I’ve long held that addiction can be thought of as a habit – certainly a powerful, destructive and maladapted habit, but a habit nonetheless. This ‘addiction habit’ idea arose after evaluating my own struggle with addiction, then observing and working with countless others as they navigated into and through recovery. It’s become increasingly clear to […]
Author: Steve Barnard
A Simple Model for Self-directed Wellbeing
I propose every human has the same basic needs necessary to thrive and pursue a life of full self-directed wellbeing. Building on the SAMHSA 8 Dimensions of Wellness (https://library.samhsa.gov/sites/default/files/sma16-4957.pdf) which addresses community-level principles and policies, I’ve distilled their prescription down to four essential elements – safety, security, wellbeing and success – I believe every person […]
Good Habits, Bad Habits & Addiction Habits
A central theme across all my work is that the word ‘addiction’ has been co-opted and neutered to the point it no longer has useful meaning or utility. The term has become slang, and ascribed to any thought, attitude or behavior to which anyone wishes to make a point; there’s no longer any specific meaning, […]
Discussion of Epigenetic Inheritance of Trauma for Addiction Predisposition
There’s a popular book in neuropsychology titled, The Body Keeps the Score by Bessen van der Kolk which has seen widescale adoption and appreciation since its publication in 2015. The author suggests trauma is not only a psychological experience but also a physiological one. The author posits traumatic experiences alter how the brain and body […]
Evidence for Faith: Evolution vs. Creation
I was recently sent a video where Neil deGrasse Tyson discusses the power of evidence-based science over religious dogma and blind faith. The summary note on the video states: “Tyson discusses the power of science and evidence-based thinking, contrasting it with the limitations of religious dogma. He emphasizes that true progress comes from questioning, exploring, […]
The Future of Truth in AI
In the legacy but still evolving fields of big data and data science, we celebrate the triumvirate of volume, velocity, and variety—the three Vs that have long defined our ability to collect, process, and analyze data. However, as the landscape of digital information continues to expand (e.g., Edge Computing, data fabrics, machine learning integration with […]
HABITUDES
and my not-so-clever portmanteau… Our thoughts and feelings come and go and are situationally dependent; we have little control over them in the moment. That said, they tend to stabilize into a more enduring mental and emotional state we call disposition or attitude, and it’s easy to allow a frequented attitude to become our default […]
7 Words That Will Transform Your Recovery
What is the Key to an Extraordinary Life? If you’re a 12-Stepper you know we have a Program and ‘it works if we work it’, we have the Steps and we’re encouraged to ‘work the steps with a Sponsor’, we have Meetings and we’re encouraged to ‘don’t use and go to meetings’, we have a […]
Your One Word for Life
Discover Your One Word to Ensure Your Legacy Have you considered there may be one word that 1) describes you at your most basic level, 2) acts as a lens through which your most important decisions are made, and 3) is the one thing for which you’re most remembered – your one-word epitaph? There is […]
Thinking Brain | Feeling Brain
The Basic Brain Science of Addiction & Recovery We have two fundamental functions in our brains – not the left-brain/right-brain distinction that contrasts analytical vs. creative expression, rather the function that deals with emotions (and feelings, memory, attention, learning, and behavioral regulation), and the function that deals with reason (and logic, facts, values, goals, critical […]