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

Tammy Adler Foeller, founder of OpenDoor Women’s Recovery Alliance, recounts the day she stopped rescuing her daughter Stephanie during her addiction. . It was a desperate, faithful surrender that allowed her daughter to find sobriety, sober living, and eventually community.

Kristen Crisp closes her Author of the Month series with a funny and uncomfortably honest look at what happens when a sober person steps back into a bar. From the awkward mocktail exchange to loud conversations, sloppy behavior, loneliness, aging, sadness, and social pressure, she describes a familiar alcohol-centered world through a very different lens.

Joshua Bennett-Johnson argues for harm reduction, naloxone, syringe services, safer-use tools, autonomy, and dignity in addiction care.

Nicole Runyon, Psychotherapist, recalls college memories through a song, then reflects on the gap between college promises and adult demands. She questions the idea that young adulthood is just for partying or delaying responsibility. Runyon emphasizes that this stage is vital for development. She advises parents that preparing children for adulthood involves nurturing resilience, purpose, imagination, responsibility, and real-life readiness.

Andrea Beck, Author and Emotional Recovery Coach, offers readers a compassionate way to understand Adult Child Syndrome without reducing it to a diagnosis or a defect. Drawing on her own experience growing up in an emotionally unpredictable environment, she describes the body-level patterns that can persist into adulthood. These patterns were learned for survival, and once you see them, you can begin to respond differently.

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.

Needle exchange programs are often debated from a distance. Michael Cline writes about them from the inside. He remembers using the Lower East Side Needle Exchange during active heroin addiction in the 1990s, learning safer injection practices, accessing clean supplies, and avoiding HIV. His piece is pro-harm reduction, but not simplistic. It asks what these programs can prevent, what they do not solve, and how they could connect more people to recovery.

Kristen Crisp opens her Author of the Month article with a line that refuses to soften the pain: her sister is dead, and the guilt remains. In this deeply personal story, she writes about Robin, a beloved older sister whose cancer history, job loss, family stress, secrecy, and escalating alcohol use made the crisis harder to see until it was too late.