Amazing Grace makes a full recovery

Beth Cline-Stroud, the executive director of PAWS in Bryson City, was on her way to an important event when a call came into the shelter about another dog in need. 

Peer specialists go inside jail to assist inmates

Being incarcerated and not knowing what your future may hold is a terrifying experience, but being released from jail and having no resources to get back on your feet can be even scarier.

Cherokee hospital to build $39 million crisis unit

Long-debated plans to renovate the old Cherokee Indian Hospital building as a crisis stabilization unit will now move forward following a 9-2 vote from Tribal Council to appropriate $31 million in funding. 

If you’re going through hell: a book and some thoughts

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill

By hell, I mean neither a trivial bad-hair day nor that bleak circle of earthly hell reserved to the clinically depressed, a condition treated these days with medication and counseling. No — by hell I intend that protracted war in which you are a lone soldier and the forces arrayed against you are as dark and insidious as Mordor’s Orcs. 

Haywood Pathways on a roll

Haywood County’s only homeless shelter — and one of the very few in North Carolina west of Asheville — continues to advance its mission of transforming the most vulnerable among us by filling in some of the potholes on their road to recovery. 

Losing everything to find yourself: Waynesville native shares her story of addiction

Every recovering addict can recall a moment in their life when they hit their lowest point. For Jenny Green of Waynesville, that low point was December 2014. She was incarcerated in the Swannanoa Women’s Correctional Facility, suffering from excruciating physical opioid withdrawal symptoms and missing her infant daughter’s first Christmas.

Mental health resources in WNC

Services are available for those suffering from substance abuse through the following providers in Western North Carolina:

Seeking substance abuse services

The opioid problem has been bubbling underneath the surface for over a decade, but the issue has now reached a roaring boil as the medical community, law enforcement, families who have lost loved ones and politicians are taking action to address the problem.

Methadone stigma still hampering opioid treatment

Even though the research shows that medication-assisted management for opioid addiction is the most successful treatment method, the prevailing stigma associated with methadone and other opioid medications is still preventing people from seeking the help they need.

A place to heal: Retreat center for combat veterans works to establish in Cullowhee

When Margo Capparelli, Ph.D., first began her career, she had little idea that it would develop such a strong focus on helping combat veterans that she would one day drop everything to found a retreat center serving them.

But that’s exactly what’s happened. Capparelli, 53, is founder of Equinox Ranch, located on 23 acres in Cullowhee that she hopes to get in shape to begin operations by late spring or early summer in 2018.

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