Warren Bickel, global pioneer in addiction recovery research, leaves lasting legacy

One of Warren's really unique qualities is that he thinks really big picture without sacrificing really small picture. It's very clear, especially over time that he was really doing right by people. And that's a long term, you know, he invests in long term relationships. So even when he was kind of in the discovery phase of some of these basic concepts, these powerful, basic concepts, he was always looking forward to, like, how can we use this to help people. Was kind of, you know, a lump of clay, let's just say. And without Warren there to shape that clay into something that anybody would want to spend any time with. Yeah, there's no way that I would have ended up with the career that I've had thus far. A lot of times it was we would drive each other, not intentionally, but just loving our work, and it would kind of there was a synergy to it, always turning each other on different things, and 26 years of just always being side by side doing work together. And it is wonderful. He's really He's opened my eyes to new ways to think about things. He's been a kindred spirit in terms of creativity. And scientists are not very creative, and they don't read outside of their discipline. And many of them keep getting narrower and wer and nower. And Warren does exactly the opposite. He keeps expanding what he's doing to new fields and new fields. Think the biggest life lesson I've learned from Warren is to see what things can become, not where they're at. And so, obviously, on paper, I was the least qualified person to work with Warren. I again, knew nothing about what he did. But it's not about what you know and where you're at now. It's where you as an individual can go. It's where your ideas can go. I marvel at him. He's He's an incredible collaborator. He's very inviting and very open to other people's ideas and integrates them in a very He's just a very warm person to talk to. Everyone wants to collaborate and work with him because he just draws ideas out of people and puts them together in really innovative ways. He's changed the way I think about things, which has shaped the experiments I've done. Yeah, so he's had, I mean, from a very early stage in my career, he's really, you know, guiding influence on my life and my professional life. He has been deal to work for. And he is a rock star, and it has been my privilege to work with him.