So far, my research suggests that, over the last 85 years, two addiction groups have existed side-by side in the United States:— a “religious” community that squandered its alcoholism paradigm by doing no research; (Alcoholics Anonymous)— a “scientific” community doing research without an alcoholism paradigm to guide it. (Alcoholism Treatment: note that theories and definitions are not paradigms)In the early 1980’s, these communities collided during the rehab boon and since then have oscillated between cooperation & co-dependence and a mismatched competition between cross-purpose goals. Now, in 2024, each is in crisis for different reasons of which they both seem unaware, but paradigmatic thinking gives us a simple way to understand where they are and how they could proceed. I will continue this exposition in posts to come.

Over 60 years after I first innocently asked as a child, "How does one be a good person in a bad world?"; over 40 years after I first naively started helping people reclaim the humanity they thought they had lost to their addictions; 20 years after developing the core elements of "The New Moral Psychology of Addiction" and training thousands of alcoholics in its challenging applications; and just 6 months after initiating my latest LinkedIn exploration on whether it was even possible to have a civilized exchange about addiction on this platform, I can no longer soft-pedal the essentially moral nature of the War-within-Self that Powers all Addictions.More to come...

Any relevant follow-up to the 1939 publication of “Alcoholics Anonymous” will tell an historically important new story with the same urgency with which Bill Wilson first framed the narrative of the alcoholic drinker. At cogniventus.com, our worthy successor to A.A.’s Basic Text details how The New Founders Group (1991-2014) resolved the dilemma of long-time sober alcoholics (>10 years) who drink again and experience a different, adaptive alcoholism that is now unresponsive to the Twelve Step Program and Fellowship support. These pioneers rejected as insufficient any life without alcohol that was nothing more than the whimpering remission of a lifelong disease, the milquetoast management of a chronic disorder, or a daily reprieve based on the maintenance of your spiritual condition. Instead, these Founders of a New Way of Life for those floundering in an alcoholism-recovery community declared an absolute, unconditional end to the War-within-Self that fuels alcoholism, "recovery from alcoholism" (alcoholism's evil twin), and all other forms of self-imposed suffering. Thus, the legacy of freedom that is being reclaimed in this historic sequel to the Big Book does not belong to Alcoholics Anonymous, and is available to anyone, for any purpose. This A.A. is Woody Guthrie, Holden Caulfield, Ralph Waldo Emerson—fiercely individualistic, a thoroughly American inheritance.

Cogniventus models Recovery from Addiction as currently practiced—both non-professionally and professionally—as a scaled system of goods and services that, in moving along the line of transmission, encounter unanticipated emergent risks that are as dangerous as Addiction itself. Unprecedented applications of well-established industrial safety techniques in Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) and Failure Mode & Effects Analysis (FMEA) make critical functional distinctions among those populating the recovery pipeline—Users, Sponsors, Developers, Coordinators, Facilitators, and Managers, allowing us to actively mediate the strategy decay and diminishing returns that are inherent and inevitable in the distribution of any Addiction-Recovery Process. Our Recovery Risk Evaluation (RRE) helps those who are suffering in their recovery, (if you are an Addiction Professional, feel free to neuter the plight of these unfortunates with "Recovery Use Disorder") those that non-professional Twelve Step Groups and Addiction Treatment Professionals do not help, cannot help, or will not help.

Grew independently out of President & CEO Doug Tieman's 2006, 2007, 2009, and 2011 challenges to visit Caron Treatment Centers and provide leadership to their Wernersville, PA, staff on why addicts relapse after many years of dedicated recovery, and why they might experience a different, adaptive addiction that is unresponsive to known recovery protocols. Our cogniventive “Good Recovery Practice” (GRP) and "current Best Recovery Practice" (cBRP)—both modeling state-of-the-art Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) by Quality System Regulation (QSR) through Design Control and Key Process Indicators (real KPI’s; not self-consciously clever wordplay)—succeeds where current recovery methods fail by neutralizing any addiction's strongest survival mechanism: its frustrating ability to perpetually adapt to any effort to recover from it."If your life revolves around your Recovery, then your life still revolves around your Addiction."

