The National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence fights the stigma and the disease of alcoholism and other drug addictions.

Wellderly

National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, North Jersey Area, Inc.
Montclair, NJ

---

When Joe moved to Newark to start over, he had been alcoholic most of his life. He also needed new clothes, new teeth and medical attention for two toes that had been frozen while he was living homeless on the streets of Chicago.

Eleanor faced a different set of problems. Recently divorced, with her children grown and living elsewhere, she was drinking heavily for the first time. Soon, she would begin to suffer from the first symptoms of "late onset" alcoholism.

Today, both Joe and Eleanor are sober and playing featured roles in the Wellderly program which has been serving seniors in northern New Jersey since 1980. As active members of the "Sharing and Caring Task Force," which typically combines a social event with an educational session, they reach out to people with two simple, consistent messages: alcohol and other drugs pose special dangers for the elderly and it's never too late to do something about an addiction.

This peer-to-peer approach has been very effective in educating the often ignored residents of senior housing, where the task force looks for new audiences. "We've discovered that older people are a lot like teenagers," says program director Joyce Love. "They don't want to be preached to and they don't want to feel like they're under a microscope."

Changing body metabolism, frequent use--and sharing--of medication, and misdiagnosis of physical ailments can put seniors at greater risk for developing a substance abuse-related problem. Because seniors often depend on other people for care, they also can suffer if their caregivers have an addiction. The Wellderly program fosters awareness of these risks through group education and provides on-site counseling and intervention for individuals when needed.

The program also must deal with the issues raised by a senior's environment. "It can be very difficult to penetrate the walls of suburbia, where older people may be living in isolation," observes Love. "They have no one to tell them they're in trouble. This usually isn't the case in the city, where there are many more opportunities for people to interact and look out for one another."

Unfortunately, life in Newark can present a different kind of threat for senior residents who have seen illegal drugs invade their neighborhoods during the past ten to fifteen years. "We want Wellderly to be there for an older person who has a family member addicted to drugs, or who may be addicted themselves," says Love.

Recently, Wellderly has started paying benefits to the younger citizens of Essex County. The program offers an excellent opportunity to recruit seniors for a 36-hour volunteer training course known as WISE, or Wellness Initiative with Senior Educators. Graduates present drug prevention programs to children in schools which helps make their own lives more fulfilling, too. NCADD Affiliates have adopted the program statewide.

What keeps Love's job so interesting after working with seniors for nearly 30 years is their unpredictability and honesty. She recently watched in amazement as a group at an outreach session booed an accordion player who was trying to entertain them with a rendition of a Glenn Miller song. One member of the audience quickly turned on a boom box and within moments everyone was doing the "Electric Slide," a line dance similar to the Macarena.

It is exactly this kind of joyous, spontaneous energy that Wellderly seeks to preserve.

(3/97)

National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, Inc.

244 East 58th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10022 phone: 212/269-7797   fax: 212/269-7510 email: national@ncadd.org   http://www.ncadd.org HOPE LINE: 800/NCA-CALL (24-hour Affiliate referral)