Register and submit questions for the author.
\nJoin u s online for a special conversation between award-winning journalist Shosh ana Walter and bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver as they chat about Wa lter&rsquo\;s book "Rehab: An American Scandal." In this work\, Walter\, a Pulitze r Prize finalist\, exposes the country&rsquo\;s failed response to the opi oid crisis and the malfeasance\, corruption and snake oil which blight the drug rehabilitation industry.
\nToday\, more people have access to treatment than ever before\, but only certain people get a real chance to recover. Despite record numbers of overdose deaths in the United States\, the default response is still to punish\, while rehabs across the country fail to incorporate scientifically proven strategies and exploit patients.
\nIn this book\, you&rsquo\;ll find the stories of four people who represent the failures of the rehab-industrial complex\, and the ways our treatment system often prevents recovery. April is a Black mom in Philadel phia\, who witnessed firsthand how the government&rsquo\;s punitive respon se to the crack epidemic impeded her mother&rsquo\;s recovery and then her own. Chris\, a young middle-class white man from Louisiana\, received mor e opportunities in his addiction than April\, including the chance to go t o treatment instead of prison. Yet the only program the judge permitted wa s one that forced him to perform unpaid back-breaking labor at for-profit companies. Wendy is a mother from a wealthy suburb of Los Angeles\, whose son died in a sober living home. She began investigating for-profit treatm ent programs\, but law enforcement and regulators routinely ignored her wa rnings\, allowing rehab patients to die\, again and again. Larry is a surg eon who himself struggled with addiction\, and would eventually become one of the first Suboxone prescribers in the nation\, drawing the scrutiny of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
\nRegister to participate in t his urgent conversation on how we might fix the system to save lives.
\ nAdults. \;Regi ster to receive a link \;for viewing this online event.
\nAbout the Author: \;Shoshana Walter is a reporter for t
he Marshall Project covering the criminal justice system. Her reporting ha
s been honored as a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and Selden Ring\, and
she has won the Knight Award for Public Service\, the Edward R. Murrow Awa
rd and the Livingston Award for Young Journalists. She started her work on
the treatment system at The Center for Investigative Reporting\, where he
r work appeared in The New York Times Magazine\, in newspapers\, and on NP
R stations across the country. She is based in Oakland\, California.
About the Guest Host: \;Barbara Ellen Kingsolver i s a Pulitzer Prize-winning American novelist\, essayist and poet. Her wide ly known works include "The Poisonwood Bible\," the tale of a missionary f amily in the Congo\, and "Animal\, Vegetable\, Miracle\," a nonfiction acc ount of her family's attempts to eat locally. In 2023\, she was awarded th e Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for the novel "Demon Copperhead." Her work of ten focuses on topics such as social justice\, biodiversity and the intera ction between humans and their communities and environments.
\nThis event is part of \;DBRL's \;On line Author Series\, supported by David Lile honorarium funds. A recor ding will also be available for later viewing on the \;author series site.
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