Former addiction counselor Addison McFerren remains active in the mental health community through conferences and events with many mental health organizations. One organization whose conferences Addison McFerren has attended is the American Psychiatric Association (APA), which advocates for mental health and psychiatric professionals at the federal and state levels.A major element of APA advocacy is ongoing work to support the 21st Century Cures Act, as well as its mental health antecedents in the Affordable Care Act and Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. APA seeks to ensure that all mental health reform provisions in these laws receive appropriate resources for implementation and in turn reduce the burden of mental health coverage for Americans.The provisions of the 21st Century Cures Act that the APA supports include the strengthening of mental health parity and efforts to address workforce shortages in mental health areas. The law also outlines specific research and strategic initiatives, such as billions of dollars for brain health research and efforts to reduce the impact of opioid addiction.
Enrolled at Iowa State University where she’s studying psychology, Addison McFerren hopes to parlay her passion for drug and addiction therapy. She spent some time as an addiction counselor for House of Mercy in Des Moines where she managed a caseload of 50 patients dealing with substance dependence issues. In her downtime, Addison McFerren enjoys reading and counts Nicholas Sparks as one of her favorite authors.In March 2018, Nicholas Sparks announced that the release of his 20th novel would occur on October 16, 2018. Entitled "Every Breath," the book focuses on two characters who meet one evening in Sunset Beach, North Carolina. The female character, Hope Anderson, is a native of the state and is stuck in a dead-end relationship with her boyfriend who’s an orthopedic surgeon. She decides to spend a week at her family’s cottage in Sunset Beach to prepare the house for sale and contemplate where she’s at in her life.The male character, Tru Walls, is a safari guide who is a native of Zimbabwe. Tru ends up in Sunset Beach thanks to a letter from a man who claims to be his father. He also seeks answers to his own life after his mother's passing. Tru and Hope meet and connect. The story focuses on family responsibilities versus personal happiness.
As an addiction counselor with the adolescent treatment center House of Mercy, Addison McFerren worked with both patients and families to facilitate recovery. Addison McFerren maintains a particular interest in helping people understand how addiction and other mental illnesses affect a patient's family.When someone with a family has a mental illness, others in the family struggle as well. Daily activities and special occasions alike can become extremely frustrating, as everyone involved must consider the intense and potentially unpredictable needs and behavior of the ill person. Families may feel ineffective in their attempts to protect the person from his or her own symptomatic behavior, and if patients are aggressive or threatening, family members may fear for their own safety.For those family members who take on a caregiver role, meeting the patient's daily needs can be extremely time-intensive and thus emotionally and physically draining. Meanwhile, others in the family may feel consistently ignored and deprioritized. This can stress even strong family relationships and lead to resentment of the person with the illness.The illness may also cause a pervasive grief among family members, who see friends living routine lives and feel the lack of such normalcy in their own lives. This is often worsened by the lack of social support that can be caused by the stigma of mental illness. Families retreat into the world of the illness and do not have the benefit of empathy from friends or social networks.For these reasons, it is vitally important for all family members affected by mental illness to seek resources. Whether that is in the form of professional, spiritual, or social assistance, support of some form is crucial to a family's ability to meet their own needs as well as those of the ill loved one.
