Molinaro: “Every individual deserves to
have an opportunity”
POUGHKEEPSIE – The Mid-Hudson Addiction Recovery Centers Inc. (MARC) held their 39th annual luncheon, Friday, featuring MARC alumni and local elected officials to speak about the organization, its evolution and its importance to the community.
MARC provides a variety of services like sober living facilities, treatment centers and group programs to individuals suffering from drug addiction.
JoAnn Perkins, a MARC alumnus and a participant in the organization’s founding said the evolution of the organization is a work in progress.
“Sometimes it’s an uphill struggle but, they stay faithful to what they’re doing,” said Perkins. “They stay faithful to seeing that they get better and better and can provide more services which are much needed.”
As part of the organization’s evolution providing services, they are looking very seriously at the scourge of opioid and heroin addiction in the region. MARC’s Executive Director Steven Pressman said, according to patients at their live-in centers last year, 65 percent of them listed heroin, or opiate pain killers, as the substance of their addiction. Pressman said this is a substantial increase from only 10 years ago.
With this epidemic of opioid dependence and addiction, Dutchess County wants to become more involved, helping to cooperate more with the work MARC has been doing for some time.
County Executive Marcus Molinaro said that in order for real progress to be made, a major change needs to happen in the area of reducing the stigma of drug addiction and treating such people as having a disease, not as criminals.
“Every individual deserves to have an opportunity. Should they have an earnest desire to improve their life, they need to have the support of their family, their friends and neighbors,” Moinaro said. “So, the fact is, we have to start by confronting the stigma and then make sure the resource is available. MARC is one of the most important resources we provide individuals, totally stigma free, entirely caring, without judgment, providing addiction services and support to individuals who are struggling to overcome the demons of addiction.”
Poughkeepsie Mayor Robert Rolison said that, by this fiscal quarter an over $1million county funded, recovery stabilization center will be built on North Road of Poughkeepsie. Rolison said they found the idea from a county in Texas and thought it was so good, they decided to copy it.
“This county looked at it and is duplicating it, to the level that we can right now, to help people that don’t necessarily need to be in a jail setting, initially, into a center to help get them stabilized and then look at what they need to get on that path, which could be a long road and it usually is but, you’ve got to start someplace and we believe that having that first intervention and at the county level, will go to helping these individuals eventually recover using MARC as a model,” said Rolison.
MARC provides services to all people in need of addiction treatment for free, regardless of residency. When the county stabilization center opens, MARC and the county will be able to cover all bases of addiction treatment.
