What does CCAR do - and why do these things matter?

The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR):

  • Advocates at the state level for policies and priorities that are pro-recovery. Why? Because a pro-recovery agenda is fiscally sound and socially wise.
    Recovered alcoholics and addicts hold jobs, pay taxes, raise families and contribute. A pro-recovery agenda has significant long-term advantages for Connecticut. It increases the state's economic productivity; reduces stress on families; saves untold millions of dollars in addiction-related healthcare costs; and substantially reduces such social ills as theft, abuse, crimes of violence, and drunk driving.
    Tens of thousands of Connecticut residents are already in recovery and back at work. Thousands more are ready to recover but still need basic help, such as a bed in a treatment facility.
    Connecticut's ongoing budget crisis continues to be a major obstacle. Legislators find recovery programs an easy target for cuts. The thinking is, "You did this to yourself. And we don't want to pay for it anymore." The powerful stigma attached to alcohol and drug addiction continues to bend policy across America, gambling far more money on punishment and prisons than on recovery.
    Even so, progress is happening. Every year CCAR provides expert testimony for state lawmakers, in an effort to retain state-funded treatment programs. Working closely with the state's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, CCAR is ever-so-slowly changing Connecticut's system of care to one that is recovery oriented.
  • Holds monthly meetings and trainings in Recovery Community Centers. CCAR, has a headquarters in Hartford and Recovery Community Centers in Bridgeport, Hartford, New London, and Willimantic. The Recovery Centers provide life skills training, support groups with trained facilitators, peer-to-peer advice, referrals, shoulders to lean and cry on.
  • Develops and delivers dozens of useful training programs annually to those in recovery as well as to healing professionals and counselors, like clergy, who are working in the field of addiction. Example: Getting Comfortable: The Nuts & Bolts of Healthy Relationships in Recovery.
  • Puts a public face on recovery by testifying before the legislature and state commissions, as well as through well-attended public events like CCAR's annual "Recovery Walks!" which attracts several thousand supporters. CCAR members are familiar faces at the statehouse, talking authentically and authoritatively about the addicted life and recovery. The state Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services (DMHAS) leans on CCAR for expertise, insights and recommendations on how to improve the chances for long-term recovery.
  • Recovery Housing database, in collaboration with Connecticut Assets network, a prevention organization and their asset mapping software, CCAR developed a product that displays recovery housing listings in an “eBay’ format. Users are able to search for a variety of recovery housing aspects like type of house (12 Step, Christian, etc.), location (by town), recovery rating, ATR eligible, men’s or women’s, etc. Over the last year, CCAR has surveyed 100 houses that translates into an astonishing 1069 beds! These beds have never been organized into a single, user-friendly electronic database before. By word of mouth, CCAR receives about 50 – 60 calls a week from people seeking recovery housing. Infoline (211) refers all recovery housing calls to CCAR.
  • Maintains an informative Website, providing 24/7 online access to links, advice, facts, contacts.

    CCAR's bottom line:
  • We help save lives - and that could include the hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents still addicted to drugs or alcohol.
  • We help stop crime - because much crime is closely associated with addiction and drunkenness.
  • We help save families through support groups that put an end to isolation and offer understanding instead of disapproval.
  • We certainly could save the state's taxpayers millions and millions of dollars, if the state adopted informed and consistent pro-recovery policies and funding priorities.

Over the years, we have gathered and written a lot of stuff about CCAR, click here if you want to read more....

   

CCAR received the
2008 Joel Hernandez Voice of the
Recovery Community Award


Diane, Laurie, Kevin, Pat, Jaime, Jenilee, William, Caroline, Veronica, Phillip and Helena


Click here for press release

 
CCAR Vision
The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) envisions a world where the power, hope and healing of recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction is thoroughly understood and embraced.

CCAR Mission

The Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR) promotes and puts a positive face on recovery through advocacy, education and service to:

  • End discrimination surrounding addiction and recovery.
  • Open new doors and remove barriers to recovery.
  • Ensure that all people in recovery and people seeking recovery be treated with dignity and respect.