Recovery Reform: Navigating Harm Reduction, Recovery, and Drug Policy

Jordan Scott on Unlearning and Advocacy

Jordan Scott is a person with lived experience with opioid use disorder and powerful harm reduction advocate and person who continues to uses drugs in her recovery. While initially sought recovery from her opioid use disorder through abstinence based culture, which helped her initially obtain abstinence, she has spent years unpacking and unlearning.
She joined McCauley Sexton and Dr. Taylor Nichols and to discuss her unlearning journey, how she came to harm reduction, and her advocacy work.

Stigma in Healthcare and Recovery

Stigma: a set of negative attitudes, prejudices, or false or unfair beliefs that a society or group of people hold about specific traits or people. The negative attitudes held against people people who use drugs or people with substance use disorders both within healthcare and within recovery spaces cause harm to people who use drugs or are seeking recovery. As a society, we have the power to change that stigma, and we should.

Recovery Reform 2024 Year in Review

McCauley and Dr. Taylor Nichols review their first year of Recovery Reform, what they have learned and unpacked over this past year, and what they are looking for coming up in the next year.
 
Thank you all for listening or watching, for doing the work of unpacking substance use disorders and recovery, and for being a part of the Recovery Reform community. We truly appreciate all of you.
 
If you haven't already, please subscribe and leave a comment. That's the best way for other people to find out about us, and to ensure that you get the newest episodes directly into your feed, and to let other folks know about Recovery Reform as well.Happy 2025!

Ketamine Treatment and Recovery

Dr. Taylor Nichols and McCauley Sexton discuss a controversial topic - the use of ketamine in medical treatment including for mental health, such as depression and OCD, and for substance use disorders and recovery, and McCauley discusses his personal experience having received ketamine infusions.

Viewing recovery through a harm reduction lens

Our co-hosts McCauley Sexton and Taylor Nichols, MD break down the term "recovery" to better understand the meaning of recovery from substance use disorders through a harm reduction framework and how we can reclaim the term recovery from the War on Drugs.

Stanton Peele on addiction, recovery, and breaking the disease model

Stanton Peele began working on Love and Addiction in 1970, which was then published in 1975. In these fifty years he has predicted a remarkable number of addiction trends. By now it is clear that the way in which Stanton has reframed addiction for the past four decades – sometimes facing extreme opposition – has been prescient. His central thesis has always been that addiction is not a consequence of taking drugs and drinking; rather, addiction arises from the way in which these and other compelling activities fit into people’s lives and meanings. You can find his books and his Life Process Program on his website at: https://peele.net/index.html You can find his YouTube on his Life Process Program at: https://www.youtube.com/c/LifeProcessProgram You can find him on TikTok at: https://www.tiktok.com/@lifeprocessprogram

Dr. Lance Dodes on understanding substance use and addictive behaviors

Lance Dodes, MD is a psychiatrist and a Training and Supervising Analyst Emeritus with the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and prior Director of the substance use treatment unit of Harvard’s McLean Hospital and the Alcoholism Treatment Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.
 
He is the author or co-author of a number of journal articles and book chapters about addiction, including The Heart of Addiction (HarperCollins, 2002), The Sober Truth (Beacon Press, 2014), and Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction (HarperCollins, 2011). Dr. Dodes has been honored by the Division on Addictions at Harvard Medical School for "Distinguished Contribution" to the study and treatment of addictive behavior, and has been elected a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.
 
You can find Dr. Dodes and his books at http://www.drlancedodes.com/

Chad Sabora on the state of harm reduction and drug policy

Chad Sabora is a former lawyer with lived experience of drug use and a long-time grassroots harm reduction advocate turned subject matter expert. Starting his journey under the mentorship of some of the harm reduction movement's founders, Chad helped create underground naloxone distribution networks before it was legally sanctioned across the country. Chad embodied the spirit of one of his role models, Joe Strummer who said: ‘The future is unwritten’ because at that time nobody knew naloxone would gain such acceptance in this country, but the people that needed it, needed it now. He also pioneered the first syringe access programs in cities like St. Louis and regions such as South Florida. As the innovator of the hybrid recovery community center model, which integrates harm reduction with traditional recovery services, Chad has been at the forefront of advancing progressive drug policy. His work has earned him national recognition, including an Emmy, and he has been featured on the front page of The New York Times. Most recently, Chad served on the committee that authored the groundbreaking Harm Reduction Framework for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Today, he joins us to share his journey and perspectives and his thoughts on the current state of harm reduction.
You can find Chad on TikTok at:   / chadsabora  

Sarah Laurel of Savage Sisters Recovery on finding and fighting for Harm Reduction

Sarah Laurel turned her traumatic experiences from substance use disorder and justice involvement into a powerful movement for harm reduction and the empowerment of people experiencing harms from substance use and homelessness.
She co-founded Savage Sisters Recovery initially as a residential treatment facility, and along the way went through her own process of finding harm reduction and unlearning the shame and stigma that had become so ingrained within society and in recovery spaces.
Through steady organic growth, she turned the non-profit into a large scale organization providing trauma-informed recovery housing, mobile harm reduction outreach, drug testing, wound care, and nationwide trainings. Operating in her hometown of Philadelphia, she and her team are operating in the region hardest hit by the increasingly dangerous drug supply, and leading the way through radial empathy and compassion.
Check out Savage Sisters at: https://savagesisters.org/
Find Savage Sisters on social media at:
https://www.tiktok.com/@savagesistersnonprofit
https://www.youtube.com/@savagesisters9069
 

Brandi Mac, NP on her journey beyond the stigma

Brandi Mac, NP is a person who dropped out of high school and ended up becoming an ICU nurse practitioner.
She joins McCauley Sexton and Taylor Nichols, MD on the Recovery Reform podcast to talk about her journey to love, acceptance, and harm reduction as the daughter of someone with substance use disorder and who has documented her daughter's journey through active use, treatment trauma, and into remission online along with her own growth and understanding.
You can find her on YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram as @the_original_brandi_mac
You can find her website at https://www.brandimac.com/about
You can contact her at Brandimac.creator@gmail.com