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Latest Stories

Two Commissioners Refuse To Meet

Local Woman Plays For USA Team In Amputee Soccer Tournament

Shepherdstown Day Care Center Celebrates 50 Years

Imaginary Horribles – An Artist’s Perspective

Local Residents Will Perform “The Anvil” At Courthouse In October

Friends Of Music Presents Poulenc Trio In October

Halloween Fun In Jefferson County

Events & Activities – October 2023

Comment On Air Permit Modification For Rockwool Factory In Ranson Due Oct 23

Jefferson County Planning Commission Takes Comments On Future Land Use

The Emotional Benefits Of Fishing

Stall Tactics On Jefferson County Commission

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In Print

Observer 2023-08 cover

substance use disorder

Recovery Is Focus of Treatment Court Program

December, 2022 Tagged With: David Hammer, In Print Dec 2022, substance use disorder, treatment court

right and left arrows on pavement

Treatment Courts are authorized by West Virginia law and offered by circuit courts to adults as an alternative to incarceration in situations involving substance abuse. Read the Full Story >>

Opioid Use Disorders and Family Crisis

September, 2021 Tagged With: alternative dispute resolution, Brenda Waugh, Emily Neely, Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts, opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

Legal Aid of West Virginia

Children whose parents or caregivers suffer from opioid use disorders are at risk for immediate trauma and negative health outcomes as well as lifelong consequences related to parental or personal opioid use. According to a 2019 report jointly produced by United Hospital Fund and the Boston Consulting Group, the rate of children affected by the opioid crisis in West Virginia was 5.4 percent in 2017— the highest rate in the country. Read the Full Story >>

From This Point Forward

April, 2020 Tagged With: substance use disorder

a white wolf stalks towards the camera, walking through a field of hummocky dead grass.

My name is Josh. I’m 39. I’ve been sober just about nine months. I live in Chicago. I know the editor of this paper, Mike, and he encouraged me to write this—for various reasons, many of which you probably already know. Mainly because, apparently, this publication works hard to help addicts and their loved ones Read the Full Story >>

Sobriety Nuts and Bolts

April, 2020 Tagged With: book review, memoir, substance use disorder

Book cover for the novel Kickass by Billy Manas.

Reading a book on addiction recovery is not as daunting as recovery itself, but it can be a difficult task for numerous reasons... Read the Full Story >>

Understanding the Connection Between Loneliness and Addiction

March, 2020 Tagged With: opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

The black silhouette of a woman looking towards the sky as she stands in front of a vivid pink and purple sky.

I couldn’t move. I had reached the point where I could no longer continue living a life marred in addiction. It wasn’t simply a matter of being sick and tired of being sick and tired—I was, in a tangible way, killing myself. I laid on the floor of my wretched trailer apartment under a blanket, Read the Full Story >>

Addiction and Emotional Trauma in Childhood

January, 2020 Tagged With: substance use disorder

Billy Manas

The dynamic between my father and me was distant and unpalatable on so many levels—not the least of which was our contrasting physical statures. He was over 350 pounds for as long as I remember and I, having topped out in adulthood at 5’ 6” and 130 pounds, was always minuscule in his presence. Instead Read the Full Story >>

Substance-Use Disorder & Person-First Language: Why It Matters

October, 2019 Tagged With: National Treatment Quality Initiatives, opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

substance abuse

How we perceive and treat people with substance-use disorder has a direct impact on access to treatment and long-term recovery for this community. The language we use to identify this disease is crucial in addressing solutions for people experiencing it. Read the Full Story >>

The Distance Between, by Timothy J. Hillegonds

October, 2019 Tagged With: book review, memoir, opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

Timothy J. Hillegonds

As I read Timothy J. Hillegonds’ harrowing memoir of addiction and youthful rage, The Distance Between (University of Nebraska Press, 2019), I was reminded of a sentence written by one of my favorite fiction authors, Richard Lange: “We can only, all of us, run so far before what we really are and what is meant to be catch up to us.” Read the Full Story >>

A Deep-Dive Into Anger, Abuse, and Resurrection with Debut Author Timothy J. Hillegonds

October, 2019 Tagged With: opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

Tim Hillegonds

A Chicago native, author Timothy J. Hillegonds stepped foot in Shepherdstown for the first time in 2012, and found himself smitten from the start. Seven years later, he readily calls Shepherdstown his second home, and by getting to know West Virginia’s oldest town as intimately as he has, he’s also become familiar with the Mountain State’s unfortunate connection to the nationwide opioid epidemic. Read the Full Story >>

The Sobriety Hype

August, 2019 Tagged With: substance use disorder

addiction

What does it mean to be sober? Do you have to be serious all of the time? What about fun—can you have any fun? There is a stigma surrounding addiction, recovery, and sobriety that has not been fully dealt with in our society. If, as a society, we are unable to talk about something, then Read the Full Story >>

Finally: A Comprehensive Program for Substance Abuse in the Panhandle

August, 2019 Tagged With: Mountaineer Recovery Center, opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

Mountaineer Recovery Center

Mountaineer Recovery Center, targeted to open in September 2019, will be the first in the state of West Virginia to provide this level of treatment, according to someone’s needs all in one place. Read the Full Story >>

Graduation

July, 2019 Tagged With: substance use disorder

Tim Hillegonds

When someone was leaving rehab—we called it graduating—we would all gather in the great room for a goodbye ceremony. We would sit in a circle on dinged-up metal folding chairs, all of us a little too fidgety, a little too caffeinated, feeling something that was hard to pin down—some mix of worry and jealousy and Read the Full Story >>

The Me in the Mirror

June, 2019 Tagged With: substance use disorder

addiction

After waking up, there is always the question of what comes next—what life might lie beyond the life you’ve left behind.   — Leslie Jamison When I got sober four months ago, I began to wake up. With each passing day, my world came more sharply into focus, and the experience of assessing what surrounded me was Read the Full Story >>

Drug Take Back Day Gets an Upgrade in Shepherdstown

April, 2019 Tagged With: Drug Take Back Day, substance use disorder, Trinity Episcopal Church

Across the U.S. every year, National Prescription Drug Take Back Day lands in cities and towns with the goal of providing a safe, convenient, and responsible means of disposing of prescription drugs, while also educating the general public about the potential for abuse of medications. Read the Full Story >>

America’s Opioid Killing Fields

November, 2018 Tagged With: Beth Macy, book review, Dopesick, nonfiction, opioid epidemic, substance use disorder

Award-winning journalist Beth Macy’s Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America comes as a timely, in-depth look at America’s opioid crisis that tells the stories of its victims and traces the social and economic roots of the epidemic. Read the Full Story >>

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