We have a lot of good resources on Recovery in the library, including:
BOOKS
*Mindful Recovery: A Spiritual Path to Healing From Addiction, by Thomas Bien and Beverly Bien
*The Life Recovery Workbook: A Biblical Guide through the 12 Steps, by Stephen Arterburn and David Stoop
*Reclaiming Youth Life: The Gay Man’s Guide to Recovery from Abuse, Addictions, and Self-Defeating Behavior, by Rik Isensee
*The Politics of Crystal Meth: Gay Men Share Their Stories of Addiction and Recovery, by Kenneth Cimino
*How It Works: Recovering Citizens in Post-Welfare Philadelphia, by Robert Fairbanks II
DVDs
*Addiction: Why Can’t They Just Stop – a 14-part HBO series (on four discs)
*Living in Recovery: Getting Gut-Level Honest
*Understanding Addiction
*God as We Understand Him: A Film About Faith and the 12-Step Movement
[IN PHILADELPHIA]
Individuals with Medicaid coverage can get into recovery treatment through Community Behavioral Health. Call CBH’s Mental Health and Substance Use Crisis Referral 24/7 hotline (888) 545-2600, or see the CBH website to read more about what they offer.
Individuals with no medical coverage can get into recovery treatment through Behavioral Health Special Initiative. Call BHSI at 215-546-1200 or 215-546-6435, or see the BHSI website to read more about what they offer.
[NOT IN PHILADELPHIA]
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) operates a hotline for alcohol and drug treatment referral, available in English and Spanish: 1-800-662-HELP (4357), and a Substance Abuse Facility Locator for finding treatment programs anywhere in the country.
*Click here to see all the sites SAMHSA lists in Philadelphia.
*Click here to read SAMHSA’s pamphlet on how treatment programs can help “With the Criminal Justice System” and “With the Rest of Your Life.”
Other hotlines worth having at the ready:
The website of Narcotics Anonymous has a lot of information, including
The website of Alcoholics Anonymous has lots of information, including
See also comparable information on the websites of:
Related to the HBO series that we have in the library (mentioned above), the National Institute on Drug Abuse has partnered with HBO to create a website, Addiction, with some very readable resources and some short videos. This resource might be good for a person new to recovery, or for their friends or family. Points of interest on this site include:
The long-time addiction counselor and researcher William White has a website with an extensive Recovery Toolkit, with lots of practical short readings, checklists, reading lists, and the like.
To learn more about the relationship between substance abuse and mental health problems, see
SAMHSA publishes Evidence-Based Practices: Shaping Mental Health Services Toward Recovery
The Addiction Technology Transfer Center Network has a large library of online info about addiction and recovery, written for health professionals. It includes subsections on Veterans, Women, Prescription Drug Abuse, Co-Occuring Disorder, and more.
The Addiction Treatment Forum reports on substance abuse and addiction therapies, research, and news, with a particular emphasis on opioids/methadone.
The UCSF’s HIVInSite website has a collection of journal articles, best practice guidelines, slide sets, and more on Substance Abuse and HIV/AIDS.
To find out about drug interactions between HIV meds and recreational drugs, see
Friendly employers could read the Mid-Atlantic American’s With Disabilities Act office’s guide on Employing and Accommodating Individuals With Histories of Alcohol or Drug Abuse (excerpted at TheBody.com).
As with so many topics, The Body.com does a great job of collecting “News & Views” on Substance Use & HIV/AIDS and of organizations for Getting Help for Substance Use (many of these organizations are mentioned above).
To learn about advocating for recovering people’s rights, see the organization Faces & Voices of Recovery. Their website includes: