In collaboration with the St. Luke’s Wood River Foundation, The Community Library presents Piers Kaniuka, co-author of Real People, Real Recovery: Overcoming Addiction in Modern America.
The opioid epidemic is laying waste to America. Overdose deaths have decimated a generation and lowered overall life expectancy. Between Big Pharma, the war on drugs, and ineffectual treatment, addicts and their families face an uphill battle in getting the help they need. But there is a way out! Noted recovery professionals Eric Spofford and Piers Kaniuka provide some much needed hope. They describe how they beat opiate addiction and went on to help thousands of addicts find recovery. Along the way, they discuss the root causes of the current opiate epidemic, which include dislocation, the prison industrial complex, practices of the pharmaceutical industry, stress, racism, poverty, and much more. In addition, Real People Real Recovery explains the difference between recovery and sobriety and what actually constitutes success in treatment.
**Special program start time is 4:00 pm**
Piers Kaniuka is Director of Spiritual Life at Granite Recovery Centers. He has worked in the field of addiction for over twenty years and is an expert in how to best utilize holistic practices in the treatment of addiction. Piers is the former chair of the department of Transpersonal Psychology at Burlington College and is a core faculty member in the Contemplative Spiritual Direction certificate program at the Alcyon Center in Seal Cove, Maine. He is also a co-founder of the Liberation Institute, a non-profit dedicated to training incarcerated men and women to become yoga instructors. Piers has Master’s degrees in Theological Studies (Bangor Theological Seminary) and Counseling Psychology (Antioch University, New England).
