The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis

n The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis, more than a dozen “recovering politicians” share their twelve step program on how to survive crises – from highly publicized and politicized scandals, to smaller, more intimate interpersonal struggles. They outline deliberate, focused and vigorous courses of action and reaction, gleaned from their own experiences – often dramatic, sometimes painful – under the piercing lights of the political arena. Crisis management, of course, has captured the zeitgiest: Scandal’s Olivia Pope and The Good Wife’s Eli Gold have brought the crisis manager to the mainstream; PR firms are racing to rebrand themselves as crisis advisers; and it seems like every Clinton and Bush era senior official is offering his or her wares or writing a book on the subject. Moreover, many of the most widely-read news stories of the past few decades have involved politicians, athletes, and celebrities struggling through crises that involve sex, lies, audiotape, drugs, criminal activity, and/or unethical behavior. Just recently, consider the cases of Lance Armstrong, Manti Te’o, Anthony Weiner, Mark Sanford, David Petraeus, Jesse Jackson, Jr., Penn State football, even Beyonce’s lip synching at the presidential inauguration. Most Americans probably view scandal through the prism of ideology, partisanship, or even conspiracy. At the heart, however, are flawed human beings making mistakes, acting emotionally, and desperately trying to preserve their reputations and careers. In The Recovering Politician’s Twelve Step Program to Survive Crisis, a diverse, bi-partisan collection of former politicians, draw lessons from their own scandals – ranging from allegations of ethical and sexual impropriety, to suffering through alcoholism and depression, to being censured and forced out of office, to serving time in federal prison – and share their guidance on how everyday readers can transcend crisis, recover, and launch their own second acts.