Dreams we have at night are endlessly entertaining, even when mundane. And one of the most bizarre aspects of dreams is location. Especially the recurring locations we go to time and time again. Some people’s minds create hybrid locations of places they’ve seen in movies and social media. Others might dream of their workplace, while others dream of their childhood homes, old middle schools, or elsewhere.
In my dreams, I often visit the neighborhood library I went to between the ages of two and 12 in Maryland. For good reason—I spent a lot of time reading books like “Amelia Bedelia” and “The Magic Treehouse” series there. With the exception of the life-size stuffed gorilla that sat in the children’s section, the library felt like a safe, reliable place to learn new things. It was here that I discovered that books are a portal to learning and fun. And to change. You’re never the exact same after reading a book.
Library staff worldwide can attest that as people progress through life, experiencing all of its inherent ups and downs, what they need from libraries changes and evolves with them. Through the most joyous of milestones and the most difficult rock bottoms.
One day, a librarian in San Francisco, California noticed something and turned it into a program that’s helped countless people across the city.
The city of San Francisco is experiencing a drug overdose crisis. In 2023, the city reported 810 unintentional overdose deaths. In 2022, that number was 649.
Deaths due to fentanyl and methamphetamine are driving the numbers. And the COVID-19 pandemic only exacerbated the problem.
There has been some progress. Although a full analysis is needed, available data shows that this year, overdose deaths decreased in the city, a 20% decrease in the first nine months of 2024. Interventions such as the increased use of Narcan (Naloxone), a drug that can treat narcotic overdoses in emergency situation, is one of many reasons why. Even still, issues of drug addiction are a pressing concern.
Doreen Horstin is the manager and children’s librarian of the Park Branch library in San Francisco. She says that several book genres go missing regularly—people forget to return them, people move cities and books get lost in the shuffle, people outright take them for keeps, and more. This is not new or notable. “ There are certain things that are always being reordered, like Bibles, astrology books…”, she says. But in 2021, she noticed that books about addiction and recovery were disappearing more than ever.
Horstin has worked at this library since 2006 and has witnessed the city’s ongoing drug and addiction crisis throughout the years. She wanted to do something to help, something tangible, but didn’t know how her role could be a part of it. “ I don’t work for the Department of Public Health. I’m not in a role where I’m creating public policy. I’m not part of the local government. I’m a librarian.”
But she knew that the library is an institution that still directly meets the needs of the public in deeply personal ways. Because of this, Horstin realized she had an opportunity.
The idea solidified after Horstin had one particular interaction with a woman, shortly after the library reopened following COVID-19 lockdowns. “ A woman came in and asked for the Narcotics Anonymous textbook. One copy was not on the shelf. [And] what was supposed to be another copy was reference-use only. And I felt kind of bad for her.” The woman came back the next day to see if the book had returned. It hadn’t.
“ I just felt really bad because I feel like people who want that kind of material, we should be able to get it for them right away.”
Books can be an initial step to getting help, and increased access to addiction and recovery texts in libraries helps people in need overcome financial barriers, Horstin says. “These books can cost between 12 and 20 [dollars] each..that could be a barrier.” Not everyone has the disposable income to afford such books on their own.
Reading books about addiction and recovery can be a catalyst to help people seek the support of family and friends and ultimately, seek more formal treatment and help. Why? Because books can be a private, low-barrier entry point for people who are still dealing with the social stigma around addiction and addiction recovery.
Drug addiction and substance abuse disorder are some of the most stigmatized medical conditions, in part because so many people believe that they are not medical conditions at all, but instead completely due to moral failure.
And even though addiction is often treatable, many people who need help hesitate to tell family and friends that they are struggling, for fear of isolation and judgement. Additionally, people who live with addiction also face high rates of discrimination in the workplace, in academic environments, in housing, and beyond.
Once this stigma becomes internalized, it may be difficult to take a public action like going to an Alcoholic Anonymous meeting, for example, or even asking a loved one for help.
Books can be a private refuge where people can find empathy, see their experiences reflected back to them, and learn about the options for getting help. And a place like a public library makes such a refuge even more accessible.
Horstin approached the City Librarian, Michael Lambert, about what could be done. At first, she pitched the idea to approach their book vendors and replenish a lot of the recovery materials in their collection so that at any given time, there were more copies of each book available. This was approved, Horstin put it into action, and the Read to Recovery program was born.
In addition to ordering more recovery texts, Horstin and her team ordered complimentary books, such as those about healing, trauma, codependency, and more.
Horstin ordered more books, not only in English but also in Spanish (through a partnership with the San Francisco Library’s International Center, which helps provide library patrons with materials and resources they need in languages other than English). The collection of addiction and recovery materials continued to grow.
In 2022, Matt Dorsey, Supervisor of District 6 of San Francisco , asked 20 different city governments for ideas for a new, city-wide legislation on drug addiction and recovery called San Francisco Recovers.
City libraries were not initially asked to contribute. Horstin read the plan herself and wondered why. So she decided to approach Supervisor Dorsey herself.
Supervisor Dorsey was impressed with her initiative, “To me, it speaks volumes about the library. They spoke up and said, ‘what about us?’”. But he wasn’t surprised they spoke up, he’s used to how innovation works in cities. Supervisor Matt Dorsey has worked for the City of San Francisco for well over a decade, previously serving in the San Francisco City’s Attorney’s Office. “Most of the good ideas that come out of City Hall are from the mid-level, kind of behind-the-scenes people who are really knowledgeable, compassionate, and dedicated to public service.”
