Gifts of Knowledge That Recovering People Can Bestow: Bill White

July 29, 2023

‘Recovery Rising is the professional memoirs of William (Bill) L White who, over the span of five decades, evolved through several diverse roles to emerge as the addiction fields preeminent historian and one of its most visionary voices and prolific writers.’

The contains so many pearls of wisdom, and is an essential read for anyone interested in addiction recovery. Here are a few pearls, including a verylarge one. [NB. I have broken up Bill’s longest paragraph to make it easier to read online.]

‘The most obvious gifts of knowledge that recovering people can bestow on our communities are our stories—stories that unveil the experience of addiction, stories that communicate the reality and hope of full recovery, and stories detailing how such recovery can be initiated and sustained. Five ideas about recovery need to be inculcated within communities across America.

  1. Addiction recovery is a reality—it is everywhere.
  2. There are many paths to recovery.
  3. Recovery flourishes in supportive communities.
  4. Recovery is a voluntary process.
  5. Recovering and recovered people are part of the solution; recovery gives back what addiction has taken.

Read More ➔

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Bill White on Stigma and the Recovery Advocacy Movement

March 8, 2023

Here is a powerful 2014 film clip on the Faces & Voices of Recovery Vimeo channel from leading addiction recovery advocate Bill White about stigma and how we can tackle the problem.

‘Almost everyone in America know someone in recovery. The problem historically is that they did not know they were in recovery which means that they can continue to maintain incredible stereotypes about who are the people who develop alcohol and other drug problems in this country and who are the people who recover and don’t recover.

There are a lot of issues about stigma that I cannot educate you out of. I can give you all the facts. I can read all the books to you. I can show you documentaries but nothing is going to change that embedded prejudice until you encounter personally someone in recovery who means something to you and hear their story.’

William (Bill) White is Emeritus Senior Research Consultant, Chestnut Health Systems. He has served as a volunteer consultant to Faces & Voices of Recovery since its founding. He has a Master’s degree in Addiction Studies and has worked in the addictions field since 1969. He has authored or coauthored more than 350 articles and monographs and fifteen books including Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America and Let’s Go Make Some History: Chronicles of the New Addiction Recovery Advocacy Movement. Check out an online library of his writings at williamwhitepapers.com. Faces & Voices of Recovery, 2014. [5’44”]

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Bill White’s Norman E. Zinberg Memorial Lecture, 2012

June 4, 2021

Researcher, historian, practitioner and recovery advocate William (Bill) L White has been the most prolific writer in the addiction recovery field. Bill’s fascinating book Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America is a classic. You can see the Table of Contents here.

As many can testify, Bill is an amazing public speaker. Here is the Norman E. Zinberg Memorial Lecture, Experiencing Recovery, he gave at the Harvard Addiction Conference in 2012. Bill’s lecture is on YouTube, divided into ten parts:

Part 1: Early History of Recovery in the U.S.

Bill describes just how far back recovery goes historically in the US—to Native American Indians in the 1730s! (13’36”)

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State of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement: Achievements, Part 3′ by Bill White

January 24, 2014

Unknown-1I continue Bill White’s list of achievements of the new recovery advocacy movement in the US.

‘Message Clarity. The data collection and analysis allowed us to formulate a clear set of messages that could be used by RCOs throughout the country and would be disseminated via “message training” that clarified the meaning of recovery and reality of long-term recovery in public communications.

A further critical step in that message clarity was the work of detailing how advocacy could be done in ways that were completely in alignment with the anonymity traditions of 12-Step recovery programs – a position recently reaffirmed via a widely disseminated communication from the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Read More ➔

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‘State of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement: Achievements, Part 2′ by Bill White

January 24, 2014

Unknown-1If you missed the the first part of my blogs focused on Bill White’s exciting new writing on the new recovery advocacy movemnet in the US, you can find it here. Here, I continue to look at the list of achievements of this movement:

‘Kinetic Ideas. As early as 2000, five simple ideas emerged from the very heart of the movement – ideas that were foundational and kinetic (capable of inspiring action).

Those five ideas were:

  • 1. addiction recovery is a living reality for individuals, families, and communities,
    2. there are many (religious, spiritual, secular) pathways to recovery, and all are cause for celebration,
    3. recovery flourishes in supportive communities,
    4. recovery is a voluntary process, and
    5. recovering and recovered people are part of the solution: recovery gives back what addiction has taken from individuals, families, and communities.

    Read More ➔

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‘State of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement: Achievements, Part 1’ by Bill White

January 22, 2014

Unknown-1Bill White seems to be pumping out his writings at the moment. I didn’t think this prolific writer could be even more productive, but I was wrong. Here’s a blog that links to a variety of Bill’s recent writings.

I was particularly interested in Bill’s piece on the state of the new recovery advocacy movement in the US. This is essential reading, so I thought I’d devote some blogs on a multitude of points raised by Bill. Here’s the first:

‘New Recovery Advocacy Movement Achievements
We would not be here today if those at the center of this emerging movement in the late 1990s and early 2000s had not made some very good decisions. I want to record some of the decisions that in retrospect I think were most important.

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