James Gibbons | SpeakerHub

Personal Details

Bio

James Gibbons, M.A., IADC, is currently in recovery from an alcohol addiction and has been sober since 2010. He graduated from the University of Northern Iowa in 2017 and obtained his Master's degree in Addiction Counseling from the University of South Dakota in 2021. James is currently an addictions counselor for UnityPoint Health in Muscatine, Iowa. He has spoke at several conferences regarding relapse prevention, recovery, and the disease concept of addiction. He is the host of Real Addiction Talk, a podcast that focused on helping those create positive change.

Current position (1)

Addiction Therapist

UnityPoint Health

Degrees (2)

Master's Degree in Addiction Counseling with Co-Occurring Disorder Specialization

University of South Dakota

2019 to 2021

Psychology

University of Northern Iowa

2015 to 2017

Presentations

Presentations (2)

Disease Concept of Addiction

In this presentation, I discussed the history of addiction before it was classified as a disease. The presentation also goes into the following:
- What is a disease
- Factors that make up a disease
- Addiction as a disease and how it’s comparable to other diseases
- The three stages of a disease
- When the disease of addiction becomes triggered
- 2 major factors that may cause the disease of addiction to develop
- Genetics and Environment factors
- How to properly manage the disease so that it doesn’t progress
- Studies related to addiction as a disease
- Why not everybody develops the disease of addiction and some do.

Relapse Prevention

In this presentation, I discussed the following main concepts:
- What is relapse and why does it occur
- Difference between lapse and relapse
- five rules of recovery
- Sequence of use
- Thought-stopping techniques
- Sequence of recovery
- Action steps in early recovery
- Sober support
- Myths about recovery and addiction