Why Responsibility Is So Important

Why Responsibility Is So Important

Responsibility is important because it provides a sense of purpose, in addition to building resilience amidst adversity on an individual and societal level. Like an addiction, sidestepping responsibility may feel good in the short-term, but leads to exponentially worse…

read more
The Impact of Isolation on Addiction

The Impact of Isolation on Addiction

Isolation increases the risk of addiction among individuals using a substance or behavior to cope with the loneliness, boredom, or loss of purpose due to isolation.  It is important to note that isolation and loneliness are not synonymous. You can be living in…

read more
Do Positive Affirmations Work? A Look at the Science

Do Positive Affirmations Work? A Look at the Science

Positive affirmations do not work for persons trying to boost self-esteem, change negative thoughts, or escape from painful emotions. The evidence suggests positive affirmations only work in individuals who are already positive or high performing. In this article, I take a closer look…

read more
Does Online Counselling Work?

Does Online Counselling Work?

According to recent evidence, online counselling is effective for treating mental health and addictions. Multiple studies show it is generally as effective as face-to-face counselling and has the benefit of expanding access to mental health and addiction treatment. Let’s take a closer look at the research….

read more
Is Worrying Helpful?

Is Worrying Helpful?

Worrying can be helpful or harmful, depending on the type of worry. It is helpful when focused on practical short-term actions, but it is harmful when focused on abstract ideas about the future that lead to repetitive thoughts and inaction. Let’s take a closer look at what this means…

read more
How to Stop Living in Your Head

How to Stop Living in Your Head

Accept what you can’t control, step back from your thoughts, focus on the present moment, remove limiting self-definitions, live by your core values, take action toward what matters. This information is based on the principles of Acceptance and commitment Therapy, supported by over 330 clinical trials…

read more
How Gambling Addiction Works

How Gambling Addiction Works

Gambling addiction works by hijacking the brain’s learning mechanism through random rewards. This means you feel rewarded often enough to keep going, despite increasing losses. The idea of missing a potential win keeps the person focused on trying to get the money back…

read more
Are You Addicted to Your Phone?

Are You Addicted to Your Phone?

On the go? Listen to the audio version of the article here: As smartphones take over the world, you may find yourself asking, "am I addicted to my phone?" Whenever I tell someone I treat internet addiction, they commonly mention how often young people are using their...

read more
Why Are Video Games Addictive?

Why Are Video Games Addictive?

Although every case is unique, there are general patterns that can help explain why video games are addictive. Video games are addictive because they help meet our basic psychological need for a sense of freedom, purpose/progress, and social connection…

read more
Why is Youth Suicide a Social Problem?

Why is Youth Suicide a Social Problem?

Youth experience social isolation due to the increasing dependence on technological communications at the expense of in-person interactions. Social Connection is a universal human need and one of the major protective factors against suicide…

read more
Do Narcissists Have Low Self-esteem?

Do Narcissists Have Low Self-esteem?

Narcissists have high self-esteem. But unlike individuals with a secure sense of high self-esteem, narcissists have what researchers call “fragile high self-esteem”. It is a form of high self-esteem dependent on external validation and self-deception. Let’s take a closer look…

read more
What is the Recovery Model in Addiction?

What is the Recovery Model in Addiction?

“Recovery is a process of change through which people improve their health and wellness, live self-directed lives, and strive to reach their full potential.” This means treatment is focused on empowering people to support their own self-directed path of recovery…

read more
The Power of Social Connection

The Power of Social Connection

If you’ve been following my work, you may have noticed I’ve transitioned from veteran issues to addictions. I thought I should probably elaborate on this shift in focus and share the underlying theme driving all of my work. After reading a few of my articles, it should be fairly clear that…

read more
How to Prevent a Gaming Addiction

How to Prevent a Gaming Addiction

Develop a sense of self-esteem, social belonging, and purpose. Gaming addiction develops as a way to meet these basic needs. Meeting these needs outside of a gaming environment will reduce your risk of developing a dependency. Let’s look at what the research…

read more
How to Help Someone With an Addiction

How to Help Someone With an Addiction

Respect their individuality, hold space for them to express emotions, control your emotional involvement, gain an accepting nonjudgmental attitude, maintain their self-determination through collaboration. Let’s explore what each of these…

read more
How to Spend Less Time on Social Media

How to Spend Less Time on Social Media

Remove triggers from your environment, consider using an app to track and limit your use, find alternate forms of communication
Reconnect with hobbies, and consider trying a digital detox. Let’s explore what each of these things looks like in more detail…

read more
Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?

