Recovery advocacy groups, treatment programs, and community coalitions nationally held house parties, town hall meetings and other gatherings to screen the HBO documentary "Addiction," presenting a unique opportunity for people in recovery to discuss alcohol and other drug issues with the general public.

In addition to high-profile events such as a screening at the Progress Energy Center in Raleigh, N.C. -- which featured a presentation by North Carolina first lady Mary Easley and drew more than 500 people -- screenings also were held in hundreds of smaller venues, including churches, town halls, the offices of community-based organizations, and private homes.

All reports indicated that the educational efforts around the series exceeded expectations. "Our goal was to have 500" house parties, said Tom Coderre, national field director for Faces & Voices of Recovery (Faces & Voices), which organized many of the "Addiction" events. "We think we exceeded that a little."

This isn't the first time that Faces & Voices has been involved in hosting house parties around a media event: more than 70 recovery advocacy organizations held house parties in 2005 for a screening of Dateline NBC's program "Saving Carrick," which detailed a 20-year-old's struggle with heroin addiction.

Join Together's director of Internet services, Eric Helmuth, said that the large-scale events also were successful. "We started out planning 30 large, town-hall type meetings, and ended up having more than 80," he said. "People are still calling us to make plans for future screenings."

Coderre estimated that 15,000 people attended house parties nationally. Gretchen Burns Bergman, cofounder of A New PATH (Parents for Addiction Treatment and Healing), a San Diego-based advocacy group, hosted 24 people for dinner and a movie screening at her home in Rancho Santa Fe.

In addition to her husband, a psychiatrist, guests included a pain physician, a youth-program director who was an ex-con, and one of Bergman's neighbors. One guest, raised by an alcoholic mother, reacted angrily to the film, said Bergman. "She's not ready to forgive," she said.

"It prompted some really good conversation," Bergman said of the film.

About half of the house parties were organized directly by advocacy groups, but the rest were the result of people learning about the campaign online and using the tools at the AddictionAction.org website to schedule their own events and invite friends and neighbors to attend. "We think that the series had a huge impact in the communities where it was screened," said Coderre.

Big Turnout in Tiny Town

Few screenings were as successful in engaging the local community as the one sponsored by FORMLL: Friends of Recovery, Morgan, Madison, Lawrence, Limestone and Cullman counties, a chapter of Alabama Voices for Recovery, in rural Eva, Ala. Out of a population of about 900 people, 170 residents showed up at the Journey Church Assembly of God for a screening of "Addiction."

In typical small-town fashion, the screening was preceded by a supper -- funded in part by the Alabama recovery-advocacy group, but also featuring dishes provided by local church ladies. Alabama Voices of Recovery members showed up early to distribute information from the group's trade-show booth, then stayed late for a panel discussion about the film.

Mike McLemore, vice president of Alabama Voices of Recovery, said that flyers and other promotional materials generated so much response that the Eva event had to be moved from the town hall to the larger church. He described church officials as "very supportive," noting that the recovery group had helped local clergy with treatment referrals when congregants got into trouble with alcohol and other drugs.

Still, said McLemore, "We used the film literally as the entrance into the door. We have been here for years, but we got as much publicity for the group as the film by connecting our name to it."

Eva has no cable TV service and only about one in three residents have satellite dishes, so for many residents the Journey Church screening was their only opportunity to see the "Addiction" series. "The film itself was enlightening, and we segued into the panel where people got information on local services," said McLemore. "We were better able to make them understand that people come to recovery at different levels doing different things. There are many ways to find help for addiction recovery. Especially for the faith-based people, they realized that there's a place for all of us."

Good Turnouts in New England

In Arlington, Mass., a screening of "Addiction" was held on a chilly Saturday night but still drew 65 attendees to the clubhouse of the Right Turn program, including state Rep. Will Brownsberger and members of the local chamber of commerce, said Woody Giessmann, the group's director. Using funds provided by the Massachusetts Organization for Addiction Recovery, Right Turn bought a new flatscreen TV for the screening and "so we can continue to provide these kinds of events to the community," said Giessmann.

Giessmann said that the film and discussion that followed provided a valuable opportunity to educate the public about the effects of drugs on the brain and the role of medication-assisted recovery. "The panel discussion would have gone on all night if we had let it," he said. "Everyone in the room was touched by addiction on some level."

Jim Gillen, director of the RI Communities for Addiction Recovery (RICAREs) recovery-advocacy program, said that the group's screening of "Addiction" in Providence, R.I., got emotional at times. "There were quite a few wet eyes in the audience" among the 81 attendees, he said, particularly when the film's segment on the need for parity coverage of addiction detailed a family's struggles to keep a loved one in treatment for longer than a few weeks.

"We've gotten a number of phone calls and emails about convening more" screenings, added Gillen, who said that RICAREs also is holding followup sessions and sending copies of "Addiction" to local treatment programs.

Editor's note:
For information on events happening in your community, or more information on how you can get involved, visit: AddictionAction.org