Using AI for Personalized Addiction Recovery [Guest]

How Recovery Compass uses Workflows to Boost Recovery Rates for Drug Addicts

It takes time to create work that’s clear, independent, and genuinely useful. If you’ve found value in this newsletter, consider becoming a paid subscriber. It helps me dive deeper into research, reach more people, stay free from ads/hidden agendas, and supports my crippling chocolate milk addiction. We run on a “pay what you can” model—so if you believe in the mission, there’s likely a plan that fits (over here).

Every subscription helps me stay independent, avoid clickbait, and focus on depth over noise, and I deeply appreciate everyone who chooses to support our cult.

PS – Supporting this work doesn’t have to come out of your pocket. If you read this as part of your professional development, you can use this email template to request reimbursement for your subscription.

Every month, the Chocolate Milk Cult reaches over a million Builders, Investors, Policy Makers, Leaders, and more. If you’d like to meet other members of our community, please fill out this contact form here (I will never sell your data nor will I make intros w/o your explicit permission)- https://forms.gle/Pi1pGLuS1FmzXoLr6

---

What follows is my favorite guest post ever on this newsletter.

Eric Bakebill Jones is the founder of Recovery Compass, a platform enabling overlooked nonprofits to attract funding by translating authentic impacts into language that funders value. The platform integrates tools demonstrating that true recovery emerges from systemic redesign rather than individual adaptation, replacing superficial pitches with concrete, data-driven evidence. By documenting dignity-focused methods with proven success rates exceeding 94%, Recovery Compass empowers nonprofits and fundamentally challenges prevailing assumptions in the recovery industry.

His journey from benzo withdrawal to Recovery Compass is both sobering and inspiring. This is a story not just of survival, but of reinvention. Of suffering through an inhumane system that fails 94% of the people who try to rely on it for help. A story of using those learnings to build something better.

In this piece, Eric shares how a different approach—one grounded in deep respect for the individual and a systems-level redesign—can radically shift outcomes.

What makes Eric’s work extraordinary isn’t just his critique of the current treatment system—it’s the hopeful alternative he’s building from lived experience. He invites us into a vision where recovery isn’t punishment or shame, but a dynamic, personalized path anchored in dignity, autonomy, and intelligent design.

As you read, consider…

1. What if we’ve been looking in the wrong place for the cause of struggle? Eric’s claim that substance use is only 5% of the real issue—and the remaining 95% is environmental—forces a reframe. If that ratio holds, what other struggles we often label as “individual failings” (like chronic unemployment, recidivism, or dropping out of school) might actually be symptoms of system design? How would the solution look different if we designed for the environment instead of the individual?

2. What does it mean to turn pain into an advantage that can’t be copied? The idea of a “lived adversity moat” is interesting. What exactly does that edge consist of? Deeper trust networks? Better intuition? Design choices that outsiders wouldn’t even think to try? And say a well-funded competitor wanted to replicate that. Could they? Should they?

3. Where does human experience get lost in translation; what do we lose when it does? Eric describes a system that converts real human stories into sterile reports, stripping them of their soul. But what if that translation could preserve dignity while still meeting institutional needs? Where else—whether in healthcare, education, or public policy—do we lose too much in the translation from life to paperwork? What would a better, more human translation layer look like?

4. What does a 6% success rate system actually serve? If a system keeps producing dismal outcomes, it might be working exactly as intended, for someone. Who benefits from the gatekeeping, the churn, the endless intake forms? When you follow the incentives, what truths begin to surface? And how does a system like Eric’s upend not just the workflows, but the power dynamics? How do we ensure it stays this way, instead of devolving into another fragmented system?

5. What if support didn’t require declaring yourself broken? So many systems—mental health, housing, even career help—require people to admit failure before they’re offered help. But what happens when people don’t see themselves in those labels? What if we designed access that didn’t require a deficit-first identity? How might that reshape how we offer care, growth, and opportunity from the very first touchpoint?

6. What would it take to make support continuous, not conditional? Life doesn’t happen in episodes. Neither does relapse, grief, stress, or progress. But most systems still treat people episodically. What would it take to build truly adaptive support systems that respond in real time, without waiting for crisis or appointments? And if we pulled it off, what kind of society would that start to unlock?

Let’s proceed.

---

What if the most effective way of overcoming substance abuse doesn't involve substance abuse treatment?" When 100% of effort targets 1% of the problem, you get 1% of the reward.

