All Things Substance

Why should mental health therapists assess substance use? Is that really in our scope? My answer is a resounding, Yes. In this episode I go through ten reasons why assessing for substance use is vita…

Therapists and psychiatrists want the same thing: for our clients to be well. We don’t always get the chance to work together. I wanted to see what we could do to bridge the gap between us. I intervi…

Why should mental health therapists assess substance use? Is that really in our scope? My answer is a resounding, Yes. In this episode I go through ten reasons why assessing for substance use is vita…

If you google “substance use CEU”, there are a ton of results. How do you even know where to start and what to pick? I’m about to make a bold statement, I know what you need to know to work with subs…

Some therapists worry that adding substance use to their scope of practice will expose them to more risk and liability.  Our licenses are super important to us and we want to protect ourselves. Today…

Do you feel equipped to work with substance use?  I’m curious about this because many therapists don’t feel skilled enough. It makes me wonder what skills therapists think they need to be “ready” to …

I’ve been suggesting that regular mental health therapists can work with substance use. But what does that mean? Doesn’t treatment have to be some specific techniques, length of  time and process?  W…

Avoiding topics of conversation is super normal for people. We work hard to help our clients talk about the hard things and to face the things that need to come to light. There’s an area that we migh…

What is recovery? Recovery really is, at its core, the process of change. It is a living and active process through which people make long lasting changes in their lives. There isn’t an end date or a…

Stages of addiction can help us understand how severe someone’s use is and if you need to refer out. What’s the difference between dependence and addiction? When does normal use move to risky use? On…

Triggers and cravings are a huge key to what helps addiction develop. It’s not just the reward pathways that drive addiction progression. Today we’ll talk about how triggers and cravings impact this …

The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous have brought many into recovery and saved lives all over the world. Most people know that there are 12 Steps, but they don’t know what the Steps are and most have…

Recovery meetings can be a giant help to people as they move through recovery from all kinds of things. Today we’ll talk about the benefits of recovery meetings, the spiritual aspect to meetings and …

To quote George Michael: “Sex is natural, sex is good…” Sex is a vital part of who we are as humans and how we interact with each other. Part of recovery is building a healthy life in all areas, incl…

Addiction and love? I got a chance to sit down with Andrea Owen, fellow podcaster and woman in recovery. We talk a bit about addiction from the perspective of brain science, why people do what they d…

She was looking for love to mend the broken heart she had. For a long while alcohol and drugs were covering that pain until the “cure” became worse than the original pain. Hear her story of overcomin…

Vicarious trauma is inevitable for therapists. We have signed up to hear hard things and to help hold those traumatic experiences. So how do we truly take care of ourselves? How do we avoid burnout? …

Addiction Myth: People have to hit rock bottom before they can get sober. It’s a really good thing that this isn’t true. If people had to find the very bottom before they could get clean, there would…