My charcoal drawing “Drowning” has been selected to appear in a forthcoming book on art and addiction to be published by the Johns Hopkins University Press, in association with the Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Program (http://www.innovatorsawards.org/). The Innovators Program, supported by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, is a national program based in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. Receiving over 900 art submissions on the theme of addiction and recovery from artists in 42 states and 14 foreign countries, the Addiction Art Advisory Board had the task of selecting approximately sixty submissions for their book and exhibitions in Rockville, Maryland (May 2008) and San Juan, Puerto Rico (June 2008). The exhibition in Puerto Rico coincides with the Annual meeting of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence June 14-19, 2008.

The purpose of the proposed book (scheduled for publication mid-2009, titled “Art & Addiction: Placing a Human Face on Addiction and Recovery”) is to provide a stimulus to change the way America views addiction by using the visual arts to put a human face on addiction and recovery. Creativity and artistic expression play a significant role both in recovery and in raising awareness of the personal toll caused by substance abuse and addiction. The proposed book on addiction art is intended to complement and serve as the companion volume to the editors’ book on addiction science, “Addiction Treatment: Science and Policy for the Twenty-First Century” (JE Henningfield, PB Santora, WK Bickel (eds), Johns Hopkins Press, October 2007).