NOVEMBER 7, 2025
Samuel W. Stull, PhD
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
NIDA T32 Science of Co-Occurring Disorders
Center for Technology and Behavioral Health
About the Presentation: Increasingly, a connection between addiction recovery and comedy is being highlighted in mainstream media, including stand-up comedy, television shows, podcasts, and movies. Notable examples date back to Richard Pryor’s stand-up special Here and Now, while more recent instances include John Mulaney’s Baby J. In parallel, a growing body of scientific evidence has demonstrated the positive impact of humor on several mental health outcomes (e.g., anxiety, depression, and happiness) in both non-clinical and clinical populations. Surprisingly, very little research has examined the role of humor in addiction recovery. One exciting possibility is for humor-focused interventions to promote enjoyment—an area often underemphasized in addiction treatment, yet a vital aspect of initiating and sustaining long-term recovery.
The focus of my talk will be on describing the potential therapeutic processes that link humor and addiction recovery and in presenting our pilot work developing the Humor and Addiction recovery (HA!) app with people in opioid addiction recovery. I will discuss things we have learned along the way and offer ideas for exciting future directions.
About the Presenter: Dr. Samuel W. Stull is a T32 postdoctoral research fellow in the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at Dartmouth College. He received his PhD in Biobehavioral Health (emphasis in applied statistics) from Penn State University working under the mentorship of Dr. Stephanie Lanza. As a PhD student, Dr. Stull was awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship and a NIDA NRSA F31 Predoctoral Fellowship. Prior to graduate school, he worked as a post-baccalaureate fellow at the NIDA Intramural Research Program under the mentorship of Drs. Kenzie Preston and David Epstein.
Dr. Stull’s research is focused on the role of positive moods states and nondrug rewards in supporting recovery from addiction on a daily basis. Integrated in his work is often the use of innovative methods to delineate dynamic and heterogenous daily processes (e.g., time-varying effect modeling, multilevel latent class analysis). As a postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Stull will work under the mentorship of Drs. Lisa Marsch and Nicholas Jacobson to learn key theoretical (i.e. science of behavior change) and methodological approaches (i.e. adaptive interventions, micro-randomized trials) for developing digital interventions. Dr. Stull’s focus will include the development of a novel humor-based digital intervention to promote greater treatment engagement, enjoyment, and adaptive coping strategies to support recovery from addiction.