Rendezvous With Madness Episode (Rebellion Dogs # 27) VIEW or download the PDF
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Since the November 2016 election In the USA, identity politics is front-of-mind for many of us as a social issue. We’re going to continue our Rebellious, Doggy way of looking @ addiction and recovery through our less-dogma, more-bite, current-day lens. Rebellion Dogs Radio Episode 27 is called Rendezvous with Madness.
In this episode, we review the annual conference for National Association for Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC): the Association for Addiction Professionals which met in Minneapolis in October 2016. Also on Episode 27, Rendezvous With Madness(Toronto), the longest running arts/film festival devoted to addiction and mental health is 24 years old this year, November 4 – 12, 2016... the Madness continues. We have the first of two parts of #RMW2016 coverage this month on art and it's ability to help us understand life and heal for life's challenges. From NAADAC, I have a wonderful conversation with Mita Johnson who points out “to discriminate” isn't strictly a barrier building word. To discriminate can mean “to recognize differences” and accommodate or integrate these differences.
Mita Johnson reminds readers that counselors and service providers have a duty to develop ethical multicultural skills and there are three stages to achieve this skill:
1. exploring
2. understanding and
3. acting.
Johnson explains, that cultural affiliation represents and celebrates “the beliefs, customs, practices, historical frames, experiences and ways of being that are unique and vital to a group’s identity.” Mita Johnson is an addiction and mental health practitioner and a dedicated supporter of NAADAC.
Lee Mun Wah is a movie maker and workshop facilitator. His 1994 documentary The Color of Fear is still widely used in humanities/social- science classes. Lee Mun Wah says: “I think this country has a huge mythology and that mythology is that our differences are valued. I don’t think so. I think they are celebrated. I think that if you really value somebody’s culture, you integrate it into your workplaces, it becomes part of businesses and part of the culture… We are more multi-holiday than we are multi-cultural.”
So we spend a little under an hour talking about films and art and what both professionals and peer-to-peer organizations are grappling with in the changing environment. Also, at the time of recording, we were getting ready for We Agnostics, Atheists & Freethinkers International AA Convention being held in Austin TX, November 11 – 13. There's a link below.
Rebellion Dogs is live on location. A full transcript of this Episode is available here (click).