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I wrote A Vision of Hope while I was locked up at the Milwaukee Secure Detention Facility.[1] Now I have an article in Corrections Today, Fall 2026, with Dr. Terrance Hinton, who teaches at Ohio State.[2][7] It’s called Beyond Coping Skills, pages 56 to 60. Skills teach a person how to walk away, and identity is why they keep walking. The print copies are already in the mail across the country.
In a couple of weeks I present an individual paper at the Midwestern Criminal Justice Association meeting in Chicago.[3] The paper is Bridging the Gap After Treatment and Incarceration: An Identity-Based Curriculum Model. Next month it’s the Global Addiction conference[4] and the Mental Health and Substance Use Recovery Conference in the Dells.[5]
That stretch still feels unreal.
Same person. Different room.
The groups in Milwaukee
I’m hosting groups myself with a reentry program here in Milwaukee.
It’s going well. A couple of guys are doing less than the bare minimum. A few I think are really taking something out of it.
We go through cognitive biases each week too, because we need to know what lens we see the world through. It isn’t just what information we take in. It’s how we take it in, and what information we allow in to begin with.
I wrote about that already, how bias shapes the information we receive and the beliefs we form.[6] In the room it isn’t a lecture. I ask what they noticed first. What did they skip? What do they keep letting in because it already agrees with them?
ReturnPath is the curriculum under that work. Facilitator-led, identity-based, and it complements clinical care. It does not replace it.
How Better Moose started
Then there’s Better Moose. I used AI to track my workouts and to get recipes, and I still love it for recipes (that’s a main part of it).
It would get vague when I’d ask it about my progress. There’s no database, so it would forget specifics.
One thing I noticed it would do is this: last year you would ask me things like this and this, and now you’re doing things like this and this. That was specific enough to keep context, but it was clearly lacking the exact details. That’s what no database gets you.
So I knew I was making progress, but I didn’t know specifically what that progress looked like. It couldn’t tell me if I went up 20 pounds on my bench press in three months, or about my overall progress on eating healthier. I wanted to see that, so I started building the thing I wanted.
I love how the recipe cards are turning out. Then it just grew and grew from there. We added sharing profiles for personal trainers, coaches, or nutritionists, full macro breakdowns, a meal and workout calendar, and prebuilt or adaptive workout routines. Goals influence all of it. We account for allergies, health conditions, and injuries. There’s recipe sharing, recommendations built in, and progressive workouts.
It’s a whole thing.
I’m finishing building it now (no public store page yet).
Why this one feels different
I’m especially excited for it because I don’t believe I’ll have the distribution problems I’ve had with my other ventures.
ReturnPath is excellent, and it will impact a lot of lives. And it’s slow rolling. You’re finding organizations with a need, the budget, that see the value, are willing to implement, and don’t require evidence-based verification first. We need to collect the evidence to become evidence-based, and it has to start somewhere. That is not a complaint about the work. It’s the shape of the work.
LEVRG taught me some products need multiple layers of buy-in. It isn’t always easy to reach the decision-maker at all, and then you still have to get through the gatekeepers.
With Better Moose, I don’t think I’ll have that problem: gyms, personal trainers, nutritionists, supplement and whole-food stores, farmer’s markets, yoga instructors, acupuncturists, serum labs, really anywhere that draws a crowd that cares about their health and wellness. I have the affiliate agreement thought out.
Tight, and still building
Things are definitely beyond tight right now.
But I have faith. Faith in my ability to manifest things. Faith that when we give consistent, concerted action toward a noble goal with our full belief and conviction, doors open naturally.
I said in A Vision of Hope that fear and faith cannot live in the same place.[1] Sometimes fear tries to come blistering up: you’ll run out of money. You need to find investors. You should apply for grants. You should find a company to do a custom AI build for.
Those are all well and great, and they distract me from building awareness around what I already built. If someone came along and wanted to invest, I’d listen. If a nonprofit said they’d sponsor A Vision of Hope Media for a grant, I’d put in the time. If a company came and asked me to build a tool or a system for their business, I’d definitely listen.
But until those things happen, they are distractions. This is why I stay with building. Building awareness. Building tools. Building the future I want to see.
Frequently asked questions
What is Better Moose?
It’s an app I’m finishing for meals and training. I still use AI for recipes. The same tool had no database for my lifts and eating, so it could keep a little context and still forget the actual numbers. I knew I was making progress and couldn’t see what that progress looked like, so I started building. It grew into recipe cards, macros, calendars, sharing with a trainer or nutritionist, and routines that can adapt around goals, allergies, conditions, and injuries. It is not a live store listing yet. I’m building it.
Are you still running ReturnPath groups?
Yes. I’m hosting groups with a reentry program in Milwaukee. Some men are doing the least they can get away with. Some are actually using the reading. The work in the room is what they noticed first, what they skipped, and what they keep letting in because it already agrees with them. Cognitive biases are part of that.
Why not pause the building and chase investors or grants?
If a real offer shows up, I’ll listen. Until then, hunting those paths is how fear dresses itself up as strategy. I already have things to finish and people to tell. That’s the work in front of me.
References
- Andrew Drasen. A Vision of Hope: A Story of Redemption and Purpose. https://www.avisionofhopebook.com/books/memoir
- Andrew Drasen, with Terrance Hinton, Ph.D. “Beyond Coping Skills.” Corrections Today, Fall 2026, pp. 56–60. American Correctional Association. Print. Same spread includes Terrance Hinton, Ph.D., “Identity-based workforce development: A public safety and economic strategy.”
- Midwestern Criminal Justice Association 2026 Annual Meeting (individual paper, Sep 24–25, Chicago). https://www.avisionofhopebook.com/events/midwestern-criminal-justice-association-2026
- Global Addiction, Behavioral Health, and Psychiatry Conference 2026 (Oct 19–21). https://www.avisionofhopebook.com/events/global-addiction-behavioral-health-and-psychiatry-conference-2026
- 22nd Annual Mental Health and Substance Use Recovery Conference (Oct 22–23, Wisconsin Dells). https://www.avisionofhopebook.com/events/mental-health-substance-use-recovery-conference-2026
- Andrew Drasen. “How Bias Shapes the Information We Receive and the Beliefs We Form.” https://www.avisionofhopebook.com/insights/purpose-identity/information-bias-belief-formation
- The Ohio State University, Department of Sociology. Terrance Hinton faculty page. https://sociology.osu.edu/people/hinton.212