialogue night was on Wednesday, May 21st and was entitled “The Definition of Addiction: Learn the Difference, is it Adolescent Angst or Substance Use?” Featured speakers included Lorin Gaffen, LPC, LCADC, a therapist from Florham Park specializing in addiction and family therapy, as well as Ellen Purtell, MS, LPC, Clinical Director of Daytop Mendham. Alongside a local parent of a recovering addict, all three focused on the adolescent brain and addiction.

For more information, please contact Municipal Alliance Grant Coordinator, Kaitlin Kordusky at (908) 204-2523 or email alliance@bernards.org.

The mission of the Bernards Township Municipal Alliance Against Substance Abuse is to provide consultation, programs, training and resources to members of the Bernards Township community with the goal of preventing and reducing the use of alcohol, tobacco and other drugs through education, support of events and programs and presence in the community. For more information and to view results from the Student Stressors or American Drug and Alcohol Survey, visit www.bernardsalliance.org.