Video: William White on the lessons learned from history

Footnotes

1) Book: Slaying the Dragon: The History of Addiction Treatment and Recovery in America [William White 1998]

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

…A good history makes us humble by showing us how little there is in our strivings that is genuinely new. White’s is a good history. The concept of alcoholism as a disease, which some people claim is as modern as Saran Wrap, was already articulated by Benjamin Rush, the Surgeon General of George Washington’s revolutionary armies, in a pamphlet dated 1784. Rush was also one of the first to prescribe total abstinence from spirits as the sole remedy: "taste not, handle not, touch not." He saw treatment of drunkenness as a political issue: "A nation corrupted by alcohol can never be free." He had a very modern multi-factorial view of alcoholism’s causes and he articulated a multiple-pathway model of recovery. Although some of his measures were archaic by current standards — massive doses of medicine and copious bleeding — he was a hugely insightful and modern figure.

‘Unhooked’ Review

William White 1998 Chestnut Health Systems

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William White on the lessons learned from history