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.

Jessie Monreal writes a raw letter to children of addiction about confused grief after losing a parent to substance use and suicide. With honesty and compassion, she names anger, love, relief, guilt, forgiveness, and the possibility of breaking cycles.

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.

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

Jillian Eidem introduces Vital Voyage's Teen Suicide Prevention Series with an urgent look at teen mental health, suicide risk, social media pressure, academic stress, substance use, warning signs, and the small acts of connection that can keep young people from feeling alone.

Sandy Rivers opens July's Author of the Month with a family story about grandparents forced to protect children during a daughter's opioid use disorder. The piece explores love, safety, court, peer support, and the hidden burden families carry alone.

Damon R. Postle, Ph.D., writes with brutal honesty about surviving the suicide death of his brother Matt, the last words between them, missed goodbyes, hospitalization, stroke, and the unbearable silence left when a musician is gone. A raw grief essay about guilt, trauma, love, and staying alive.

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.

Dr. Joshua Coleman, Ph.D., explains hostile dependency as a pattern where someone remains emotionally attached but shows it through anger, criticism, withdrawal, or rejection. For parents caught between defending themselves, withdrawing, or pushing for repair, this piece offers language for a painful bind and a steadier way to respond without losing themselves.