Issues of addiction and recovery are close to his heart. Supervisor Dorsey is an out gay man and is openly HIV-positive. He has also been in recovery from substance-abuse disorder for many years.
When Doreen Horstin and Supervisor Dorsey met, the next iteration of Read to Recovery was born.
“ He suggested, ‘How about we do book distribution?’ Horstin recalls.
In addition to increasing the number of addiction and recovery books available for library checkout, why not also give away such books for free? Now people could access books like “Alcoholics Anonymous”, “Cocaine Anonymous”, “Narcotics Anonymous”, and more without a library card and without the need to return the book. Theirs to keep.
Supervisor Dosey knows from experience how much owning your own physical copy of a book can help during the recovery process.“ People who are in these groups like to have their own copies so they can make notes and highlight them, fold the pages down, dog hear them, put Post-it notes in them…you can’t really do that with library books because you have to bring them back in decent condition.”
When book distributions first started, it was challenging for Doreen Hosrtin, the librarian who started Read to Recovery, to balance the program with the other responsibilities of her full-time job. But city institutions rallied around her.
“I felt like it was important to do this…that this was something that could make a difference. It wasn’t somebody’s official job to do this. It was just an idea that just grew and grew and grew and I really appreciated the institutional support.” Read to Recovery will soon be available in all 27 branches of the San Francisco Library system. And right now, the program has distributed more than 3,200 books. Supervisor Dorsey and his team proposed legislation to formalize the Read to Recovery.
Access to books also helps people build relationships and a sense of camaraderie with others, which only helps the recovery process.
Rick Andrews is the Director of Contingency Management/Behavioral Health Intervention at Stonewall Project, a group part of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation. His work focuses on a 12-week group for people working through substance abuse.
He’s been with the Stonewall Project for 14 years and one of the best parts of the job, he says, is running the organization’s book club about recovery. In fact, the book club is the longest running club at the organization. He sees the impact of books and sharing stories in a communal setting up close every week.
“Community and peers are very important in this work for support… bringing people together to discuss not only their own journeys, their own struggles, but also bonding together over making changes together, partnering with people, having people on the path with you who can support you.”
In these settings, people can better relate to each other and be vulnerable, he says. “You need to know that you’re not the only one experiencing these things. So in a group setting, this is people talking about, ‘this is my trigger, I had this experience’. And someone else will say, ‘I did too’. This kind of creates camaraderie and community.”
Andrews shares an example, an older man who started using drugs later in life, “I’ll never forget one gentleman who was an older person [who] came to drugs late..left the city for a while,” Andrews recalls.
“I remember him coming back to one of our book clubs and saying that because he felt so alone and so isolated…when he first came back to the city, he came to a book club and that it just saved his life.”
During a book club meeting, sometimes a lot of the reading itself happens communally, Andrews says.“ …It was just a call and response. Read a chapter or read a couple paragraphs, [then] discuss.” This allows time for people to empathize with and relate to each other in real-time. “People could talk about their experiences, and then someone else would read the next piece.”
One popular book year after year is “Over the Influence”, what some call the harm reduction bible.
Moving forward, Andrews says that he’d like to see the city of San Francisco invest in more community spaces for people who are isolated to come to gather, read, socialize, and be connected.
With the rise of eReaders and the dominance of vertical video on social media apps, the popularity of physical books may ebb and flow in future years. But Supervisor Dorsey, a city representative who, along with librarian Doreen Horstin, helped expand Read to Recovery, says that physical copies will always have a home in the lives of people who are seeking recovery. “ If the entire marketplace for books moves to ebooks, the last group of people who is still going to be clinging to real books, that they can take an actual pen and mark up and underline and highlight, it’s going to be the recovery community,” Dorsey says.
“As somebody in recovery, having a book that you take to sit down with your sponsor, go through and you do your steps, you talk things through….I think this is a community that really is committed to the experience of books.”
And in libraries, there’s people committed to democratizing books’ power to change lives, whether you’re reading alone or in a group. Doreen Horstin, the librarian who started the Read to Recovery program, reflects, “ This is my area of expertise. I can’t change the whole world, but if I can help put books out there and make them available and make them accessible to people, then I feel like I’ve done something.”Dreams of understanding, connection, and community are made real in books and libraries. Libraries help people create a path towards recovery.
Welcome back to Become All! My first story of 2025 is such a hopeful one. I am so grateful to everyone who agreed to be interviewed for this story and sharing their time with me. Each person’s dedication to using their agency to make San Francisco better and to help people recover is so inspiring. Please read more about the San Francisco Read to Recovery program here (link). Doreen Horstin and her team have done such amazing work, please learn about it. and if you’re in the Bay Area, please support it.
If you’d like to see a similar program in your city or town, spread the word! Contact your officials, talk to your librarians and go from there.
Read to Recovery in San Francisco inspired a similar program in Saratoga Springs, NY (click here to check it out).
Thank you for reading and some news! I created an email for this website: contact@become-all.com. Please email me with innovative ideas from around the U.S. and around the world about inclusion, diversity, and people making their communities a better place. Also, feel free to share thoughts with me or anything else!
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Thank you, again!