If you are a treatment provider who already uses nutritional therapy in your program, the Alliance offers you a chance to network with others who are equally inspired about the impact of nutrition on recidivism and retention. Perhaps you give dietary advice or use oral supplements and would like to know more about intravenous formulas and protocols. Perhaps you would like more information on safe detoxification of patients from benzodiazepines or opiates. Newsletters, call-ins, round tables, mentoring, consulting; all of these networking resources can be available to you. We hope that you will let us know if there is something you'd like to see here that we don't yet offer ​ If you have not

If practice made perfect we’d all be experts at getting angry. Still, not many of us do a very good job of it. Either we lash out and harm others, or we stuff our anger inside and try to ignore it, for fear of reprisal or fear of what we might do if our anger were unleashed. Unleash it, advised the late anger management expert Alice Eldred, a family and child counselor in Santa Monica who created workshops on appropriate use of anger. “Anger has a very bad name,” taught Eldred, “but it’s a very good emotion. It helps you understand what is really going on inside you.” The trick is learning to get the anger out away from the people you’re angry with. “Then,” explained Eldred, “you have a choi

When Behaviors Become Addictions by Vonda Schaefer, MFT, NNTS, Alliance Member Behavior Addictions - Is shopping, gaming, over-exercising, bulimia, gambling, gaming, or porn a problem? A colleague referred “Jim” to me because the couples' work he was doing with Jim and his wife was at a standstill. The therapist felt he had reached an impasse with the couple because Jim’s issues were likely more chemical than psychological. Jim had struggled with pornography for decades and had spent the last three years "white-knuckling" it - avoiding porn but then later substituting it with increased alcohol use. If you are in an addiction your #1 relationship is with the addiction - no one else can compe

Joan Mathews-Larson, PhD, one of the most important people in the world of addiction treatment, passed away on Tuesday. Joan was my mentor, inspiration, and a co-founder of the Alliance for Addiction Solutions which is the focus of my professional life right now. Her memory is a blessing to everyone on this planet struggling with any craving uncontrolled by talk therapy alone. Here is her obituary: Joan Mathews-Larson, Age 90, passed away peacefully on November 19, 2019. Joan began her work over forty years ago. The loss of her son Rob, shortly after he completed a top-rated, 12-step treatment program, fueled a passionate search for more effective solutions to treat addictions. Convinced tha