Hi, CV!

Marilyn Gunnell passed away last week. For those of you who didn’t know her, and for those who did, Marilyn was an activist, volunteer and leader. She carried her weight. She refused to use email. She could be crusty but I learned that layer protected her big heart. She didn’t suffer fools. She demanded the respect she deserved and earned through the decades of service to our community. I appreciated Marilyn’s insights and experience, and her death is a loss.

What you might not know is Marilyn is responsible for the format used at our Strategic Partners meetings. She told me that if we were only meeting quarterly, the meetings had to be informative. Forget breaking into small groups; instead, teach everyone something useful and current. So that’s what we did, and she was correct.  May her memory be a blessing.

This week is National Drug & Alcohol Facts Week, sponsored by NIDA – National Institute on Drug Abuse. Please visit our website and take the 2016 Drug & Alcohol IQ Challenge. Also on our website is a link to the results of the 2015 Monitoring the Future national survey of 44,892 teens, as well as a link to trends over time. These resources are especially good for researchers, writers, parents, teachers and teens. And preventionists.

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse – NIDA – addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use, despite harmful consequences to the addicted individual and to those around him or her. Although the initial decision to take drugs is voluntary for most people, the brain changes that and, over time, challenges an addicted person’s self-control and hampers his or her ability to resist intense impulses to take drugs.

Do any of you know an addict? If you do not have the propensity to develop addiction it’s often hard to understand an addict’s behavior. I hope this explanation helps you cope. If you need additional help, please visit our Resource Guide. People from all over send thanks, suggestions and edits. We always need more. Please honor the memory of Marilyn Gunnell and share resources.

  Suzy JACOBS