41. Bibliotherapy helps millions of people recovering from addictions

By Tom O'Connell

For millions of people in recovery, books published by Hazelden in Minnesota have provided a lifeline since 1954 when the charitable organization began its publishing enterprise. Hazelden's treatment center, incorporated in 1949, is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, and while other treatment centers have been closing their doors this organization has persisted in its mission and has developed a solid international reputation.

The 50th Anniversary Issue of the Hazelden Voice traces the history of this impressive organization dedicated to the Twelve Step addiction recovery model. Along with AA and Al-Anon, Hazelden has helped to bring "bibliotherapy" into its own.

"Bibliotherapy" means "healing through books." So if you read AA's "Big Book" frequently you are practicing bibliotherapy. Likewise for Al-Anon's "One Day At A Time" book, and "Courage to Change." It's also bibliotherapy if you read the "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" book which was Hazelden's first publication in 1954. This book is standard daily reading for many AA members.

Other widely read recovery books by Hazelden include "Not God," "Codependent No More," "Each Day a New Beginning," "Food For Thought," and "Days of Healing, Days of Joy."

According to the Hazelden Voice, the author of the Twenty Four Hours book, Richmond Walker, wrote: "Every time we help another alcoholic, we're making a large payment on our drink insurance. Were making sure that our policy doesn't lapse." Walker stayed sober and wrote down 365 reflective meditations in a book he printed, packaged, and distributed himself "until the task became too daunting for one individual."

After printing about 18, 000 copies he approached AA World Services to see if they would take over where he left off. But AA declined. So he went to Hazelden, and the rest is history. More than 8 million copies have been sold to date because there was "a real hunger for inspirational literature" among AA members.

The book is often used at AA meetings, and one reader, Rick R., says, "At the meeting we read the reading for that day, but at home my favorite thing is to just open the book randomly. It's uncanny: 99 percent of the time the passage has something directly to do with what's going on with me, and it's something I really needed to hear."

In the 1970's Hazelden's publishing enterprise expanded rapidly as the demand for printed materials for the recovering community escalated. And Hazelden also began to distribute AA and Al-Anon literature.

Then, according to Rebecca Post, executive editor at Hazelden Information and Educational Services, "Hazelden  publishing was making the connection that chemical dependency is surrounded by lots of other issues and dual disorders." The needs of women were added to the priority list too.

The 1980s saw a boom in health care literature, but Karen Casey Elliott, former vice president of publishing and author of many meditation books, recalls the "waning interest in recovery literature during the 90s." She notes, "The changing health care situation has had a disastrous effect on people who need treatment...But Hazelden is still present and publishing excellent work."

What is Hazelden, the bulwark of bibliotherapy, doing now? Should it be called "virtual recovery"? In 1998 Hazelden created a new division called Information and Educational Service (IES) "to integrate publishing, new electronic ventures, chronic illness and some external training endeavors."

The approach is holistic, explains Ron Levitus, vice president of Technology and Knowledge Management. "We're redesigning our web site bookstore to accommodate a reading room where people will be able to actually browse the books as opposed to just scanning the catalogs."

Hazelden is also creating a Museum of Addiction and Recovery so online visitors can look at the original works of Bill W. and others. Add to this an expansion of online chat rooms so web site visitors can support each other's recovery, and you can see that Hazelden is still trying to answer the question its first president Pat Butler asked nearly 50 years ago. "How can we best help the most alcoholics?"

The Hazelden Voice sums up this article with these words: "Today, thanks to Hazelden and its commitment to bibliotherapy, millions of people worldwide, recovering  and non-recovering alike, receive the message of hope and learn they are not alone in their struggle." Best wishes to Hazelden for another dynamic 50 years.     

Note: Hazelden's web site is at www.hazelden.org.

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