Jason Shiers argues that complexity can mask a core wound of unworthiness—keeping clients and clinicians stuck.

Body brokers and sham rehabs exploit people with addiction—enrolling them in insurance, overbilling with minimal care, then ‘dumping’ patients when coverage ends. Here’s how laws and reporting can stop it.

Ghosting can signal depression, relapse, or suicidal thoughts. AnneMoss Rogers shows how to check in with empathy, ask directly about suicide, and connect to 988.

Integrated care keeps failing people with co‑existing mental health and substance use needs—not by accident, but by design. Simon Bratt outlines a practical, trauma‑informed model to change that.

): Jason Shiers argues our field’s ‘addiction to complexity’ often masks a core wound of unworthiness—keeping clinicians and clients stuck. What if fewer frameworks and more presence lead to change?

Nicole Runyon explores the youth mental health crisis, overdiagnosis, and why parent coaching is key to resilience.

Family may be the missing piece in recovery—lowering relapse rates and building resilience in substance use disorder treatment.

Behind overdose statistics are children left behind. Sandy Rivers reveals the hidden cost of the opioid crisis: opioid orphans.

Peer recovery coaches provide authenticity, credibility, and hope that medicine alone cannot. Dr. Lauren Grawert argues that threatened cuts to SOR and SAPT funding could dismantle an essential link between clinical care and real-life recovery.

Content Warning: This article discusses opioids, overdoses, and substance-related harms. Nitazenes are a highly potent class of synthetic opioids often mixed—unknown to users— into other drugs. They pose extreme overdose risk, can be difficult to detect on standard tests, and may require multiple naloxone doses. With commentary from Subject Matter Expert Arun Gupta, MD

John Makohen—author and counselor with lived experience—details why people who are unhoused face steep barriers to SUD treatment (IDs, phones, insurance, transportation,rigid abstinence-first rules) and calls for Housing First, person-centered MOUD, and compassion over compliance.

Content Warning: This article discusses drug use, heroin addiction, and trauma. John Makohen, a seasoned substance use counselor and author of *A Heroin User’s Guide to Harm Reduction*, shares his lived experience of life on the streets, the risks of drug use, and the lessons that shaped his journey toward recovery.