Is Social Media Making Us Less Social?

Social Media is making us less social when used to compare oneself to others, contributing to higher levels of loneliness and lower levels of well-being among frequent users. It can be social when used to connect with others. Let’s take a look at the research…

read more
How to Prevent a Gambling Addiction

How to Prevent a Gambling Addiction

To prevent a gambling addiction it is important to set a money limit, set a time limit, play for entertainment, and understand how the games work. Let’s take a closer look at what this means, in terms of preventing an addiction to gambling in a casino environment…

read more
The True Meaning of Success

The True Meaning of Success

It means living in alignment with your personal definition of success by staying true to your values and taking meaningful actions toward your own valued goals. In this article, I dive into the science and philosophy of what success really means…

read more
How Success Causes Loneliness

How Success Causes Loneliness

According to Thomas Joiner in Lonely at the Top, success can cause loneliness when people neglect the quality and quantity of their close social relations in favor of focusing on instrumental goals associated with success. Although being successful does not guarantee loneliness…

read more
What Does it Mean to Follow Your Passion?

What Does it Mean to Follow Your Passion?

Following your passion means exploring areas that spark your interest, developing your skills in a specific area, and using those skills to contribute to something beyond yourself. This article explores the idea of what it means to follow your passion…

read more
What Is Transitional Stress?

What Is Transitional Stress?

Six themes emerge from the interview data on transitional stress: missing the military; feeling lost and apathetic in civilian life; feeling cut off from an elite family; difficulty connecting with civilians; the loss of structure; and the loss of a sense of service. Let’s take a closer look at each of these themes…

read more
The Ultimate Guide to Helping Someone Change

The Ultimate Guide to Helping Someone Change

You can’t change people, but there are things we can do to help them change themselves. This involves listening, developing empathy, and asking questions to help them figure out their own reasons for change. Working in the addiction field has taught me…

read more
Inside the Mind of a Suicidal Person

Inside the Mind of a Suicidal Person

Although it may look selfish, someone in a state of suicidal thinking actually perceives themselves to be a burden on everyone. This distorted perception leads to the belief that others would be better off without them. Rather than a selfish act…

read more
What Does It Mean to Have a Purpose?

What Does It Mean to Have a Purpose?

A sense of purpose means dedicating yourself to a cause beyond yourself. It’s a goal that fuels your motivation in life, giving your life meaning and direction, inspiring you to make a significant contribution to the world. Let’s unpack some of this…

read more
6 Things Veterans Can Teach Us About Life

6 Things Veterans Can Teach Us About Life

Veterans can teach us a great deal about the meaning of purpose, leadership, work ethic, community, and meaning. Throughout my research, their insights transformed the way I look at the world, so I thought it might be helpful to pass along their messages here…

read more
The Most Neglected Aspect of Addiction Recovery

The Most Neglected Aspect of Addiction Recovery

Our basic psychological needs go unmet, feeling isolated, trapped, and on a downward spiral. Meaning collapses, and we fall into despair. Addiction is a way of coping with the pain of this despair. Overcoming despair requires connecting with a sense of purpose…

read more
Addiction to Negative News

Addiction to Negative News

We may say we want more positive news, but if news organizations actually focused on positive content, we probably wouldn’t watch it. Negativity bias keeps us interested in negative news. Negativity bias is a psychological effect causing us to pay more attention to negative things than positive things.

read more
What is Social Health?

What is Social Health?

Social health is the ability of a social context to foster interdependent social relations in a way that meets the needs of individuals and the needs of the broader group. In order to explore what this means, let’s consider what it means to be healthy. There are many perspectives on health…

read more
What is the Deeper Meaning of Identity?

