Dr. Lauren Broyles, Jackie Slaugenhaupt, and Holly Hagle, Untapping Social Potential: Teetotal Initiative’s Model for Empowering Recovery and Challenging Stigma

In this episode, Teetotal Initiative will provide insight into an innovative and underexplored but critical component of recovery: the impact of social interaction on recovery capital ecosystems and prevention of return to use. Despite its importance, organizing substance-free events for the community as a recovery tool is underutilized, leaving a gap in day-to-day sober- and recovery-oriented quality of life. This episode highlights Teetotal Initiative’s unique, scalable model for sober-focused events, offering tangible ideas for complementing formal treatment with consistent, community-rooted programming that addresses return to use predictors, stigma, and supports long-term recovery success.

Learning Objectives

• Identify three features that differentiate Teetotal Initiative’s model from other recovery support programs, communities, or services.
• Describe two ways Teetotal Initiative’s programming is strengthening both the recovery community and the broader community.
• Explain how Teetotal Initiative’s model and programming are helping to challenge or reduce self-stigma and social stigma around recovery.

Host & Guest Bios

1. Holly Hagle, Ph.D., serves as the Chief Learning and Research Officer for the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry. Her expertise lies in applying Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT), with a particular focus on youth and young adults. Dr. Hagle has developed curricula addressing Adolescent Co-occurring Disorders, implementing SBIRT in youth settings, and creating educational content for transitional age youth. With over twenty years of experience as an addiction health services educator and researcher, her work spans treatment, recovery, and prevention, integrating applied research and education.
2. Jackie Slaugenhaupt is a nonprofit advocate and financial services professional with over 15 years of volunteer experience in nonprofit leadership and fundraising. She brings more than 25 years of experience in financial services and has held leadership roles at several Fortune 100 banks. A change and management expert with a specialty in data visualization, Jackie is also a person in recovery. Her lived experience informs her work as co-founder of Teetotal Initiative, a nonprofit focused on helping individuals sustain recovery through community and connection.
3. Dr. Lauren Broyles serves as the Director of Creative Arts Programming for Teetotal Initiative. She is a woman in long term recovery, as well as a former addiction health services researcher and nurse. Lauren is a former addiction health services researcher, AMERSA Board Member, and Associate Editor for SAj. She currently works as a Senior Grant Writer & Editor in the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Health Sciences at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Timestamps:

• [00:02] – The 3 unique goals of the TTO Initiative model
• [04:56] – Why traditional recovery lacks social outlets—and how TTO began
• [09:05] – Who TTO serves: from sober-curious to long-term recovery
• [10:45] – Four types of events: holistic, arts, pop-ups, and large community gatherings
• [13:42] – The origin story of their art programming a

Find us online at amersa.org, and see our tweets at x.com/AMERSA_tweets.

Funding for this initiative was made possible by cooperative agreement no. 1H79TI086770 from SAMHSA. The views expressed in written conference materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

Learn more about PCSS-MOUD at pcssnow.org.