Chemical Dependency Studies

Ben Eiland has been in the Chemical Dependency Treatment and Behavioral Health field for over 39 years.

He currently is the Director of Integrated Healing at Alta Mira Recovery Programs and previously the Clinical Director in Sausalito, CA.

He was the Director of Substance Abuse Treatment Services for the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic.
He is the founder and former Co-Director of Integrated Counseling and Consulting Services specializing in domestic violence and substance abuse problems. Eiland has previously held positions as the director of inpatient and outpatient chemical dependency treatment programs that serve both adults and adolescents.

Eiland has been a trainer and consultant in such areas as chemical dependency treatment, co-occurring disorders treatment, domestic and workplace violence, drugs in the workplace, conflict resolution/team building, board development, and cultural/gender diversity.

He has provided training and consulting for such diverse organizations as the American Indian Training Institute, California Rural Indian Health Board, Independent Adoption Center, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Maui Social Services, Hayward Unified School District, the San Francisco Chronicle, the California Departments of Probation and Parole, and the San Francisco Bar Association.

Eiland has taught at a variety of Educational Institutions and is currently an Adjunct Faculty College of San Mateo since 1999. He has also taught at J.F.K. University and U.C. Berkeley Extension addiction certificate program.

Eiland is a founding member of the California Association of Alcohol/Drug Educators (CAADE) and is their past president. He is currently on the California State Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs “Continuum of Services System Re-engineering Task Force”. In addition, he served on the National Recovery Month Partnership Committee in Washington DC, sponsored by SAMHSA.

He has held the position of Vice President for the Cross Roads Chapter of E.AP.A. He has also served on the Board of the California Association of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors. He was appointed to the Aging Constituent Committee Directors Advisory Council California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs (2003-2008) , and is the past president of the California Association for Alcohol/Drug Educators (CAADE).

Dr. Charles Flores is a California licensed and national board certified psychotherapist who has practiced in a multiple settings in the field of co-occurring disorders for 25 years.

Originally hailing from the South Bronx, Dr. Flores obtained his MS in Counseling Psychology at Fordham University and gained additional training and certifications in Family Counseling in Iona College, the Ackerman Institute, Gestalt Associates, Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science, Lincoln Hospital Recovery Center (addiction acupuncture), The Heartmath Institute (biofeedback), EMDR International Association (trauma treatment), University of Massachusetts (tobacco treatment), and Sophia University. He earned his PhD at the California Institute of Integral Studies in multicultural, humanistic, and spiritual psychology.

Dr. Flores is the CEO of Vital Puma Integral Recovery, which provides cutting-edge addiction and trauma therapy for recovery. He has directed several multi-million dollar substance abuse and mental health treatment programs in the Bay Area. Dr. Flores since 2015 has been a Board Director of the California Consortium of Addiction Programs and Professionals, where he serves on the Executive, Finance, and Legislative Committees, which promotes excellence in the delivery of services focused on substance use and its associated problems by providing the highest level of advocacy, competence, and ethics among programs and professionals. In that role, he provides monthly training for substance use disorder providers for his district in the Bay Area. He also serves as the Chair of the CCAPP Education Board, which provides education and technical assistance regarding addiction, treatment, recovery, and associated problems.

Dr. Flores has been teaching at CSUEB since 2011 and was previously a professor of psychology at John F. Kennedy University since 2005, and has taught at several other universities. He currently serves as the Psychedelics and Addictions Fellow for the CIIS Center for Psychedelic Therapies and Research. He has been an editor for the International Journal of Transpersonal Psychology and has published papers and written book chapters for SUNY and Oxford University Press.

Dr. Michael Huff has been working in helping men, women, and families learn and recover from drug and alcohol use and abuse for more than 30 years. In the late 1980s, Dr. Huff worked as an drug educator and treatment advocate to students at the University of California, Berkeley. In 2005, Dr. Huff designed and directed a men’s residential treatment program along with providing leadership and oversight of a women’s day treatment, and outpatient services in West Oakland. In 2014, he became the Criminal Justice and Substance Use Disorder specialist for Alameda County working in behavioral health. In this role, he worked with the reentry community to help provide substance use disorder services (SUD) services throughout Alameda County.

Most recently, Dr. Huff has been teaching in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) in men’s and women’s prisons. He teaches lifers in the Offender Mentor Certification Program (OMCP) how to be substance use disorder counselors to their fellow inmates. In this program, inmates are taught motivational interviewing techniques, understanding criminal thinking processes, and tools of effective therapeutic counseling. Ninety-five percent of inmates in the OMCP pass the California State certification examination for substance use disorder counselors. Dr. Huff has a doctorate in sociology from Northwestern University and a Master of Public Administration and Public Policy degree from California State University, East Bay. He is also a university lecturer in both criminology and sociology.