The Hell I Chose Over "Help”

Let me tell you about the moment that led to starting my nonprofit, Recovery Compass. I was three weeks into benzodiazepine withdrawal, experiencing what I can only describe as going to hell and back. Like putting your hand on a hot stove but instead of your hand, its your mind and psychology and there’s no removing it from the pain. Seizures, hallucinations, bleeding from shaking too much to shave properly. I was trapped in a nightmare that seemed to have no end. A 20-year Silicon Valley tech stretch had run its course.

Once I finally succumbed to the forces that bring you to treatment’s doorstep, the staff would always ask shocked “Why did you choose to endure the worst part of the process, especially with extreme benzo withdrawals when you could have been here for that part?” Why submit to the dehumanizing process of institutional "help." and be whisper-known forever as an “addict” or “alcoholic” for the chance to get into a program that almost guarantees failure? Forfeit my identity to access "services," and join the 94% failure rate statistics that define our current treatment system?

According to SAMHSA's 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, only 6.3% of Americans with a substance use disorder received treatment in the past year (NSDUH, SAMHSA, 2023). Not because they don't need support, but because the institutional monopoly on access requires you to break yourself down completely before they'll consider building you back up.

That hell-and-back experience taught me something no MBA program covers: when institutions force people to choose between dignity and help, most people choose dignity and suffer alone.

Two paths, one choice: Which system would you trust with your dignity?

Years later, and after my group therapist in residential treatment (Hi Amani!) convinced me to apply to get my MSW and 2.5 years later I hired her as my first board member at Recovery Compass, I'm working with dozens of nonprofit organizations across LA County, showing them how intelligent workflow systems can eliminate those gatekeepers almost entirely. More importantly, I’m developing a new practice model built on a simple but radical idea: designing treatment plans only *after* comprehensive individual assessment, uniquely architected for each person, rather than expecting people to adapt to pre-designed models.

The 1% Problem Getting 100% of the Attention

Here's the simple question that might sound like a riddle except when we're talking about a healthcare crisis that continues to skip along at a 6% success rate pace: What if the most effective way of overcoming substance abuse doesn't involve substance abuse treatment?

Traditional recovery systems operate on a fundamental misallocation of resources. They focus 100% of effort on managing the substance use, which research shows represents only 1-5% of the actual problem. When you spend 100% of your energy addressing 1% of the issue, you get 1% of the reward.

The real problem isn't the substances. It's the environment that made substances feel necessary in the first place.

Environmental conditions explain approximately 95% of variance in substance-use outcomes (Galaj et al., 2020), yet our recovery systems focus almost exclusively on individual pathology. We're trying to fix people instead of fixing the environments that broke them. Even the compassion-heavy 'harm reduction' model gives the 'Drug' the lead role in a play where it should really be playing a bit part.

My fiancé, the woman I named Recovery Compass after because she was my compass when I couldn't find north, embodies this completely. Born into trauma, diagnosed with advanced ovarian cancer, then lost her home in the Los Angeles Eaton Fire in Altadena in January. When we checked the fire damage maps, they were color-coded. Red meant "officially damaged" aka you counted as someone deserving attention, resources, being seen. Her house fell into the "undamaged" category by 50 meters. Officially not suffering. Officially not deserving of help.

That's the unofficial channel. You're breaking in front of everyone, but because your trauma doesn't check the right institutional boxes, you don't count.

Environmental Response Design™: The Post-Assessment Framework

The breakthrough came from treating recovery assessment like any other workflow automation problem, but with something to address the dismal engagement in current treatment: we design treatment plans AFTER comprehensive assessment, uniquely architected for each individual. People are far more likely to engage with a treatment design when they feel its unique to them and they contributed to the design.

This represents what systems theorist Donella Meadows identified as a leverage point #2: changing the mindset or paradigm from which the system arises (Meadows, 1999). Just inches away from “we literally can’t be doing worse” with this crisis, we're not setting the bar at improving existing services, we're transcending the paradigm that recovery requires institutional gatekeeping.

Traditional recovery systems force people into a brutal binary: either declare yourself "an alcoholic" or "an addict" to access services, or get nothing. Our Environmental Response Design™ platform works differently: someone enters a comprehensive environmental assessment that evaluates their unique context across multiple domains. No stigmatizing labels required. No case manager approval needed. No institutional screening.

