I want to give a shout out of thanks to all my readers that have caused my little homemade website to get an average of 1000 hits per day!  I have received numerous notes of thanks for the activities I listed on my site that so many of you have found helpful in facilitating groups.  I visit the websites of the agencies where you work and feel moved by the sincerity of your programs. 

It is clear to me that people drawn to this website are going above and beyond to offer their passion and creativity in their work, not for any paycheck, but for the deep satisfaction of living out one's purpose in life.  I can visualize all the therapists out there, striving to be their best, doing google searches to search for ways to meaningfully engage their clients.  I can see an army of caring and concerned warriors, filled with longing to be of service and the intention to make a difference in the life of someone else. 

What a blessing to live in such a world, full of compassionate, dedicated people.  I want to tell each and every one of you: THANK YOU.  Thank you for everything you do to make the world a better place.  You may sometimes get discouraged, exhausted, or depleted, but remember that every moment of caring you send out into the world has an impact.  Take care of your precious heart and don't ever give up.  Remember that you are a blessing to those whom you serve and that others are lucky to receive your self-sacrificing efforts.

I sometimes like to imagine I'm looking at humanity from a distance, like I'm from another planet or I'm from the future looking back on what our species was about.  In the midst of all the cruelty and blind ambition that is rampant in our world, those of us dedicated to healing, justice, and wisdom are helping to tip the scales and shift our species' profile toward one of sanity and benevolence.  We are redeeming ourselves for the wrongs we have committed and restoring what has been lost or broken.  We are creating the possibility for a future we can believe in.  Knowing you are out there makes me glad to be human.

As of June 1, 2015, I am certified as an advanced alcohol and drug counselor since passing the (very difficult) exam in May!  As I embark on this exciting and challenging field, I forsee an ongoing and continually deepening exploration into ways of integrating expressive therapies into addiction treatment.  I draw heavily on Prochaska's stages of change in matching interventions to the needs of recovering individuals, so I tend to incorporate expressive arts as a way of helping the client to move to the next stage of change from wherever they are.  Creative expression, ritual, and internal imagery can be some of the most potent ways for a human being to transform, and yet the process of recovery often seems like a death-defying walk on a tightrope, where one relapse could mean the difference between life and death.  Under such dire and precarious circumstances, I often find myself delicately negotiating a balance between "too much" and "too little" expressive material.  There are risks on both sides of that equation.

Looking back on how I got interested in this field, I have to give an enormous amount of credit to my mentor and supervisor, Ms. Donna Johnson.  I had never seriously considered that I would ever be interested in specializing in this field, but when I met Ms. Donna and heard her speak about addiction treatment, her passion was contagious.  One of the most important things I learned from Ms. Donna is how addiction treatment, though it has many overlaps with mental health, is really its own thing and requires a very distinct skill set and knowledge base from mental health treatment.  Ms. Donna is also an incredible model of the subtle and profound power of motivational interviewing as well as the patience, insight, and humor required to be a trustworthy guide to someone in recovery.  Her company, Addiction Solutions, is a global center for addiction, criminality, integrated care, and corporate training and consulting.  She provides supervision and education worldwide, so if you are interested in getting your credential as an addictions counselor, she is highly recommended!  Please visit www.addictionsolutions.org for more information.