Focus Areas
Harm Reduction, Risk Reduction, Substance Abstinence
At the far end of the spectrum of substance use disorders is that which clinicians refer to as the “severe” category – that which we used to call “chemical dependency,” or “addiction.” Not everyone (by far) who misuses mind-altering substances is experiencing addiction. Most can moderate or end misuse on their own with assistance, and can make use of a wide variety of Harm Reduction tools.
Genuine addiction is a bio-psycho-social phenomenon, which has a number of etiological routes. When the dis-ease has progressed into genuine addiction, it involves specific, permanent changes to a certain circuitry in the brain – the mesocorticolimbic pathway (MCLP) – and to the corresponding peptides and mirror cells in the gut and vagus nerve. The MCLP is not only the mechanism by which the mind’s hardware tells a person that a poison (the mind-altering substance) is a nutrient that the person desperately must have; it is also the mechanism by which willpower (and any rational decision of the will) is exercised. Thus, in genuine addiction, with the permanent changes effected in the MCLP, the necessary marker of the disorder becomes volitional impairment.
Without external opportunities for help, and general abstinence from mind-altering substances, genuine addiction is a disorder that leads to decline and death. When a patient arrives at the conclusion that they are genuinely addicted, Luke offers tools and help based on an abstinence model, which may include (alone or in combination) Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Relapse Prevention, and Twelve-Step Facilitation, along with some component of re-socialization.
Sex Positivity
Sex-positvity refers to a philosophical movement in social health that seeks to adjust socio-cultural attitudes and norms regarding sexuality, promoting the recognition of sexuality (in the countless forms of expression) as a natural and healthy part of the human experience and emphasizing the importance of personal sovereignty, the reduction of sexual risk/harm, and consensual sex (free from violence or coercion).
It covers every aspect of sexual identity including gender expression, orientation, relationship to the body (body-positivity, nudity, choice), relationship-style choice, and reproductive rights. Sex-positivity is “an attitude towards human sexuality that regards all consensual sexual activities that do not inflict permanent harm as fundamentally healthy and pleasurable, encouraging sexual pleasure and experimentation.” It also encourages space and respect for persons who have discovered that they are asexual and/or aromantic. It challenges societal taboos and aims to promote healthy and consensual sexual activities and priorities – based on humane values and sexual health for all, especially for those who feel that they have succumbed to problematic sexual behavior.
The sex-positive movement also advocates for comprehensive sex education and access to sexual risk/harm reduction methods as part of its campaign. The movement generally makes no moral distinctions among types of consensual sexual activities, regarding these choices as matters of personal preference.
Human Spirituality
Humanism is an approach to life based on reason and on our common humanity within the overall ecosystem. That is, it is based on humane values and priorities, recognizing that moral values and ethical actions are properly founded on the evolution of human experience, regardless of religious or supernatural beliefs (or the absence thereof), and religious or spiritual belief does not necessarily mean the absence of humanism.
Spirituality may be composed of a generally humanistic orientation. It may also include spiritual practices that stem from a paradigm of fourth order cybernetics and theoretical physics – that is, a worldview of spiritualism as juxtaposed with materialism alone. Spirituality may be steeped in the practices of one or more religions, but it may also be an overall sense of moving through the world humanistically with a spiritual perspective irrespective of religion.