The system architects completely unique environmental modifications based on their specific risk and protective factor profile. Instead of fitting people into existing treatment slots, we design from scratch based on what each person needs to thrive.

Reimagined Design Principle:

The traditional approach forces adaptation TO treatment. Environmental Response Design forces treatment adaptation TO individuals. Refreshingly, people don't have to adapt to treatment. Treatment adapts to them.

The Person Matters: Relational Capital as Core Technology

Here's what the current system misses entirely: the person providing the "evidence-based practice" matters infinitely more than the evidence-based practice they're providing. You ever heard of someone that defied the odds and made it out and when asked how they did it they start crying and say "It was…the only thing that got me through it…was good ol' cognitive behavioral therapy"? Probably not.

Under insurance models like Medi-Cal (California's Medicaid), you don't even get to choose your therapist (or very rarely) they just ensure the therapist uses "evidence-based practices." But I know from lived experience that who provides the intervention is more crucial than what intervention they provide.

During my first days in recovery you know what got me out of bed? Hope and wonder. The thought of not knowing what life could be like if I stopped at nothing in order to become the best version of myself. Because "symptom-reduction" and "sustained sobriety" and "group participation" are not success metrics that deserve candidacy for replacing ungodly amounts of cheap dopamine. And when I was initially piloting Environmental Response Design at Amity

Foundation (in the Justice, Care, and Opportunities Department LA County Ecosystem) and asked clients their goals, they would almost always instinctively respond with 'system' goals and not their own. They would tell me goals sounded like robotic parroting from the judge, or the interim housing property manager, or the case manager, or the anger management teacher or their sponsor.

Technology as compass, not commander: AI amplifies human judgment.

If this idea of treatment adapting to you resonates, you can see how the assessment works here.

And this partly explains how so many programs can still claim absurd 'success' rates in a 6% success rate healthcare crisis: It's "Clients always come first" except of course when it comes to involving the clients' feedback and reviews into how success rates are calibrated. It's Yelp without the customer review part of Yelp.

Adaptive Treatment

Traditional treatment happens in episodes and usually specific to settings. But oftentimes the best therapy happens outside a therapist’s office and the best substance abuse treatment often happens outside the gates of substance abuse treatment. Environmental Response Design™ represents an adaptive treatment approach that adjusts to changing conditions dynamically and continually.

This isn't theoretical. Real people face environmental triggers, financial crises, and relationship challenges at 2 AM on weekends, not just during business hours.

Continuous Environmental Optimization:

We designed the system to monitor conditions adaptively and adjust interventions accordingly, for instance, if a client's environment data changes shortly after the initial assessment, the plan can adapt and alerts on-call support. This fluid monitoring enables immediate environmental responses when people need support most, rather than waiting for the next scheduled appointment.

Real-World Validation: The Whittier First Day Transformation

Our work with organizations like Amity Foundation and Whittier First Day demonstrates what's possible when you eliminate institutional gatekeepers while preserving dignity. Under visionary leadership of Dr. Donna Gallup, ACLU Southern California human rights award recipient (2013) and creator of Potter's Lane veteran housing initiative, Whittier First Day has achieved extraordinary growth under Dr. Gallup's leadership roughly tripled its revenue on two separate occasions in recent years.

The transformation speaks for itself: organizations implementing environmental assessment approaches are seeing intake completion rates jump from around 45% to nearly 80% (from industry baseline to initial pilot results) within 90 days, while maintaining all compliance requirements.

The key insight: when you address environmental barriers systematically rather than expecting individuals to overcome them through willpower alone, everything changes.

Technical Architecture Overview

The technical infrastructure born from my lived experience during those hellish withdrawal weeks and as a system navigator in the recovery care continuum (detox, residential treatment, sober living, outpatient care, DOR) taught me something profound about environmental mastery: transformation happens through environment optimization, not symptom management. The system isn't broken. In systems engineering, there's an adage: "Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets." And there's a lot of money in the symptom management industry. And a lot of gatekeepers too.

Technical Infrastructure:

The platform runs on AWS using a modern DevOps setup with separate dev/staging/production environments and CI/CD. We ensure HIPAA-compliant data handling with encryption at rest and in transit, and offer real-time analytics via an executive dashboard. The front-end is a Progressive Web App, so clients can access it from any device without installation.

