Join me on Sunday, September 8th, at 12 PM Eastern Time (9 AM Pacific) for From Recovering to Flourishing: A Foundational Workshop.

Before spending three years in a Buddhist monastery and becoming a 3rd grade teacher, Laura Burges was exploring the world of alcohol and drugs, from opium dens in Afghanistan to a tent in Juneau, Alaska. After near-death experiences—such as blacking out and crawling through the snow—she realized she needed a spiritual solution to her addiction. This realization led her to deeply commit to Soto Zen practice. However, as she writes, "Buddhism did not cure my alcoholism." For her, something more was needed.

Now a lay entrusted dharma teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, Ryuko Laura Burges has a new book, The Zen Way of Recovery. In our interview, we discuss her journey, the challenges she faced, and Buddhist understandings of addiction. We explore working with the self, addressing everyday addictions like doomscrolling, and finding the balance between sticking with your path versus seeking other teachings. We also touch on the concepts of tanha (thirst/craving), shenpa (sticky, afflictive emotions), radical responsibility, and the paramitas, which are moral practices essential for recovery.

Ryuko Laura Burges, a lay entrusted dharma teacher in the Soto Zen tradition, teaches classes, lectures, and leads retreats in Northern California. Her latest book from Shambhala Publications is The Zen Way of Recovery, an Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction. She lives in San Francisco.

In this episode:

- Meditation in Recovery program at San Francisco Zen Center (hybrid/online twice a month)

- that group’s very good, free publication: 9 Essays: Buddhism & The 12 Step Model of Recovery

Laura’s books:

- Buddhist Stories for Kids: Jataka Tales of Kindness, Friendship, and Forgiveness

- Zen for Kids

- The Zen Way of Recovery: An Illuminated Path Out of the Darkness of Addiction

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This is a milestone for the Flourishing After Addiction podcast: our first repeat guest! I wanted to have Ryan Hampton back on the pod for a quick hit: to discuss the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on the controversial bankruptcy settlement involving Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family.

As you may know, the Court rejected the settlement involving Purdue, which shielded members of the Sackler family from lawsuits. I thought there was no one better than Ryan to help us understand this ruling and the broader implications. Tune in for a bite-sized breakdown, and Ryan’s thoughts on what this means about the political landscape regarding addiction policy today.

Ryan Hampton is a prominent advocate on addiction issues, from community-based organizing focused on the overdose crisis to national activities, such as helping to release the first-ever U.S. Surgeon General’s report on addiction. An alumnus of the Clinton White House, had an up-and-coming career in politics until the early 2000s, when he became addicted to OxyContin, then heroin. He entered recovery in 2015 and has written three books since then, Unsettled: How the Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Failed the Victims of the American Overdose Crisis, American Fix: Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis - and How to End It, and the upcoming Fentanyl Nation: Toxic Politics and America's Failed War on Drugs.

Fentanyl Nation comes out on September 24. Preorder it today so you don’t miss it! I highly recommend it, and I’ll have Ryan back on the show to talk about it in more depth after it comes out.

Otherwise, you can find Ryan at his website, Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. He also works with The Recovery Advocacy Project (RAP), a network of people and organizations across the country advocating for addiction recovery policies.

And, listen to my first conversation with Ryan here!

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Carrie Wilkens is a psychologist with over 25 years of experience in the practice and dissemination of evidence-based treatments for substance use and post-traumatic stress. She and her team at the Center for Motivation and Change have developed the Invitation to Change approach for families and loved ones of people struggling with substance use, as well as the professionals who support them. This is a change model that has been used in group, family, and individual work, including by counselors, first responders, and a wide range of other professionals who help people change.

Head over to my Substack page to read detailed show notes about this interview with Dr. Wilkens, including more information about the principles underlying this approach and lessons for anyone interested in helping others to change.

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One of the great gifts of being out in the world talking about addiction and recovery is I get to meet so many fascinating and talented people working on these issues. This is one of my deepest motivations for writing and speaking about my own experience; to connect with other values-aligned writers and thinkers. One wonderful recent example is the fantastic writer Laura Cathcart Robbins, our guest on this latest episode of the Flourishing After Addiction podcast.

