Andrew Mullen explores secondary trauma through the body-level cost of caring. He shows how empathy, exposure, and old survival patterns can leave healers reactive or exhausted—and why boundaries, reflection, release, and self-tending are part of ethical care.

Andrea Durrheim examines teen social media risk without pretending bans can solve everything. The article urges parents to build trust, model healthier habits, teach online literacy, and help teens balance safety, autonomy, connection, and mental health.

Michelle Wyrick explores why depression is real, painful, and disabling, while many explanations remain incomplete. Part I questions oversimplified narratives of chemical imbalance and calls for greater curiosity about biological, medical, genetic, and environmental contributors.

William Stauffer argues that addiction care systems are becoming increasingly isolated from the people doing the work. He examines broken feedback loops, flawed metrics, shrinking treatment capacity, and the essential role of authentic face-to-face dialogue in long-term recovery outcomes.

Sandy Rivers, MA, CASAC-M, RCP, shares how SUD in the home can force children into adult roles, chronic stress, hypervigilance, health problems, and isolation. Her granddaughter’s story shows why children need practical, relationship-based support long before adulthood.

Matt Campbell, Ph.D., challenges the idea that people fail because they lack motivation. He argues many are depleted by poor sleep, isolation, inactivity, indoor living, and unhealthy consumption - and that rebuilding capacity begins with five simple foundations

Melissa Fors Shackelford, an author and keynote speaker, discusses why trust is crucial in behavioral health, highlighting gaps in substance use treatment caused by stigma, cost, and fear. The article connects national trust trends to everyday organizational moments that build or lose trust, emphasizing that trust is built through intake, telehealth, peer follow-up, language, discharge, billing, and care consistency.

Bill Prasad of Prasad Counseling discusses the Dunning-Kruger effect in high-achieving professionals who may misjudge their abilities. the article describes how overconfidence can appear in medical providers, engineers, project managers, teachers, and attorneys when they move into unfamiliar domains. The piece connects the bias to the four stages of competence, especially the early stage where people do not yet know what they do not know. Prasad emphasizes that self-awareness

Joshua Bennett-Johnson, LADC-II, a licensed counselor with 14 years' experience, argues that the for-profit rehab model focuses more on billing, marketing, insurance, luxury amenities, and short-term stabilization than long-term recovery. The article urges readers to scrutinize patient brokering, revolving-door treatment, underuse of medication-assisted treatment, and weak aftercare.

John Makohen emphasizes the importance of family history of substance use disorder without viewing genetics as fate. Citing research on genetic liability across substances, he explains how inherited vulnerability interacts with trauma, stress, sleep issues, pain, access, and social factors and describes practical ways to build healthier responses to daily stress triggers.

ADHD and substance use disorders often travel together, and Dr. Lauren Grawert explains why that overlap is not simply a coincidence. Drawing on genetic, clinical, and treatment research, she describes shared risk, the dangers of untreated ADHD, and the importance of coordinated care. The article also challenges the idea that ADHD treatment should wait until substance use is fully in remission, offering a more integrated path for better recovery and functional outcomes.

“Sticks and stones” was never the whole truth. In this Author of the Month reflection, Joshua Bennett-Johnson looks back on childhood bullying from both sides: the child who used cruelty to feel bigger, and the child who later felt the sting of public humiliation. The result is a candid, human essay about shame, empathy, repair, and why words can leave wounds long after the moment passes.