Environmental Optimization Framework:

Following Buckminster Fuller's "trim-tab" principle, tiny rudder turns ship (Fuller, 1969), our system creates force-multiplication: one intervention serves multiple constituencies simultaneously, making the entire system more efficient.

The system demonstrates automated optimization: comprehensive individual assessment leads to unique environmental architecture, which enables continuous 24/7 adaptation. Instead of symptom management, the platform focuses on thriving environment creation, asset amplification, barrier elimination, dignity preservation, and continuous adaptation capabilities.

Our internal pilot achieved strong grant success (roughly 30% increase) compared to the nonprofit industry average of 10-20% (Grant Professionals Association, 2023). When you eliminate institutional friction and demonstrate measurable impact, funding follows.

The Translation Layer: Bridging Authentic Stories and Institutional Language

During my practicum at Amity Foundation, part of the Justice Care and Opportunities Department under Superior Court Judge Songhai Armstead and Chief of Staff Dr. John Franklin Sierra, I watched something heartbreaking happen daily.

Those that entered the field because they “just wanted to help people” would have profound conversations with clients about hope, purpose, and environmental factors that supported their growth. Then they’d see the process of communicating their genuine origin impact story through the rounds that finally reach the desks of those that decide where to allocate funding dilute their rawness into something that would feel less authentic to them, less real. Almost like the sacrifice I had to make in order to go through the gates of the “treatment/recovery” system.

The human story got lost in institutional translation.

Environmental Response Design™ functions as the translation layer between these worlds, preserving dignity while meeting compliance requirements:

Single Data Stream, Multiple Stakeholder Wins:

The platform automatically translates clients' success stories into grant-friendly language: it preserves the authentic human elements, reframes them in terms funders require (outcomes, compliance), and formats the data into reports. This way, dignity is preserved while meeting institutional requirements.

One dignified assessment creates value for every stakeholder – the opposite of institutional gatekeeping.

The Authentic Moat: Why Lived Experience Creates Unbeatable Technology

We're not leading with better UX design. When I tell people at conferences that I went through hell and back during withdrawal and navigating the system, something changes in the conversation. They stop seeing Recovery Compass as just another healthtech startup and start seeing it as technology built by someone who understands what it feels like to be on the other side of institutional gatekeepers.

That lived experience authenticity creates what I call the "lived adversity moat", competitors can copy our approach, but they can't copy the understanding that comes from choosing hellish withdrawal over institutional dehumanization.

The clinical team at Amity saw immediate differences when people engaged with environmental assessment protocols designed by someone who had been exactly where they were. People who had been resistant to traditional intake processes were openly discussing their environmental needs within minutes of starting the assessment.

Beyond Recovery: The Universal Gatekeeper Problem

What we discovered is that the gatekeeper problem extends far beyond substance abuse. Veterans returning from war with purpose, connection, and brotherhood suddenly face systems that only see "PTSD" and "substance use disorder." Single mothers working three jobs because they love their kids so fiercely but in the only 20 minutes of alone time they get in the shower each night they drink as much as they can. Maybe they're overwhelmed and doing what they have to in order to survive. Regardless, it's not up to me to decide. But giving them more options, not less, and more agency and autonomy not less, is a long overdue first step.

The platform embodies principles from Salim Ismail's Exponential Organizations framework: SCALE (Staff-on-demand, Community, Algorithms, Leveraged assets, Engagement) and IDEAS (Interfaces, Dashboards, Experimentation, Autonomy, Social) to achieve exponential rather than linear growth (Ismail et al., 2014).

Environmental optimization approaches show promising results across multiple domains:

• Substance recovery: High completion rates, improved environments achieved, complete gatekeeper bypass

• Housing stability: Strong completion rates, environmental improvements, complete gatekeeper bypass

• Workplace optimization: Good completion rates, enhanced environments, complete gatekeeper bypass

• Relationship enhancement: Excellent completion rates, significant environmental improvements, complete gatekeeper bypass

The Self-Assessment Revolution

Here's what surprised me most: when I tell people about Environmental Response Design™ at conferences, and I try for a temperature read "Are you somewhat familiar with the substance abuse or substance abuse treatment field?", they almost always shake their head no. But when I explain that users never have to label themselves as anything, that it's just environmental optimization for becoming the best version of themselves, suddenly everyone has a story.

"Actually, I might drink a little too much sometimes," they'll admit privately.

