[music] the entertainment industries council was formed 28 years ago and it was formed to bring the power and influence of the entertainment industry to bear on health and social issues. it engages writers, producers, directors, executives all within the entertainment industry, as well as talent in the industry, to basically harness their creative talents and the reach of the entertainment industry to touch the consumer, the general public, or the regular audiences that are watching television, going to movies, and listening to music. all of the photos, you have separated them out and really cleaned them up. yeah. from the picture this meeting and we're going to be using some of those for the publications. so christina is... picture this is a meeting that we convene. it's a very interesting process where we bring representatives from the entertainment industry, maybe a tv show writer or someone involved in medical research, producers, directors, oftentimes talent, and we have them explain their world to the constituent groups, to the stakeholders, their concern about treatment and recover

annual prism awards, a showcase of entertainment making a difference, presented by the entertainment industries council incorporated in collaboration with the substance abuse and mental health services administration. the entertainment industries council has really been very fortunate in our ability to partner with samhsa on a number of different projects. the prism awards is probably the most high profile project that we do at samhsa. it's a good collaboration because our goals are very compatible, getting sound information to the general public in the areas of treatment, addiction, recovery, and also in the area of mental health. i've never struggled with anything myself. i do know from delving into this man, orrin hunt, who is dealing with his, you know, disorder, there is a lot of hope. it's not a thing you're stuck with; it's a thing that is a journey. it's part of a journey and it might be hard sometimes, but it's definitely, if you take the right steps, and everything is surmountable, i think. as we all were working on "crazy heart," we knew men and women who had struggled with addiction, we can

throughout all this year both nacoa and the entertainment industry council have been celebrating 25 years of passionate dedication to bringing effective attention to the pain, sadness, and enormous losses suffered by addicted persons and their family members. we also have been celebrating at the same time the hope and the healing that we and the many of our colleague organizations in the prevention, treatment, and recovery support field represented here today, bring to so many hurting individuals and their family members. by collaboration that takes place within the recovery community our joint planning and our individual outreach to the public is amplified. this is a media-oriented voice that we have and we are making it be heard and we must continue to make it be heard to further inspire the seeking of treatment and the commitment to recovery. we're also here to acknowledge the persistence in dedication for encouraging people to seek treatment and to get onto the path of recovery. we're here to make news today on behalf of the 22.6 million people in the u.s. who suffer from substance us

public service advertising, working with the advertising council, we do outreach with entertainment industries council, we work with hollywood health & society. what we want to do is we want to take the resources the federal government has, the science that we have behind the information, make sure that those storylines are credible because if they're not credible, they're not believable, you know, we lose our entry into the audience to begin with and so what can we do to support those who are in recovery, getting the story out? what can we do to help those who are working with the industry get the accurate information out? and what can we do to just overall raise awareness amongst the public about addiction into mental illnesses so that people are informed. they can take steps early on and not wait until the train wreck happens in somebody's life. so again, treating mental illnesses and addictions are a lot like any other health condition, intervene early, let's help the person into recovery quickly. sandra. i want to refer to mark's comment about getting the information out. one thing we know from r