Conquer Addiction's History
Conquer Addiction was created as a result of our family’s searing journey trying to find our daughter the help she needed to recover from severe alcoholism. As we’ve talked with other families during and after these scary years, we’ve learned that most of us were forced to rely on chance conversations and blind luck to find help for our sons and daughters. With a disease in which second chances are never guaranteed, this is totally unacceptable!
Families and individuals in crisis need to be able to easily find rehabs that can prove via independent outcomes research that the treatment they're providing actually helps patients recover. When we first created this directory in 2015, we discovered that there were only five rehabs in the entire U.S. who were effectively following up with their patients after treatment and willing to share their results! That shocking result launched Joanna on a multi-year quest to build a research company to help rehabs cost-effectively measure their post-treatment outcomes.
Today, dozens of progressive rehabs are measuring and working to improve the effectiveness of their treatment. With immense gratitude to the addiction treatment community that played such a critical role in helping Karina recover, Joanna and Karina converted Conquer Addiction, Inc. into a nonprofit and officially launched this website and directory in June 2020.
As the need for practical research addressing key decisions and challenges individuals entering addiction treatment face, three additional addiction treatment experts joined Conquer Addiction's Board of Directors in October 2021.
Board of Directors
Chairman Joanna Conti: A chemical engineer with extensive research and programming experience, Conti has spent the last 25 years using her skills to tackle some of the biggest challenges facing our country and the world. She founded an international non-profit that helped tens of thousands of the neediest orphans and street children in Africa and Asia, was the Democratic candidate for Colorado’s 6th Congressional District in 2004, and ran for County Executive of Anne Arundel County, Maryland in 2010. Along the way, she analyzed large data sets to identify how to save lives by speeding up ambulance response times as well as an innovative approach to tackling the achievement gap in local schools.
A mom of 4, the most difficult problem Conti ever faced was her daughter’s descent into serious addiction. Her desire to help other families find effective treatment led her to start Vista Research Group and Conquer Addiction.
Tom Doub, PhD - Faculty member of Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Center for Patient and Professional Advocacy and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics. Dr. Tom Doub joined CPPA after more than 20 years working to integrate research and practice across a variety of behavioral health leadership positions. Prior to joining CPPA in 2019, he served as Chief Clinical Officer and Chief Compliance Officer at American Addiction Centers (AAC), where he was responsible for national oversight of clinical, quality, and compliance programs for one of the nation’s largest providers of addiction treatment. Previously, he was Chief Executive Officer of Centerstone Research Institute (CRI), a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving healthcare through research and information technology.
Chris Hassan - As a founding member of Reckitt Benckiser Pharmaceuticals (now Indivior), Chris led the US commercial launch of Suboxone for patients suffering from Opioid Use Disorder. He then served as President and CEO of Colonial Management Group, one of the largest national providers of opiate dependence treatment.
Driven to deliver gold standard quality care for patients, Chris developed and launched Symetria Health, a comprehensive treatment clinic group utilizing an innovative data-driven tracking system. Hassan was able to convince Blue Cross Blue Shield/HCSC to enter into a mutually-beneficial ‘pay for performance’ agreement through analyzing 5 years of US commercial OUD patient claims.
Currently, Chris is the CEO of RAE Health, an NIH backed healthcare technology company which utilizes a wearable device and machine learning to provide objective data to patients and their clinicians of emotional stress and craving.
Jeff Smedsrud - A results-oriented visionary leader, Jeff has built and run multiple new companies from back-of-envelope ideas to multi-million dollar profitable, scalable entities. HealthCare, Inc., for example, was recently ranked as one of the 100 fastest-growing technology companies by Deloitte and valued at over $1 billion. Jeff is currently leading the growth of individual markets for $1.2 billion Alera Group as National Practice Leader.
Karina Monesson - As a Senior Manager at Great Place to Work, Monesson provides research-based thought leadership for human resource executives across the country. She and her husband live in South Florida with their ten-, four- and one-year-old daughters. Her 11 years of sobriety have given her the gifts of life, love, pride, joy, friendship, and family, and Monesson is passionate about helping others along their path to recovery.
Jamie Salsberg - Jamie has run and managed multiple substance abuse and mental health treatment centers, designed and developed family programs, and worked in the field of behavioral health since 2013. After recognizing the gap where many treatment centers did not have resources to dedicate toward long-term outcomes or outpatient care, Jamie has been focused on outpatient care through private practice to address the long term needs of families and clients. Jamie is also the Director of Compliance of New Harbor Behavioral Health, an adolescent program in Massachusetts that treats both mental health and substance abuse, as well as offering expert testimony in cases offering standard of care in an effort to promote justice and quality treatment in the behavioral health industry.
She is additionally a qualified supervisor providing supervision and guidance to registered interns becoming licensed. Jamie holds a Masters Degree in Social Work from FAU, a Masters in Public Health from Columbia University, and Bachelor’s in Psychology from Duke University. She has worked with specialized populations such as first responders, Veterans and Native Americans. Jamie is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker in the states of Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Illinois, Mississippi, Maryland, and Alabama and a Certified Addiction Professional in Florida.
Our Co-Founder's Stories
We are incredibly blessed that our story has a happy ending – Karina was eventually able to stop drinking entirely in 2013 and stay sober. As a result, she’s now happily married with three adorable daughters and a successful career. But it took more than six years of alcohol poisoning, car accidents, and multiple attempts at treatment to get here. We created Conquer Addiction to provide the information we wish we had had at the start of this journey in the hope that it helps your family more easily navigate the treacherous journey to recovery.
Three generations in Positano, Italy in 2015
Conquer Addiction can be contacted here.