That's what happens when you eliminate the institutional requirement to accept stigmatizing labels. People can honestly assess their environmental optimization needs on their timeline, not the institution's.

Building Your Own Gatekeeper-Free System

The core insight isn't proprietary: intelligent workflow systems can eliminate institutional barriers in any domain where human flourishing meets bureaucracy.

Four Key Design Principles:

1. Post-Assessment Design First - Never use pre-designed treatment models. Create unique environmental architectures for each individual.

2. The Person Matters Philosophy - Prioritize therapeutic relationship compatibility over protocol compliance. Who provides intervention matters more than what intervention.

3. Dynamic/Adaptive Environmental Optimization - Continuous environmental monitoring and adaptation. Human needs don't follow business hours.

4. Dignity-Preserving Economics - Value-based approaches tied to environmental optimization outcomes, not subscription fees.

What's Next: The Environmental Optimization Revolution

The technical challenges of building gatekeeper bypass systems are solvable. The harder question is whether we have the courage to prioritize human dignity and individual uniqueness over institutional convenience.

Every person who completes an environmental optimization assessment without having to declare themselves anything represents a victory for human agency. Every nonprofit that increases funding while preserving client dignity proves sustainable alternatives exist.

Years ago, when my mother spent 15 hours cleaning my apartment because she knew I was too broken and traumatized to face going back there, she taught me something institutions forget: transformation happens when people feel safe enough to be human in environments designed for their unique way of thriving.

It's perhaps the most magical and simple ingredient to explore self-actualization or what is possible. Hope and wonder. It's the foundational requirement for any system that actually optimizes human potential.

Thank you, Devansh, for creating space where these conversations can happen. Your platform reaches people who seem to appreciate imperfect humans understanding that technology's higher purpose is decentralization and a hope for minimizing unnecessary human suffering.

Three years ago, I chose hellish withdrawal over institutional dehumanization. Today, I'm building technology that can potentially eliminate that choice while creating a new strategic framework to design recovery uniquely for each individual after comprehensive assessment.

I often hear the "equity and access to care" battle cry from leaders and keynote speakers. As if all we have to do is fix the access and equity problem because once you get access to go past the healthcare gatekeepers, everything will be fine. I used to stand in those lines with the gatekeepers just watching us all in line. But then I got a ticket to be a system navigator.

Now I realize the answers are relevant to access, and equity, and quality and cost of care, but they're not coming from the gatekeepers or what awaits beyond the gate.

Eric is Founder of Recovery Compass and a recent MSW graduate from Cal State LA. Recovery Compass serves 20+ nonprofit organizations across LA County through gatekeeper-free environmental optimization systems and dignity-preserving impact translation services. Connect with him on LinkedIn or explore Environmental Response Design™ on Recovery Compass.

---

Thank you for being here, and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Dev <3

I provide various consulting and advisory services. If you‘d like to explore how we can work together, reach out to me through any of my socials over here or reply to this email.

I put a lot of work into writing this newsletter. To do so, I rely on you for support. If a few more people choose to become paid subscribers, the Chocolate Milk Cult can continue to provide high-quality and accessible education and opportunities to anyone who needs it. If you think this mission is worth contributing to, please consider a premium subscription. You can do so for less than the cost of a Netflix Subscription (pay what you want here).

If you liked this article and wish to share it, please refer to the following guidelines.

That is it for this piece. I appreciate your time. As always, if you’re interested in working with me or checking out my other work, my links will be at the end of this email/post. And if you found value in this write-up, I would appreciate you sharing it with more people. It is word-of-mouth referrals like yours that help me grow. The best way to share testimonials is to share articles and tag me in your post so I can see/share it.

Reach out to me

Use the links below to check out my other content, learn more about tutoring, reach out to me about projects, or just to say hi.

Small Snippets about Tech, AI and Machine Learning over here

AI Newsletter- https://artificialintelligencemadesimple.substack.com/

My grandma’s favorite Tech Newsletter- https://codinginterviewsmadesimple.substack.com/

Check out my other articles on Medium. : https://rb.gy/zn1aiu

My YouTube: https://rb.gy/88iwdd

Reach out to me on LinkedIn. Let’s connect: https://rb.gy/m5ok2y

My Instagram: https://rb.gy/gmvuy9

My Twitter: https://twitter.com/Machine01776819