After succumbing to the throes of addiction, therapist Michael Pond recounts the spiral up to sobriety in his new memoir, written with his partner the filmmaker Maureen Palmer: The Couch of Willingness: An Alcoholic Therapist Battles the Bottle and a Broken Recovery System (Everywhere Now, 2014). They both join Joseph Planta to discuss the book and more.

View the book trailer for The Couch of Willingness: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E3LD_5AVeg

The Couch of Willingness: An Alcoholic Therapist Battles the Bottle and a Broken Recovery System by Michael Pond and Maureen Palmer (Everywhere Now, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Couch of Willingness

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver, at TheCommentary.ca.

One of the more compelling books of the year is The Couch of Willingness: An Alcoholic Therapist Battles the Bottle and a Broken Recovery System. It’s an often harrowing book, but it’s also honest, sometimes humorous, and always informative. Michael Pond had spent twenty years helping clients deal with their addictions, as a successful therapist. He loses his practice, his family, his home and ends up in need of help from our system, one he soon realises that needs work. In this book, Mike Pond and Maureen Palmer, write about Mike’s struggle, his recovery, and some prescriptions to our broken system. I’ll ask Mike and Maureen, who join me now, about what they view as possible cures to a system that could help a lot more people. I’ll get Mike to tell us his story, and I’ll get Maureen to tell us about how she came into his life, and how they’ve now brought us this book that’s hard to put down. Mike Pond pursued psychiatric nursing, before receiving a degree in social work from UBC in 1995. He worked in the public sector, before he began a successful practice in Penticton. Maureen Palmer is a principal at Bountiful Films, with Helen Slinger, and the company has produced many critically-acclaimed and popular documentaries. She was a senior producer at the CBC, until leaving it in 2000 to produce programming for TLC and Discovery. She and Mike live in North Vancouver, where they join me from this morning. This book is published by Everywhere Now. Go to www.michaelpond.ca for more information. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Mike Pond and Maureen Palmer; Ms. Palmer, good morning. And Mr. Pond, good morning.

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