Nominee's Key Links:
Bio:
Resume or CV:
Writing or Publications: https://www.amazon.com/Meditate-Addiction-Hungry-Ghosts-United-ebook/dp/B09ZTMWBL8
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Video:
Agency or agencies for which nominator feels nominee is best suited:
Organization name(s) and position(s) for which nominator feels nominee is best suited:
SAMHSA
Policies which the nominator knows the nominee supports or in which they have expertise:
Founder: Hungry Ghosts United
Founder: Savage Citizens
Director, Broadway BIA Seattle
Former Director, Refuge Recovery Los Angeles
Joseph Souhrada has been in recovery for 18 years and in that time has run a successful retail business and two non-profits dedicated to helping others find recovery from addictions of all kinds.
Joseph has lived in and run multiple businesses in a city that has instituted all of the worst drug and mental illness policies on the west coast. She has seen and suffered from the damage to our city brought about by the crime and dereliction associated with severe addiction.
Joseph has been working in the nationwide recovery community fighting against the deaths and the despair brought on by government policy that is encouraging those who are addicted to continue using drugs. Joseph has fought against the current strategy of harm reduction with no accompanying threat of punishment for committing the crimes associated with addiction, with no offer of long term residential treatment and with the reward of permanent, free, drug tolerant housing. These perverse incentives are killing addicts, killing the cities ability to function and prosper and killing our citizens civic pride and faith in government.
In the last ten years we have seen Big Pharma and the AMA take over the very concept of “recovery” from addiction. Working to change the definition at the federal and state level of what is “addiction treatment”. Moving from funding and certifying centers and medical professionals teaching the abstinence based Minnesota model to a new model that has as its primary treatment Suboxone, therapy and more expensive treatment stays. SAMSHA seems to have given up on complete abstinence and re-entering society as the goal for addicts and alcoholics in favor of a harm reduction model that lowers the bar to less hard drug use.
We have seen the mental illness epidemic in Washington State caused by the states failure to provide services at a minimum level. This inaction by the state has forced the counties to sue. Washington is still failing ton provide the basic level of temporary beds to all who need care. Long term residential treatment is extremely limited. We have 350 beds of this type coming online but the ready date is three years out.
At Savage Citizens we have been creating a practical and sustainable plan to treat the addiction and mental illness epidemic that is ravaging our cities and killing Americans. This solution is only possible under a Trump/Vance administration that is willing to change the direction of national addiction treatment policy and to create the structural economic changes necessary to bring hope to those who have succumbed to despair and addiction.
We believe long term residential treatment centers, therapeutic communities and expanded treatment programs for the incarcerated and the committed away from the city centers are the answer to this unprecedented addiction and mental illness epidemic.
We propose offering multiple tracks to those who are addicted and to those who are mentally ill:
For those who are addicted and committing crimes that damage the social fabric we must return to a system that ensures that addicts that are committing crimes are arrested, booked, charged and then evaluated for addiction and mental health status. Those who are assessed to be addicted and have been convicted of non-violent offenses can then be offered diversion to a multi year city, state or federal non-profit long term treatment center. Voluntary treatment or mandatory jail sentence must be the choice offered. Sentences must be strong enough and punishment must be swift and sure to drive successful voluntary treatment rates. Those don’t graduate or who relapse along the way and are willing to continue can return to treatment. Those who drop out or quit and have committed crimes can serve their sentence.
For those who are addicted and have not been arrested and who voluntarily seek treatment all stages of addiction must be addressed and treated in free, non-profit, city, state or federal short and long term treatment centers.
For the small number of people who are physically disabled and are unwilling to give-up their addiction and are not committing crimes cities can provide long term therapeutic communities of the type being built and operating in Austin Texas and Tacoma Washington. This population cannot be allowed to harm non-addicted seniors in public housing.
For those who are suffering from mental illness, other than SUD, expanded mental health commitment laws and accompanying programs and facilities need to be created at the city, state and federal level. Long term residential mental health facilities must be built away from the cities for the protection the mentally ill and to ensure the safety and prosperity of our neighborhoods, cities and all public spaces.
First in Refuge Recovery, and now in Hungry Ghosts United, Joseph has spent the last decade developing spiritual alternatives to Alcoholics Anonymous that both respect and incorporate all of the successful 12 step principles and provide the benefits of with proven mindfulness-based relapse prevention practices. Joseph is a co-founder of Hungry Ghosts United and has brought eighteen years of recovery wisdom to his work as an author and as a leader of this ground breaking group.
After an initial detox period, HGU provides a treatment program teaching patients how to maintain abstinence through daily meditation, personal inventory, one on one work with others and group service. These are the same methods used by successful 12 step groups for 80 years with the addition of deep mindfulness practices and a spiritual but not religious foundation. We know meditation can teach an addict how to see craving arise and not give in. The Hungry Ghosts method also teaches, through simple meditation practices, how to recover from the damage done from acting on addiction and the underlying causes of addiction by training in kindness, compassion, appreciation and forgiveness. We break the isolation of addiction by teaching addicts how to have relationships again through sponsorship and recovery society service.
