**WELCOME TO THE ADDICTION:SUBSTANCE ABUSE COMMUNITY**

***** PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING ****
      
                   We want to welcome everyone to the Addiction Substance Abuse forum! This is the forum to come to for discussions on topics of addiction and recovery. If you have any questions about addiction, different methods of detoxification, recovery care and planning this is the forum to visit.

Here are a few of our features:

~HEALTH PAGES
               We have a Health Pages area where members have posted various informative topics to help you in your recovery. Be sure to read the wealth of information provided there for your benefit. The Health Pages link can be found near the top right of this page.


~TRACKERS
               We would also like to point you to the new ‘ Trackers’ that you can add to your profile. You can add them to your profile by clicking on "My MedHelp" (top) and then go to the Tracker Widget -- At the bottom of the Tracker Panel click on "Add Tracker" which will take you to the tracker page, where you can select many Trackers to help you. Addiction, mood, and weight trackers, just to mention a few. Please be watching as MedHelp adds new ones for you to use.


~FRIENDS
                To add a member as a friend, hover over the member’s name and click on “Add A Friend”. This will prompt a friendship invitation to that member.


~PRIVATE MESSAGING
                This feature allows you to speak privately with another member. The easiest way to send a message is to hover over the member’s name. You will see their profile page in the background and a button that says “Send A Message”. Click on that and follow the instructions.


~NOTES
                If you would like to send a member good wishes or just say hello, hover over the member’s name and click on “Send A Note”.


~JOURNALS
               Journals are a way for you to share your experiences or simply day to day frustrations, joys, etc. You can create a journal from your profile. These journals can be set as private, public or only viewed by those members on your friends list.


~ADDICTION SOCIAL
                 We also have the Addiction Social forum. Because there are so many aspects of life that are affected by addiction, we found the need for a separate forum to have a place to come and discuss all sorts of issues with our members. The Social Forum is the place to discuss how our daily lives are going, check up on other forum members, exchange recipes, share a joke or two with our friends.  You can access it by looking to the right of your screen where you will see “Related Communities”. Click on “Addiction: Social” forum and it will take you right over there.


~COMMUNITY LEADERS  
                  Your Community Leaders are members who act like ambassadors to MedHelp, helping to communicate the feedback from the community as well as help us communicate back to the community from MedHelp. One thing to note, Community Leaders, are not MedHelp Moderators. Keep in mind, there are full-time Moderators monitoring the site. The Community Leaders will be able to help if there is an issue and work with our Moderators to address it. The Leaders are not working for MedHelp, they are still volunteer members, but ones that have taken on some added responsibility.

There are also certain guidelines in place specific to The Addiction Communities. These guidelines are listed below and will help our members find their answers and further help the community to be more effective:

~   Do not post asking how or where to buy your drugs/medications.

~   Do not post asking how to pass a drug test.

~  Do not post asking for dosing information on any medication.  Please consult your prescribing physician  for that information.

~  Do not post more than one thread per day on the same subject. If you have additional questions concerning that topic, continue to post in the thread you started; and

~ Do not post on the Addiction Communities asking to identify any pills.  Please post those questions in the Family Medicine Community:  http://www.medhelp.org/forums/show/164 where they may be able to assist you.  Any threads posted in the Addiction Communities asking to identify pills will be moved to the Family Medicine Community.

~  In addition to these guidelines, please abide by MeddHelp’s “Terms Of Use” which can be viewed at the bottom of the page.  Any post that contains an infraction  of the guidelines will be deleted by our moderators.

The Addiction Communities are comprised of addicts in many stages of detox and recovery. We are from various ethnicities, countries, beliefs, and backgrounds. We ask that you be courteous and respectful of all of our members.

Please come and stay awhile and join both of our communities. Enjoy your experience!

Your Community Leader,

IBKleen