What is the Deeper Meaning of Identity?

Identity can be defined in three different ways: self-identity, social-identity, and role-identity. Self-identity is how you identify with your personal characteristics, social-identity is how you identify with a group, and role-identity is how you identify with a particular social role.

read more
Military Betrayal, Civilian Isolation

Military Betrayal, Civilian Isolation

Many veterans experience anger, cynicism, or a heightened concern for justice during or after their service. These are not necessarily reactions to trauma or the result of PTSD, rather, they are the result of characteristics instilled in the military…

read more
What Are Our Social Needs?

What Are Our Social Needs?

As described in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, our social needs are of the need for love and belonging. The need for love and belonging consists of a sense of connection, intimacy, trust, and friendship. When these social needs are fulfilled, we feel a sense of well-being…

read more
Finding Purpose in Uncertain Times

Finding Purpose in Uncertain Times

As our modern times become ever-more chaotic, the fear of loneliness and uncertainty becomes an increasingly prominent feature in our life. Moral certainties have turned into lines drawn in the sand and community is washed away by the waves of individualism…

read more
How is Suicide a Social Problem?

How is Suicide a Social Problem?

The risk of suicide in a population increases when the social context fails to provide a healthy sense of purpose and belonging, contributing to an individual’s sense of contribution and connection. Let’s look at what the research can tell us about the issue. In his classic sociological text…

read more
What is Sanctuary Trauma?

What is Sanctuary Trauma?

Developed by Dr. Steven Silver, sanctuary trauma “occurs when an individual who suffered a severe stressor next encounters what was expected to be a supportive and protective environment’ and discovers only more trauma.” Some veterans who face mental or physical injuries from service…

read more
How Veterans Experience Altruism

How Veterans Experience Altruism

In the army, everybody sinks or swims together, What ultimately matters to you most are the guys in your section. These faceless soldiers in uniform, these guys are friends, What keeps you going is that you’re there to look after each other. I might fucking hate you...

read more
How Veterans Experience Purpose

How Veterans Experience Purpose

As an eighteen-year-old kid, the military gives you a sense of purpose, It give you a sense of responsibility that you don’t usually get at eighteen. At thirty-five I have to be my five-year-old self all over again, “What do you want to be when you grow up?’” Trying...

read more
How Veterans Experience The Rush of Combat

How Veterans Experience The Rush of Combat

I’m looking for a rush, I’m looking for a reason to help people, I want near deadly experiences, I want an apocalypse of this world, I want everything to go bad, I want you all to fucking need me to fucking save your life. Our tracers were red, their tracers were...

read more
Durkheim on Happiness

Durkheim on Happiness

In his discussion of ‘anomie’, Durkheim states that the key to happiness is having our needs proportionate to our means. According to Durkheim, our “needs” are our desires. As humans, our desires are infinite and insatiable, unless regulated by social forces. Our “means” are the ability…

read more
The Lesser-known Issues Veterans Face in Transition

The Lesser-known Issues Veterans Face in Transition

So what are some of the lesser-known issues veterans face in transition? These consist of moral injury, transitional stress, and sanctuary trauma. It is important to differentiate these issues faced by veterans from PTSD. If we view every issue…

read more
The Need to be Needed

The Need to be Needed

The need to be needed is an individual’s sense of significance rooted in the sense of being part of a community or cause beyond themselves. The need to be needed is one of our fundamental desires. We want to feel significant in the eyes of others, even if it is only one other person…

read more
What Drives Human Behavior?

What Drives Human Behavior?

The drive to fulfill the need for a sense of significance, achieved through a perceived sense of control over one’s life, a sense of social belonging, and a sense of effective social contribution. Simply put, this means we all want to feel significant. This sense of significance is achieved through…

read more
What is Moral Injury?

What is Moral Injury?

Litz (2009) defines moral injury as, “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations.” Rather than a fear response, the concept of moral injury illuminates the importance of guilt and shame. Although many…

read more