Hungry Ghosts United is unique among all recovery groups including Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous in offering a recovery society that is explicitly built to keep the group destroying tactics of critical race theory and the false promises of diversity, equity, and inclusion practices out of our groups. HGU shares the same legal status as SMART Recovery in that we are able to accept court mandated referrals as a non-religious, spiritual recovery society. Hungry Ghosts United can be one of the offerings included in all levels of treatment nationwide.
We agree with Robert Kennedy Jr that we are in a national emergency. Treating this epidemic as an emergency even greater than COVID can start with a new administration.
We have been working on the board of a professional business association in Seattle and with the Mayors office to begin to create the most basic elements of this system at the city level. Our cities policies are crippled by current federal mandates that demand both permanent supportive housing and the large scale prescription of opioid replacement drugs while failing to offer, and often actively demonizing, evidence based mutual aid practices like AA or Hungry Ghosts United.
The best place to start implementing our model is at the federal level. Change the corrupt HUD permanent supportive housing mandates. Return to abstinence and freedom from addiction as the highest standard of recovery. Move away from the government adopting drugs as the “gold standard of treatment” for drug addiction. Our country can stop enriching the pharmaceutical companies. The most effective form of recovery is still, according to Stanford and Harvard, the not for profit model originated by AA. By supporting the non-profit mutual aid model of recovery our national government can return to the business of helping as many of our citizens as possible to break free from the tyranny of addiction.
We propose SAMSHA and HUD incentivize all state and city mental health and addiction agencies to return to the goals of abstinence and re-joining society as the nations highest treatment goal. We believe that for the vast majority of those addicted to opioids, replacement drugs should be transitional and temporary. We know with the right incentives, and with long term treatment and training addicts have every chance to attain and maintain abstinence, receive training to their full potential and to re-enter American society. With new federal funding mandates for abstinence based long term residential treatment centers, therapeutic communities and expanded treatment programs for the incarcerated and the committed we can solve the epidemic. Cities, the environment most damaged by the effects of this epidemic, can immediately begin setting up temporary treatment hospitals until permanent residential treatment centers can be built or existing structures refurbished. This model will save lives. No more addicts need to die in government sponsored drug tolerant housing.
We can have safe cities. No more businesses need to be lost because we are not helping those who are addicted and those who are mentally ill. We can rebuild our cities and our economy. We can give all of our citizens hope again. We can offer a compassionate federal response for those who are addicted, suffering from mental illness and all Americans who are affected by the epidemic. We can provide the right environment and expect people to recover from addiction.
Joseph Souhrada would be a unique and powerful addition to your team. I have worked side by side with him for 10 years creating innovative approaches to help our fellow citizens break free from deadly addictions. He is an expert in mindfulness based relapse prevention practices. His creativity and hard work have helped to bring thousands into long term recovery. I have witnessed first hand how he has maintained a strong commitment to the principles incorporated in the traditions of AA and stood up to all attempts to corrupt and to dilute the dignity of abstinence based non-profit recovery societies.
Nominator's thoughts on what would make this nominee a valuable member of a future Trump Unity Government
1) Is Competent ...Joseph has a wealth of knowledge of American history and polices. He is the architect of the Savage Citizens solution to end the fentanyl epidemic. He has 19 years of continuous abstinence and has been helping others recover from addiction. He is the co-founder of Hungry Ghosts United a meditation based addiction recovery society, Rebel Saints Meditation Society, and Savage Citizens. He currently runs all three of these organizations. He has been at the leading edge of meditation based addiction recovery organizations, beginning with a Buddhist meditation recovery organization Refuge Recovery, where he served on the BOD and ultimately as Executive Director.
2) Is Honest...My experience with Joseph is that he is honest. He is not afraid to tell you what he really thinks even if his position depends upon it.
3) Is Respectful ...Joseph grew up in a military family and respects the chain of command. He also respects leaders and creators based on their achievements. He respects history as he is a well read student. He is a patriot that loves our country and wants to help us continue to live out the enlightenment principles of our founding fathers in our modern day government. He knows we have achieved the greatest feat in establishing and recreating the USA and is devoted to helping in any way to continuing our great experiment.
4) Has Integrity ...Joseph has shown integrity again and again. When he was on the BOD of Refuge Recovery he stood up for the principle of due process when the founder was accused of sexual misconduct during the #metoo era. Later, when politics attempted to infiltrate and cause division in Refuge Recovery as the Executive Director he fought to eliminate destructive ideas based on concepts of critical race theory that have no place in recovery societies where everyone is equal. He showed his commitment to those principles by ultimately leaving the organization.
5) Has Courage ... He has the courage to speak openly against the ideas of CRT and the false promises of DEI policies. He has started his own organizations based on principles of meritocracy and equality. By standing up for these principles and going against the censorship machine, he has faced blacklisting, threats, loss of livelihood and personal safety and still does not back down.
6) Has a Proven Record...From his work with both Refuge Recovery and Against the Stream Meditation Society to co-founding Hungry Ghosts United, Rebel Saints Meditation Society, to Savage Citizens, Joseph has a proven record of working to help addicts and citizens wether working within an organization to starting his own to ensure his guiding principles.