Program Overview
The Addiction Treatment Forum educational program was developed in the early 1990s to address the concerns of patients and professionals working in the addiction treatment field during the heroin epidemic that faced our nation. The goal of the educational program is to report what has happened, what is happening today, and what might happen in the future to further the success of professionals and patients in providing medication-assisted treatment for opioid addiction.
Today we have over a million yearly visits to our website (ATForum.com). Our website content includes almost 100 newsletters, currently published bi-monthly; 250 news updates; related resources and website listings; information on where to find substance abuse treatment; patient education brochures; and a listing of key events and conferences related to substance abuse treatment.
Editorial Process
It should be noted that the publisher and the contributing writers are not medical professionals (see background information below).
The publisher is responsible for selecting all content for the news updates, resources, and related websites on ATForum.com. The publisher and contributing writers discuss potential article and interview ideas before starting work on the bi-monthly newsletter. Our editorial goal is to provide a mix of news stories, interviews on key topics of interest to our diverse audience, research summaries that can further the education of our readers in the addiction treatment field, and other resources to help encourage patients in medication-assisted treatment to successfully stay on the road to recovery.
When interviews are conducted and published in our online newsletters, the professionals and or patients we interviewed receive the final article for approval before the newsletter is published online. Articles for our news updates include links to the original articles, the source, and the date they were published online.
When White Papers are written and published, they are footnoted and fully referenced.
Background/Qualifications
Joy Jacoby
Publisher/Owner
When Joy Jacoby came to Addiction Treatment Forum, it wasn’t from a background in publishing, but, surprisingly, from a 30-year career in real estate. Below is the remarkable story of her transition from RE/MAX real estate broker in suburban Chicago, to publisher and owner of a website devoted to helping patients in medication-assisted treatment.
It all began decades ago, when Joy happened to meet Sue Emerson (AT Forum’s publisher at that time) at a neighborhood restaurant. As weeks and months went by, the two emailed each other and met periodically. Sue often talked with Joy about AT Forum; the idea of a publication about addiction treatment, as a tool for helping people, appealed to Joy, a woman of strong faith.
Joy had long been involved with charitable organizations, working as an active member or serving on boards. She has logged more than 25 years of service at the Long Grove (Illinois) Lions Club.
As often happens to people who help others, Joy’s philosophy turned out to help Joy herself, when personal problems suddenly entered her life: Over a span of several years, she lost her brother David, and several friends, because of addictions.
In the coping process, Joy reacted in a positive way. In 2015 she established a not-for-profit Christian-based organization, Once Was Lost, in loving memory of her brother David, and her mother, Marjorie, who shared Joy’s commitment to helping others. Joy found serving on the board of Once Was Lost to be deeply satisfying—a way to help people understand and accept the fact that others are there to help them; that they are never truly lost, or alone.
During those years, Joy’s friendship with Sue continued to grow. Realizing the depth of Joy’s drive to help people, and her deepening interest in AT Forum, Sue arranged for Joy to succeed her as publisher.
Today, Joy sees her work as publisher/owner of AT Forum, and her commitment to the website, as a way of remembering her brother, her friend Sue, and loved ones she has lost to addictions. But her feelings go beyond that. Being at the helm of AT Forum gives Joy a way to help save patients who are fighting a battle against addiction—and also to help others who are at risk of becoming addicted, and could perhaps be saved through timely, caring intervention.
Alison Knopf
Contributing Writer for Addiction Treatment Forum
Alison is a freelance journalist. In addition to writing for AT Forum, she is editor of Alcoholism & Drug Abuse Weekly, a contributor to Filter, managing editor of the monthlies Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter and Child & Adolescent Psychopharmacology Update. She got her first OTP tour as a journalist from Mark Parrino when he ran an OTP in New York City in the 1980s.
Barbara Goodheart, ELS
Contributing Writer for Addiction Treatment Forum
Barbara is an award-winning medical writer and a certified editor in the life sciences (ELS). Her background: independent contractor with more than 40 medical associations, education companies, and pharmaceutical companies. Her projects: monographs, film scripts, accredited continuing medical educational programs (CMEs) for physicians; six books; and dozens of freelance magazine articles on health, travel, and family topics.
Mason Elliott
(Website Developer for Addiction Treatment Forum)
Mason Co-Founded Social Solutions, LLC, a web development firm based out of Cheboygan, MI in 2016 and began work on ATForum.com in 2023.