Rock to Recovery: Music as a Catalyst for Human Transformation

by Wes Geer, Constance Scharff

Overview

Tens of thousands of Americans die from substance abuse and suicide each year. Millions more suffer from mental health disorders. Rock to Recovery -- an innovative, therapeutic music program serving more than one hundred addiction treatment and mental health facilities in the USA -- steps into the breach to offer participants help and hope. By writing, playing, and recording music as a group, non-musicians are able to build a community of support, find enthusiasm for treatment, and realize that recovery is possible. Veterans, trauma survivors, and those struggling with substance abuse or mental health issues can recover with connection. This book contains eighteen stories of people who have used Rock to Recovery's music program to live a better life. You too can use music to heal. "Music Is the Medicine!"

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781735529967
Publisher:	Around The Way Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	07/30/2021
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	284
File size:	744 KB

About the Author

Wes Geer has been a professional musician for over twenty-five years. He first gained success as a founding member of Jive Records artists Hed PE and later as touring guitarist with the legendary band Korn. After completing his career as a touring musician, Wes founded Rock to Recovery, an innovative music program that harnesses the healing energy of music through songwriting, playing as a band, and recording.

Constance Scharff, PhD is an internationally recognized speaker and author on the topics of addiction recovery and mental health. She currently serves Rock to Recovery as VP Business Development. Previously, Dr. Scharff was Senior Addiction Research Fellow and Director of Addiction Research for a luxury addiction treatment center based in Malibu, California. She is the 2019 recipient of St. Lawrence University's Sol Feinstone Humanitarian Award, honoring her service to and advocacy for those suffering from mental illness, trauma, and addiction.

Editorial Reviews

2021-12-21
A guide explores music as a catalyst for improved mental health.

Geer and Scharff open their book on music and mental health with a flat affirmation of the potential connection between the two. “Music has the power to heal,” they assert. They break their work into large segments, with the central space going to a series of first-person accounts of players in various rock bands talking candidly about their histories with drugs and alcohol. Sonny Mayo, from the group Amen, relates: “The bands change, but my party situation was moving in one direction: down.” Brandon Jordan of KillRadio opens his account with “I am a second-generation LA native and a third-generation drug user.” The authors follow these confessionals with much more expositional “Science Column” sections on the scope of drug abuse in America according to several studies. The material is all contextualized and humanized by the authors, who point out that people who use drugs never suffer alone: They have friends, neighbors, relatives, and larger communities, all of whom are affected. But the tone always returns to the personal, with Rock to Recovery, the assistance program the authors administer, increasingly taking center stage as it helps more and more people in these pages. “Music alone can’t save us,” Scharff writes at one point. “It’s connection that brings us through,” and this sentiment governs the entire book. The engrossing volume produces one account after another of darkness and doom but always attempts to balance that solemnity with the kind of optimism that also infuses Rock to Recovery. According to the manual, this program gives many of its adherents “a sense of accomplishment and pride in a job well done.” The authors spend more time asserting that music is therapeutic than demonstrating that claim, but their encouragements come through loud and clear.

A thought-provoking, if narrowly focused, collection of testimonials to the healing power of music.

Kirkus Reviews