Laura is the author of Stash, My Life In Hiding, which hits a balance I love in addiction memoirs: simultaneously an insightful exploration of the phenomenon and a fun romp. We talk about her experience of addiction and of entering recovery, especially: “doctor shopping,” the use of prescription drugs (especially sedatives), divorce, and parenthood. The problems with treatment programs, rehab romances, boundaries and being honest with oneself. The process of writing about her addiction, journaling, inner work, her experience in publishing, reclaiming “Quit Lit,” the lack of representation in addiction memoirs, and her motivation to tell stories like her own. And, the way she makes sense of her recovery framework today.

Laura Cathcart Robbins is the best-selling author of the Atria/Simon & Schuster memoir, Stash, My Life In Hiding, and host of the popular podcast, The Only One In The Room. She has been active for many years as a speaker and school trustee and is credited for creating The Buckley School’s nationally recognized committee on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice. Her recent articles on the subjects of race, recovery, and divorce have garnered her worldwide acclaim. She is a 2022 TEDx Speaker, and LA Moth StorySlam winner. Currently, she sits on the advisory boards of the San Diego Writer’s Festival and the Outliers HQ podcast Festival. Find out more about her on her website, or you can look for her on Facebook, on Instagram, on Tiktok, and follow her on X

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In this episode of Flourishing After Addiction, I had the honor of speaking with Bruce Alexander, a towering figure in the field of addiction theory. As regular Rat Park readers will know, I named this newsletter after Bruce’s iconic experiment in the 1970s, honoring not just that experiment, but also the decades of contributions he’s made since to the broader understanding of addiction as a deeply human phenomenon.

Now that Bruce is in his 80s, he’s said he won’t be doing much more writing and public speaking, so I’m especially grateful to have the chance to talk about the most important lessons of his work. We focus on his recent publication, "My Final Academic Article on Addiction," in which he distills his over fifty years of insights.

We discuss what Bruce identifies as the greatest threats addiction poses to modern society. We explore the theoretical stagnation in understanding addiction, the limitations of medicalizing addiction, and the subtle yet pervasive remnants of irrational thinking that hinder our approach to addressing mass addiction. Alexander argues against the notion that we can simply 'therapize' our way out of the problem, urging for a deeper examination of how society contributes to and can help resolve the crisis. Listen to the end for his take on what professionals and clinicians can do—and cannot do—to help us with the current crisis.

Bruce Alexander has explored many corners of the addiction field for almost half a century. Beginning in 1970, he has counselled people with heroin addiction, conducted psychopharmacological research (the “Rat Park” experiments); ran field research on cocaine use for the World Health Organization; critically analyzed theories of addiction by ancient philosophers and modern researchers; and served on the Boards of Directors of NGOs in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. He has published three books, Peaceful Measures: Canada’s Way Out of the War on Drugs (University of Toronto Press, 1990), The Globalization of Addiction: A Study in Poverty of the Spirit (Oxford University Press, 2008), and A History of Psychology in Western Civilization (Cambridge University Press, 2015, co-author Curt Shelton). Since retiring from the university as Professor Emeritus in 2005, Alexander has spoken frequently in Canada, Europe, and the United States. He posts many of his recent speeches on his website, www.brucekalexander.com. He was awarded the Sterling Prize for Controversy in 2007.

In this episode:
- Bruce’s "My Final Academic Article on Addiction"
- Naomi Klein, Doppelganger
- Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Health Threat

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As a bonus for this special episode with the artist Erin Williams, author of What’s Wrong? Personal Histories of Chronic Pain and Bad Medicine, I got permission to post some of the illustrations from her new book, What’s Wrong? Personal Histories of Chronic Pain and Bad Medicine. Head over to my Substack page to see those. You won’t want to miss them.

Erin Williams is the author and illustrator of ten books, including What's Wrong? Personal Histories of Chronic Pain and Bad Medicine, Commute: An Illustrated Memoir of Female Shame, How to Take Care and the Big Activity Book series (250k+ in print). Her writing and art have also been featured in publications including MoMA Magazine, Virginia Quarterly Review, and The Believer. She has over a decade of experience in healthcare, specifically data analysis and scientific research. She teaches illustration at Parsons School of Design and creative writing at Hunter College in New York City. You can find Erin on Instagram and Twitter.

