Recovery Rising: A Retrospective of Addiction Treatment and Recovery Advocacy

Recovery Rising is the professional memoir of William White, who, over the span of five decades, evolved through several diverse roles to emerge as the addiction field's preeminent historian and one of its most visionary voices and prolific writers. Recovery Rising contains the stories, reflections, and lessons learned within one man's personal and professional journey. Recounted here are many of the ideas, methods, people, and organizations that shaped the modern history of addiction treatment and recovery. These engaging stories are at times poignant and at times humorous, but always revealing, informative, and inspiring. William White's peers will find their life's work affirmed in these pages and a younger generation of addiction professionals and recovery advocates will feel the passing of a torch.

William (“Bill”) White, Emeritus Senior Research Consultant at Chestnut Health Systems, has a Master’s degree in Addiction Studies from Goddard College and has worked in outreach, clinical, research, and teaching roles in the addictions field since 1969. Bill has authored or co-authored more than 400 articles, monographs, research reports and book chapters and 21 books, including Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America; Let’s Go Make Some History: Chronicles of the New Addiction Recovery Advocacy Movement; and Addiction Recovery Management: Theory, Research, and Practice (co-edited with Dr. John Kelly). For the past 25 years, his work has focused on mapping the prevalence, pathways, styles, and stages of long-term addiction recovery. Bill’s sustained contributions to addiction treatment and recovery in the United States have been acknowledged by numerous awards from such organizations as the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers, the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, NAADAC: The Association of Addiction Professionals, the American Society of Addiction Medicine, the American Association for the Treatment of Opioid Dependence, Harvard Medical School Department of Psychiatry, Faces and Voices of Recovery, Young People in Recovery, and the Association of Recovery Schools. Bill’s collected papers can be found at www.williamwhitepapers.com. Bill lives with his wife, Rita Chaney, in Punta Gorda, Florida.