Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher
Addiction psychiatrist and bioethicist Carl Erik Fisher explores addiction and recovery from science to spirituality, from philosophy to politics, and everything in between. He interviews leading experts in areas such as psychology, neurobiology, history, sociology, and more--as well as policy makers, advocates, and people with lived experience.
A core commitment of the show is we need more than medicine to truly understand addiction and recovery. The challenges and mysteries of this field run up against some of the central challenges of human life, like: what makes a life worth living, what are the limits of self control, and how can people and societies change for the better? These are enormous questions, and they need to be approached with humility, but there are also promising ways forward offered by refreshingly unexpected sources.
There are many paths to recovery, and there is tremendous hope for changing the narrative, injecting more nuance into these discussions, and making flourishing in recovery possible for all.
Please check out https://www.carlerikfisher.com to join the newsletter and stay in touch.
Flourishing After Addiction with Carl Erik Fisher
BONUS EPISODE: a guided meditation for working with cravings, and Jud Brewer on Mindshift Recovery
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As promised, here's a quick follow-up to my conversation with Dr. Jud Brewer. We got so caught up in the core science and models of self-control and anxiety that we completely forgot to talk about what he actually came on to share: his new nonprofit, Mindshift Recovery!
So we hopped back the mic on to cover the details—their courses and group models, of course, but also more about how he puts into practice his core approach to working with habitual, addictive behavior. We also dive a bit more into his model of how awareness (not willpower) creates lasting change. It's fascinating work that's worth knowing about, and perhaps trying, if you're interested in how contemplative approaches can be applied to addiction recovery.
Finally, we close with a bonus meditation: an inquiry into the nature of craving itself.
For a short episode, it's surprisingly rich. The meditation alone is worth the listen.
As always, let me know what you think!
Check out my Substack posts for more links to Jud's work and our previous conversation.
Sign up for my newsletter and immediately receive my own free guide to the many pathways to recovery, as well as regular updates on new interviews, material, and other writings.