Table Of Content“Creative Recovery is a boldly challenging, rich, and comprehensive guide
to positive, healthy growth for anyone with creative talents or the desire to
look inward for potential and possibility. The authors have provided a
‘how-to’ map to target your creative energies toward self-reflection and
action that will enhance your well-being and health, and reinforce and
recharge your creativity. They show you how to cultivate, harness, and
direct all forms of creative energy towards the positive; how to take the
healthy path when you reach the ‘Y’ in the road. Above all, the authors
show you how to wake up, pay attention, and to live with integrity and self-
honesty. This is a practical and useful guide.”
—Stephanie Brown, PhD, Director, The Addictions Institute, and author of
A Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety and Radical Transformation
“Creative Recovery presents a rock-solid recovery program that anyone can
use and that writers, painters, musicians, and other creative people will find
invaluable and for some, even life-saving.”
—Bonnie Raitt
“Even seasoned clinicians working with individuals in the creative
professions will appreciate the utility of the exercises and questions for
cultivating new avenues of inquiry around the process of change related to
addiction. I particularly liked that Creative Recovery encouraged inquiry
about change and addiction from multiple perspectives and across multiple
types of creative activities.”
—Nancy A. Piotrowski, PhD, President, Division 50 (Addictions),
American Psychological Association
“As lifelong musicians and radio hosts who have interviewed hundreds of
singer-songwriters, we know firsthand what havoc addiction plays in the
lives of creative people—and how beautifully Creative Recovery will serve
musicians and other artists looking for a recovery program tailored to their
special needs.”
—Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon, producers and hosts, Art of the Song
Creativity Radio
“The authors emphasize that recovery is an ongoing, lifelong process, and
they expand upon and reinforce the role played by creativity, which
provides an artistic outlet to express the hope, strength, and wholeness of
continued recovery—an informative, insightful, and valuable book.”
—Library Journal
ABOUT THE BOOK
For writers, artists, musicians, and creators in every field, this book offers a
complete addiction recovery program specifically designed for the creative
person. Full of explanations and exercises, this book presents ways to use
your own innate creative abilities in service of your recovery and at each
stage of the recovery process. Topics include: the biological and
developmental risks unique to creative people; the special personality traits
that can inform the recovery process; ways to approach your recovery much
like your art; and exercises that promote your creativity and art that aid the
recovery process. This book gives a clear picture of the relationship
between creativity and addiction and lays out a complete program so that
you can live a fully creative and addiction-free life.
To find out more about one of the authors, visit his website:
www.ericmaisel.com.
ERIC MAISEL, PhD, is a licensed marriage and family therapist and
creativity coach with degrees in philosophy, creative writing, and
counseling psychology. He has written over thirty books including Fearless
Creating, The Van Gogh Blues, and Coaching the Artist Within.
SUSAN RAEBURN, PhD, is a licensed clinical psychologist. She
maintains a private psychotherapy practice in Berkeley, Calif., and is a staff
pschologist in the Chemical Dependency Services program at Kaiser
Permanente.
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Creative Recovery
A Complete Addiction Treatment Program
That Uses Your Natural Creativity
Eric Maisel, PhD
Susan Raeburn, PhD
SHAMBHALA
Boston & London
2011
The information contained in this book is based on the personal and professional experiences of the
authors. It is not intended as a substitute for consulting with your physician or other health-care provider.
Shambhala Publications and the authors are not responsible for any adverse effects or consequences
resulting directly or indirectly from the use of any of the suggestions discussed in this book. All matters
pertaining to your individual health should be supervised by a health-care professional. The names,
locations, and certain other identifying details of the clients mentioned in this book have been changed to
protect their identity.
Shambhala Publications, Inc.
Horticultural Hall
300 Massachusetts Avenue
Boston, Massachusetts 02115
www.shambhala.com
© 2008 by Eric Maisel and Susan Raeburn All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Maisel, Eric, 1947– Creative recovery: a complete
addiction treatment program that uses your natural creativity / Eric Maisel, Susan Raeburn.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
eISBN 978-0-83482206-1
ISBN 978-1-59030-544-7
1. Addicts—Rehabilitation. 2. Recovering addicts. 3. Creative thinking. 4. Creative ability. I. Raeburn,
Susan. II. Title.