Dr. Ray Baker is a distinguished leader in the field of addiction medicine and a person in long-term recovery from addiction. This episode of Flourishing After Addiction particularly resonates with the theme of the longer-form writings I’m starting to post about frameworks for making sense of recovery, so I’m grateful to have the chance to talk with him.

A highlight of the conversation is Ray’s insight into the various processes of recovery, as he advocates for a holistic approach across different domains. He breaks down the framework of recovery capital: the internal and external resources that help people on their recovery journeys. We discuss how that model and others can serve as organizing frameworks for change, helping people to plan their recovery journeys with autonomy and agency. My hope, by the way, is that this Substack newsletter can help with both of those elements: making sense of recovery, and itself serving as an ecosystem where people can learn and share with one another.

There’s a lot more here: Ray’s personal journey and the power of self-disclosure, including what one person shared with him that may have saved his life. His experiences in treatment, and the contrast between primitive and cruel forms of confrontational therapy, versus the principles of autonomy, agency, and compassion that he later came to value. Ray also entered recovery as a committed atheist and now identifies as agnostic, so we discuss secular recovery as one interesting recovery pathway. Ray also gives a balanced perspective on the uses of psychedelics and antidepressants in treatment. And, coming back to the theme of recovery frameworks, Ray shares his experience with exercise and physical health as a crucial aspect of his own recovery, and how that led him to a deeper consideration of physical health and wellbeing as a part of recovery processes.

Ray Baker, an addiction medicine physician and a person in long-term recovery from addiction, spent over three decades as a clinician and consultant after initially working as a family physician. He developed the University of British Columbia's Undergraduate Addiction Medicine program and authored guidelines for Canadian railway workers with substance use disorders. Recognized for enhancing methadone maintenance therapy standards, he received the Nyswander-Dole Award in 2003. Baker has served on the American Society of Addiction Medicine's board and contributed to addiction research and recovery frameworks in Canada. Since retiring from clinical practice in 2016, he has focused on community-based recovery, culminating in his book, "Recovery Coaching, Knowledge and Skills," published in 2022. That year, he was honored with a lifetime achievement award by the Canadian Society of Addiction Medicine.


In this episode:
- Brief assessment of recovery capital
- Barbara Fredrickson’s work on developing positive emotions
- Secular recovery: Life Ring, The Secular Recovery group, and a post about the secular recovery movement
- Recovery capital: a primer for addictions professionals (White and Cloud)

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In the latest episode of Flourishing After Addiction, I am thrilled to be exploring the intricate relationships between addiction, recovery, pain, and embodiment with Margo Steines, a writer and person in recovery with a deep understanding of these themes.

Margo Steines holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona and serves as a faculty member in their acclaimed writing program. Her work, including her memoir-in-essays "Brutalities: A Love Story," offers a truly unique view into diverse experiences of addiction, including substance problems, self-harm, risky sex, eating disorder, and what is unquestionably the most captivating literary portrayal of exercise addiction I have ever read.

I was so happy to encounter Brutalities a short while ago. It’s a bold exploration of intensity, extremity, and physicality. It’s a cautionary tale of the thin line between discipline and compulsion. In the end, it’s an inspiring story of one person’s path toward a more balanced and healthy embodiment, including the impossible task of becoming a parent.

If that weren’t enough, we also talk about relationships, orthorexia, chronic illness, sex, sex work, and money. Margo walks us through her current recovery practices and the edges she’s navigating today. Finally, of course, we talk craft, including writing from and about pain.

Margo Steines holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from the University of Arizona, where she is faculty in the Writing Program. Her work was named Notable in Best American Essays and has appeared in The Sun, Slate, Brevity, Off Assignment, The New York Times (Modern Love), the anthology Letter to a Stranger, and elsewhere. She is the author of the memoir-in-essays Brutalities. Margo is a born-and-raised New Yorker, a journeyman ironworker, and serves as mom to a small person. She is also a private creative coach and writing class facilitator. She can be found at her website, Twitter, and Instagram.

In this episode:
-her book: Brutalities
-Margo’s “Write your story” class
-Margo’s other classes
-Leslie Jamison
-Marya Hornbacher
-Jerry Stahl

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