I graduated from Snyder High School in Snyder, Texas, in 1996. Not an enormous city by any means, but certainly a small town full of interesting characters, eccentric personalities, and more than a few real-life cowboys. The biggest thing most of my peers wanted...
The upcoming 4th of July weekend presents unique challenges to everyone this year. With the need to maintain social distances, wear masks, and generally take precautions against the coronavirus, the large crowds that have gathered during years past at holiday events are not possible....
What is the Boy Crisis? I stumbled across this idea as I was stepping into a new role at Spearhead Lodge. The Boy Crisis? What is it? How does it apply to the Spearhead guys? How do we heal it? The Boy Crisis is...
When you are experiencing an anxiety disorder, you may be tempted to turn to drugs or alcohol to cope with your symptoms. Self-medicating, of course, only makes the situation worse. You are likely to also develop an addiction to those substances. Addiction and anxiety...
In our first blog of the Better Together series, Mandy Baker mentioned buzzwords being talked about a lot in the treatment industry. I’d like to discuss the buzzword “trauma-informed care” and how our program, Makana Path, delivers just that. BRC has a long- and well-established...
When you or a loved one is working through the challenges of addiction to drugs or alcohol, it will become important to understand the idea of boundaries. Substance use disorders are often accompanied by emotional and physical issues that may require you, as the...
I have spent many hours on the phone with nervous family members at the beginning of a client’s treatment episode having to reassure them as to the efficacy of 12 Step recovery. Mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, or the children of these incoming...
When you have a drink or two socially, you may not think you have a drinking problem. When that social drinking turns into something more intense, such as when you start planning your events and activities around whether or not alcohol will be present,...
As a trauma therapist, I specialize in the intersection between addiction and trauma. Trauma is a word that not all identify with, especially early in treatment. Most of us with addiction grew up in homes with the unwritten rule “don’t talk, don’t feel, don’t...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a condition that can affect you after you have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event. June is National PTSD Awareness Month, appropriate in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic that has caused so many people to struggle and face...
These days the treatment industry spends a lot of time talking about the latest trend in buzzwords. We hear a lot about “trauma-informed care”, “evidence-based practice”, “dual diagnosis treatment”, and “outcomes”. While we put them on our websites and talk about them in marketing...
Addiction recovery is about much more than physical healing. A holistic approach to addiction treatment focuses on the mind, body, and spirit. Detox is the critical first step, to cleanse the body of the addictive substances, but emotional growth in recovery is also vitally...
