Recovery Reform: Navigating Harm Reduction, Recovery, and Drug Policy
Recovery Reform: Navigating Harm Reduction, Recovery, and Drug Policy is a podcast exploring substance use disorders, harm reduction, and recovery with people with lived experience, experts in the harm reduction field, and leaders in drug policy. Hosted by McCauley Sexton, an accountability coach and alternative treatment industry professional with lived experience in active use and recovery, and Dr. Taylor Nichols, an emergency medicine and addiction medicine physician, each episode will provide candid conversations about substance use, the impact of policy and the war on drugs, and work to break the stigma against drugs and the people who use them.
Episodes
Harm reduction is more than "needles and Narcan" and Dee-Dee Stout is the perfect person to talk to about the evolution of harm reduction therapy. Through her own training and her experience as a person who used drugs, Dee Dee has been at the forefront of studying and teaching about harm reduction based modalities of treatment. Dee-Dee has a degrees in Psychology, Human Sexuality, and Business Management as well as an interdisci...
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 jou...
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.
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...
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.
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 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; rath...
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 arti...
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 f...
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 be...
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 o...
Tara Grace (Burn the Stigma Tara) became a harm reductionist out of necessity after seeing how the limitations of a 12 step recovery model was harming her and her community. She is a vocal advocate for harm reduction and recovering out loud, brining her story and harm reduction education to the community.
You can find Tara at @BurnTheStigma across social media.
Kristina Dennis is a life coach and relationship expert whose life’s work is to show people how to release events of their past so they can become free of limiting beliefs.
Kristina has worked as a coach since 1997 when she realized she had a gift for effectively helping others. As a Certified Addiction Interventionist (CAI), Kristina’s ethical and compassionate approach to individuals with trauma allows her to show people an effec...
Nicholas Crapser PhD, is the current Clinical Director of 4D Recovery in Portland, OR, which is a peer-based support for youth and adolescents seeking addiction recovery. He has a history of lived experience with substance use disorder and justice involvement, and has been a vocal advocate for improved treatment for patients with substance use disorders and re-entry services. He has an excellent TED Talk titled "The Three E's of Re...
Dr. Taylor Nichols and McCauley Sexton interview Eddie Krumpotich, a person with lived experience, former teacher of the year, and an expert in substance use and harm reduction. He has consulted with two of the nations largest harm reduction organizations to help write and advocate for six substance use, harm reduction, and mental health bills in the states of Nebraska, Minnesota, and South Dakota.
Our hosts flip roles, and Dr. Taylor Nichols interviews co-host McCauley Sexton about his childhood, his family history of substance use, his lived experience with having a substance use disorder and in residential treatment, and how he feels he has grown and changed his perspective on harm reduction and the need to reform recovery spaces.
Our hosts flip roles, and Dr. Taylor Nichols interviews co-host McCauley Sexton about his childhood, his family history of substance use, his lived experience with having a substance use disorder and in residential treatment, and how he feels he has grown and changed his perspective on harm reduction and the need to reform recovery spaces.
In the second of two episodes, McCauley Sexton interviews Dr. Taylor Nichols on his path to medicine and how his personal experience with family connections to substance use disorders in combination with his emergency medicine training led him to an improved understanding of harm reduction and eventually to become board-certified in addiction medicine.
In the first of two episodes, McCauley Sexton interviews Dr. Taylor Nichols on his path to medicine and how his personal experience with family connections to substance use disorders in combination with his emergency medicine training led him to an improved understanding of harm reduction and eventually to become board-certified in addiction medicine.
McCauley Sexton and Dr. Taylor Nichols bring you Recovery Reform, a podcast focused on changing the narrative around substance use disorders, recovery, and harm reduction, bringing you clinical insights and alternative recovery perspectives.
The views and opinions expressed in the podcast are our own and do not represent that of our employers. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitut...