Today’s Points interviewee is William White, author of such books as Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America; The History of Addiction Counseling in the United States; Drunkard’s Refuge: The Lessons of the New York State Inebriate Asylum (with John Crowley); and Alcohol Problems in Native America: The Untold Story of Resistance and Recovery (with Don Coyhis). His latest book is Recovery Rising: A Retrospective of Addiction Treatment and Recovery Advocacy.
Describe your book in terms your bartender could understand.
Let me first say that readers who know me well will find this an amusing question. Recovery Rising is a collection of 350+ stories drawn from my nearly half-century of work in the addictions field. The vignettes honor my peers who have long worked in this special service ministry and mark the passing of a torch to a new generation of addiction professionals and recovery advocates. It is both a personalized history of the evolving world of addiction treatment over the closing decades of the 20th century and the opening decades of the 21st century and a collection of reflections about how to conduct oneself within this most unusual of occupations.