My guest tonight is DARREN LITTLEJOHN, author of "the 12-Step Buddhist".  On the night of this broadcast, he celebrated 5,000 days of continuous sobriety.  Darren is a recovering addict and a practitioner of Zen and Tibetan Buddhism,as well as a former mental health specialist. He earned a BA in Psych in 1991 and worked in chemical dependency and acute psychiatric care facilities during college. Darren took 2 years of graduate school and earned All But Thesis of a Masters degree in Research Methods for Psychology. He has been a Buddhist practitioner since the mid 80′s. A spiritual crisis led to a relapse in 1994 with 10 years of sobriety. After regaining sobriety in 1997,Darren worked on recovery with a new zeal,incorporating many years of psychotherapy,12-Step work,Zen and Tibetan Buddhist practices. While relapse with long-term sobriety is common,returning for a sustained duration is extremely rare. Darrens program,which became the basis for the book the 12-Step Buddhist,is an integrated approach that is hard one over a span of more than twenty years. Darren,a jazz guitarist and dog lover,now lives in Portland,Oregon,with his life partner of more than 10 years,Tysa Fennern and their two dogs. Hes been involved with many community projects,including the fight against smoking,creating dog parks,community television and a spiritually driven jazz program.