As one of the leading addiction treatment programs in Virginia, New Paradigm Recovery team members have ideas about the issues affecting its community members and the landscape of substance use disorders, mental health, and the practice of behavioral healthcare.
This vlog series features interviews with colleagues, team members, and other stakeholders from addiction treatment programs, mental healthcare providers, and other stakeholders invested in addressing addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders. From interventionists to recovery coaches to doctors and clinicians on the front lines of the addiction epidemic, guests appearing in these videos represent a wealth of specialized knowledge and vital resources to individuals and families in Northern Virginia and nationwide. Conducted by New Paradigm Recovery CEO Joey Zabel, these interviews cover a broad range of relevant topics.
Anu works closely with New Paradigm therapists and case managers to develop rounded treatment plans considering each person’s needs and goals. In this discussion, Joey and Anu explore Anu’s background and how she decided to enter the behavioral healthcare field. They also discuss Anu’s individualized approach to client care — which includes non-pharmaceutical interventions — and her thoughts on medication-assisted treatment. Anu believes strongly in considering many factors about a client’s needs, desires, treatment history, and resources when prescribing and planning care.
New Paradigm Recovery CEO and New Paradigm Co-Founder and Spring Health Director of Strategic Alliances Ben Britton discuss the role of Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) in reducing behavioral health stigma and increasing treatment access.
The stigma surrounding mental health disorders, including addictive and dual-diagnosis disorders, stimies public awareness and makes it harder for people to seek treatment. Despite large-scale public education efforts in recent years, most people experiencing mental health disorders will not receive care from qualified professionals. People who overcome the fear of stigma face challenges in finding, accessing, and affording care. Employee Assistance Programs can significantly reduce barriers to treatment.
EAP expert Ben Britton, who openly discusses his mental healthcare experiences to help others, identifies treatment-seeking barriers, including the fear of job loss or career limitation, finding qualified specialists, and the cost of care. Spring Health, and other employee assistance programs, are in the business of partnering with employers and insurance plans to make the process of seeking and accessing medical care easier. Receiving treatment has far-reaching benefits for patients, families, companies, and society. While effective care helps to drastically improve one’s quality of life and potentially reduce the risks of suicide and the need for medications, a healthier and better-adjusted workforce reduces overall healthcare costs and increases productivity.
One of the most challenging aspects of finding treatment is knowing which providers to seek out. The nuances of specialized care providers can be opaque to healthcare consumers. Identifying high-quality, appropriately-skilled resources is another area where EAPs like Spring Health can help. Experts who assist individuals and companies in locating providers have significant knowledge and resources that make finding the right provider options easier and faster. They help people understand how to utilize their in-network and out-of-network healthcare benefits to pay for treatment.
Sample, who has more than 25 years of experience, brings a refined perspective to her work and her direction for the New Paradigm Recovery’s psychotherapeutic programming. Sample is a classically trained psychoanalyst who places particular importance on creating a strong and safe-feeling therapeutic rapport as the basis for productive long-term clinical work. Sample believes establishing a close, trust-based relationship with clients is essential to improving successful treatment outcomes.
In addition to covering some basics of New Paradigm Recovery’s clinical approaches and some of the therapies it utilizes, this conversation touches on some nuances that make New Paradigm an especially effective resource for its clients. Some of these areas include educating clients and families about the medical model of addiction, coordinating psychiatric prescribing services with psychotherapeutic treatment, and understanding that addictive disorders — whether process or substance — are often maladaptive responses to unaddressed childhood traumas or inadvertent avoidances of life stressors.
The lived experiences of Daniel Adams, a Certified Peer Recovery Specialist at the Chris Atwood Foundation, exemplify the incredible power of human intention, determination, and fellowship and the overwhelming positivity of recovery. During this interview with New Paradigm Recovery CEO Joey Zabel, Mr. Adams shares the poignant details of his journey, one that proves the axioms “it is never too late to change” and “recovery is possible.”
Mr. Adams thrives today despite having survived adolescent onset of substance use disorder, the 1980s crack cocaine epidemic, economic adversity and housing insecurity, family system alienation, incarceration, and numerous unsuccessful treatment attempts. Despite being challenged in every domain of the social determinants of health, Adams’s unflagging determination to uphold a promise made to a dying friend in prison was the force that ultimately propelled him to begin 16 years of uninterrupted sobriety and dedicate his extraordinary life and energy to helping others.
In this conversation, New Paradigm Recovery CEO Joey Zabel asks Samar to reflect on how her earliest aspirations to work in corporate education evolved into working in the behavioral healthcare field. This discussion illustrates how Samar’s path was shaped by a compassionate alliance that formed after she began meeting and treating more individuals and families affected by substance use disorder. As Samar’s clinical career matured, she developed a more profound emotional resonance and a desire to support clients impacted by addictive disorders fully.
With a degree in educational psychology from the University of Denver, Samar is especially skilled at understanding the importance of making curriculum relatable. During this interview, Samar suggests that education is essential to helping individuals, families, and healthcare professionals think differently about the disease of addiction and that this learning can eliminate the stigma that continues to surround addictive disorders.
In her work at New Paradigm Recovery, Samar focuses on psychoeducation to help family systems and clients fully comprehend the nature of dual diagnosis and mental health conditions to approach treatment and recovery with a rational and informed outlook to improve family support and long-term treatment outcomes.
Samar asserts that “eradication of addiction is not about adjudication or treatment, but education.”