Sunday, April 26, 2009

New Name: National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery

National Alliance of Methadone Advocates
Press Release


Contact Person: Joycelyn Woods, Executive Director
edirector@methadone.org
1.212.595.6262

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
APRIL 26, 2009



New Name: National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery


It is especially fitting at this AATOD conference in New York that the Board of Directors of the National Alliance of Methadone Advocates, the premier patient advocacy organization in the opiate addiction recovery community, established in 1988 in this very city, announces an important change to its identity. It will now be doing business as the National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery, or NAMA Recovery. NAMA Recovery has 25 chapters across the United States and 15 international affiliate chapters from England to Denmark and India to Australia, providing information, education and advocacy support to patients in medication assisted addiction treatment utilizing methadone and buprenorphine.

NAMA Recovery is the umbrella organization for the M.A.R.S. Project, a CSAT (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment) funded Recovery Support Services Grant grantee. M.A.R.S. (Medication Assisted Recovery Services) is a peer recovery project based on the belief that when methadone patients receive training about addiction, its treatment and recovery they will feel better about themselves and do better in treatment and life. It is providing patients of medication assisted treatment education about the science of addiction, information on nutrition and health, peer mentoring, women- and Hispanic-specific recovery services, even a M.A.R.S. book club, all in a location near the treatment clinic where the patient can be mentored and grow. M.A.R.S. is the first truly “peer to peer” recovery endeavor in opiate addiction treatment in the United States with MAT patients educating and mentoring MAT patients with significant accomplishments and successes.

The Executive Director of NAMA Recovery is Joycelyn Woods and the Director of the M.A.R.S. Project is Walter Ginter.