HV4998.M32 2008
616. 86′03—dc22
2008016972
Contents
Acknowledgments
Introducing Creative Recovery
PART ONE
Preparing
1. Biological Risks
2. Other Risks
3. The Abuse Continuum
PART TWO
Working
4. Accepting the Call to Change
5. Your Addiction Challenges
6. The Existential or Spiritual Leap
7. Your Creative Nature
PART THREE
Living
8. Early Recovery
9. Ongoing Recovery
10. Creating in Recovery
Resources
Index
About the Authors
E-mail Sign-Up
Acknowledgments
Eric Maisel
First I would like to thank my coauthor, Dr. Susan Raeburn, for taking on this
project, for her expert contributions, for her dedicated work on this book in the
middle of a busy psychotherapy practice, and for her great good humor. Thanks,
Susan! Second, I would like to thank our literary agent, Janet Rosen, for finding
this book such an excellent home at Shambhala Publications. Third, I would like
to thank Jennifer Brown, our editor at Shambhala, for cocreating this book by
providing a steady vision, engaging in rigorous developmental and line editing,
and demanding that we get things right.
For the rest, it is impossible to name all the individuals who have contributed
to this book: all of my newsletter subscribers who responded to my call for
information with stories of their challenges with and successes over addiction;
all of my Art Calendar magazine readers who responded in a similarly helpful
way; and all of my creativity coaching clients and workshop participants who, in
our work together, have educated me about the addiction struggles that creators
deal with on a regular basis.
Last, three words to my wife, Ann Mathesius Maisel, as we pass the milestone of
our thirtieth anniversary: Thank you, love.
Susan Raeburn
My heartfelt thanks go first and foremost to Eric Maisel, my irrepressible friend
and colleague, for his generous invitation to collaborate on this book. Working
closely on the project deepened my long-standing experience of Eric as a smart,
authentic, funny, emotionally mature, and thoroughly delightful person. I know I
am not alone in considering him a force of nature. Thank you, Eric. Thanks to
Janet Rosen, our agent, and Jennifer Brown, our editor, for their belief in the
merit of our book and their perseverance in bringing it to life. Additional thanks,
Jennifer, for your patient stewardship and vision for Creative Recovery.
Many people have contributed to this book by teaching me about creativity,
courage, and the recovery process over the last twenty-five years. There is no
easy way to credit adequately all of the individuals involved. Most simply, I
want to express my thanks, admiration, and respect to my current and former
private-practice clients in Berkeley, my former Stanford University Behavioral
Medicine Clinic and Alcohol and Drug Treatment Center clients, and my past
and present Kaiser Permanente clients. I also want to acknowledge my
wonderful colleagues at Stanford University Medical Center during my tenure
there (1983–1992) and at the Kaiser Permanente Chemical Dependency Services
program in Walnut Creek, California, where I have worked since 1992.
Colleagues from other professional communities such as the Performing Arts
Medicine Association and the Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health
(SASH) have also enriched my practice.
Perhaps my greatest lessons about addiction, recovery, and creativity have
been from family members and friends. Some embraced recovery successfully
and some did not. I am grateful daily for my family and friends who are alive
and in recovery from their addictions. I remain sad every day for those I have
lost: Kim, Thomas, Matthew, Christopher. All have taught me about suffering,
compassion, and gratitude.
Thanks to my parents, Boyd Raeburn and Ginnie Powell, for sharing their
lived creativity and gorgeous music, and to my brother, Bruce Boyd Raeburn, for
companionship in the pursuit of integrating a love for music with academic
pursuits. Last but not least, I thank my multitalented husband, Bill Delaney, for
his kindness and helpfulness while I was working on this project and for being
my greatest teacher of all about recovery and healing through love.
Description:For writers, artists, musicians, and creators in every field, this book offers a complete addiction recovery program specifically designed for the creative person. Full of explanations and exercises, this book presents ways to use your own innate creative abilities in service of your recovery and at
