Byron Lewis, M.A., studied under Dr. John Grinder, participating in the original research that laid the foundations for NLP. During the 1980s he was the director of the Meta Training Institute, conducting seminars and workshops in the field of NLP. He then specialized in the field of addictions and worked as a drug and alcohol abuse counselor, an outpatient clinical director (supervisory counselling psychologist), a county alcohol and drug abuse outpatient program director and a county health department senior analyst. He also authored Sobriety Demystified: Getting clean and sober with NLP and CBT.