Contributions Recognized During Recovery Month

For Immediate Release

Donovan Kuehn
703.741.7686, ext. 125
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Addiction-focused professionals are often an unheralded part of the health system, but for at least one day a year, that changes.

National Addiction Professionals Day, an initiative started by NAADAC, the Association for Addiction Professionals, will be celebrated on September 20, 2012, coinciding with National Recovery Month. NAADAC represents the professional interests of more than 75,000 addiction counselors, educators and other addiction-focused health care professionals in the United States, Canada and abroad.

National Addiction Professionals Day is held in September as a part of Recovery Month, a time when people throughout the nation are celebrating their success in overcoming addiction. The day is meant to recognize the important work that tens of thousands of addiction counselors perform in addiction prevention, intervention and treatment. Without the important work of addiction services professionals, the goal of addiction recovery cannot be accomplished.

NAADAC held its first Addiction Professionals Day on June 11, 1992 and was originally called National Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors Day. It was established to commemorate the hard work that addiction services professionals do on a daily basis. In 2005, the NAADAC Executive Committee made September 20 the permanent date for the yearly celebration of Addiction Professionals Day.

"We welcome everyone to join us on September 20, or hold their own local event, to celebrate the powerful work that addiction services professionals do. As each life is recovered, that helps the whole family and eventually translates into the recovery of a community," said Cynthia Moreno Tuohy, NCAC II, CCDC III, SAP, Executive Director of NAADAC.

Recovery Month events are supported, in part, by a grant from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. President Obama issued a proclamation in support of the 2012 Recovery Month. To read President Obama's Presidential proclamation, click here.

For more information on the Addiction Professionals Day click here.

For more information on Recovery Month, please visit www.recoverymonth.gov.

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