Living in Recovery

Located in Portland, OR, Olivia Pennelle (Liv) is an experienced writer, journalist, and coach. She is the founder of the popular site Liv’s Recovery Kitchen, a site dedicated to helping people flourish in their recovery.

Liv is passionate about challenging limiting mentalities and empowering others to direct their own lives, health, and recovery. You can find her articles across the web on podcasts and addiction recovery websites, including The Fix, Recovery.org, Workit Health, and Ravishly. Liv was recently featured in VICE.

If you're interested in connecting with Liv, you can find her on Instagram. She also created a new Facebook group called Life After 12 Steps, where she proudly sees members thriving, rather than forcing themselves to do something that doesn’t work.

Additionally, Liv offers free resources on her website, including the e-book entitled Nourishing You, which is designed to give you the tools to achieve your health goals in straightforward language.

Dr. Joy Jacobs is a clinical psychologist, certified life coach and author specializing in issues related to eating, weight management, and body image. Her interest in the intersection between health, beauty, fashion, and popular culture led her to this specialty and serve as an endless source of inspiration. More information on Dr. Jacobs and her services can be found at drjoyjacobs.com.

Cathy Taughinbaugh is a Certified Parent Coach who specializes in working with parents of children struggling with substance use.
She is also a parent coach with the Partnership for Drug-Free Kids and creator of www.cathytaughinbaugh.com, a website providing information for families on prevention, addiction, and recovery.
Cathy lives in California and holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Pacific. She was an educator for 15 years.

Linda Hatch has had a long career in clinical psychology including teaching, research, student counseling, child psychology and crisis intervention. In addition she worked for many years through the court system evaluating sex offenders, sexually violent predators and mentally ill offenders. In recent years her work has been in the field of trauma and addiction. Linda is the author of the books Living with a Sex Addict: The Basics from Crisis to Recovery and Relationships in Recovery: A Guide for Sex Addicts who are Starting Over. She devotes considerable time to her writing which includes blogging on her regular column on PsychCentral.com as well as on her own website. Linda lives in Santa Barbara, California with her husband David, their border collie Perry and their cat Clara.

Jo has a deep-rooted passion for identifying alternative approaches to healing from trauma and addiction. While her own struggle with substance abuse was certainly the catalyst to identifying non-traditional approaches to treatment, it was her personal experience of healing which truly cultivated the desire to assist others on their journey to wellness.

As the Prevention Coordinator for the University of Nevada Reno, Jo’s primary role is to develop and implement drug/alcohol and sexual assault prevention programs on campus. In addition, she has taught an Overview of Addiction course for the past several years for the Center for the Application of Substance Abuse Technologies. Jo is currently pursuing her PhD in Educational Leadership and has her MS in Human Development and Family Studies with a specialization in Addiction Treatment and Prevention Services.

When Jo isn’t working or studying, you can find her training towards her Black Belt in mixed martial arts.

You can watch Jo’s TEDxUniversityofNevada ‘Rewriting the Story of My Addiction’ video here.

Joe Koelzer is a co-founder of The Clearing, a non 12 Step recovery program focused on addressing the underlying core issues which fuel substance abuse, depression, anxiety, and other challenges to our mental health. He has years of counseling experience and a master’s degree in Spiritual Psychology from the University of Santa Monica.

After observing how depression and substance abuse impacted his wife’s life, Joe realized how broken our current system is for addiction and related mental health treatment. He witnessed firsthand how an evidence-based approach coupled with Spiritual Psychology saved Betsy and enabled her to gain control of her life.

In co-founding The Clearing, Joe realizes his dream of creating and sharing this innovative approach with others in a structured clinical setting.