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Live Webinar

Shifting the Addiction Paradigm 2025: Centering Treatment on the Continuum of Human Behavior

Zoi Andalcio, LMHC
Ross Ellenhorn, MSW, PhD, CEO
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Information

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Identify at least two evidence-based strategies to work with ambivalent clients and those with complex addictions.

  • Describe the social and environmental factors that influence addiction, moving beyond the limiting disease model.

  • Explain a stage-based approach to treatment, with a social resource bent.

Educational Goal

The educational goal of this workshop is to increase understanding of addiction through a lens that considers individual experiences, societal influences, and the continuum of behaviors.

Description

The 2025 Shifting the Addiction Paradigm conference continues a nine-year tradition of exploring transformative and humane approaches to addiction treatment. Our past conferences have questioned the validity, effectiveness and power-dynamics of a purely disease model of addiction, with a particular emphasis on how this view can limit the voice of the person experiencing addiction and can lead to coercive treatment methods. While the disease model has been beneficial in some respects, it falls short of capturing the complexity of addiction, which exists on a continuum of human behavior.

This year, we’ll focus on the evolving understanding of addiction as a set of behaviors that can change over time, driven by social and environmental factors. Many individuals can reduce risky behaviors without total abstinence, achieving moderation or other positive outcomes. The 2025 conference will explore the unique ways individuals interact with substances and addictive behaviors, emphasizing the way societal factors and social resources influence their relationship with substances and addictive behaviors.

We will also address the ambivalence and fear of change that many individuals face and how social resources can act as powerful tools for transformation. Attendees will learn about current thinking on stage-based approaches to treatment, equipping practitioners with strategies that embrace change and offer dignity and autonomy to those struggling with addiction.

This conference offers a unique opportunity to explore the nuanced and ever-evolving understanding of addiction. By addressing addiction through a lens that considers individual experiences, societal influences, and the continuum of behaviors, we aim to foster more compassionate and effective treatment approaches. Attendees will leave with new tools to inspire change in their clients and contribute to a broader movement of rethinking addiction.

Target Audience

  • Addiction Professional
  • Counselor
  • Marriage & Family Therapist
  • Nurses
  • Physician
  • Psychologist
  • Social Worker

Presenters

Zoi Andalcio, LMHC
Zoi Andalcio is the co-founder of Supportive Minds, a specialty outpatient mental health and addiction practice rooted in inclusivity, community, and harm reduction. The practice provides care to adults, adolescents, and traditionally underserved or vulnerable populations, utilizing a range of evidence-based clinical models. Zoi previously served for 12 years as the Director of Addiction Services (IDDT) at Ellenhorn in Boston. He earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Xavier University of Louisiana and holds a master’s degree in counseling psychology from Northeastern University, where he was also a graduate research fellow. With over 13 years of experience in public health, Zoi contributed to the first Boston Teen Health Report, participated in public health research during graduate school, and worked at a community-based substance use outpatient center in Boston. He has received training in and facilitated numerous evidence-based group therapy models, and was part of a team—funded by federal grants through the Boston Public Health Commission—that developed specialized groups for dually diagnosed men. Zoi has worked in a wide variety of settings, including homeless shelters, correctional facilities, community clinics, and hospitals, providing both individual and group care. He is trained in psychological first aid and has worked as a psychiatric crisis clinician. His current clinical interests include exploring the mind-body connection and leveraging physical exercise to support impulse control and overall well-being.
Ross Ellenhorn, MSW, PhD, CEO
Dr. Ellenhorn is trained as a sociologist, psychotherapist and social worker. He has spent the last two decades helping individuals suffering psychiatric symptoms find the psychological and social means for remaining outside institutional settings. He created the first fully-operating intensive hospital diversion and wrap-around program in Massachusetts, later creating and leading, one of the first Programs for Assertive Community Treatment teams in the Commonwealth. His book, which addresses psychiatric hospital recidivism and techniques for diverting hospital use, was published by Springer Publishing in 2007. Dr. Ellenhorn has given talks and seminars throughout the country, and has provided consultation to numerous mental health agencies and psychiatric hospitals on the subjects of hospital diversion, psychosocial rehabilitation, patient careerism and the PACT model. Dr. Ellenhorn is trained in Open Dialogue, a method for helping individuals experiencing extreme psychiatric states, and which has documented success in minimizing the need for psychotropic medications. A graduate of the UCLA School of Social Welfare, Dr. Ellenhorn is the first person to receive a joint Ph.D. from the prestigious Florence Heller School for Social Welfare Policy and Management and the Department of Sociology at Brandeis University.