Episode 350: Understanding the Biomarkers of Addiction with Dr. Evelyn Higgins
The Addicted Mind Podcast
Duane Osterlind, LMFT
4.7 • 655 Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2025
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you found out earlier on in your youth that you actually have a genetic propensity toward addiction, would you have made decisions a lot differently? Addiction is a bio-psycho-social model, but we don’t really look at the biology part of it. Sometimes, we have to look at the physiology of things to understand addiction better. And there has to be a paradigm shift in thinking about how we operate and exist in this world.
On today’s episode, Duane speaks with Dr. Evelyn Higgins about genes and biomarkers, how they influence our behavior, how they play out in addiction, and why knowing about this part of ourselves is an important step in addiction treatment and recovery.
Dr. Evelyn Higgins is the founder and CEO of Wired For Addiction and a recognized international expert in the epidemiology of addiction. With 34 years in clinical practice, Dr. Higgins has spent over 16 years dedicated to research and development in the science of addiction recovery, and she finds herself at the nexus of epigenetics, neuroscience, and addiction.
In this episode, you will hear:
- What it means to look at errors in genetic coding
- Epigenetics and aberrant behaviors
- Why addiction is not a moral flaw, but a disease
- The first step is getting objective information.
- The common genetic markers of addiction
- How seeing addiction from a biological perspective impacts the families
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Addicted Mind podcast. I'm so glad you're here today. My name is Dwayne Austerlund, and I'm your host. And today we have a awesome guest, Dr. Evelyn Higgins. |
| 0:22.6 | She is the chief executive officer and inventor of the patent-pending panel utilized by Wired |
| 0:28.3 | for Addiction. |
| 0:29.9 | She is a recognized international expert in the epidemiology of addiction. |
| 0:35.2 | She is a dual diplomat of the American College of Addictionology and |
| 0:39.2 | compulsive disorders and diplomat of the American Board of Disability Analysis, specializing in |
| 0:45.6 | pain management. With 34 years in clinical practice, Dr. Higgins has designated over 16 years |
| 0:52.4 | to research and development in the science of addiction recovery. |
| 0:56.5 | And in 2021, she was the nominee for Modern Health Care's top 25 innovators in healthcare. |
| 1:04.0 | Dr. Kiggins finds herself at the nexus of epigenetics, neuroscience, and addiction. |
| 1:09.5 | So in this episode, we're going to talk about genes, biomarkers, |
| 1:14.4 | how they influence our behavior, how they play out in addiction, |
| 1:19.1 | and why knowing about this part of ourselves is so important in getting recovery |
| 1:26.8 | and avoiding addiction in the first place. |
| 1:30.0 | So in this episode, Dr. Higgins shares some of her own personal story and what motivated her to do this work and do this research and understand addiction in the first place. |
| 1:41.7 | I think you're really going to enjoy it and get a lot out of it. |
| 1:44.8 | But before we start, if you are getting a lot out of the addicted mind, please rate and review |
| 1:50.5 | us wherever you get your podcast. That really does help the podcast get a lot of exposure and |
| 1:54.6 | helps people find the podcast. I'd really appreciate it. It means a lot to me. And if you want to |
| 1:59.0 | continue the conversation online, join our Facebook group. |
| 2:01.7 | Just go to Facebook and type in The Addicted Mind podcast. |
| 2:04.1 | Click join. |
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