Dr. Marc Galanter is director of the division of alcoholism and drug abuse in the department of psychiatry and a professor at the New York University School of Medicine. His books, Spirituality and the Healthy Mind: Science, Therapy and the Need for Personal Meaning (Oxford University Press, 2005) and Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion (Oxford University Press, 1999), deal […]

Alexandre Laudet is a social psychologist and the director of the Center for the Study of Addictions and Recovery at the New York City-based National Development and Research Institutes. NDRI, a nongovernmental research agency, works to advance scientific knowledge of substance abuse, mental health, HIV/AIDS and related social and health concerns in order to contribute […]

Christopher D. Ringwald was a journalist in Albany, N.Y., and the author of The Soul of Recovery: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension in the Treatment of Addictions (Oxford University Press, 2002). Ringwald studied and wrote about how the use of spirituality within a wide range of treatment options works. He also examined the controversies surrounding the faith-based treatment […]

Kevin Chen is a professor of addiction psychiatry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Piscataway, N.J. Dr. Chen additionally studies adolescent substance abuse and conducts studies investigating the feasibility and efficacy of Chinese energy therapy and meditation as a treatment.

Gerard Connors is director of the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has studied Alcoholics Anonymous participation, spirituality and alcohol outcomes.

Margaret Ensminger is a professor and associate chairwoman of the department of health, behavior and society at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. She has studied inner-city youths and families and has done research on the effect of family religiosity on young adults’ alcohol use.

Greesh C. Sharma of Morrisville, Pa., has been a practicing psychologist for 30 years. He works at the Institute of Behavior Modification. Sharma, who was born in India, has written for Hinduism Today magazine on psychotherapy, addictions and Hinduism.

Kevin Griffin is a meditation teacher in the San Francisco Bay area and former addict who uses meditation, the 12 steps and Buddhist precepts of free will and mindfulness to help addicts recover. He is also one of the founders of the Buddhist Recovery Network.He is the author of One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve […]

G. Alan Marlatt was a professor of psychology and director of the Addictive Behaviors Research Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. His major focus was in both research and clinical work is addictive behaviors; he conducted research on Buddhist meditation as a treatment for substance abuse in and out of prisons and wrote […]