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Our Stories
Walter Ginter
Westport, CT
My name is Walter Ginter. In 2003 when I wrote this brief bio I was 54 years old and married. I worked in New York City, where my wife and I owned and operate a small search firm. I own a house in Westport, CT. I participated in civic activities, had a subscription to the Westport Country Playhouse, and was a registered Republican. Most days, along with hundreds of other Westport residents, I commuted on Metro North to Grand Central Station here in NYC.
I was indistinguishable from the other commuters and completely typical in every way but one. Each day I took a medication for a chronic medical condition. Taking a maintenance medication is hardly atypical, I am sure that many of my fellow commuters take maintenance medications for blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety and countless other medical conditions. The difference is that I took a medication to treat my opiate dependence.
I first became dependent on opiates in 1971, when I was in the service. I spent the next 20 years in and out of various treatment programs. I didn’t understand that my opiate use had caused metabolic changes in my brain. I felt that I couldn’t remain opiate-free because I was weak. Eventually, I learned that taking a medication to restore normal brain function wasn’t really different than taking a medication for any other chronic medical condition. Thousands of people have achieved abstinence and sobriety with the assistance of medication-assisted treatments but very few of them consider themselves as recovering persons because they have never been allowed to. It is my goal to educate those patients so they too can experience what it is like to be a recovering person.
It is seven years later and I am now 61 years old. I no longer commute on Metro-North to Manhattan. Now I drive to the South Bronx early each morning.
In 2005 while volunteering for the National Alliance for Medication Assisted Recovery we applied for funding through the Recovery Community Services Program (RCSP) and where awarded the first grant ever awarded to a Medication Assisted Recovery organization. I left my former career to become Project Director for the Medication Assisted Recovery Services (M.A.R.S.) Project at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY. For the first time in my life I couldn’t wait for 5AM so I could go to work. At MARS we created a recovery community for MAT patients. By the close of the grant in September of 2010 we had shown that with a few adjustments the same kind of interventions that help the rest of the community find recovery work at least equally well and perhaps better in the medication assisted recovery community!
In October of 2010 we were the only RCSP project in the nation to be funded for 4 more years.
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