Congratulations Walter Ginter

National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery

Press Release

Contacts Persons: 

Joycelyn Woods, Executive Director, edirector@methadone.org

Carmen Pearman-Arlt, President, carlt@porterstarke.org

Phone/Fax: 1.212.595.NAMA  (1-212-595-62620

For Release

July 2, 2018

 Recipient of the 2018 Lisa Mojer-Torres Award

America Honors Recovery is Faces & Voices of Recovery's annual awards gala which celebrates and honors the most influential recovery community leaders and organizations. The event salutes the legacies of three dynamic recovery trailblazers who dedicated their lives to removing barriers for individuals and families affected by addiction.

THE LISA MOJER-TORRES AWARD

The Lisa Mojer-Torres Award honors a tenacious fighter who believed in the dignity and rights of every person. Her inquiring and challenging mind offered new insights and by example, she encouraged us to stand up and speak out on behalf of all pathways to recovery, including the use of medications.

Lisa sat on the Board of Directors of NAMA Recovery twice. In the mid-1990s as a Vice President she helped to reorganize NAMA Recovery. She left the board to work on the founding of Faces & Voices of Recovery (FAVOR) and as the first Chair of the organization. Her determination and advocacy contributed to a significant shift in the recovery community and the need to end discriminatory policies directed at MAT patients.

After leaving FAVOR she joined the NAMA Recovery Board of Directors a second time to serve as legal liaison.

Lisa fit her passion and advocacy into an already busy life - giving of her time and talent while juggling work and family life with her husband Roland and sons Matthew and Liam. She brought her story of recovery with compassion to diverse communities and tailored her communications to fit each audience – be it service providers, researchers, policymakers, family members or people seeking or in long-term recovery. She was a recovery communicator – speaking clearly, poignantly and passionately about her own experiences. She built lasting bridges across the recovery community, “the more we learn about addiction, the advances of science, the full range of treatments and the variety of paths leading to recovery, the better prepared we will be to choose our own path.”

Lisa was everywhere. She was an attorney who specialized in civil rights law for persons in recovery. Her advocacy activities spanned television and press interviews, Congressional testimony, policy advisor (from the Institute of Medicine to CSAT’s National Advisory Committee), one-on-one lobbying, author, and relentless educator and courageous defender. Lisa died in 2011 after a prolonged struggle with ovarian cancer. 

We salute her tireless, passionate, committed advocacy for recovery.

Walter Ginter

Walter Ginter is a founding Project Director of the Medication Assisted Recovery Support (M.A.R.S.) Project. The M.A.R.S. Project is designed to provide peer recovery support to persons whose recovery from opiate addiction is assisted by medication. It is collaboration with the Division of Substance Abuse, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Yeshiva University. Beyond MARS Training, Mr. Ginter has worked for the last five years training OTP's, RCO's, and government organizations on how to implement peer recovery support services for the medication assisted recovery community.

Mr. Ginter, a former Board Director for Faces and Voices of Recovery (FaVoR), was a Member of the National Policy and Planning Committee, and the Accreditation sub-committee. He also serves on the Board of Directors for the National Alliance for Medication Assisted (NAMA) Recov-ery the premier advocacy and recovery for MAT patients.

Mr. Ginter was a planning partner for National Recovery Month. Additionally, he has served on several committees of the New York State Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services (OASAS) as a voice for MAT patients. He has been a member of more than thirty federal expert panels and advisory groups.

Mr. Ginter received the Richard Lane/Robert Holden Patient Advocacy Award "in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to MAT patients and the field of opiate addiction treatment" at the 2009 American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence (AATOD) National Conference in NYC, the Vernon Johnson America Honors Recovery Award from FAVOR and the Robert Savage Advocate of the Year from the Connecticut Committee for Addiction Recovery Award (CCAR).

Congratulations, Walter, for your commitment and dedication

to making MAT treatment better for patients.

We at NAMA Recovery are so proud.