How do you engineer an adaptive, Self-Correcting Sobriety Pipeline that makes relapse obsolete and turns “Addiction-Recovery" into an oxymoron? We begin by radically re-perceiving the direct line of transmission that leads from addiction to sobriety through a more general model of how goods and services are passed along from conception to product. Testing the now eponymous Cogniventive Platform in the field, I was able to quickly find and permanently fix any problem in the transfer of Industrial Goods and Services from Research & Development through Engineering, and into Manufacturing—always with significant savings of money and time for the client: BioKyowa Inc, June, 2014, Cape Girardeau, MO; Cambrex Corporation, May, 2014, Charles City, IA; Cytec Industries, February, 2014, Willow Island, WV; Sensient Technologies, July, 2013, St Louis, MO; Brewer Science, August, 2012, Rolla, MO; Wacker Chemical, January 17, 2012, Eddyville, IA; BASF-Cognis, October, 2011, Kankakee, IL. Now I could apply the general principles of Science & Technology Transmission to the specific case of how current Addiction-Recovery Pipelines pass on more problems than solutions, encouraging relapsing, repeat customers.

Exposed several systemic flaws in the multi-level scale-up and transfer of a synthetic process from R&D to Manufacturing. Not only was the initiating problem resolved—with an impactful $14 million added to the next contract negotiation—but company-wide initiatives were put in place for: the multi-million $ recovery of precious metals; the doubling of R&D capacity; the empowering of operators to better monitor reactor progress; and the organization of a much-needed coordination chemistry archive accessible to future generations. The embryonic Cogniventive Discovery & Development Platform could now be tested within an even broader context of Industrial Troubleshooting, then turned toward the specific problem of Addiction-Recovery.

Assumed leadership of a cross-functional R&D Laboratory at the request of both the Chemical Process & Process Engineering Managers. Promoted a culture of ethical accountability while coaching Scientists, Engineers, and Operators to collaborate with limited resources while realizing both common and conflicting priorities. Unravelling the cross-functional layering and sequencing of behavioral duties that support concerted technical processes would become an essential part of the Cogniventive approach.

After setting an unmatched standard for the reliability, repeatability, and rapidity of my experimental results, I was quickly recruited by the Engineering Manager to solve a multi-level Production problem that had baffled Process Engineers for over 5 years.

Based on my policy of following all my R & D Projects as they moved into Engineering and through Production, I was engaged by the Vice President (see Ned Polan’s recommendation on this Profile) to investigate an inexplicable increase in Manufacturing accidents, requiring me to manage conflict while interviewing employees in stressful situations, conduct probing surveys, quietly observe on-the-job performance, and listen empathetically. Originated and implemented company-wide seminar training series that systematized how workplace attitudes affect safety compliance—resulting policy changes led to a 71% decrease in OSHA-reportables. My first observable performance metric from the now yet-to-be-named Problem-Solving Platform would push forward the work of unravelling how scaled systems of human behavior pass on individual solutions but collective problems.

Provided critical bench support for the development of several patents and papers. During a company-wide seminar on Steven Covey’s “The Eighth Habit,” I introduced a controversial demonstration of how Self-Help in general, and Employee Motivational Seminars in particular, actually demotivate and disempower employees.

Starting at the beginning of the Science & Technology Pipeline, I began my career-long interactive study of how Goods & Services move from Discovery & Development, through Process Engineering & Manufacturing, and into Commercial Distribution. Developed a Safety Seminar that taught Scientists, Engineers, and Operators how to change their thinking in order to uncover and neutralize hidden hazards—led to the detection and elimination of several warehoused chemicals that were aging with increasing toxicity and volatility.The anticipation of unexpected risks from the emergent properties of scaled systems over time—both technical and behavioral—would now become a recurring theme in my life’s work.