During COVID-19 and the countrywide lockdown, Dominick Gladstone had the opportunity to share some virtual recovery discussion with Tory Werth, Recovery Supports Coordinator for NMSAD Recovery Center.
Dominick Gladstone – Keynote Speaker
Consultant | Producer – Also, a person in long term recovery (over 15 years)
Prevention work – Past Chairperson Kalamazoo County Substance Abuse Task Force, Prevention Team
Addiction Recovery work – Planning committee “Coming Together” a unique conference bringing multi-disciplined people together on topics related to addiction and recovery. Also, serving as Community and Donor Relations Chair for the conference, produced by Community Healing Center and the Drug Court Foundation (Kzoo). CCAR Certified Recovery Coach.
Speaker Level: Very Experienced, large and small audiences. The thought of captivating a packed ballroom is an environment that I thrive in. I have presented at conferences and workshops around the state.
- KPEP 12 step facilitator, teaching classes twice a month for over 14 years.
- AA conventions.
- National AA Archives Workshop.
- Western Michigan University – Guest Speaker; Criminal Justice and Behavioral Health.
- Various marketing communications presentations over the last 20 years.
Signature Topic – “Implicit Bias” as it relates to addiction
I take the audience on a journey through their beliefs of what a person in addiction “looks like” and challenge them to break the stigma attached to addiction. Contrary to popular belief, addiction has a worse stigma today than even 50 years ago.
- Introduction and explanation of implicit bias
- Subconscious reactions to societal stereotypes.
- Review of cultural content and communication filters that lead to subconscious bias.
- Words exercise
- Words like drunkard or junkie have an implicit bias attached to our cultural norms.
- Review of first thoughts related to the words we use or images we see
- Our view of what an addict looks like based on cultural and societal norms.
- Why should “you” care about the issue
- Costs to our economy.
- The war on drugs and its failure.
- Comparison to the AIDS epidemic and Cancer movements.
- Present scenarios of persons presenting symptomatic for cancer, diabetes, or dementia vs. those presenting symptomatic for addiction.
- Why do I care about this issue?
- My personal journey from addiction to recovery.
- Words revisited
- The audience, by this time, will have completely different view of what a person in active substance use looks like.
- What you can do about implicit bias
- Action steps – “Let’s change our world” – Break the Bias – Break the Stigma.
- Information shared about how implicit bias can be broken.
- The results of stigma reduction.
Note: I have spoken many times at Western Michigan University, and this speech, most recently, was very well received. I have also reviewed this topic with colleagues in the addiction and recovery industry and they have found it of great interest.
