Selling Serenity: Life Among the Recovery Stars

By Andrew Meacham

A controversial account of the history and subsequent abuse of the recovery industry by its proclaimed professionals.

The recovery movement has influenced American culture like no other in the 20^th century. Riding a new wave of concern over illegal drugs especially over the ways alchohol and drug abuse can damage famililes, recovery in the eighties evolved into a $2-billion a year treatment industry and a new genre of popular self-help books. For the authors of many of these books, whose contributions led to the newly-created "Addiction & Recovery" sections in bookstores coast to coast, addiction concepts beginning with the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous held the key to treating society itself.

Quotes

"Selling Serenity is a superb account of American's irrepressible faith in humbug, now masquerading as a combination of medicine and religion, therapy and virtue."

- Thomas Szasz, M.D. Professor of Psychiatry Emeritus, State University of New York, Author of The Myth of Mental Illness"

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"Andrew Meacham is a modern-day Gulliver, traveling through the strange land of recovery, where half-baked ideas are greeted as scientific revelation."

- Stanton Peale, Ph.D. Author of Diseasing of America: Addiction Treatment Out of Control

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"Do you ever get the idea that virtually everyone today is an 'addict' of one form or another? Meacham raise(s) some very interesting questions about our current obsession to be in need of help."

- William R. Wineke, Wisconsin State Journal

 

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