Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America

The product of more than 35 years of research, the Second Edition of Slaying the Dragon is the remarkable story of America's personal and institutional responses to alcoholism and other addictions. It is the story of mutual aid societies spanning Native American recovery circles, the Washingtonians, the Ribbon Reform Clubs, Twelve Step Fellowships and more recent secular and religious mutual aid alternatives. It is a story of addiction treatment institutions from the inebriate asylums through rise of modern addiction treatment. It is also the story of the rise of a new addiction recovery advocacy movement that promises to transform the future of addiction treatment and recovery in the United States and beyond. Author William White provides a sweeping and engaging history of one of America's most enduring problems and the profession and social institutions that have sought solutions to it.