MEET Nicole
Stigma-smashing physician, recovery renegade, and translator of brain science for people who'd rather just be told the truth.
fun fact
I have dopamine and serotonin tattooed on my hand. Originally, they were my reminder that the things we spend our lives chasing—pleasure, connection, contentment—are ultimately experiences our brains create. Which, when you think about it, is both incredibly fucking cool and kind of the whole point.
Physician. Author. Stigma Slayer. Recovery Realist.
I'm Dr. Nicole Labor. Board-certified in Family Medicine and Addiction Medicine, twenty-plus years doing this work, and yes, that's a real DO after my name, not a participation trophy. I got my bachelor's in Biobehavioral Health from Penn State, then went and got my medical degree at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine, did my residency in Buffalo, and finished a fellowship in addiction medicine through Geisinger.
I started out at Summa's Ignatia Hall detox unit in Akron, which happens to be the same unit with roots back to Dr. Bob Smith, the guy who co-founded AA. Akron's basically the birthplace of recovery as we know it. Since then I've worked hospital detox, residential programs, outpatient, medication-assisted treatment, you name it. I've been medical director at OneEighty, Interval Brotherhood Home, and the Esper Treatment Center, and I built the Addiction Medicine Fellowship at Summa from scratch because somebody had to.
I've been in long-term recovery myself since 2005. So when I talk about addiction, it's not from behind a desk. It's from someone who's been on both sides of it, which is exactly why I have zero patience for stigma and even less for sugarcoating.
My whole mission fits in one sentence: addiction literacy should be as common as knowing CPR. Too many people, patients, families, bosses, doctors, judges, the works, are making huge decisions about addiction without understanding what it actually is or what recovery actually looks like. So I wrote the books (The Addictoholic Deconstructed and The Addictoholic Reconstructing, in case you want the receipts), I do the speaking gigs, I run the trainings, and I built the Laborhood Change Project to hold all of it together. These days I also run Optimus Transformative Medicine, a medical spa in Seville, Ohio, because recovery isn't just brain chemistry, it's hormones, weight, and rebuilding a body that's been through it too.
Whatever brought you here, learning for yourself, worried about someone you love, trying to do better by your patients or your employees, you're in the right place.
Nicole Labor
Credentials
Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine
2007
Board‑Certified in Family Medicine
2010
Board‑Certified in Addiction Medicine
2013
