“For decades, people in recovery from addictions to other drugs have their lives cut short by tobacco-related diseases. Their drear friends, patients, and colleagues died from nicotine addiction, but it could also be said they died from blindness – the failure to see nicotine as an addictive drug and the failure to see smoking cessation … Continue reading Tobacco Recovery in the Addiction Recovery Space: Time for Action!
Author: billstaufferpa
William Stauffer is the Director of Pennsylvania Recovery Organization Alliance (PRO-A). In recovery for well over 3 decades, he is a nationally recognized trainer and writer addiction and recovery. He has testified to the US Senate Special Committee on Aging and in 2019, he organized a hearing with the PA House Human Services Committee to expand opportunities for young people. He is a past co-chair of the public policy committee for Faces & Voices of Recovery and the 2019 recipient of the Vernon Johnson Award Individual Recovery Advocate of the year. He teaches Social Work at Misericordia University. He was recently named to the Leadership Council of Foundations for Drug Policy Solutions (FDPS) a national think / do tank where he serves alongside some of the most respected leaders in the SUD service system. In December 2022, Mr. Stauffer was invited to serve Governor-Elect Josh Shapiro & Lieutenant Gov-Elect Austin Davis on the state Human Services transition team.
Constricted Ways of Knowing and the Loss of Recovery as a Focus of Our Institutions
“The experts on recovery are people in recovery” – Rallying Cry from the Era of the New Recovery Advocacy Movement. We once, not long ago, had a movement in America embraced broadly across our society in which people in recovery began to inform the fledgling research on our healing. It influenced a strengths orientation within … Continue reading Constricted Ways of Knowing and the Loss of Recovery as a Focus of Our Institutions
The Arc of Recovery Movement History Ultimately Bends Towards Expansion – William Stauffer & Dr David Best
I recently wrote a piece, Considering the Facets of Whites Laws of Recovery Dynamics to further the dialogue on how the New Recovery Advocacy movement fits into a broader dynamic of cresting and ebbing efforts to expand long term recovery in America as the norm in our society. As an aside and to be candid, … Continue reading The Arc of Recovery Movement History Ultimately Bends Towards Expansion – William Stauffer & Dr David Best
Building Bridges Between Islands of Healing – Revised from Jan 2022
“Let us use whatever power and influence we have, working with whatever resources are already available, mobilizing the people who are with us to work for what they care about.” – Margaret Wheatley I have reposted this from time to time and in this version corrected some wording and added citations. The title of this … Continue reading Building Bridges Between Islands of Healing – Revised from Jan 2022
Revisiting Support for Long term Recovery and the Reversed Tragedy of the Commons
"There is no greater tyranny against the minds of men that to allow the minds of their children to be destroyed by addiction disease because of our lack of courage and commitment at the time it is needed most. This is the time. If we fail now, we will have failed our future. This is … Continue reading Revisiting Support for Long term Recovery and the Reversed Tragedy of the Commons
Considering the Facets of Whites Laws of Recovery Dynamics
A few weeks back, while revisiting a work of William White on countertransference, contempt and service integration, I penned a draft set of laws that appear to operate in respect to recovery movement and recovery transmission efforts intergenerationally in the USA. I titled it “Whites Laws of Recovery Dynamics,” simply because most of what we … Continue reading Considering the Facets of Whites Laws of Recovery Dynamics
Revisiting William White: We Need More Recovery Custodians and Fewer Recovery Rock Stars (2020)
Bill and I wrote this in 2020, it is verbatim below. Recently I have been reflecting on the risks of the limelight and the quest for notoriety that can befall us. Consequences experienced systemically when we fail to create an ethos grounded in custodial leadership. What occurs when our focus is on not on taking … Continue reading Revisiting William White: We Need More Recovery Custodians and Fewer Recovery Rock Stars (2020)
Revisiting William White: A History of Contempt: Countertransference and the Dangers of Service Integration
“The look which the doctor gave me simply set me back on my heels. My hand remained untaken...Then I realized with a shock that this was not a meeting of two gentlemen on a plane of equality. In the eyes of the man before me, I was just another insane patient” - Marle Woodson 1933 … Continue reading Revisiting William White: A History of Contempt: Countertransference and the Dangers of Service Integration
Revisiting the Work of William White: Sick Systems in Treatment Interview with John DuCane 1989
“I was recruited by the field to address a shadow side of the organizational life of addiction treatment programs. As I responded to these calls, it became quickly apparent that something far more universal was afoot than the aberration of organizational life of addiction programs” – William White, Recovery Rising pg. 233 In 1989, John … Continue reading Revisiting the Work of William White: Sick Systems in Treatment Interview with John DuCane 1989
Codependency A Helpful Concept Turned Toxic: A Lesson from Our Own History
A few weeks ago on February 27th, Melody Beattie died at age 76. For those who may not know the name, she was an author and wrote a best-selling book called Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring for Yourself. It may be hard for readers in our current era to … Continue reading Codependency A Helpful Concept Turned Toxic: A Lesson from Our Own History
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