I have been involved in the recovery field in one form or another since 1971 when, while still working on my masters in Counseling-Psychology at Cornell University, in Ithaca, N.Y., I started my first residential therapeutic community for addicts, Alpha House. I also have over 41 years of being away from all mind-altering substances.
In the last couple of years, I have been giving a lot of thought on getting a better understanding of addictions and with that new understanding, developing new and improved approaches to the addiction treatment and recovery process. So here is my current thinking, in three parts, on addiction and recovery: