Recovery Sisters and Brothers
“One Love, One Heart, Let’s get together and feel alright.” Bob Marley
Introduction
While wrapping up this foundational work (which we know will never end) we were confronted with the reality of this journey ending and the fact that our fate with the future is still unknown. If we had a choice, we would do it again because when the fruits of our labor are allowed to survive, we all can thrive. We would not have become a licensed professional in a system that needed to created licensure to protect their interests instead of clients. Until this conflict is resolved (HERE), thorough healing will not happen and America will be limping around like a disabled Veteran looking for help from neighbors. We are putting Band-Aids on bullet wounds and call it psychological care. Therefore, we must see how our addiction work will help those who need recovery, but will the future see it? Will the right side of history see what side we were on? These are the questions, but the answers will be null and void is what it comes down to if professions are simply going to state “we were just following orders”. Well, there is nothing that anyone can do or say to take back what has already happened, except for being healing to the world and moving forward together with a greater understanding of what it means to be a human being alive in the world today.
Orientation
Having helped define addiction operationally means that people can start treating it effectively. Having identified that addiction is dissociation (O’Brien, 2023a) means that it problematic when those in power classify dissociation as a disorder because, it is adaptive to them. What is the problem that most caregivers and elders have? More work or less of their time is being devoted to their needs. Additionally, to state that professions are there for each other, or that professionals are there for the good of the people, makes us ask “what about the will of the people”? When the establishments rational math and quantitative science do not add up (O’Brien, 2024c), we are being qualitatively robbed of the experience that it will take to become what we are or were meant to become (HERE).
Having demonstrated that meditation is evidence based (O’Brien, 2023b), means that psychedelics have psychological value and deserve to be legally available to grown adults. CBD for kids. Having identified that both addiction and dissociation are transdiagnostic is (O’Brien, 2023a), we can see how mental health pathology is on a dissociative spectrum. While those who define addiction and dissociation profit, while those who don’t suffer. The issue is that quantitative research/science defines them and that is what our qualitative research/science honors. But will either side honor the shared lived experience of being human? Is there a place for the hopeless sinners who have hurt all mankind just to save their own?
Reorientation
We highlighted missing addiction diagnoses that underlie all “mental health disorders” (e.g., addiction being transdiagnostic), namely, that those who addictively diagnose “disorders” also have the same psychological illness and mental disease that diagnose other truths and realities as “other”, “intrusive”, and “separate” from, when they philosophically cannot be (HERE; HERE). Perfectionism, altruism, and ambition are all facets of human nature that are addictive (O’Brien, 2023a). To be in a state of addiction is to be abusive. To be abusive is to be inhumane to the lived experience of others and to those who have suffered enough to know who is who in the great game of life and death that they have setup. Our past is ever present, but many do not know it. Others do not believe it. Well, sisters and brothers, we can run and hide, but those who seek already know it is simply a matter of time before those who hide get it.
We have addressed matters that pertain to system level addictions in professions and know that they will not address system-level problems because that would not be profitable for them. But for those who are not in moral recovery, betrayal is healed through connection. For those who are, we welcome you. For those seeking more of what we have, we offer the Path of the Wounded Healer.
Background to the Problem
To my wife and soul, Viola, we are sorry that we added stress to these years of our lives. We can only respect the experience that we are having and yours. All my love all the time.
To my sister, Amy, thank you for showing me that we are who we are despite of the reality we shared. Our addictions were our parents and they manifested in our lives because we are a manifestation of them. As we come closer to the age of our deaths, we have to be aware of what we want to leave behind. What I have come to an understanding is that we can only be we. There is no separation between us and them, me and I, they and we. Our work is an ode to our childhood. Our recovery and path are how we got out. Thank you for helping us get through, but just because you didn’t “do drugs” doesn’t mean that you were living addictively. Our Thrivers program is an ode to you.
To our sons and daughter who may read these words at some point in the future: what we don’t know we can know through acceptance and humility of our lived experience. What we have taught you, we have taught the world. Thank you for being the inspiration to remain true to our innate values and selves. Your generation is the next wave of inspiration for the future generations. To know that there was a time when people didn’t know who was who in the game of life and death. All our love.
To my Aunt Mary, thank you for saving my life when I was three and twenty-seven. You knew what we were and showed us how to come back. Thanks for showing us the way.
To my mother, thank you for not understanding and understanding.
To my father, thank you for being you.
