From Sensation and Avoidance to Serenity

Addiction creates heightened needs for sensation. Its consequences produce the need for avoidance. What was once a short-term thrill or remedy, becomes a repeated pattern of running to and from. Attachment to the chemical solution becomes…

EAPA San Fernando Valley

 EAPA San Fernando ValleyAugust 24, 8:30am Networking 9 - 11 am 2 CE Presentation (without break)Managing and Understanding the Angry Client/ EmployeeAnita Avedian, M.S., LMFT, CAMS-IV,…

Real Time Recovery in Real Life

 When you find yourself with an addiction or alcoholism, do you move away or do you change in real life? External remedies are often sought to solve internal matters. Eventually, change has to happen in real life in real time.A…

Freedom from Want for Christmas

 For Christmas, I want to be freed from my wants.Rather than fantasizing about and striving for things and events which bring pleasure and relieve discomfort, in recovery we act to give, rather than to receive. Our motives…

Ethical Informed Consent: “Medically and Financially Unnecessary?”

Is it ethically necessary for providers to inform the consumer and/or payer that medically and/or financially unnecessary levels of SUD treatment/ rehabilitation are optional or at best, elective?Looking through the ASAM Criteria for…

Sober in the World and Leather Soles

To protect your feet, is it easier to wear shoes or to cover the earth in leather?Alcoholics and addicts need relief from pain and pleasure. Without assistance, their brains don’t seem to sense relief and pleasure easily. Drinking…

Recovery = Release from Attachment

You are owned by your attachments and controlled by your needs.For what are you attached… approval, financial gain, prestige, power, possession, security, relief from discomfort, gratification, pleasure? Perhaps the means to maintaining…

What, Change?

Though some in recovery might practice “old behavior” for a while, patterns and consequences of the past return until they find their capacity to change. Those who help others recover can forget that they too are vulnerable to the complexities…

Traveling or Recovering- A Geographic Cure?

There exist many reasons why some people think that drug rehab requires travel, time away from home, at a significant financial burden.Most reasons involve money for the residential rehab and a belief in geographic cures.Much more…

Can You Trust Treatment?

Why is trusting addiction treatment providers a concern?The practice of business and personal ethics is essential when providing treatment for addiction. When patients become commodities to be traded and paid for on the open market like…