Living in Recovery

April Wilson Smith, MPH, is a PhD student in Population Health at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. Her research focuses on harm reduction approaches to people who use substances when they enter the healthcare system.

April's other interest in healthcare is interprofessional education and teamwork. Her work with the Jefferson Center for InterProfessional Education won the 2016 James B. Erdmann PhD award for Excellence in Interprofessional Education. She is currently building a large, multidisciplinary coalition to create an interprofessional education module for healthcare professionals in best practices for the care of people who use drugs when they present in the acute care setting.

April is a Certified SMART Recovery facilitator and founded the first SMART Recovery meeting in the Philadelphia city limits. She is also co-founder of the only Harm Reduction, Abstinence and Moderation Support meeting in Philadelphia.

April recently accepted a position as Harm Reduction Epidemiologist with Families for Sensible Drug Policy, which is a non-profit dedicated to helping families advocate for drug policies that save drug users' lives and keep families together and healthy.  Co-founder and President, Barry Lessin, is also a Pro Talk columnist . 

April graduated from Yale University in 1996. She was a union organizer for healthcare workers for 18 years before going back to school for her Master of Public Health, and spent ten years as Director of Organizing for Pennsylvania's largest nurses' union. She lives in West Philadelphia with her beautiful black cat, Loviefluffy.

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.

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.

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.