Caroline Beidler, MSW, David Best PhD, William Stauffer “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” ― Aristotle Overview: We are articulating a strengths-based framework for understanding how families can move beyond surviving addiction toward collective healing, resilience, and flourishing. Recovery within the ecological framework of family is best viewed as a dynamic, … Continue reading The Synergy of Family Flourishing in Addiction Recovery

“Words are important. If you want to care for something, you call it a flower; if you want to kill something, you call it a weed.” – Don Coyhis The very term “Zombie Drugs” drives drug hysteria. A specter that these drugs are so powerful and bad that people who have used them are no … Continue reading Pathways of Long-Term Recovery and the Rhetoric of “Zombie Drugs”

I’ve made the mistake of mentioning “fraud” in some of my talks over the past year. People are so eager to tell me anecdotes about sober living homes gone wrong, peer providers turned billing machines, and policymakers fed up with “the Wild West”, the entire Q&A is dominated by these stories. Fraud and abuse isn’t … Continue reading The Growing Wave of Fraud and Skepticism in the Recovery Field

Imagine a community agency with settings and services (sites and beds) that were proactively designed on a continuum: dry, damp, and wet. Where "dry" meant an abstinence based sober residence of a more classic nature where an occurrence of use would be a rare exception and managed on an individualized basis. And where "damp" meant … Continue reading Dry, damp, wet

In Bill Stauffer's latest post, which he titled "The Real Gold Standard Addiction Treatment", he stated, Interventions that sustain limited gain over the short-term simply cannot be considered as gold standards. They should be summarily rejected until they demonstrate significant improvements in global health and functioning that are durable over time. I'll share two areas … Continue reading The Real Gold Standard of Addiction Treatment? A little more.

There has been a lot of focus over the years on what the “gold standard” of addiction treatment is. The simple truth is that the gold standard of addiction treatment is the one that most effectively fosters the conditions in which recovery flourishes over the long term. When we begin to think about it in … Continue reading The Real Gold Standard Addiction Treatment

Jason Schwartz recommended that I start posting new episodes of my podcast The Peer Support Professional's Guide. Earlier this year I was approached by the Mountain Plains Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) about doing a podcast. They didn't give me many parameters initially, besides wanting something for peer specialists. I thought, with all the outstanding … Continue reading Peer Podcast: How do I become a peer specialist?

I was introduced to Darren McGarvey's work a few years ago. I haven't followed him closely, but he seems to have a knack for putting his finger on very salient contradictions and tensions in public and professional discourse about addiction and recovery. I came across this Instagram post yesterday that touches upon the uses and … Continue reading “Today, I live in the shadow of a character I created.”

The Minneapolis Times published a provocative column on harm reduction from a writer who previously worked in a social service agency. Harm reduction made sense to me as a way of managing an immediate danger. Somewhere along the way, it seemed to become an end in itself. The question was no longer only how to … Continue reading When survival becomes the endpoint

When I started working in addiction treatment to reliably access residential rehab in Scotland you had to live in the right area, be wealthy or just plain lucky. I heard it too often from patients and families who could see what was needed and, despite their best efforts, couldn't get near it. When we argued … Continue reading Mission Accomplished? Rehab in Scotland, Five Years On