Letter from the Editor

Fall 2016

Dear Friends and Colleagues:


Can you believe it\'s the end of September? Where has the year gone? I trust everybody had a blessed summer. Jim and I went on a spiritual journey in June and vacationed in August. God was with us and we had a great time. September is National Recovery Month and we here at RecoveryView.com kicked it off with a first of its kind C-Suite Symposium on September 1st. It was truly a day of collaboration and education. We\'ll be uploading the complete video on RecoveryView.com (see link to letter). RecoveryView.com and Hired Power look forward to hosting our 4th Annual Admissions & Marketing Symposium in Beverly Hills, CA October 13-14. Please be sure to register if you want to learn from experts in the industry, network with your peers, and truly have an enjoyable time. I hope to see you there.


Right now we are celebrating the completion of our new site and we thank our authors for their patience and support through this difficult transition and update to our site. We sincerely hope you will enjoy the content we have selected for this edition as well as the new and improved website design!


Our focus for this edition is to bring a sense of courage to those who want to be a part of this educational dialogue but have yet to put fingers to keyboard! We are certain that reading the work of our inspiring authors will give you the boost you need. A few of our contributors have even provided “creative” work for this edition, so read and enjoy. If you have been thinking about writing an article or preparing a creative piece like a poem, story, or artwork, we encourage you to go for it!  Finally, if you have an idea in mind and would like some assistance fleshing it out, please contact our Creative Editor for her thoughts as well as helpful resources.


To kick off this edition, Louise Stanger, Ph.D., has offered up a challenge! Her article “The Gratitude Challenge” will inspire you to incorporate a gratitude practice into your life. Dr. Stanger also provides some steps toward forgiveness, which she says will help us to get the most out of our gratitude practices. I must say I agree with Louise and will add that gratitude is the fast-track to miracles!


Tian Dayton, Ph.D., a loved contributor for many years in the past has returned to RecoveryView.com with an insightful piece called, “Mindfulness and Emotional Sobriety.”  With some brain science and loads of experience to back up her words, she shows us that emotional equilibrium helps each one us to live more mindfully.  


Rosemary Ellsworth Brown, Ph.D., presents an article with Laura MacKay called “A New Look at the Origins of Addiction,” which suggests that addiction is learned through certain parenting behaviors - especially controlling behaviors!  But the writer also says that addiction can be unlearned by working a modified version of the 12 steps.  


Psychotherapist Jonathan Robinson, MA, MFT, provides a fascinating look into how to be happy by using safe supplements and technology, like stimulation devices, in his article “Joy Hacking and future of happiness.”  Very exciting and interesting information here that will encourage people to take their experience of joy into their own hands!


“What’s Wrong with Rehab?” is Reef Karim’s, D.O.,  bold look into the “Business of Rehab.” It brings to light practices of some treatment centers that might be unethical and warns recovery seekers to do their homework ahead of time!


“It’s Still There (My Hidden Bottle)” is a compelling Fourth of July story told twice by John W. Herdman, Ph.D., LADC and Mark O.  Read to find out how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy can completely change your recovery narrative.


Herb Kaighan, Certified Spiritual Director, has returned to RecoveryView.com! In his Open Letter to AA GSO Leadership and AA Board of Trustees entitled “When did AA meetings become the AA Program?” he discusses the overfocus on meetings but does not leave the reader hanging when it comes to what the AA program should entail.  He is a diligent writer that takes us through relevant passages of the Big Book to show us how to get back to the heart of the program.


Stampp Corbin, the President of Addiction Treatment Advocacy Coalition, has rolled up his sleeves along with the rest of the ATAC Board to provide treatment providers some hope for getting “parity” laws to work for them and their clients. Read all about the work of ATAC in his article, “Strength in Numbers.”


As a guest writer for the Artistic View column, Michelle Castillo, desert area poet and MFA candidate, demonstrates how one can experience freedom after loss and grief in her poem “Soul Vitamins.” Castillo’s lovely work shows how recovery from loss and poetry are intimately tied.


Samira R. Noorali, J.D., RecoveryView.com’s Creative Editor, presents a spoken word poem called “Shadow.”   In this one-woman presentation, she brings to life the inner characters that figured prominently in her trauma recovery.  


This edition’s featured members are HerbK and Inkspirations.

Herb Kaighan, also known as Herb K, knows the 12 steps inside and out. Read the Featured Member piece “HerbK: Personal transformation around the world through 12-Step workshops” to find out how Herb uses the steps to help recovering addicts.  While some 12 step programs are solely focused on meetings, Herb tells us that recovery can be completely transformative both now and in the long run with the right education and the right sponsors.


Featured Member, Inkspirations, is not just a coloring book series but a way to relieve stress and a way to heal from an addictive lifestyle.   Read Kim Weiss’s article, “Grab Some Crayons! Your Inner Child Is an Artist” and consider incorporating these coloring books into your professional practice or even your personal practice!


Among the many resources you will find within this edition are two very interesting new books: Louise Stanger’s Falling Up and Rosemary Ellsworth Brown’s Addiction is the Symptom.

Falling Up is a lovely memoir by a highly experienced therapist. This page-turner is both literary and inspiring! Addiction is the Symptom offers a new way to practice the twelve steps and describes how extra focus on the fourth step can step-up your recovery or addictions therapy practice!


We are also pleased to present the second episode of Reef Madness called, Pills, Policy, and Rehab: The Business of Addiction, which is our Featured Video for this edition. Reef Madness is an entertaining online show hosted by Dr. Reef Karim geared at getting people to talk honestly and openly about behavioral health care.  The featured episode offers a revealing look at our industry that will certainly get you thinking about how we can collectively improve the state of treatment.


We want to take this opportunity to thank our members, our readers and the sponsor of the current edition, Addiction Therapeutic Services for their continued support.


We would also like to share our tremendous gratitude to our authors for continuing to support our efforts and for continuing to care so much about recovery. Their hard work in providing us articles for RecoveryView.com and for our social media sites has no doubt changed the trajectory of treatment, and yours can, too! So readers, now is the time to become writers and send us your original pieces as we kick it up a notch in 2016 to offer even more great content on recovery.


In Love and Light,


Josie Herndon

Facebook Google LinkedIn Twitter Email Print

Inviting Authors, Companies and Professionals working in Addiction Recovery

To submit their profiles, events, articles on our website, To know about our all membership plans and features

Click here »