Center Blog

September was Recovery Month, an annual observance that “provides a platform to celebrate people in recovery and those who serve them (www.recoverymonth.gov).” As part of that celebration, over 70-LGBT people from the Center and its partners joined the Third Annual NY Recovery Rally at Icahn Stadium on Randall’s Island Park on Saturday, September 25, 2010.

September also marked the third anniversary of the opening of Center CARE Recovery, the only LGBT-specific, licensed outpatient substance abuse treatment program in New York. Since its opening in 2007, Center CARE Recovery has offered treatment services to over 800 LGBT-identified persons in recovery and over 12,000 units of service. October began with our fifth and largest Center CARE Recovery Graduation celebration.

Center staff have recently been engaged in defining and sharing with each other the six-words that best represents their vision of the Center. Through this process, our staff collaboratively selected Significant, Home, Progressive, Leader, Necessary and Fabulous. Those six-words also have a potent connection to LGBT recovery.

Substance use and abuse are a significant and sad part of our LGBT-story. Lesbians and gay men are at two to three times greater risk for alcohol and drug abuse than the general population and the continuing crystal meth crisis reinforces our need to remain vigilant about the ever-changing needs of our communities.

The Center has been home to the LGBT recovery movement from the day it first opened 27-years ago in 1983. 12-Step recovery groups were the first user groups to call the Center home and still meet here on a daily and weekly basis.

The Center was thinking progressively about LGBT recovery and the needs of our communities when it sought funding for and opened Project Connect (now Center CARE Wellness), the first NYS-funded LGBT substance abuse prevention program in 1987 and in 2007, when we opened Center CARE Recovery – the first New York State, OASAS-licensed substance abuse treatment program. And finally, the Center was thinking progressively when we opened Foundations for LGBT Recovery (FFR) to offer recovery support services in 2009.

The Center has been a leader in developing substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery support interventions for LGBT-people. In addition, the recovery process itself is one where the LGBT people in recovery must take leadership over these interventions and make change in their own lives, in the lives of those around them and in our culture

The Center, Center CARE Recovery and Foundations for LGBT Recovery are necessary because they are part of a slender network of resources to enable LGBT people who use and abuse substances to save their lives. CCR and FFR participants have taken the steps to realize how necessary they are to themselves and our communities and have worked to save their own lives

Anyone joining Center CARE Recovery for its Graduation Ceremony last week or participating in the LGBT contingent at the NY Recovery Rally felt fabulous just by witnessing what the LGBT people in recovery are achieving. We feel stronger, healthier and more whole as we become part of each other’s process of healing and that is always fabulous.

Everyone who has shared their process of recovery with the Center in some way is now part of the Center’s 27-year history of LGBT recovery.

MORE INFORMATION

The Center has offered substance abuse prevention, treatment and recovery support services for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities for over 23-years through programs offered by Community Services and its antecedents. Additional details can be found at the following – Center CARE Wellness,; Center CARE Recovery ; and Foundations for LGBT Recovery.

At the Center, we hear many stories. Some depict challenges, injustice and discrimination and others are uplifting and inspiring.  Since 1993, the Center’s heard stories from members of our community about how our military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ (DADT) policy resulted in 13,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual people discharged from the military.  This policy required LGBT military service members to keep their orientation secret in order to continue serving in the military.

The time to repeal DADT is now! As military officials begin sharing their stories and the press reports the antiquated policy’s impact, it is time for us to be heard. The Associated Press reported that, Adm. Mike Mullen, “The military’s top uniformed officer [...] made an impassioned plea for allowing gays to serve openly in uniform, telling a Senate panel it was a matter of integrity and that it is wrong to force people to ”lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.”

We are inspired by NY Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s project, Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Stories and her call for hearings to repeal #DADT in the senate. She started her new website because she “thought that the more stories we could bring to bear into the public discourse, [the more] it will move this debate forward to a place where we will earn the 60 votes we need to repeal it.”

We encourage you to get involved by visiting the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Stories Project, sharing your story and signing their petition.

http://dadtstoryproject.com

For more information about other campaigns to overturn DADT, please visit Human Rights Campaign.

Update – February 12, 2010

Please read my interview with The Women’s Media Center Just Not Married: Fighting for Equality on Valentine’s Day.

Glennda Testone

Schumer becomes highest-ranking U.S. Senator to support marriage equality for same-sex couples

March 23, 2009—Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) today announced his support for marriage equality for same sex couples and for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). The announcement followed a meeting on Sunday evening in Manhattan, initiated by Senator Schumer, with a group of New York LGBT elected officials and leaders of the city’s largest LGBT organizations, including Empire State Pride Agenda Executive Director Alan Van Capelle.

“I want to thank Sen. Schumer for his support of marriage equality and the repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act,” said Van Capelle. “Like a majority of New Yorkers, Sen. Schumer recognizes that only marriage equality provides same sex couples the status, protections and rights afforded to all other Americans. We look forward to working with him to win marriage equality in New York State and around the country.”

Van Capelle said that during the meeting, Schumer pledged his support to repeal DOMA and, in the interim, to work to provide federal recognition and portability of benefits to legally married same-sex couples.

Sen. Schumer is Vice Chair of the U.S. Senate’s Democratic Conference and the highest ranking member of the Senate to endorse marriage equality.

Among other topics discussed at the meeting were continued HIV and Ryan White Care Act funding, appointment of openly LGBT people to the federal bench, special issues facing LGBT youth and seniors, the U.S. Census, and passage of a trans-inclusive Employment Nondiscrimination Act (ENDA) and hate crimes legislation.