The True Gateway: Understanding Trauma as the Root of Addiction - August 19, 2025

A 6-Hour Training with Rafael Cortina, MFT, MBA, CCTP

8:30am-4:00pm

130 Pembroke Road, Suite 150, Concord, NH 03301

Presentation: Marijuana is often described as the gateway to substance use disorders (SUD). This focus on the substance usually reduces the individual to a binary resolution of sobriety. This misconception's unfortunate impact is a punitive treatment approach that ultimately causes more harm. In this workshop, we challenge this narrow view and invite participants to explore trauma as the true gateway to addiction. Rather than seeing addiction as a matter of individual willpower or moral failing, this session presents a compassionate, trauma-aware approach to understanding the roots of the addiction.

In this workshop, you will explore the understanding of addiction as a “creative adjustment” that once served as a survival mechanism that eventually became destructive. How individuals with unprocessed trauma often seek relief through SUD and compulsive behaviors. Ways of identifying trauma’s pervasive effects and understanding why clients may find it difficult to relinquish maladaptive coping. Tools to develop compassionate-relational centered interventions that honor the individual’s story and foster genuine healing.

As a result of this training, participants will be able to:

1. Describe how unresolved trauma can lead to compulsive behaviors;
2. Describe addiction as a coping mechanism rooted in the need to manage emotional pain;
3. Explain how to reframe addiction not merely as a behavioral issue but as a survival strategy tied to unprocessed trauma, fostering compassion and curiosity;
4. Demonstrate techniques to create a healing space that encourages emotional safety, validating clients’ experiences without attempting to prematurely “fix” or diminish pain; and
5. Demonstrate methods that support clients in reprocessing trauma, recontextualizing their past, and establishing healthier coping mechanisms while building resilience and compassion.

6 Contact Hours Available

CRSW Performance Domains: 4
LADC/MLADC Categories of Competence: 5-7, 14-15 & 17-18
Certified Prevention Specialist Domains: 6
NBCC: LICSW/L-MFT/LCMHC (Category A) & Psychologist (Category A) 

NH Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselors Association has been approved by NBCC as an Approved Continuing Education Provider. ACEP No 6754. Programs that do not qualify for NBCC credit are clearly identified. NHADACA is solely responsible for all aspects of the program.

This training is financed under a contract with the State of NH, Department of Health and Human Services, with funds provided in part by the State of NH and/or such funding sources as were available or required, e.g., the United States Department of Health and Human Services.