“Lethe is the river of forgetfulness that runs through the underworld, so the classics tell us, and there is nothing more potent than forgetfulness.” ― Kate Quinn As I wrote about in a recent piece, Ways of Knowing and Our AOD Treatment & Recovery Workforce, a major source of information about addiction and recovery is … Continue reading Swimming In the River Lethe: Immersion in Un-mindfulness of our Own History

In the addiction and recovery space, we often fail to see issues and related solutions through multiple lenses. We want simple answers and even simpler solutions to our most profoundly complex challenges. The proverbial silver bullet solution that ever fails us. As my colleague Jason Schwartz writes, we have multiple approaches to addressing drug problems, … Continue reading Ways of Knowing and Our AOD Treatment & Recovery Workforce

In May of 2022, I wrote about the use of algorithms in substance use care and related discrimination against persons with substance use disorders, this is a revisit on that piece. The recent article in Wired Magazine, Eventbrite Promoted Illegal Opioid Sales to People Searching for Addiction Recovery Help, on how data about peoples addiction … Continue reading Revisiting the Algorithm of SUD Care Discrimination

Bill Stauffer and Kevin Hyer, Esq. CEO of The Hyer Calling Foundation, Inc. There has long been a dream of a care and support system that would be informed by, facilitated by and funded to offer what people need to heal over the long term from one of our most pressing challenges, substance use disorders. … Continue reading A Recovery Disoriented System of Care

"For every complex problem, there's a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." - H.L. Mencken A recent article, The addiction crisis is even worse than headlines can convey highlights how Americans are dying in a myriad of ways beyond overdose. Embracing overdoses as the primary metric has myopically focused us on what is one … Continue reading We Keep Pressing the Easy Button and It Still Is Not Working

Establishing and sustaining recovery can be a complex process requiring multiple components to withstand the environmental challenges. It has a foundation that it is built on load bearing beams and columns to sustain it, and an outer shell and a roof to provide support and safety from the elements. A great deal depends on a … Continue reading Building a Recovery Community of Barn Raisers

Just over four years ago, in the first weeks of the great pandemic isolation of March, 2020, I wrote Let’s focus the recovery community on hope, connection, and purpose. In those first days, it was clear that recovery community could do a great deal to save lives and build community resilience in that most uncertain … Continue reading The Keel of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement: Our Steering Concepts

Presenting the words of one of our most respected recovery thought leaders at this historic gathering One morning in mid-February, William White called me. We have had a number of such conversations in recent years. They are always deeply meaningful to me. He noted over the course of the dialogue that he has fully stepped … Continue reading William White’s Opening Keynote to the Inaugural National Conference on Addiction Recovery Science: 

Repost from May 2022. Two years later, where are we in respect to the critical tipping point? Our substance use care system workforce has long faced very high turnover rates. One of the studies from years ago that always stuck with me as framing out the challenges and value of working in our field, was … Continue reading Loss of Institutional Knowledge – a Critical Tipping Point in the SUD Workforce Crisis

“I know of no class of people who have been so victimized by the quack as the inebriate” – Quote from Slaying the Dragon, William White William White over the course of decades has documented some of our most noble efforts to expand recovery across America and our lowest lows in how people with substance … Continue reading Addiction & Recovery Capitalist – Hustlers Hawking Drugs, Hucksters Selling Recovery