PRO-A

04/03/2026

Join us on The CALL on Tuesday, April 7th. PRO-A will have Guest Breannah Allen from Malvern Health on the importance of addressing trauma in maintaining recovery.

To Register for The CALL: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwkc-yqpzkuE9zK4qvzHhf1N8EVXyZ_wGIs?fbclid=IwAR2wdT_5LAH5UqYn7RMwtXrZBCM5N54slnSl3UVCgAYN5w-Q7PYAbrdvCvs #/registration

What is it: PRO-A the statewide recovery community organization holds statewide weekly ZOOM call to support Recovery Community Organizations and members of the recovery community and strengthen recovery focused efforts across Pennsylvania.

All in PA are welcome to participate on THE CALL. Our Goals:

To understand what is happening to you, your organizations and your local community right now.

To support our fragile care recovery care system and support for our communities across Pennsylvania.

To help support each other and seek solutions for caring for ourselves and our community members as we strengthen recovery capital at the individual, family and community levels.

04/01/2026

Nominations Are Now Open for PRO-A's 9th Annual Leadership Event on Thursday, November 12, 2026, at the Country Club of Harrisburg.

Do you know a Champion of Service?

There are two Champion of Service awards chosen each year, one to an Institution/Organization and a second to an individual who has impacted our community working as a peer recovery support.
Awards are in recognition of exceptional service, each provided by the individual or organization in connecting individuals and/or their families with treatment and recovery resources for Drug & Alcohol Service System engagement.

Who Can Be Nominated?
Any Institution/Organization and individual that provide praiseworthy support to an individual or family member in need of treatment and recovery.

For more information on how to Nominate an Institution/Organization or Individual Champion, go to: https://pro-a.org/champion-of-service-award-nominations-2026/ and complete the Award Nomination form and click submit. Or email Nikki at Nikki.w@pro-a.org

03/31/2026

Help support our mission - Recovery in a High Potency World

We are hoping that you will consider supporting our 9th Annual Leadership event it is vital to our mission and our efforts to serve the statewide recovery community. For more information on Sponsorship opportunities click https://pro-a.org/sponsorship-opportunity/

The theme of this year’s dinner is Recovery in a High Potency World. As drugs have evolved, recovery processes coproduced with the recovery community must evolve even faster. In a high-potency drug environment, prevention, community education, and long-term recovery strategies must extend far beyond overdose reversal and acute medical care. We are navigating a fundamental shift in the addiction and recovery landscape. A shift defined by novel, high-potency substances and complex drug combinations. As pharmacological intensity increases, the recovery support structures that sustain long-term recovery become even more essential. In this rapidly changing environment, experiential knowledge and the ability to adapt interventions in real time are critical to help people into long term recovery.

We will have a half day training with approved NAADAC training credits, followed by a dinner with food, fellowship and awards for our state Champions of Service!

The PRO-A 9th Annual Leadership Event

When: Thursday, November 12, 2026
Where: The Country Club of Harrisburg –
401 Fishing Creek Valley Rd,
Harrisburg, PA 17112

Training and evening leadership events bring together the statewide recovery community and our allied groups.

For more information on Sponsorship opportunities click https://pro-a.org/sponsorship-opportunity/

To purchase tickets, click https://events.ticketleap.com/tickets/pennsylvania-recovery-organizations-alliance/9th-annual-leadership-event-recovery-in-a-high-potency-world

03/31/2026

Towards a Recovery Bill of Responsibilities: Stewardship of the Recovery Commons – William Stauffer

As recovery initiates, we may start out as service recipients, ideally as co-collaborators to form our own recovery sustained over time in ways that connect us to communities of recovery that nurture us. Our process evolve as we gain a voice to advocate for our own needs. To see our own lives as valuable enough to stand up for. We then observe what others do, receive support and experiment with processes that resonate with us. As we grow, what can often happen in a sustained recovery trajectory is an awareness of things larger than ourselves. A sense of deep humility as we become aware that many people over the long course of history paid forward for us in order that we be afforded a shot at life. As we become aware of this, we begin to pay it forward ourselves. To engage in service. To be stewards of recovery and ensure that future generations can also gain a foothold in recovery and thrive. It is a calling many generations before us carried forward through their life cycles and delivered on the doorstep of our own.

