Attaching a familiar face and name to an illness or cause can change attitudes and conduct. If their stories are candid and authentic and their messages are delivered with the intention to educate, prevent tragedy, and offer help and hope, famous people can produce what some researchers call "The Katie Couric Effect." Their stories and advice can positively affect health behavior.

This same phenomenon applies to celebrities who speak out about addiction. Through their compelling stories of abuse and recovery, we learn that there is hope and help in even the most dire of situations. "There is a 'lifeboat mentality' for many of us who came from the world of celebrity," said Gary Stromberg, coauthor of "The Harder They Fall: Celebrities Tell Their Real-Life Stories of Addiction and Recovery" (Hazelden, 2005). "We are people who survived our own Titanic."

In 1967, Stromberg co-founded one of the most successful public relations firms in the entertainment business, representing such superstars as the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, James Taylor, Elton John, and The Doors. His was an exciting world of non-stop parties and free-flowing alcohol and drugs that finally got the better of him. By 1980, he had lost his house and his career to the excesses of wild living and addiction. He said he had also written too many obituaries for clients who had died because of their own addictions.

Stromberg, who has been in recovery now for over 22 years, said he wanted to show--through the words of each musician, actor, athlete, writer and politician who tell their own stories--that you can have a meaningful and creative life without drugs and alcohol. "We all love stories of redemption. I want readers to know that recovery can and does work and that it does endure."

"From the minute I got sober, a friend who supported me would call me up and ask how I was treating the world today," writes songwriter Paul Williams, one of the contributors to "The Harder They Fall." His friend told him that if you monitor the way you treat the world, you can change every element of your life.

That is what another contributor, Chuck Negron, lead singer with the '70s rock band "Three Dog Night," also discovered. Negron was a multimillionaire by age 30. A few years later he was addicted to heroin and alcohol and living in a corrugated box in Los Angeles' skid row. "To be in recovery is to participate in a living miracle," said Negron, who helps others recover by performing at benefits to raise money for recovery and sober-living houses.

As the millions of people in recovery throughout the world can testify, telling your story of addiction and being of service to others can help you stay clean and sober. In recovery, people learn how to give unconditionally, not for some reward or praise, which can be a particular challenge to famous folks who are used to being in the spotlight. "In recovery you learn that 'you only get to keep it when you give it away.' Helping others was the great motivator for the contributors to this book," said Stromberg.

As actor, author and comedian Richard Lewis, puts it, "If I'm going to leave any kind of legacy, making people laugh is fine, but to help somebody get the darkness out of their eyes and to turn their life around, it's the most important aspect of life."

--Published May 2, 2005