“There is no brokenness so deep that it cannot be met with choice, responsibility, and hope.”
Dr. BJ Davis, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist, educator, and advocate for transformative approaches to addiction recovery and mental health. His work bridges the gap between lived experience and professional practice, offering a rare and powerful perspective on healing, change, and empowerment.
His journey into psychology did not begin in a classroom. It began in a jail. Facing his own battles with addiction and incarceration as a young man, Dr. Davis made the profound choice to reclaim his life. Through the painful process of self-evaluation, education, and healing, he rose from the depths of hopelessness to eventually earn a doctorate in psychology. His journey is not just a story of survival; it is the foundation of a philosophy that underlies all his work: change is possible when individuals reclaim their power to choose.
Drawing from both clinical science and personal insight, Dr. Davis developed the Davis Model, a science-driven, client-centered framework for understanding and treating addiction. At the core of his model is the recognition that addiction is not a moral failing or a genetic inevitability, but a behavior, an attempt to meet basic universal human needs for survival, belonging, power, freedom, and fun. True recovery, according to Dr. Davis, begins when individuals are empowered to meet these needs in effective, more sustainable ways.
Throughout his career, Dr. Davis has worked in correctional facilities, treatment centers, and clinical practice, bringing his compassionate yet practical approach to individuals often overlooked or written off by traditional systems of care. His work challenges the outdated notion of “powerlessness” in recovery, offering instead a vision of healing grounded in internal control, personal responsibility, and the possibility of becoming recovered.
In his groundbreaking masterclass, Recovery By Choice, Dr. Davis trains mental health professionals, addiction counselors, and healthcare providers in applying these principles in real-world settings with tools that foster genuine, lasting transformation.
More than a clinician or a theorist, Dr. Davis is a teacher of possibility. He challenges professionals not just to treat symptoms but to honor the full humanity of the people they serve, to see behaviors as the language of unmet needs, and to guide clients toward building lives worth recovering for.
Today, through his work with Wholehearted.org, Dr. Davis continues to inspire a new generation of healers. His message is simple but profound: Addiction is not a choice, but recovery is. And when we meet people where they are, honor their needs, and nurture their ability to choose differently, we help unlock the extraordinary resilience that lives within every person.
