("Wrong Way" by Jack Zalium is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.) More and more frequently I'm hearing self-identified and publicly recognized recovery advocates state that providing harm reduction services with the goal of moving people toward recovery or treatment constitutes "doing it wrong." This perspective isn't limited to a few outliers, I heard it voiced at a SAMHSA … Continue reading Doing it wrong?

There have been devastating impacts on our entire helping systems workforce over the long siege of the COVID Pandemic. Recently, I read the Ohio PHP Executive Report, the Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on the Health and Well-being of Ohio's Healthcare Workers. The report summarizes data collected from 13,532 respondents across 13 of Ohio’s Professional … Continue reading Embracing Recovery Capital Within Our Care System to Save It

SEAN FOGLER AND WILLIAM STAUFFER - AUG 15, 2022 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Op-ed Today drug overdose deaths will claim almost three hundred American lives — thanks to stigma. The labels and stereotypes so many of us use are stigma in action, and separate us from those we mark as inferior, people to avoid. We judge and discriminate, … Continue reading Sean Fogler and William Stauffer: How to help people who use drugs stop

I recently stumbled on this educational page about stigma from the National Harm Reduction Coalition. It's well done and illuminates the assumptions and goals for their stigma reduction efforts. They frame responding to drug use as a choice between liberation and stigma, with harm reduction as the path to liberation. While it may work for … Continue reading Addiction, Stigma, and Liberation