Recovery Languaging: Moving from Normalizing Healing to Normalizing Use & Pathology

For well over a decade, significant focus of effort within the recovery community and across our service space has focused on changing how we talk about substance use conditions and those who experience them. As noted in the 2014 paper Language, Substance Use Disorders, and Policy: The Need to Reach Consensus on an “Addiction-ary” our … Continue reading Recovery Languaging: Moving from Normalizing Healing to Normalizing Use & Pathology

Substance Use Disorders – The epidemiological mess more than a decade in the making

Yesterday, I posted about the epidemiological crisis being reported regarding an explosion in substance use disorders resulting in increases in untreated SUDs and low rates of problem recognition. (There's been a parallel explosion in recovery prevalence.) All of this was predictable. In fact, we were writing about it here 13 years ago. Despite the foreseeability … Continue reading Substance Use Disorders – The epidemiological mess more than a decade in the making

2024’s Top Posts – #2 – Multiple pathways as a disruptor: from what to what?

"Multiple pathways to recovery" has been popularized by the new recovery advocacy movement (NRAM) and Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC), but the concept has been around since at least 1944. The September 1944 issue of Alcoholics Anonymous' Grapevine published an article by Philip Wylie, describing his solo recovery supported by psychologists and reading. Bill … Continue reading 2024’s Top Posts – #2 – Multiple pathways as a disruptor: from what to what?

Multiple pathways as a disruptor: from what to what?

"Multiple pathways to recovery" has been popularized by the new recovery advocacy movement (NRAM) and Recovery Oriented Systems of Care (ROSC), but the concept has been around since at least 1944. The September 1944 issue of Alcoholics Anonymous' Grapevine published an article by Philip Wylie, describing his solo recovery supported by psychologists and reading. Bill … Continue reading Multiple pathways as a disruptor: from what to what?

The Doctor’s Opinion – Dawn Farm Ed Series

Research continues to shed light on the neurobiology of alcohol/other drug addiction. Modern research supports much of what was intuitively and experientially believed by the medical specialists who supported the Alcoholics Anonymous program in its earliest days.  This program will describe a physician's view of alcoholism, as presented in the literature of Alcoholics Anonymous and updated … Continue reading The Doctor’s Opinion – Dawn Farm Ed Series

Tribes of the recovering community – Calix Society

This week's tribe is the Calix Society. Calix is an association of Catholic alcoholics who are maintaining their sobriety through affiliation with and participation in the Fellowship of Alcoholics Anonymous. Our first concern is to interest Catholics with an alcoholic problem in the virtue of total abstinence. Our second stated purpose is to promote the spiritual … Continue reading Tribes of the recovering community – Calix Society

In Race for Boston Mayor, Former Addicts Back Candidate With a Past

A colleague who specializes in working with at-risk youth was fond of saying that we could look at those kids as predators, victims or resources. Too often we fail to see them as resources. The same could be said of addicts and alcoholics. The NY Times shines a light on a recovering mayoral candidate who … Continue reading In Race for Boston Mayor, Former Addicts Back Candidate With a Past