How to Help Your Loved One During the Holidays

While the holidays can be a special time full of warm, happy, reflective moments, they can also be fraught with stress, exposure to family dynamics and high social demands. If your loved one is trying to change their relationship with substances, the holiday season can be an especially difficult time as they have to navigate […]

3 Truths About Change

If you or someone you love struggles with substances, how you understand the problem matters a lot! If you approach it from the perspective that substance problems are the result of a weak will, a shaky moral compass or an innate set of character flaws, you are going to face unnecessary obstacles like shame and […]

How to Support The Process of Change

Are you worried about a loved one’s use of substances? Do you see your partner’s health declining? Do you worry about some of the decisions your sister is making? Do you wish your teenage son would hang out with different kids? Do you think your girlfriend has one too many drinks, too often? Maybe you […]

The Opioid Crisis in New York State

New York State is witnessing an epidemic of opioid-related medical emergencies and opioid overdose deaths, stemming from the use of both prescribed and illicit opioids and heroin. It is critical that New York State uses the full range of medical, psychological, social, and harm reduction methods and treatments to curb this epidemic, reduce harm to […]

Finding Your Way Through a Relapse

When you are trying to make a behavioral change, whether it be reducing/quitting any type of drug use or changing your relationship with food, a return to old behavior (e.g., a relapse or a slip) can be a frustrating event. Not just for you, but for the people around you who care about you and […]

4 Steps to Improve Your Communication

One of the things we humans are really good at is language. We’re pretty unique among creatures in communicating incredible amounts of information to each other through our words. Language has helped us survive and thrive as a species, as it has brought us together and helped us work as a team to do things […]

A Swift Kick in the Pants

If you read our newsletter you hear us talking all the time about the science behind behavior change. And the science shows that working with motivation and using reinforcement strategies are two of the most effect ways to help a person abusing substances decide to change while direct confrontation is often experienced as aggressive and […]

How to Change a Habit

Do you ever start the day with good intentions to change a bad habit, “today is the day I quit smoking,” And by the end of the day feel frustrated because you found yourself with a cigarette in your hand without even realizing it? Does it mean you were not serious in the first place, […]

How a Sandwich can Help You Connect

If you care about someone struggling with with their use of alcohol or other substances (or even behaviors like overeating or spending), odds are you have lots you wish you could say about the problem you are observing. Have you wanted to say to your husband, “you know, drinking this often is probably adding to […]

Treatment Getting You Down? Us Too (and Here’s Why!)

For readers of our newsletter, this post might feel “different” from the others. Usually we like to talk about what you can do to help yourself or your loved one when it comes to addressing substance issues and finding support or treatment that will help changes last. In this post we are going to do […]