Leonard Buschel, Editor/Publisher: Addiction/Recovery eBulletin 

Guest speaker
Chasing The News … Stone Cold Sober
August 26, 2020 

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In 2008 Leonard Lee Buschel co-founded, with Robert Downey, Sr., Writers In Treatment to help people in the writing industry suffering from addiction and alcoholism receive support and treatment. Today Writers In Treatment produces events that ‘support recovery and the arts’.  Two such events are the Experience Strength and Hope Awards and the Virtual REEL Recovery Film Festival.

The Experience Strength and Hope Awards in its 12^th year takes place in March at the Skirball Cultural Center and Museum in Los Angeles. The event gives an award to a sober celebrity who has written a memoir about their life including their journey from the pains of addiction to the hope and healing of recovery. 

Honorees have included Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Oscar winner Lou Gossett, Jr., Christopher Kennedy Lawford, John Taylor of Duran Duran, famed sports announcer Pat O’Brien, Emmy winner Joey Pantoliano, actress and advocate Mackenzie Phillips, CNN host Jane Velez-Mitchell and actor Jodie Sweetin.

As a self-professed film junkie Buschel sensed a need within himself and other sober people to have a safe and supportive place to watch alcohol and drug themed films; thus began the REEL Recovery Film Festival & Symposium. 7-days long in Los Angeles and New York, it is the longest recovery event in the country. 

In 2013 Buschel’s obsession with the news lead him to create the Addiction/Recovery eBulletin, a weekly online news bulletin dedicated to delivering the most up-to-date stories and information to the treatment industry and recovery community.

Buschel grew up in the Logan community of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He attended Philadelphia Community College and the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. He received a substance-abuse counseling certificate from Los Angeles City College in 2005.  He now lives happily overlooking the Los Angeles River in Studio City with his dog, Lola.  Leonard has two sons, Ben (pictured) and Josh.

Buschel is a former drug dealer who has of 25 + years clean and sober time from drugs and alcohol. Buschel is a 1994 alumnus of the Betty Ford Center.^[13]

His memoir, “Betty Ford Died Sober, I Should Be So Lucky,” is due out next year.

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