Social anxiety/phobia, often mischaracterized as extreme shyness, constitutes a potential pathway into addiction and a major obstacle to addiction treatment and recovery. Robert and Kaisha could not be more different at a quick glance, but they shared the curse of what others perceived as extreme shyness. Robert and Kaisha dreaded any social situation filled with(……)

I believe we live in the greatest era of snake oil salesmen in the history of mankind. —Michael Crichton, Next, 2006 The addictions treatment field has grossly oversold the effectiveness of a single episode of brief clinical intervention. For more than two decades, calls have increased for a radical redesign of addiction treatment and related recovery(……)

Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter. –African Proverb From Lin-Manuel Miranda, Hamilton: “Why do you write like you’re running out of time?” Me: “Because I am.”                         In the late 1990s, I experienced an epiphany of sorts—a sudden awareness that the addiction field had acquired a massive body of(……)

At the very heart of addiction lies the search for power, control, comfort, relief, and pleasure. At first, the drug is a secret superpower that heals, emboldens, and frees us, but as it feeds on us, it becomes stronger and we become progressively weaker. In the end, we worship the drug at the exclusion of(……)