The 2018 Fundraising Dinner and Silent Auction will be held from 5-9 p.m. on April 13 at Monona Terrace Community and Convention Center in Madison as a kick-off to the Wisconsin Medical Society’s Annual Meeting. To learn more, click here.
Featured Speaker
David Sheff, a journalist and a The New York Times best-selling author, will share his story of heartbreak, perseverance and hope as the father of a son addicted to drugs. Through years of research and interviews with numerous physician specialists, Sheff shatters the myths and stigma surrounding addiction and the mental illness that often accompanies it. Learn what you can do if a patient, friend or loved one may be struggling with a substance use disorder. Join us for a personal and deeply moving look at the epidemic of addiction.
About the Speaker
David Sheff is the author of Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy, the follow-up to his The New York Times Best Seller Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction, which made it to number one on the list. Clean is the result of the years Sheff spent investigating the disease of addiction and America’s drug problem, which he sees as the greatest public health challenge of our time. In 2009, Sheff was named to the Time 100, Time magazine’s list of the World’s Most Influential People. The Partnership for Drug-free Kids honored him with a Special Tribute Award “in recognition of his voice and leadership for families who are struggling with addiction.” He also was awarded the 2013 College of Problems on Drug Dependence Media Award and 2017 American Society of Addiction Medicine Media Award “to recognize his compelling portrayal of addiction and its personal effects on families and society as a whole.”
Along with The New York Times Magazine, Sheff also has written for The New York Times, Wired, Rolling Stone, Outside, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Playboy, and Esquire. He has conducted seminal interviews with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, nuclear physicist Ted Taylor, Congressman Barney Frank, Steve Jobs, Tom Hanks, Betty Friedan, Keith Haring, Jack Nicholson, Carl Sagan, Salman Rushdie, Fareed Zakaria and others.
Sheff’s Beautiful Boy, published in 2008, was based on his article, “My Addicted Son,” which appeared in The New York Times Magazine. The article won a special award from the American Psychological Association for “outstanding contribution to the understanding of addiction.” Beautiful Boy was named the year’s Best Nonfiction Book by Entertainment Weekly, an Amazon “Best Books of 2008” and a film adaptation starring Steve Carell will be released in 2018.
To discuss sponsorship of this event, please e-mail Henry Thompson or call him at 608.442.3756. You may purchase individual tickets online by clicking here.
