Ryan Erispe is clinical director of The Cabin Chiang Mai, where he oversees clinical programming and multidisciplinary teams delivering evidence-based addiction treatment. With over a decade of experience in addiction treatment, he has worked across multiple countries, providing counselling, leading clinical teams, and developing innovative treatment programmes. With lived experience in 12-step-based treatment, he works to preserve its therapeutic value while integrating current, evidence-based modalities into a more comprehensive model of care.
Over the course of his career, he has worked across South Africa and Thailand, founded and led his own treatment centre, and played a key role in developing and implementing the first inpatient addiction treatment programme in Seychelles. In addition to residential treatment, his experience includes complex harm reduction cases and systems-level programme development.

He is known for his progressive, critically engaged approach to treatment, continually working to improve his treatment programmes while remaining grounded in clinical integrity and client-centred care. His work is driven by a commitment to social justice and a deep interest in examining the broader systems that impact addiction recovery. He is passionate about contributing to meaningful change in the field and believes in community-focused aftercare models as an essential aspect of addiction treatment.

PRESENTATION TITLE: 

Understand addiction recovery beyond a solely clinical lens

Explore the evolving understanding of addiction recovery beyond a solely clinical lens. Drawing on trauma-informed research, harm reduction, and systems thinking, Ryan Erispe highlights the essential role of treatment in stabilisation and safety, while also examining the limits of what clinical services can achieve in isolation. By connecting clients’ lived experiences with the realities of service delivery and the broader social systems that influence outcomes, the talk reveals a gap between what the evidence shows about trauma, retention, and community, and how recovery pathways are often structured. It reframes relapse not as individual failure, but as a predictable outcome when substances are removed without adequately restoring regulation, identity, and belonging. Ultimately, it positions recovery as a long-term, socially supported process, where effective treatment serves not as a standalone solution, but as a critical bridge to sustainable community integration and connection.

Learning objectives:
At the end of this presentation, delegates will be able to…

• Explain why relapse isn’t failure; it’s what happens when regulation, identity and support aren’t replaced
• Discuss how treatment can stabilise, but only community sustains recovery
• Justify why the challenge isn’t the client; it’s a system not designed for long-term recovery.