North County Connection

MEETING ROOMS: We maintain 3 meeting rooms, a childcare room, private and conference rooms for peer supportive services and rooms for sober socialization. These rooms are used by local 12-step groups including AA, NA, SAA, OA, DRA, Al-Anon, Alateen, and CoDA. We recently added SMART Recovery meetings for individuals seeking an alternative to 12-step groups. There are over 18 meetings per week, 52 weeks per year, with average monthly meeting attendance of 1,200, or nearly 15,000 per year. More than 300 regular attendees have children under 18, thus reducing incidences of child abuse, as their parents are seeking support for their clean and sober lifestyle. Of the regular meeting attendees only 52 persons per month are mandated to attend meetings under a court order. This shows that our recovery participants are members of the local community who are voluntarily participating in our programs, and are truly dedicated to attaining and preserving their clean and sober lifestyle. We provide a children's playroom to encourage the parents and to provide a safe, fun and healthy family environment for the children, many of whom have experienced a lot of trauma. The facility is also used on holidays for sober events, when our kitchen allows participants to share meals and fellowship. We average 100+ persons for Thanksgiving and 60+ for Christmas. We are open all day on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, when people in recovery are especially vulnerable to relapse. We also host various other potluck meals during the year and have facilitated weddings and celebrations of life events for members. Isolation and loneliness are major predictors of relapse and peer support is the antidote.

INFORMATION DISSEMINATION: Create and distribute information to educate and facilitate recovery from and prevention of drug and alcohol abuse. We include alcoholics, addicts, spouses, families and loved ones. We provide information on gambling, sexual addiction and overeating. We provide educational opportunities for the participants and other community members with life-affirming and recovery-related topics twice a month. We maintain a facility meeting calendar and distribute a monthly newsletter. We stock all recovery literature that we can find and provide it at no cost. Our volunteers and clients produce, copy and distribute various recovery-related literature to collaborative meetings with many county agencies. Our Board members have been advocates for recovery & treatment services for the past 35 years. We have served on many County social services teams, health groups and agencies. Members are on child welfare boards and the Health Commission in our local government. In 2024 NCC hosted its first "September Recovery Month" awareness activity, which resulted in 10 new volunteers becoming active in its holiday programs and other activities. NCC initiated new educational programs onsite, starting with training on the proper use of Nar-Can for individuals who are in an opioid overdose.