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Scott Fleuter is a retired police chief, author, and recovering opioid addict. His road to recovery included several trips to hospital behavioral health units, detox centers, and long-term residential rehabilitation centers.
His mission is to ignite a spark of hope for addicts and recovering addicts; to foster the courage it takes to make big changes in life, even when odds seem insurmountable; and to rekindle faith in a world where despair has become the rule.
Reviewed by Jamie Michele for Readers' Favorite
Scott Fleuter’s Behind the Badge: From Police Chief to Opioid Addict follows Fleuter from a childhood where danger teaches his body to react before thought into a law-enforcement career that makes protection his public role. He starts as a street officer and eventually becomes a police chief, yet pain from repeated injuries leads him into a medical system that keeps handing him prescriptions. The memoir is framed through sessions with therapist Ursula Schmidt as she asks the questions that send him back to the boy, the officer, the patient, then the man no badge could save. Fleuter also writes directly to readers living with dependency, placing practical tools beside memory so the book becomes testimony with a reader’s use. His story asks how a person trained to rescue others learns to stay alive himself.
Scott Fleuter’s Behind the Badge is a first-rate inspirational self-help memoir and gives readers advice they can actually use. His addiction advice has a lot to offer, like telling readers to write down why they want to stop before withdrawal starts arguing back. The standout for me, which can really be used by anyone who has anxiety issues, is his Somatic Experiencing discussion where, for example, cedar oil becomes a small signal that tells his body it can settle before panic takes over. Fleuter writes conversationally with accessible explanations in a raw and honest way. I love that he is clear that in spaces such as peer-counseling, serving other people cannot come before staying steady oneself. Well written and genuine, readers who want an addiction memoir with real recovery tools will adore this.