Lastly, to my recovery sister and brothers, dead and living, we honor you, your sacrifice, and your journey. We have sat with you in countless rehabs, mental hospitals, and self-help meetings. We see not only the struggle, but your recovery starting to bloom. We see it in your interest and curious ability to focus on what matters to you. We see it in your desire for more. We see it in the love you bring, the love in the dream, and because only love can fill us. We see it in all the healing that you have already done and why you want more. We offer our path to the world and now it is time to get along until the next song.
Data
To the people and professionals who implied that we couldn’t.
To those who thought they knew what addiction is (O’Brien, 2023a; HERE).
To those who implied that meditation is not evidence-based (O’Brien, 2023b).
To all those who believe that there isn’t a pathway out (O’Brien, 2023c).
To all those who said that healer wasn’t or isn’t a profession (O’Brien, 2024a).
To all those who said that our profession cannot diagnose (O’Brien, 2024b).
To all the training programs and professionals who only followed insurance-based programming and APA guidance (O’Brien, 2024c).
To all of those who believed that they were being moral, when they were really being unethical (O’Brien, 2024d).
To the teachers who thought we might have had dyslexia (HERE).
To the multiple bank tellers who said that their company cannot accept a business educating on drugs (even CBD, which is federally legal) (HERE).
To the banking companies that said that we couldn’t do cannabis business with them due to laws and regulation. It is really fear.
To the state who said that we were working outside of our scope of practice (HERE; HERE; HERE)
To the department of education who has or will have an issue with us qualitatively educating on drugs, psychedelics, addiction, and dissociation (HERE).
To the lawyers would told us that we should have complied with the law (HERE).
To all the governmental workers, accountants, lawyers who asked us to do illegal psychedelic therapy with them (HERE) (FYI: we didn’t).
To all the licensed professionals who claim ethics as their morals, we see you and can see where you are developmentally at (HERE).
To EMDRIA, Brainspotting, and psychedelic communities (O’Brien, 2025b).
To the greater Western American world (O’Brien, 2025a; HERE).
Discussion
To all who read this and think that we are unsafe, dangerous, or evil. We are and we are okay with it because evil is love spelled backwards (Eminem). It is not personal. It is life. I only kill when I have to. There is no good reason to kill anyone; that is why killing is emotional. I am my emotions and I trust them before I will ever trust you. If the people in the world was better able to handle their emotions and knew where the emotions were/are coming from (and could learn to enjoy them again), what a world that could be. This is what I see from those who heal with me. I was once like you were. A non-believer who was keeping the faith alive by being who I am. The goal is to be real, not perfect. Now we are we. This is what we got from our earliest days of recovery. Recovery and healing are a force of nature. Be mindful with foods you call medicine because all food is medicine.
Implications
We are done. Figure it out with us at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
Conclusion
What we realized early in our recovery was that our fate was the same as everyone else’s and we are just using different drugs; we knew that their logic could not hold up. How rational is it to stay on this planet with all these people? We guess it depends on the people you keep and how you keep you.
Implications
We know healing to be can easily be learned, but can take generations to understand. We have taken the bait of the American Dream and will die trying to fulfill it. While we know that this is what our ancestors had to do before us. We forge forth with no regret because being the “sons and daughters of the revolution” doesn’t mean as much when it comes at the cost of Mother Earth and the Father of Creation. These are all of our ancestors. We are one and are still here because we were already dead when we were born. Nothing begets nothing and nothing begins something.
Future Healings
Woundedhealersinstitute.org/
References
O’Brien, A. (2023a). Addiction as Trauma-Related Dissociation: A Phenomenological Investigation of the Addictive State. International University of Graduate Studies. (Dissertation). Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/
O’Brien, A. (2023b). Memory Reconsolidation in Psychedelics Therapy. In Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/
O’Brien, A. (2023c). Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2024a). Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and healing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2024b). Diagnostic Privilege: Meta-Critical Analysis. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and the healing profession as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Appendix 2. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/
O’Brien, A. (2024c). Meta-Critical Analysis: The “Science” of Pseudoscience. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and the healing profession as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Appendix 3. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/
O’Brien, A. (2024d). Moral-Ethics. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and healing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Chapter 14. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2024e). Path of the Wounded Healers for Thrivers: Perfectionism, Altruism, and Ambition Addictions; Re-education and training manual for Abusers, Activists, Batterers, Bullies, Enablers, Killers, Narcissists, Offenders, Parents, Perpetrators, and Warriors. Re-Education and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2025a). American Made Addiction Recovery: a healer’s journey through professional recovery. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/
O’Brien, A. (2025b). Path of the Wounded Healer’s: EMDR, Brainspotting, and Psychedelic Care Open Source Education and Training Manual. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute.
