William didn't know something was missing until it happened. He'd been in recovery for alcohol and drugs for years. He was a recovery activist and a spokesperson for the gold standard of treatment and recovery organizations. He was a model leader and follower of Twelve Step programs. But, still, he slipped.
And his slip lasted a few years. Privately, he was addicted to painkillers while publicly saying he was in recovery from alcohol and drug use. So, was he still in recovery? How could this happen to someone who did everything 'right'? How did it go so wrong? With brutal honesty and introspection, William shares what happened after sobriety - after he'd published his candid and shocking memoir, Broken, in 2007. While he no longer frequented or passed out on the floor of crack houses, his life of sobriety wasn't perfect. But his recovery was strong, or so he thought. Unfortunately, the opioid epidemic was stronger.
It broke him. He was Broken Open. Broken Open could be one long story of self-justification. Instead, William takes a courageous look at his recovery and concludes that people in recovery need to take a broader view than he once did. Recovery isn't black and white - it's not you're either sober or you drink, you're clean or you take drugs. It's not success or failure. It's not the Twelve Steps or nothing.
Those all-or-nothing approaches don't work for all of us as we continue our life journeys, something which William now understands very well, because he made it through to what he considers a fuller, more evolved recovery.