Other Behavioral Addictions

Overdose deaths fell almost 14% nationally in 2025, but Arizona went the other way: an 18% increase, with sharp jumps in deaths involving fentanyl, methamphetamine, and cocaine. Here is what the numbers show, why Arizona is different, what is working in Yavapai County, and what families can do now.

Prescott House was the first featured program at Shared Grounds, a coffee-and-conversation networking morning for behavioral health providers from Northern Arizona and Phoenix. We are also joining the series as a sponsor.

September is National Suicide Prevention Month. For men struggling with addiction, the risk is real, and so is recovery. Here are the warning signs worth knowing and where to turn for help.

Most men arrive believing sober life is going to be gray. Hiking, camping, and time outdoors are how we prove that wrong early, and why it matters most for the addictions that keep men indoors and alone.

A Prescott House alumnus and staff member on what the first week of long-term treatment actually feels like, from the cravings and the urge to leave to the community that made it stick.

He is not in trouble and he is not on drugs. He just does not come out of his room anymore. For the mother or partner of an adult man whose life has quietly stalled, this piece explains why compulsive pornography use so often hides behind what everyone calls laziness, why short interventions and thirty-day programs keep failing, and what months of long-term residential treatment actually give a young man that four weeks cannot.

Addiction thrives on autopilot, the brain's efficient but rigid habit loop that trades short-term relief for long-term suffering. In this piece, Marsha J. Gehl, CMT-P, walks through how mindfulness interrupts that loop: the RAIN meditation practice for working with difficult emotions and cravings, a simple everyday mindfulness routine that builds relapse-prevention skill day by day, and the mindful awareness and urge surfing work that helps someone ride out a craving rather than act on it.

At Prescott House, we begin with a simple but profound premise: addiction is often not the primary problem. More often, it is a solution a person has used to manage pain, fear, loneliness, trauma, shame, or the stress of being alive. In this piece, Marsha J. Gehl, CMT-P, walks through what it means to address the pain beneath the addiction, why the messy middle of recovery is where real change begins, and how frameworks like CHIME point toward a recovery that is about far more than abstinence. Written for the man considering treatment, the family trying to understand, and anyone who has wondered whether recovery is only about stopping.

Putting down the drink or the behavior is day one, not the finish line. Skip the work underneath it and you don't move forward, you just circle the same dry drunk loop until it eventually leads back to relapse, or to a sobriety you were never actually happy in.

A lot of guys think if they just stop using, the rest of life will easily fall into place. I used to think the exact same thing. But real recovery isn't a 30-day vacation where someone cooks your meals while you sit in group. It's about learning how to do life all over again. In our latest blog, I share my personal story of coming to Prescott House a decade ago, why the gradual step-down saved my life, and why a solid foundation will always beat luxury frills.

Addiction is a disorder of compulsion, but also of attention, meaning, and identity. Marsha J. Gehl, CMT-P, explores how mindfulness creates the pause between impulse and action, why rewriting the story you tell about yourself is therapeutic work in its own right, and how flourishing and long-term residential care give identity change the time it needs to take root.

Paying off a gambler's debt feels like rescue, but it often resets the credit line and keeps the addiction running. Learn the real difference between enabling and helping, why borrowing to cover losses is part of the disorder itself, and what actually breaks the cycle.