Reality, Recovery, TV—The Truth Behind The Media Show
Released
on: April 4, 2008, 6:04 pm
Press
Release Author: Arbor Books
Industry:
Entertainment
Press
Release Summary: REALITY, RECOVERY, TV—THE TRUTH BEHIND
THE MEDIA SHOW
Press
Release Body: For celebrities today, drug and alcohol addictions
are par for the course, and going to rehab is a calculated career
move. But for the millions of regular Americans who enter detox
programs every year, recovery—and the things they did to
get there—is not quite so glamorous.
Stephen
Della Valle, president of the board Turning Point, rehabilitation
center in Verona, New Jersey, is concerned that the media has
underplayed an issue that is becoming a nationwide epidemic. According
to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency
(NCADD), alcohol and drug problems cost our nation $200
billion annually.
“The
media has turned celebrity alcohol and drug problems into entertainment
and a spectacle rather than focus on the life and death aspects
of this serious disease,” says Stephen. “Just
look at what happened to Anna Nicole Smith and her son, and Kevin
Dubrow from Twisted Sister, and countless others.”
Stephen
is one of the lucky ones. After twenty-plus years of drug use
and alcoholism, he finally made his way into a recovery program
that succeeded in helping him overcome his addiction issues—but
it took losing his job, his family and himself to get him there.
“Everyone
has their ‘bottom’,” says Stephen who is
the author of Rising Above the Influence, “their own
point where they look at their life and think, Things just can’t
get any worse. It took me almost two decades to get to that point
and seek help.”
A
divorce, alienation from his children, constant problems with
the law and even a prison term didn’t deter Della Valle
from habitually abusing drugs and alcohol.
In
Rising Above the Influence, he candidly recounts his
difficult childhood in a family ravaged by illness and a city
plagued by racial violence; his indoctrination into the world
of substance abuse as a young teenager; and the desperate, sometimes
morbidly comical situations he endured to support his heavy addictions
to heroin, prescription drugs, cocaine and alcohol.
From
botched robberies to corporate embezzlement, there wasn’t
much he wouldn’t do to keep his partying lifestyle afloat.
“I
did a lot of things I’m not proud of,” says Stephen.
“There is nothing cool or admirable about being an addict,
no matter how much the media tries to make it look that way.”
Rising
Above the Influence is his honest and inspiring account
of the depths one man can fall to—and the heights he can
achieve if only he reaches out a hand for help.
(Rising
Above the Influence by Stephen Della Valle; ISBN: 0-9801776-0-X;
$21.95; paperback; 5½ x 8½; 221 pages; OAK RIDGE
PRESS)
Web
Site: http://www.risingabovetheinfluence.net
Contact
Details: Olga Vladi
Marketing Director
Arbor Books, Inc. (ABI)
244 Madison Avenue, #254
New York, NY 10016-2819
877-822-2500
www.arborbooks.com
info@arborbooks.com
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