Executive Corner
July 13, 2017
The Executive Corner is a new weekly feature of the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin. We send our participants forty questions and ask them to choose twenty they would like to answer. It includes a short profile and a link to their website. We hope you enjoy it.
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PROFILE
David Lisonbee is President and Chief Executive Officer of Twin Town Treatment Centers, which operates a network of six Los Angeles and Orange County outpatient addiction treatment programs. Possessing over thirty years of behavioral health management and executive experience, Mr. Lisonbee oversees corporate governance, development, finance, compliance, quality management and clinical service. Prior to operating Twin Town Treatment Centers, Mr. Lisonbee developed and operated psychiatric hospitals and outpatient psychiatric programs. Having both personal and professional investment in addiction recovery, Mr. Lisonbee believes that the profession of addiction treatment is best served by scientific research, empirical and experiential insights into the disease, combined with personal and social commitments and ethics.
David Lisonbee
President, CEO Twin Town Treatment Centers
Learn more about Twin Town Treatment Centers at
TwinTownTreatmentCenters.com
1. If you are in recovery, what was your DOC and when did you discontinue its use?
YES, I’m grateful to have twenty-two years of continuous sobriety from all drugs and alcohol come July 25th. My drug of choice ended up being vodka, simply because it allowed me to postpone my inevitable recovery date of July 25, 1995.
2. At which of the schools you attended did you learn the most?
Ellis Elementary school taught me practical problem-solving, common sense and how to behave around others. Utah State University taught me to further love music, horticulture, anthropology and psychology. I also learned how to party with others. The rooms of recovery taught me how to be authentic, compassionate and free.
3. Do you believe leaders are made or born?
I think that ingredients of leadership may be both native and developed in preverbal childhood. An instinct to forge ahead surviving the fittest also helps.
4. Which film have you watched the most?
“Brazil”
5. Who is your favorite celebrity in recovery?
I personally don’t believe that recovery blends well with celebrity… “principals over personalities” and all that wise stuff…
6. If you ever retire, would you prefer to live by the ocean, lake, river, or mountaintop, or penthouse?
I was born on a dairy farm in the Rocky Mountains. The mountains without cows seems to be right for my later years.
7. What is your favorite hotel or resort?
I prefer natural sites rather than man-made places though I did love the Ngorongoro Farm House.
8. Where did you go on your honeymoon?
My husband and I went to the West Hollywood park to marry en masse the first legal opportunity provided. We honey moon at home in West Hollywood.
9. What is your biggest or littlest pet peeve?
Hypocrisy annoys me as does arrogance… Some may see me as arrogant but they are of course wrong.
10. How do you measure success?
Success in business is being able to serve as many people as possible. Personal success is the capacity to be of service.
11. If you had an extra million dollars, which charity would you donate it to?
The World Wildlife Fund
12. Who was your biggest influence throughout your life?
My father who I disliked most of my life gave me those ideals and characteristics I most value in myself today. I grew to admire him late in life, after his passing.
13. What is your current hobby?
Gardening, painting, mosaic and hiking
14. What prominent fe/male figure would you most like to date?
I’m married and have no interest in dating.
15. If you were giving a dinner party for your 3 favorite authors, Living or dead, who would they be? (you can choose 4 if you think one might be too drunk or stoned to attend.)
Tom Robbins, Kurt Vonnegut, and Richard Brautigan.
16. Radio show, news show:
Since November 2017 I only listen to BBC World Service. Everything else stimulates resentment.
17. TV/cable/digital series?
I don’t watch television.
18. Director:
David Lynch
19. Non-fiction book genre?
Evolutionary biology and anthropology
20. Museum?
LACMA
21. Band/composer/musical artist?
Gustav Mahler and Johann Sebastian Bach
22. Favorite Broadway musical/play?
Sweeny Todd
23. Psychology or school of thought as related to psychology?
Mindfulness/ Vipassana Meditation
24. Sport to watch? To play?
Hiking
25. Snack?
Nuts
26. Cuisine?
Israeli Grill
27. Restaurant?
El Gran Burrito, Hollywood
28. Favorite City?
San Francisco
29. Have you ever been arrested and, if so, what for? Time?
Overnight for disturbing the peace in 1985
30. Do you have any children? Grandchildren?
My husband and I co-parent five-year-old Mia with her two Israeli mothers in Holon Israel. Mia is Tiran’s biological daughter.
31. Do you think the U.S. should adopt the Portuguese Decriminalization Model?
No. I personally believe that consequences have drastically decreased to the extent that sometimes only death lies at the bottom…
32. Do you prefer John Grisham, Patricia Cornwell, Lawrence Block, James Patterson, Scott Turow, Walter Mosley, Stephen King, or Patricia Highsmith?
No preference
33. Do you take work home with you?
Yes- we own the stock in the company
34. What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
“Take the next indicated step and stay out of the results.”
35. Do you think addiction is an illness, a disease, a choice, or a wicked twist of fate?
Addiction has elements of all four with an additional recognition that linguistics and politics sometimes create differences that don’t exist in reality.
36. What are five things you always carry with you?
My sense of self, the need for surrender, a desire for serenity and joy, a sense of humor, and an appreciation for irony.
37. PC or Mac? Why?
PC because I hate change.
38. What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?
Leaving home in Logan Utah when I was nineteen to come out in Austin Texas.
39. What game do you like to play in a casino?
I dislike gambling and casino’s and usually go for a hike while my husband gambles.
40. What is the proudest moment in your life?
When I took my first sobriety cake from my husband and mother at the Log Cabin.
