Save the Date – Matt Talbot Recovery Month

We at HOPE towers are busy planning a wide variety of RECOVERY promoting events. The biggest, of course, being RECOVERY MONTH 2016! More information to follow, but for now please SAVE THE DATE!

August 2016 – Matt Talbot Recovery Month

SAVE THE DATE - Matt Talbot 2016
SAVE THE DATE – Matt Talbot 2016

Did you know that the brain can heal itself?

Not only can the brain heal itself, it can do a pretty good job at it too! That is of course once it is provided with the right materials and time to heal. Dr. Constance Scharff in Psychology Today highlights how it was once considered a fact, that the once the brain was damaged, it could not be repaired. However, breakthroughs in neuroscientific research have proven that this is in fact, not true.

Though individual neurons might be damaged beyond repair, the brain attempts to heal itself when damaged by making new connections or new neural pathways as work-arounds for the damage. This is called neuroplasticity,  neuro (brain/nerve/neuron) and plasticity (moldability).

Based on the latest neuroscientific research Dr. Scharff argues that abstinence is the best choice for recovery because the old neuropathways, the old links between addiction and pleasure are still there… It doesn’t take much to jump start the old habit.

The brain gets trained to do a particular behavior – use drugs or alcohol or gambling – eventually to the exclusion of all else.  BUT, in treatment, we can retrain the brain, that is develop a new pathway that supports recovery. With intensive[…] interventions, we strengthen the new “recovery” loop within the brain. The brain then learns to enjoy recovery, those things that give us pleasure in our sober lives – family, work, interpersonal interactions. We retrain the brain and thus change our lives.

Alta Mira has produced a very informative infographic detailing neuroplasticity in terms of addiction and recovery.

Rewiring the Brain Infographic
Rewiring the Brain Infographic

 

 

When does a social habbit become a dependency?

At which point do we reach the point of no return?

Alcohol… is the gateway drug, and two drinks – where you feel just tipsy enough to be reckless – the golden quantity. “After two drinks, I want to cut loose,”

Anonymous Article in the Guardian.

Community Based Mental Health Interventions

Mental Healthcare in Ireland has come a long way, but there are still a number of issues that need to be addressed. Psychotherapist, Anne McCormack highlights the marginalised issues in the Irish Times as part of a Future Health Summit Special Report.

Anne McCormack Article in the Irish Times

Our Digital Mission….

We would like to express many thanks to all those who joined us in celebrating the joint launch of our 2015 annual report and new digital media channels. We have been promoting recovery on the ground in the community for 12 years, and now we have expanded into the realm of digital.

Lunch Launch Team
The greater HOPE team

We would like to give special thanks to our guest speakers – Declan “Deco” Murphy, Catherine Mangan, Kenneth Reilly and Cllr. Christy Burke.

Research from around the world is always shedding new light on the dark world of addiction! Through our new digital channels, we will be promoting evidenced based recovery research, treatments, and support from around the globe.

We support our clients to find RECOVERY through an abstinence-based lifestyle. We feel this provides the greatest quality of life for the individual, their family, and community. This point-of-view, however, is not widely held. We hope to not only promote adequate rehabilitation but to encourage discussion and debate of the best possible way to support people’s recovery from addiction.

 

1916 Easter Rising Centenary – North Inner City Folklore Project

1916 Easter Rising Centenary – North Inner City Folklore Project

As part of the Centenary celebrations, HOPE participated in three local events, the hoisting of the flag at Liberty Hall on Palm Sunday (20th March 2016), then on Easter Monday (28th March) the unveiling of a plaque on Seán MacDermott Street, and the laying of a wreath at the GPO.

Local historian, Terry Fagan joins us in writing about the community’s commemoration of the 1916 Easter Rising Centenary. Terry’s ‘North Inner City Folklore Project’ has been involved in these community events for over 20 years. Terry also offers historical walking tours of the North Inner City. At the centre of Terry’s tour is tenement life in the north inner city, with a particular focus on ‘The Monto’, old Dublin’s infamous red light district. However discussions with Terry are not limited to tenement life in the latter half of the 20th Century, other topics range from the ‘1913 Lockout’, the ‘1916 Rising’, the ‘War of Independence’ to the ‘Civil War’.

Liberty Hall – Hoisting of the Flag

The Liberty Hall ceremony on Palm Sunday (20th March 2016) was a reenactment of the raising of the flag. The flag was hoisted on Palm Sunday 1916 by a young girl from Gardiner Street named Molly O’Reilly. She was given the honour by James Connolly to hoist the flag over the building which he considered the first free part of Ireland. Molly O’Reilly went on to fight in City Hall and was a dispatched courier to the different garrisons around the City during the 1916 Easter Rising. She went on to take a leading role in the War of Independence as an undercover agent, gathering intelligence from Michael Collins’ top team of agents. She supplied the information that played a part in the event in Irish history known as ‘Bloody Sunday’ in 1920.

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Laying of the flag and the drums outside Liberty Hall
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Preparing to march to unveil the plaque on Lower Gardiner Street
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Members of the North Inner City Folklore Project in Period Costume

Seán MacDermott Street – Unveiling of the Plaque

On Easter Monday, 28th of March 2016, the North Inner City Folklore Project pays tribute to the 1916 leader Seán MacDermott with a plaque on the SVP building on the street named after the leader. At the rear of the building where the plaque was erected was the home of Patrick Heany, composer of the Irish national anthem – Amhrán na bhFiann (the Soldier’s Song). It was composed in his house c.1907. Patrick Heany died in abject poverty in 1911, he never lived to see his song become the battle hymn of the 1916 easter rising.

1916 Centenary Commemorations
Inner City Folklore Group
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Terry Fagan Receiving 1916 Commemorative Plaque
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Cllr. Christy Burke & HOPE Managment Committee Teresa Brady at the unveiling of the plaque

GPO – Laying of the Wreath

On Easter Monday, Constance Cowley, Daughter of Molly O’Reilly and a relation of the 1916 leader Seán MacDermott, lay a wreath at the GPO. The Proclamation was read out by a local woman named Una Shaw. A piper played a lament to the men and women of 1916.

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Constance Crowley and the family of Seán MacDermott laying the wreath at the GPO.
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Constance Crowley & the family of Seán MacDermott laying the wreath at the GPO

 

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Constance Crowley and North Inner City Folklore Project Escort