Get your questions ready! We have an expert ready to be grilled about addiction treatment this month–our own Janet Hopkins.
Janet A. Hopkins has been involved in some aspect of mental health treatment since 1976. It all started with a newsletter for the Montgomery County Mental Health Association (Maryland) comparing drug costs. She soon found herself (as a volunteer) doing a group in the Sykesville State Hospital in Baltimore preparing long term (40 years for some!) women patients for discharge “to the community.” The hospital once held thousands of patients hospitalized for life and looked like a scary movie asylum—the inside was even scarier.
From there, she went on to the Drinking Driver Monitor Program as the Montgomery County supervisor and later, acting assistant director for the state. The national model program provided intensive probation supervision for DUI offenders as a diversion from jail or prison. Lots of court time!
In 1986, she moved to Prescott, Arizona, to work as a therapist at a local mental health clinic. There she developed an intensive outpatient program that eventually helped the clinic spin off an inpatient program. She became the director of the program in 1991 and spent several years managing both outpatient and inpatient services. She was active in state DUI program development for many years and turned down an offer to run the New Mexico state DUI services in Santa Fe.
After retirement she became the editor-in-chief of an international niche magazine called “In Recovery” until the magazine was sold in 2017. She authored most of the magazine’s interviews and numerous other articles. She’s on her third mystery novel and writes many non-fiction pieces for historical journals around the country. Her poetry and short stories have been published here and there.
Get ready for an informative meeting and a chat with the woman who has the info and the answers to make our writing more accurate, informative and entertaining.
The Zoom link is in our monthly newsletter. If you do not already receive it, please e-mail the Membership chair at membership@arizonamysterwriters.com.
