Odyssey House senior adviser James Pitts honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award
AMERICAN-born drug addiction treatment leader James Pitts remains devoted to changing people’s lives and helping others overcome their dependence on drugs and alcohol.
Macarthur
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AMERICAN-born drug addiction treatment leader James Pitts remains devoted to changing people’s lives and helping others overcome their dependence on drugs and alcohol.
For 32 years, he has led one of Australia’s largest and most successful drug and alcohol rehabilitation organisations, Eagle Vale’s Odyssey House NSW, and has overseen the treatment of more than 30,000 men and women turning their lives around.
Mr Pitts’ efforts have been recognised with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Network of Alcohol and other Drugs Agencies.
“I was totally shocked and surprised,” Mr Pitts said of the accolade which was presented at the 2016 NSW Non Government Alcohol and other Drugs Awards.
He said the motivation of his life’s work was simple.
“I formed the belief that if given the right kind of support and environment, people can overcome dependence and any difficulty, reach their maximum potential and become functioning and contributing members of society,” he said.
Mr Pitts, 69, was the chief executive of Odyssey House from 1995 to May this year.
He has handed the reins to new chief Julie Babineau and remains devoted to Odyssey House through his new role as a senior adviser.
Mr Pitts has taken Odyssey House from humble beginnings to what it is today.
He established a separate support centre for parents and children so they are not housed in the main facility with 85 other people around them while they try to bond as a family.
He is also proud of the medically supervised withdrawal unit program and the crucial after-care program.
“That’s the real test when people get back into society, that’s the test of what they have learned at Odyssey House, that’s where after care is so important,” he said.
Mr Pitts is speaking from experience. As a young adult living in Michigan, he played professional basketball before a knee injury effectively ended his career and led to him slipping into depression and an addiction to heroin.
He became a resident in a program at Odyssey House in Detroit and turned his life around. He then trained to work with at-risk youth and in 1978 became the program manager at Odyssey House in Detroit.
After working in New York, and then Odyssey House Victoria from 1981-84, he transferred to Odyssey House NSW as state director, later becoming the general manager and then chief executive in 1995.
“The age people start using drugs has dropped from 17 to 12-13 due to factors including the wider availability of drug use,” he said.
He said society’s drug use has shifted from heroin, speed and ecstasy to a big increase in methamphetamines in the past four to five years due to its cheapness and availability. Like many of us, he is also closely watching the American presidential election with a great deal of interest.
“I keep crossing my fingers they don’t go completely nuts and elect Donald Trump,” he said.
Mr Pitts, who describes himself as an urban guy from Detroit, enjoys listening to jazz music, swimming, playing basketball and reading in his spare time.
“I’ve had a wonderful career and a wonderful experience living in Australia and I hope to continue that in the future,” he said.
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