Dr. Stephen Dansiger - Wellness Day 2011 Interview - Drawn to the Addiction Recovery Field

Dr. Stephen Danisger, PsyD is the Executive Director and a Primary Therapist at ONE80CENTER. A 20-year veteran in the field of Addiction Treatment, Dr. Dansiger's mindfulness-based therapeutic tools helps ONE80CENTER clients bring wellness into their recovery. Helping to host this years event, it was a pleasure to hear Dr. Dansiger speak on a team-approach to incorporating wellness into the treatment of addiction.

ONE80CENTER: "How did you get into the recovery world?"

"I got in to the recovery world through the door that many people do, my own recovery. What happened was I was drinking too much and taking too many drugs and when I was 26 years old I had a bottom. I also had many other bottoms. My other bottoms were more devastating and physical. This bottom was more spiritual and emotional, like "I cant do this anymore .I surrender" kind of deal and so that brought me in to the world of recovery as a recovery person and I didn't get in to it professionally for many years. I was a high school teacher and I was a musician and a writer and then I got in to a form of education that really put me in contact with people's problems. I was a diversity trainer and managed conflict resolution. All those kind of things and so I always felt like I was a therapist. And then I had an experience where I was working with a small group of young people and I realized they all had substance abuse problems and that moment was kind of life changing and I wondered 'I wonder what it would be like to help them and if that would help them get out of some of the problems they were getting in to". So that's how I got in to it and the way it went. I went back in to school. Ever since I became a therapist I've always had one foot in the recovery world."

Wellness Day is an annual gathering of the brightest lights in the Wellness movement sponsored by
the one80center.com a drug and alcohol treatment center located in Los Angeles, California. For
more information regarding Wellness Day visit http://wellnessday.one80center.com. For more about one80center visit http://one80center.com.

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