It's the first meditation book written expressly for recovering women. It helped fortify the first woman to walk to the North Pole. It was the first Hazelden meditation book to feature illustrations and a four-color cover. And it's celebrating 25 years of bringing strength and support to more than three million readers. The book - Each Day a New Beginning by Karen Casey.

While many daily meditation books have been modeled after Each Day, no author can match Casey's reassuring guidance and gentle wisdom for lifelong recovery. Ironically, this meditation classic was never intended for publication. And it almost didn't get published.

Karen Casey explains, "I was journaling for myself because I was struggling in my recovery with my spiritual program. For me, the exercise I performed every day was to sit down and journal as a way to make contact with my Higher Power. It was that entire process that became this book."

Meditations, one for each day of the year, speak to the common experiences, shared struggles, and unique strengths of women, especially those seeking support and spiritual growth in recovery. Each day's message begins with a quotation from such exceptional women as Agatha Christie, Helen Keller, Amelia Earhart, and many more. Each day's thought ends with an affirmation, marshaling the feminine courage and spirit, wisdom and wit.

'An unbelievably tough sell'
The year 1982 wasn't so long ago and was at least a decade after the women's liberation movement. Still, women in recovery represented a largely undiscovered audience, even at Hazelden. "It was an unbelievably tough sell for the editorial department to get the book published. People felt that Twenty-Four Hours a Day was enough," says Linda H. Peterson, Hazelden managing editor in 1982 and current Webmaster.

Karen Casey Elliott was hired in 1979 as Hazelden's head of marketing, and was later named publisher. Even still, Peterson recalls, publishing Each Day "was not a slam dunk." Manuscripts were normally reviewed by 10 or so individuals before they were published, Peterson says. During the year-long process it took the manuscript to make the rounds, Each Day was required to pass three times the normal amount of reviews.

One of Peterson's most prized possessions is a first edition of Each Day with the following inscription by Casey:

"Dear Linda, Your support throughout this project gave me hope, even
when it looked bleak. Thanks for being in my life. Love, Karen."

Another champion of the book was Harry Swift, who was Hazelden administrator and chief operating officer in 1982. "Each Day wouldn't have happened without Harry Swift," Casey explains. "He had the final authority. We all owe him a lot of gratitude for standing behind the book.

"In a way, Harry was a son of Pat Butler's," continues Casey, referring to Hazelden's first president. "They had this wonderful symbiotic relationship. Pat Butler was always extremely supportive of the things I wrote. Keepers of the Wisdom was dedicated to Pat, because without Pat there wouldn't have been a Hazelden."

About Each Day, Swift says, "It was a good book, fairly simple. Hazelden had a long interest in women and treatment programs for women. We didn't have much in the way of printed material. So it was very timely. I think Karen gives me too much credit."

Making it happen
With the decision to publish Each Day, the seven Hazelden employees who officed in the old Center City farmhouse set to work. "This was 1982, before we had computers," Peterson points out. "We retyped and retyped and retyped."

Dave Spohn, Hazelden art director, recalls, "Before Each Day, Hazelden had never done a book cover with four-color cover art. The Reflecting Pond was two colors--and that was extravagant."

Spohn's black-and-white pen-and-ink drawings for Each Day, the first meditation book to feature illustrations, were simple and pastoral. "Karen's words, the nature and intent of the book, and the way the book fit into the growing spirit of Hazelden, all played a part in inspiring me," Spohn says. "So much of the healing power of this place was, and still is, centered in the natural beauty of the land. I wanted to reflect that in the art."

Sold out in two weeks
A first print run for an expected best-seller in 1982 might have been 5,000.

Regarding the first print run of Each Day, Casey says, "They published 10,000 copies and figured, 'Well, this will last us forever.'"

Each Day was published too late to appear in Hazelden's 1982 catalog, so the publishing staff instead advertised the book, priced at $5.95, on 8 1/2 x 11" flyers mailed to Hazelden customers. No one, including Casey, could have expected what happened next. All 10,000 copies sold out within two weeks--even before the books had arrived at Hazelden's warehouse.

Then the letters came from readers--readers who said in numerous ways, "When I read this page, I felt you were speaking directly to me." They include:

"After 12 years of recovery, I'm on my second set of Twenty-Four Hours, Each Day, and The Promise of a New Day books. Wore the first ones out!"

"Your generosity and caring has been such a light for me."

Casey was moved to handwrite a note of thanks to each woman who had written her. She invited each reader to share a meditation that helped her manage day-to-day living. These ideas were used in Casey's next meditation book for women, A Woman's Spirit. She explains, "I feel like one of the things that's important in recovery, as well as in life, is honoring one another. Anytime we have an opportunity to pay homage to those around us by being attentive, it is so healing."

During the first year Hazelden sold 250,000 copies of Each Day. Pages of the book even found their way to the top of the world with explorer Ann Bancroft, a member of the 1986 Steger International Polar Expedition and the first woman to walk to the North Pole.

Bancroft's mother had introduced the book to her three daughters. Each Day helped Bancroft prepare emotionally as well as spiritually for the grueling 55-day Steger expedition. Personal belongings were strictly limited on the journey, so Bancroft had to guess how many days she'd be gone and took only the pages for those days. Bancroft, her mother, and sisters agreed to read an Each Day meditation daily to keep connected. It wasn't long before other expedition members asked Bancroft to read her pages to them.

"With four people in a tiny little tent, it's hard to escape anything anyone does," Bancroft said. "They became curious about the pages, which I kept in my journal. No one had reading materials, and there was a hunger for something to read."

At times, the connection between the book's daily thought and Bancroft's daily experience was uncanny. On April 14 the ice underneath Bancroft gave way, plunging her into the Arctic Ocean--survival time being mere minutes. The Each Day quote for April 14: "Only those who dare, truly live."

Going forward
As of this year, Each Day has sold over three million copies, has been translated into over 12 languages, and has been published in an interactive journal edition. Casey has gone on to write numerous books in addition to Each Day, including 14 others published by Hazelden and three with other publishers.

With this year's opening of Hazelden's Women's Recovery Center in Center City, the anniversary of Each Day takes on even greater importance. The Women's Center, a response to the increased demand for women's treatment services, and Each Day demonstrate Hazelden's commitment to recovering women. To celebrate Each Day anniversary, a special limited 25th anniversary edition of the book has been printed with the original green cover.

Twenty-five years and more than three million copies later, what became known as the "little green book" continues to sustain longtime and new readers alike. Says Casey about her book's success, "No one could have been more surprised than me"

To receive a limited 25th-anniversary edition of Each Day . . .
A special 25th-anniversary edition of Each Day a New Beginning features the original green cover--the cover that helped create its informal title of "the little green book." It also includes the original text and a new introduction by Karen Casey. The book is available in our online bookstore, or call 1-800-328-9000.

--by Susan Maricle

Published in The Voice, Summer 2006