Medetomidine and Xylazine have been in our drug supply for years, but their use is becoming increasingly prevalent on streets across America. They are typically being mixed with short acting opioids, primarily Fentanyl in order to enhance the synergistic effects. For readers, this is two plus two equals eight as anyone who ever had a … Continue reading The Tragic & Predictable Known Unknown Challenges of Medetomidine and Xylazine – William Stauffer
From the “Preserving the Message” website: “Chronology of Narcotics Anonymous Literature, Vol 1”
In this post I'm highlighting a most incredible document recently published at the Preserving the Message website. The document is titled, "Chronology of Narcotics Anonymous Literature (Public Version) – Volume 1 (1953-1993)". It was published on 06/07/2025 and is simply amazing. For starters, I strongly encourage everyone to click the page that houses that document … Continue reading From the “Preserving the Message” website: “Chronology of Narcotics Anonymous Literature, Vol 1”
“I’m not mad at the birds anymore.”
In the mid 1990’s someone on my caseload said something I’ve never forgotten. And every time I try to tell this story I find it hard to tell without starting to cry. This happened in our 9-12 month women’s residential program. In addition to our adult female patients, we had space for 14 children from … Continue reading “I’m not mad at the birds anymore.”
The AI Mirror: “take that small hit, and you’ll be fine”
A few weeks ago, an article in Futurism described a troubling exchange between an AI chatbot and a user identifying as Pedro, a person identified as having methamphetamine addiction seeking advice about how to make it through his work shifts when he's feeling exhausted and has abstained from methamphetamine for 3 days. The chatbot encourages … Continue reading The AI Mirror: “take that small hit, and you’ll be fine”
C-CHIME: Seeing the connected forest through the individual trees – A cascade model of building recovery capital through community and connections – Dr David Best, Bill Stauffer June 2025
We can think about the people in recovery like individual trees in a forest. A forest is not just a group of individual trees; they are interconnected in what has been termed the “wood wide web.” All the trees, plants and microbial organisms in a forest are in reality connected to each other. The wood … Continue reading C-CHIME: Seeing the connected forest through the individual trees – A cascade model of building recovery capital through community and connections – Dr David Best, Bill Stauffer June 2025
Psychosis-related emergency department and hospitalization rates in Colorado after cannabis legalization
Here’s a recent study examining rates of emergency department encounters and hospitalizations in Colorado among youth following cannabis legalization. Overall, I find several portions of this work rather interesting. Below, I provide some quotations from the Abstract, Discussion, and Conclusion sections. The information below brings to mind for me the positive movement forward that has … Continue reading Psychosis-related emergency department and hospitalization rates in Colorado after cannabis legalization
Using Both Lenses: Academic/Evidence-Based and Psychodynamic
Disclaimer: nothing in this content should be taken or held as clinical instruction, clinical supervision, or advisory concerning patient care. One way to think about clinical work in addiction counseling is through the lens of academic and evidence-based practices. And another way is to use the lens of psychodynamic approaches. Below, find a simplified way … Continue reading Using Both Lenses: Academic/Evidence-Based and Psychodynamic
Tobacco Recovery in the Addiction Recovery Space: Time for Action!
“For decades, people in recovery from addictions to other drugs have their lives cut short by tobacco-related diseases. Their drear friends, patients, and colleagues died from nicotine addiction, but it could also be said they died from blindness – the failure to see nicotine as an addictive drug and the failure to see smoking cessation … Continue reading Tobacco Recovery in the Addiction Recovery Space: Time for Action!
3-in-4 current fentanyl users started with prescription opioids
For years, many experts have "well, actually-ed", arguing that prescribing patterns had little to do with the opioid crisis. Of course, the opioid crisis is a complex and wicked problem, but we are poorly served by experts who scold the public and tell us not to believe our lying eyes. JAMA Health Forum provides some … Continue reading 3-in-4 current fentanyl users started with prescription opioids
Constricted Ways of Knowing and the Loss of Recovery as a Focus of Our Institutions
“The experts on recovery are people in recovery” – Rallying Cry from the Era of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement. We once, not long ago, had a movement in America embraced broadly across our society in which people in recovery began to inform the fledgling research on our healing. It influenced a strengths orientation within … Continue reading Constricted Ways of Knowing and the Loss of Recovery as a Focus of Our Institutions
Recovery Review 