Fifteen years in the field — then a long look at how we got here.
I trained as an addiction clinician and spent more than fifteen years in the field — in methadone clinics, mobile crisis, in-home family counseling, and a hospital detox unit — before retiring from practice in 2019.
I sat with people on their hardest days, and with the families trying to hold on to them. I saw what helped — and I saw how often the systems meant to help reached instead for control. From Fire to Fentanyl grew out of those years, and out of personal loss.
Compassion is how we take addiction seriously.
Across thousands of years, societies have met human pain and craving first with care, then with fear, then with control — and the harm we blame on substances has, again and again, been deepened by the choices we make in fear.
The danger was never only in the drug. It was in how we chose to answer it.
I write in plain language, person-first, and without sensationalism — because how we speak about suffering shapes how we respond to it. No one should be reduced to their worst moment, and no family should face this alone.
Writing — and building a place for the work.
The book is the beginning. Alongside it: free guides for families, essays on the long history of how we respond to addiction, and — soon — a podcast. The newsletter is the best way to follow along.