I've been writing non-fiction books for nearly 40 years. My first book, UNDER THE INFLUENCE: A GUIDE TO THE MYTHS AND REALITIES OF ALCOHOLISM (co-authored by James Milam, Ph.D.) was published in 1981; my new book, THE ONLY LIFE I COULD SAVE, will be published by Sounds True on April 1, 2018. My books, seventeen in all, have been published in sixteen foreign languages and have sold over 1.5 million copies.

In 2000 I began volunteering at the Juvenile Justice Center in Walla Walla, leading educational groups and working individually with adolescents in trouble with alcohol and other drugs. I've worked there ever since, as both a paid employee and volunteer, meeting with young people in detention and on probation, consulting with staff and administrators, and educating family members.

From October 2001 to October 2003 and October 2012-October 2013, I wrote a bi-monthly newspaper column for the Walla Walla Union Bulletin titled "Straight Talk About Drugs.”

In 2003, working with a group of committed parents, I started a parent support group at the Juvenile Justice Center in Walla Walla, which continues to this day. I am the founder and Executive Director of Trilogy Recovery Community, a grassroots, nonprofit organization in Walla Walla dedicated to developing and expanding community-based recovery support services for chemically dependent youth and their family members.

I grew up in New Jersey and graduated from the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York with a degree in psychology in 1971. I have lived and worked in Boston, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, San Francisco, Seattle, and Ohio. In 1984, I moved to Walla Walla, Washington with my husband, Patrick Spencer, a geology professor at Whitman College. We have three children -- Robyn, 35, a speech pathologist living in Portland, Oregon; Alison, 33, a special education teacher living in Seattle, Washington; and Benjamin, 31, writer/researcher who is currently finishing up his first novel.