By David Palmer

When “Stroker” Wiggs, the “Bandido” bike rider who became a Christian minister, died in January in Little Rock, Neal Benschoff lost a dear friend and role model. Benschoff, also a former member of an outlaw biker group that terrorized the countryside was, like “Stroker,” a Vietnam War veteran.

Thanks to inpatient care at Fort Roots, a Veterans Administration (VA) facility, and regular attendance at 12-Step meetings, Benschoff has been clean and sober for 12 years now. He is also being treated at the VA for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Top executives share their stories of addiction and recovery

By Gary Stromberg and Jane Merrill
McGraw Hill, $15.95

Review by David Palmer

During the sixties and seventies Gary Stromberg, a brash Los Angeles press agent and movie producer, toured the world with the likes of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, the Doors, Three Dog Night and others and shared their appetite for women and dope — mostly heroin, cocaine, pot, and alcohol.

By David Palmer

At Our House, it’s the children who get people choked up. It’s the baby blissfully being rocked or a little girl, with tongue stuck out, concentrating on putting a puzzle together with a gentle prompt from a volunteer.

Most of these children have been neglected and some abused, but today they are safe with a staff member or with a supervised parent who is trying to get well and learn how to be responsible.

Our House, which has space for 110 people, offers separate housing for homeless men and women as well as units where families can stay together for up to two years. Adults are required to have permanent, full-time jobs and are expected to save 75 percent of their earnings.

It is a place where homeless families and individuals can come and build a new life by dealing with their mental health issues, addiction problems or the other challenges that led them into homelessness. It’s a place where they learn how to live in the real world. When they leave, most will have a plan for dealing with emotional and substance abuse problems, a strategy for living and a bank account.

The Biography of the cofounder of Al-Anon

By William G. Borchert

Review by David Palmer

Picture if you will, eight women parked in front of the Clinton Street Brooklyn home of Bill and Lois Wilson. Their motors are running and they are steamed.

On this night in 1938, their husbands, most of them newly sober, are attending a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous with the organization’s co-founder, Bill Wilson. What ticks the ladies off is that their husbands have replaced drinking with meetings, leaving them once again alone and unloved.