John Doe, age 26, born on 3/16/94, died alone on 11/15/19. He was not surrounded by family or friends. He died in agony and pain. He struggled until the end to be the person that others wanted him to be, what society told him he had to be, and in…

As I awoke in the middle of the night to see what had happened across the country with the election, I found my heart heavy and my soul aching. Some of you might read this and say cry on liberal while others say, I feel how you feel. I am…

New data indicates that through the first eight months of the COVID-19 crisis, American adults have sharply increased their consumption of alcohol, drinking on more days per month, and to more significant excess. Heavy drinking among women, significantly, has soared. The RAND Corporation released a study supported by the National…

The need for a robust workforce that can effectively work with individuals living with substance use disorder has never been greater than it is today. Across the United States, billions of dollars are allocated to addressing substance use disorders; however, one of the major barriers is — who will do…

Have you ever felt broken? So broken, that no matter what you did or said, nothing would ever fix that brokenness? A lot of people do. An estimated 17.3 million adults in the United States had at least one major depressive episode. This number represented 7.1% of all U.S. adults…

I was standing in my office in downtown St. Louis when my phone buzzed to let alert me that I had received a new text message. My best friend, Brandon Reid, had just had seen the Dentist and was leaving the appointment. He stopped to message me from his car…

Both of my parents struggled with substance use; those genes passed on to me. I have spent the better part of my adult life trying to alter how I feel, needing to change how I think. Often I write pieces from the perspective of a person who has used substances…

Ru Paul, the celebrated female impersonator, said it best, “if you don’t love yourself, how are you going to love someone else?” Much of my adult life has been spent working through the trauma and pain that I encountered as a child. Much of that pain is derived from events…

We do people a disservice when we assume their hesitance at the 12 steps is hesitance at recovery — Chances are you know something about the 12 steps of recovery. We have seen it in movies or on TV. The church basement, strong coffee, a person standing up and making a public declaration about how they have a problem. For many people, it works and it works really well…