No Place to Land: Homelessness, Addiction, and the Search for Stable Ground Let’s get brutally honest. When I was a kid, “homelessness” was a word on the evening news, attached to cities far from my quiet corner of Wisconsin. It was sad, sure, but it wasn’t here . Fast forward: it’s everywhere. It’s my clients, my neighbors, sometimes the people standing in front of me at the gas station—tired, sunburned, bundled against the cold, hoping nobody notices how long it’s been since they had a real shower. And it’s personal. I spent time in a homeless shelter myself—bunk beds lined up like a prison, the air thick with stress, trauma, and way too many bodies crammed in too small a space. The food was expired vending machine “donations,” the rules rigid (in by 8, out by 7), and the sense of safety? Nonexistent. I was lucky enough to claw my way out, but it was more grit and luck than skill or support. The Winter “Home”: Campers, Cars, and Nowhere to Go In northern Wisconsin, the new face of ho...

Meth, Madness, and Misdiagnosis: Why We’re Getting It Wrong (and What It’s Really Like on the Inside) Welcome to the Meth Mind Maze If you want to know what it’s like to lose your grip on reality, just ask someone who’s been deep in meth addiction. No, really—ask them. They’ll probably tell you about the paranoia, the mood swings, the all-night “projects,” and, if they’re like me, maybe even a psychosis episode or two. Meth is everywhere in my community, and it’s not just a “problem drug”—it’s a mind-wrecker, a diagnosis confuser, and a destroyer of hope. Meth was my drug of choice. I have ADHD, so at first, meth felt like a miracle: I could focus, I could get stuff done, I could even sleep and eat (at least until I’d been up too long). But there’s a thin, invisible line between “tuned in” and “tweaked out.” Cross it, and you’re in the Meth Mind Maze—a place where you can’t trust your own thoughts, and nobody around you can tell what’s meth and what’s mental health. Psychosis, Paranoia...