If you work, live, or participate in the SUD treatment and recovery space, it is important to consider your responsibilities to the broader community. If you are in recovery, please consider our collective responsibility to each other and people who come after us in respect to identifying bias and disparate care. Our shared responsibilities to effectively address these challenges and reap the societal benefits of widespread recovery across all of our communities. If you are outside
of the recovery community and have some role in service provision, policy development, care evaluation or research, you have a responsibility to ensure you do not do things that are harmful to us. An obligation to uphold the fundamental right of people to be meaningfully involved in their own healing. This includes all facets of the process from point of design, to implementation, facilitation, and evaluation.

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of both Operation Understanding and Freedom Fest ’76, two of the most significant events in our history. The moment when some of the most respected American…

03/26/2026

On the need and contents of a specific addiction recovery research agenda – William White and Dr John Kelly

There has been a growing interest in investigating the prevalence, multiple pathways, and mechanisms that facilitate sustained remission and long-term stable recovery. Such an endeavor is predicated on the belief that discovery of not
just more effective short-term stabilization and addiction treatment protocols, but also how people achieve long-term recovery will help ameliorate current addiction crises. Such experiential knowledge could inspire and inform the testing of new service strategies to meet the dynamic recovery needs of diverse populations—services that could be coordinated with, or supplant, existing ones toward the goals of engaging affected individuals and families earlier and better supporting them across the long-term stages of recovery.

Article link -

03/25/2026

LAST DAY TO SIGN UP!!
Workplaces grow stronger when people get a fair chance.

Join PRO-A's WORKS Project on March 26th at 11 AM for our webinar, “Advantages of Hiring Individuals in Recovery.” All Are Welcome to Attend!

Hear from employers who are already leading the way—Kevin Hyer, Tommy DiPhillipo and Shay Jone Vitale—as we talk about readiness, stigma, and the real value people in recovery bring to the workforce.

Save your spot:
https://us06web.zoom.us/.../register/qs7RUKHiQ8GaoG_22yVm8g

03/24/2026

Perfecting Addictive Drug Delivery Systems for Children – The Puff M**f by William Stauffer

The most appealing market to purveyors of addictive drugs are children, this is true for legal and illegal drugs. There has been much written on the topic, one of the pieces I wrote on the subject was Occam’s Razor and the Industries of Addiction. A young brain is more susceptible to addiction than a mature brain. You can watch this video by Nora Volkow, the renowned addiction neuroscientist who has studied addiction for decades as she describes why young people are more vulnerable to becoming addicted. The drug merchants target children as kids are at greater risk of becoming addicted. Once addicted, they buy lots of drugs. The companies make a lot of money. It is quite a business model.

Va**ng among youth and young adults has been characterized as an emerging epidemic by the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry with one in ten youth engaged in it. Studies have found that va**ng results in higher blood serum concentrations of THC and ni****ne compared to smoking either cannabis or to***co. It also leads to loss-of-control and withdrawal symptoms upon cessation. Va**ng may also result in increased risk of toxicity and pulmonary injury, including e-cigarette or va**ng associated lung injury (EVALI), and risks of mechanical burns.

