Samadhi Featured in Chronogram Magazine

Samadhi Offers an Alternative Road to Addiction Recovery 

Head to Colony on 1/27 to Help Raise Funds for Mindfulness-Based Recovery

By Anne Pyburn Craig

A star-studded evening coming to Colony Woodstock this Sunday, January 27, will benefit Samadhi Recovery, a treatment center for those suffering from substance use and related disorders and addictions that’s being founded in Kingston by filmmaker, substance abuse counselor, and recovery coach David McNamara.

“The overall vision for Samadhi is a harm-reduction-based inpatient program, detox, and outreach center. We’re starting with the outreach center,” says McNamara, a Zen practitioner who’s been working in the addiction field for a decade and teaches mindful recovery tactics at two rehabs and a halfway house. “Four years ago, my son’s best friend overdosed. We knew he had been using, but it hit hard. I started going to meetings at Bread Alone, helped start Woodstock’s PAARI (Police Assisted Addiction Recovery Initiative) program. I felt the need to do more.” Working on a documentary about the subject, McNamara became aware that there are treatment options that are only available to people who can pay $300-500 an hour.

READ FULL ARTICLE >

Project Status

We anticipate building the Center, in phases, over the next three years. Starting as a low threshold, drop-in center coupled with an eight bed holistic Detox center. This drop-in center/Detox will be  offering groups, Family therapy  and individual counseling, meditation and mindfulness practices . We will also offer basic needs food, a place to wash clothing and shower. Our partnerships with those who offer job training and housing will be of great service here as well. We seek to ultimately establish an OASAS-licensed residential treatment facility, providing a fully-integrated set of therapeutic individual and family services.  Given its distinctive approach, we believe the Center, if successful, could serve as a potential model for providers seeking to use this program to improve their practice in other hard-hit areas of the country.  For this reason, we are proposing to include a research arm of Samadhi from the very beginning.  Data from this research will allow us to document the building of our intervention, assess fidelity and make improvements in real time, demonstrate efficacy and obtain/sustain funding.  Publication of our results will help inform replication and aid in dissemination.       

As of this writing, we have engaged a consulting firm to conduct a feasibility study that will identify the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed project, opportunities and threats, the resources required, and ultimately its prospects for success. This feasibility study is scheduled to be completed the beginning of July 2018.  At the same time, we have also started seeking input and support from community stakeholders, expert advisors, and potential funders.  We have already identified some staff and some incredibly important project champions.