Words are important. If you want to care for something, you call it a “flower”; if you want to kill something, you call it a “weed.” –Don CoyhisWhether alcohol- and other drug (AOD)-related problems are viewed through the lens of medicine (illnesses), psychology (habits), sociology (norms), morality (vices), religion (sins), or law (crimes) rests on(……)

“There is nothing about a caterpillar which would suggest that it will become a butterfly”— Buckminster FullerRecovery from a life-threatening condition can bring far more than the removal of pain and sickness from an otherwise unchanged life.  Confronting one’s mortality through the experiences of illness and recovery can bring unexpected gifts.  Surviving heart disease, cancer,(……)

Philip Seymour Hoffman died February 2, 2014 of an apparent heroin overdose.  On that day, like every day in the United States, between 75-100 less known individuals also died of a drug overdose.  One of the factors distinguishing Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death, other than his fame, was that the recurrence of his addiction and its(……)

No child held in a parent’s arms envisions a future of addiction.  No parent holding a young child’s hand envisions their hopes and dreams for that child to be one day ended by addiction.  And yet, those wrenching realities are played out daily in this country.  More than a half a million individuals die drug-related(……)