As far as the Puff M**f, consider why it is ideal:
• Camouflage and Concealment: The Puff M**f is a drug delivery system disguised as an accessory commonly used by children, an over-ear headphone for gaming. This reduces social detection by adults and reduces external constraints on use. Parents fail to register that their kids are wearing powerful drug delivery devices around their heads.
• Increased Frequency of Dosing: What science tells us and these industries are quite aware of is that the addictive potential of a drug increases when doses are delivered rapidly and repeatedly throughout the day. The Puff M**f does exactly that. It is designed for kids with lots of screen time, which adds an extra dimension. A recent study found that digital social connections is associated with early adolescent substance experimentation. The Puff M**f capitalizes on these phenomena of one addiction kindling another.
• Environmental friction is reduced: It is a drug delivery device that can be used continuously bath the brain in drugs through “micro-dosing” patterns, small but frequent spikes that strengthen habit formation. Less smell, less visible, more discreet and easier to use. The drug sits an inch from your kids’ brain and is ready to use at any moment.
• Youth-Oriented Design: We see similar playbooks over the course of time. Consider the JUUL with its sleek design and flavor profiles that appeal to children. Part of the marketing plan is to make a product with wide appeal to children. It is aimed at youth culture and fits into their lives seamlessly. This also fuels rapid sales, so kids start using the product in mass before regulatory actions take hold.
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“Realistically, if our company is to survive and prosper, over the long term, we must get our share of the youth market. In my opinion this will require new brands tailored to the youth market.” — …

03/23/2026

Join us on The CALL on Tuesday, March 24th. PRO-A's Nikki Weir will be discussing Problem Gambling Awareness Month which is recognized every March.

To Register for The CALL: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwkc-yqpzkuE9zK4qvzHhf1N8EVXyZ_wGIs?fbclid=IwAR2wdT_5LAH5UqYn7RMwtXrZBCM5N54slnSl3UVCgAYN5w-Q7PYAbrdvCvs #/registration

What is it: PRO-A the statewide recovery community organization holds statewide weekly ZOOM call to support Recovery Community Organizations and members of the recovery community and strengthen recovery focused efforts across Pennsylvania.

All in PA are welcome to participate on THE CALL. Our Goals:

To understand what is happening to you, your organizations and your local community right now.

To support our fragile care recovery care system and support for our communities across Pennsylvania.

To help support each other and seek solutions for caring for ourselves and our community members as we strengthen recovery capital at the individual, family and community levels.

03/19/2026

AA and NA Were Right: Spirituality Decreases Addictions - Connecting with a 'higher power' works in prevention, treatment, and recovery. Psychology Today

For years, Alcoholics Anonymous and related organizations have emphasized that members should seek help from their “higher power,” however they conceptualize that entity. Now, a new JAMA Psychiatry meta-analysis supports this view. The investigators synthesized data from 55 rigorous longitudinal studies, including 540,712 participants. These studies followed participants from six months to 20+ years, most spanning multiple years. Across alcohol, to***co, ma*****na, and other illicit drugs, researchers found a statistically significant protective association between spirituality and more favorable substance use outcomes.

While no one knows exactly how spirituality is so effective, possible mechanisms include social support embedded within religious communities, strong social norms favoring abstinence or moderation, internalized ethical systems that discourage intoxication, the power of prayer, and helping others, which provide meaning and purpose that lower reliance on substances for mood regulation. Emerging neuroscientific research suggests meditation, prayer, and other contemplative practices may influence neural circuits involved in stress regulation, reward processing, and interpersonal bonding, though this remains a field for further investigation. These new results extend and reinforce an already-substantial body of work examining spiritually oriented mutual-help organizations, most prominently Alcoholics Anonymous and related 12-step programs.

Article link –

03/19/2026

Nominations Are Now Open! Do you know a Champion of Service?

There are two Champion of Service awards chosen each year, one to an Institution/Organization and a second to an individual who has impacted our community working as a peer recovery support.
Awards are in recognition of exceptional service, each provided by the individual or organization in connecting individuals and/or their families with treatment and recovery resources for Drug & Alcohol Service System engagement.

Who Can Be Nominated?
Any Institution/Organization and individual that provide praiseworthy support to an individual or family member in need of treatment and recovery.

For more information on how to Nominate an Institution/Organization or Individual Champion, go to: https://pro-a.org/champion-of-service-award-nominations-2026/ and complete the Award Nomination form and click submit. Or email Nikki at Nikki.w@pro-a.org