Wisconsin Voices For Recovery

History

For almost 20 years, statewide and local Recovery Community Organizations (RCOs), representing people in recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction, their families, friends and allies, have formed around America to create a growing advocacy force and to support the creation of Recovery Support Services (RSS).

Under the guidance of Faces & Voices of Recovery, these RCOs have advocated for rights and resources for individuals in or seeking recovery and their family members. Over time, the stigma surrounding addiction and recovery has decreased and support for recovery has grown across the country, but more work still needs to be done!

Wisconsin Voices for Recovery is Wisconsin’s only statewide recovery network currently supported by the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Division of Care and Treatment Services. Wisconsin also has many growing Recovery Community Organizations, businesses, and other non-profit groups that are working to celebrate the strengths and address the needs of their communities.

The following timeline documents the rich advocacy history of people in recovery, family members, friends and allies. Highlighted are the key moments from the 1700s leading up to the present day.

WISCONSIN VOICES FOR RECOVERY

Wisconsin Voices For Recovery

History

The following timeline documents the rich advocacy history of people in recovery, family members, friends and allies. Highlighted are the key moments from the 1700s leading up to the present day.

The Recovery Advocacy Movement

1730s-1830s

Abstinence-based, Native American religious and cultural revitalization movements mark the first recovery focused advocacy efforts in North America.

1799

Prophet-led Recovery Movements: Handsome Lake (1799), Shawnee Prophet (Tenskwatawa, 1805), Kickapoo Prophet (Kennekuk, 1830s)

1840s

The Washingtonian movement marks the first Euro-American movement organized by and for those recovering from alcoholism—a movement that involved a public pledge of sobriety and public acknowledgement of one’s recovery status.

Conflict within Washingtonian societies rises over the question of legal prohibition of the sale of alcohol and the role of religion in recovery; recovering alcoholics go underground in following decades within fraternal temperance societies and ribbon reform clubs.

1845

Frederick Douglass acknowledges past intemperance, signs temperance pledge and becomes central figure in “Colored Temperance Movement”—framing sobriety as
essential for full achievement of citizenship.

1895

Keeley League members (patient alumni association of the Keeley Institutes—a national network of addiction cure institutes) march on the Pennsylvania capital in support of a Keeley Law that would provide state funds for people who could not afford the Keeley cure.

1906

Current and former patients of the Massachusetts Hospital for Dipsomaniacs and Inebriates organize and level charges of medical incompetence and patient abuse and
neglect against the institution.

1906-1940s

Recovering alcoholics champion “lay therapy” approach to alcoholism treatment, with some working in first interdisciplinary alcoholism treatment teams.