Adding Fire to the Fuel: Challenging Shame and the Stigma of Alcoholism

＂You always add fuel to a fire, not the other way around. Adding fire to the fuel will test your firefighter merit badge skills ... IF it doesn’t kill you. A forest floor coated in pine needles is fuel. Add fire to that fuel, you’ve got some explaining to do. You take a match to a can of gasoline and it’s going to blow. You’ll still get a wicked fireball if you add that volatile fuel to a fire, but you’re probably going to live. When stigma, aka: shame (fire) is added to the raw fuel of an alcoholic body and mind, one can reasonably expect a fireball proportional to that alcoholic’s capacity for handling fire. It’s an unrealistic expectation that society is going to stop the stigma and shaming overnight. Or in a generation. Maybe this book can be a fire extinguisher for public use - to further the dialogue - and for personal use for those like me with the disease of alcoholism. And their families.＂

Journalist Scott Stevens is a USA Best Books finalist and Indie Book Awards non-fiction finalist. He blends blunt wit with evidence-based research in his three intensely personal and readable alcoholism books. His own, startling story - from secretly downing two liters of whiskey a day to sobriety, relapse, and back to sobriety - brings authenticity to his writing. The former financial executive frequently is sought out as a media guest for his plain-English descriptions and memorable insights. He speaks on alcoholism and alcohol’s other health consequences at events around the country, including the Reel Recovery Film Festival. Stevens’ alcohol and health segment, ＂The Sobriety:60+,＂ is the centerpiece of the Alcohology app for Android devices. Stevens holds a Master’s degree in Public Affairs Journalism from the University of Illinois.