#besmartbehealthy
International Overdose Awareness Day 2022
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This event is free and open to the public. No tickets - seating is first come, first serve. Please invite your family and friends!
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Resource tables from local organizations and agencies in the field of addiction and recovery will be set-up to provide information to attendees. See below for more information.
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Professional CE Hours will be available at this event. Look for the Drug Education Council table for more information and to receive your certificate.
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Please share on social media using the hashtags #EndOverdoseGulfCoast #StopTheStigma
Together we will REMEMBER those we have lost to the disease of addiction, REACH OUT to those still suffering, and RECOGNIZE those in recovery.
A Night To Listen...
Allison Langan Covington
Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC)
Moderator of Panel
Steve Loyd, M.D.
Internal Medicine; Addictionology
Panelist
Beth Macy
Author, Dopesick
The Honorable Duane Slone
Circuit Court Judge, Tennessee
Panelist
Allison Covington has more than 30 years of counseling experience with adults, adolescents and families struggling with substance misuse and mental health disorders. Following her completion of a Bachelors Degree in Psychology from Auburn University, she received a Masters Degree in Counseling from the University of South Alabama.
Throughout her career, Allison has been an advocate for quality patient care withing substance use and mental health treatment. Her areas of specialty include addiction assessment, treatment and recovery. In addition, she specializes in family therapy, grief recovery, anxiety, depression and life adjustment issues. With a client centered, trauma informed foundation, Allison is trained to use individualized counseling approaches including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, Rational Emotive Therapy, art therapy, Mindfulness, Gestalt Therapy and multiple solution focused therapies.
Allison currently practices at the Alabama Primary Counseling Group, LLC in Mobile, Alabama.
Experiencing addiction first-hand and the hard road to recovery has afforded Dr. Steve Loyd the opportunity to develop a unique approach to patient care, one that is passionate, effective and empathetic. His goal is to help as many people as possible receive the quality treatment they deserve.
A native of Johnson City, Tennessee, Dr. Loyd graduated from the University of Tennessee and began working as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company with duties that included liaising with and persuading targeted doctors and other healthcare providers to prescribe the company's drug. He then transitioned to Sales Representative Training Director for the Atlanta district. Dr. Loyd left the company to attend medical school at East Tennessee State University. Upon completion of his residency in 2001, Steve practiced internal medicine in the small rural town of Elizabethton, Tennessee. His patients included many hard-working employees of the local manufacturing industry. For the last seventeen years, following his full recovery from opioid addiction, Dr. Loyd's primary focus has been to assist people suffering with Substance Use Disorder (SUD).
Beth Macy is a journalist who writes about outsiders and underdogs. Her writing has won more than two dozen national journalism awards, including a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism at Harvard, a J. Anthony Lukas Prize for "Factory Man,” and an L.A. Times Book Prize for “Dopesick,” which was made into a Peabody Award-winning series for Hulu starring Michael Keaton. All three of her books, including her second book, “Truevine,” were instant New York Times bestsellers.
Her fourth book, “Raising Lazarus: Hope, Justice, and the Future of America’s Overdose Crisis,” publishes in August 2022. It is the essential follow-up to “Dopesick”: an account of the activists and ordinary people working to fight the crisis by saving lives, erasing the stigma of addiction, and holding those in power—from drugmakers to lawmakers—responsible.
Judge Duane Slone, a former drug trafficking prosecutor, was first elected to the 4th Judicial District Circuit Court in 1998 and in 2009 he co-founded his judicial district’s Drug Recovery Court. He is recognized nationally as an effective collaborator and innovator for his efforts to address the Opioid Driven Addiction Crisis.
Currently, Judge Slone serves as Chairman of the 8 State Appalachian-Midwest Regional Judicial Opioid Initiative, the Substance Misuse & Addiction Resources for Tennessee “SMART” Justice Network, and the Tennessee Judicial Conference Problem Solving Court Committee. He is a steering committee member of the National Rural Justice Collaborative and “SMART” Policy Network. Additionally, Judge Slone is a member of the National Institute of Drug Addiction JCOIN Practitioner Advisory Board, the SAMHSA Advisory Committee for Women’s Services and the White House ONDCP National SUD Strategic Advisory Panel Criminal Justice Workgroup.
Lynn Oldshue listens to people, especially strangers, and tells their stories to give them a voice. She grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi but fell in love with Mobile, Alabama, the Delta and Mardi Gras. Her dream of writing began with The Southern Rambler and now she writes investigative stories for Lagniappe and reports for Alabama Public Radio. She is well-known for her blog Our Southern Souls (that also became a book).
Her series about domestic violence, “From Hell to Hope” won first place in feature writing in 2019 from the Alabama Press Association and her series about sex trafficking, “Sexual Slavery in South Alabama” won the 2020 William H. Johnson Print Journalism Award given by the Medical Association for the State of Alabama and the second place in feature writing for the Green Eyeshade Awards that recognizes excellence in journalism in the southeast. She is part of the APR team that won a national Sigma Delta Chi award from the Society of Professional Journalists for a documentary on the long-term impact of the BP oil spill.
Lynn started the Facebook groups "Faces of Mobile" and "A Day in the Life of Mobile" to show the beauty in the daily life and small moments of a city that is finally reaching it's potential. People and their stories are where she finds inspiration and hope that makes sense in a crazy world.
Lynn Oldshue
Journalist & Photographer
Panelist
Thanks to our sponsors for making this outstanding event possible for our community!
