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Families Against Narcotics Benzie-Manistee Support Group Help Those Struggling During Pandemic

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A narcotics support group based downstate called Families Against Narcotics formed a in December 2019.

“FAN is a group that provides support to families who have a member who is struggling with addiction,” said Board President Daryl Goodman. “Whether it’s a family who has a member that has recovered from addiction or is currently going through an episode of addiction, families are reaching out and looking for support from other people.”

However, the pandemic hit right as FAN Benzie-Manistee was starting out.

“We really didn’t roll it out through the media like most FAN chapters have,” said Board Member Randy Arndt. “Not a lot of people knew about us, so we really didn’t have a lot of attendance at the meetings.”

COVID-19 restrictions moved their support group meetings to Zoom and FaceTime.

“We’re asking people to come and present themselves and there’s not much of an audience to present themselves to,” said Arndt. “We’d like to boost those numbers if we could.”

FAN not only wants to help those with an addiction and their families, especially during a time where , they also want to help educate the community, too.

“We have such a problem with opioid addiction and there’s a lot is stigma around that,” Goodman said. “We’re trying to educate the community as well about addiction and what it means and try to take away some of that stigma.”

Arndt has been in recovery for 13 years, and knows how hard it is to get help.

“There was a time period where my wife didn’t know that I was using, and my son didn’t,” he said. “I wish I could go back on that day and have something like Families Against Narcotics around to help them understand how to help me.”

And helping people is all FAN wants to do.

“We just have to work together as a community to bring that out as make it available to everybody who needs it,” Goodman said.

FAN hopes to resume in person meetings in mid-April.

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