The Power of Plasticity: Paving New Neural Pathways for Recovery

Source: Training Development Resources/Recovery — NAADAC webinar slides, Kenneth J. Martz, PsyD, MBA (Aug 2025)

A clinical addiction-recovery webinar with several concepts translatable to coaching practice. The ASAM definition of addiction frames it as a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry — not a moral failing — that without treatment tends to progress through cycles of relapse and remission. The Triune Brain model (reptilian brain: instinctual "I must have this or I'll die"; limbic/mammalian brain: motivation, "I want/need it"; neocortex: planning, "I'd rather have this than that") frames recovery work as teaching someone to engage their slower, planning brain instead of reacting on autopilot — the driving analogy used is autopilot vs. actively navigating.

Intrinsic motivation (the behavior itself feels rewarding) is more durable than extrinsic motivation (external approval, consequences) but slower to build — most treatment realistically starts with extrinsic motivation (accountability, structure) and aims to grow intrinsic motivation over time. The familiar Stages of Change model (precontemplation → contemplation → preparation → action → maintenance) is mapped onto this same intrinsic/extrinsic and autopilot/conscious-effort framework. A useful visual: the "progression of a disease and recovery" chart shows how small early behaviors (social drinking → drinking to relax → drinking to escape → withdrawal from friends) snowball in one direction, while recovery behaviors (self-examination, connecting with a sponsor/positive peer group, honesty, resolving legal issues, self-respect returning) snowball in the other — useful for normalizing that both decline and recovery are gradual, not sudden.

A practical goal-setting structure ("Building a Practice") worth reusing almost verbatim in coaching: (1) declaration — "I will..."; (2) for the sake of — naming who this matters to; (3) detail the specific practice; (4) a reminder mechanism; (5) named support person. Example: "I will, for the sake of Joe, my spouse, write three things I'm grateful for in my journal every night, remind myself by keeping the journal under my pillow, and ask Janet to check in with me every Monday." Pairs with goal-directed questioning ("what else can I do to help my recovery today?", "how many things can I do today I can be proud of?") to keep a young person's attention pointed at solutions rather than the thing they're trying not to do — the brain, per the source, "does not understand 'no'"; it's more effective to direct someone toward a replacement behavior than to just tell them to stop.

Principles of Harm Reduction

Source: Training Development Resources/Recovery — National Harm Reduction Coalition, "Principles of Harm Reduction" (revised 2020)

Harm reduction is defined as both a set of practical strategies for reducing the negative consequences of drug use, and a social justice movement grounded in respecting the rights of people who use drugs. Core principles: accepts that drug use is part of the world and works to minimize harm rather than ignore or condemn it; understands use as a spectrum from severe use to abstinence, recognizing some ways of using are safer than others; measures success by quality of life and well-being, not necessarily by cessation; insists on non-judgmental, non-coercive support; ensures people who use drugs have real voice in the design of the programs meant to serve them; and explicitly names that poverty, racism, trauma, and other structural inequities shape both a person's vulnerability to harm and their capacity to deal with it.

The Risk / Set / Setting framework is a fast field-assessment tool: Risk is the substance-specific danger itself (what drug, overdose risk); Set is the person's internal mindset (mood, confidence, pain, whether basic needs are met); Setting is the external physical and social environment (where they are, who's around, how safe it feels). Illustrated with a case study of "Jessica," relapsing after a breakup — the framework structures a coach's assessment of the actual situational risk rather than a blanket judgment about the use itself. This dovetails directly with the harm-reduction framing already documented in Self_Harm.md and the anti-carceral orientation in Peer_Support_Philosophies.md.

Change Plan Worksheet

Source: Training Development Resources/Recovery — "Change-Plan Worksheet" (Motivational Interviewing tradition)

A compact MI-style planning worksheet: name the change, rate its importance (1-10) and your confidence in achieving it (1-10), state the most important reasons for wanting it, list concrete steps, name who can help and how, define what "working" will look like, and name what could get in the way. Simple enough to fill out in a single coaching session; the importance/confidence split is useful diagnostically — low confidence with high importance points toward a skill-building conversation, while low importance points toward exploring ambivalence first.

(Two files remain outstanding: "Webinar_References" is a citation list only — not separately extracted since it has no standalone coaching content — and "harmreductionzine" exceeded the extraction tool's size limit and needs a chunked re-read in a follow-up pass.)