We were lucky to catch up with Lindsey Glass recently and have shared our conversation below.

Lindsey, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Let’s kick things off with talking about how you serve the underserved, because in our view this is one of the most important things the small business community does for society – by serving those who the giant corporations ignore, small business helps create a more inclusive and just world for all of us.

Reach Out Recovery is a health and wellness website and small book publisher. We create self-help books, workbooks, coloring books, and more designed to help anyone recovering from addiction, mental health issues, trauma, and family dysfunction find understanding, healing, and the necessary life skills that will help them be successful in a life of recovery. ROR Empowerment is the non-profit we created to help get our materials into the at-risk communities that need them. I’ll explain… Our website and books were created to help families impacted by alcoholism, addiction, and mental illness.

During the pandemic, we realized that our books and content work for any trauma-informed population. Refugees, homeless, gang-re-entry, re-entry programs after prison, kids in foster care, teens aging out of foster care, our books work for all these communities, and we are proud to be finding our way into more and more programs. This is so critical because these are the communities that desperately need access to recovery resources and life skills support as they navigate an increasingly complicated world.

I was inspired to create materials and work with these communities over a decade ago when I first started going into prisons as a recovery advocate. As a person in long-term recovery from addiction, I know all too well how crucial it is to have access to great recovery providers. When I was asked to speak in prisons and discovered that these prisoners in recovery pods only had access to one AA meeting a week and the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous I was shocked. How is someone supposed to become recovered or rehabilitated without treatment? It makes no sense. We lock up addicts in this country and don’t provide adequate rehabilitation then act surprised when they can’t get out of the system. I’m proud to have brought our books and curriculums in Homeboy Industries, A New Way Of Life, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and many more. My goal is to provide the recovery and life skills books, curriculums, and content to all the communities who need them to not only survive but thrive in recovery.

Lindsey, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I started Reach Out Recovery in 2011 after feeling frustrated with the way addiction was being portrayed in the media. As someone in recovery, I wanted to help remove the stigma of addiction and show the world how recovery really works. Our website reachoutrecovery.com has found a life of its own and has seen over five million visitors since 2017. We have over 1,500 original articles on recovery, mental health issues, family dynamics, relationships, and tons about wellness. I urge you to check out the site and see not only all our written content but also our recovery shop. We have our line of self-help books, which serve the recovery and wellness community. We have a Teen Guide To Health that has been used all over the country in teen programs to help teens understand the three pillars of health. The book provides information on mental health. physical health, emotional health, and drug prevention. We make beautiful posters with mental health reminders, puzzles, notebooks, and more. If you work in recovery, mental health or are a facilitator of group, please find us, follow us and see if there is a way we can bring our books and programs into your organization!

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

When Covid hit, like most businesses, we had to consider how to pivot. Not being able to present our books in person, no conferences, no classes to teach, and no ability to take meetings in person meant we had no way to sell other than online. We have a large social media audience but that wasn’t enough. We had to take our entire line of books and content and turn them into E-books and digital content. We broke our coloring book up into chapters and sold it in digital batches, we made digital journal prompts, basically if we made it – we digitized it. What we never expected was that turning everything into digital content also meant it had farther reach. We struggle with selling in foreign countries because of the shipping costs. Now people can download instead of having to order hard copies. So, it turned out that turning our material digital led us into new markets and sparked new ideas for us.

Can you tell us the story behind how you met your business partner?

My cofounder and business partner is my mom, Leslie Glass. When your mom is a nine-time NYT bestselling author, it’s hard to find anyone better than her to work with! Now, we have had our ups and downs and we even wrote a book about it. The Mother-Daughter Relationship Makeover comes out this April 16th just in time for Mother’s Day and is a self-help book designed to help all mothers and daughters find their way back if they’ve gone off track, or how to be OK if the relationship is not OK. Trust me, it’s not always easy to work with family, and many wouldn’t want to, but we are proud of how we’ve reconciled and both used our talents to help the recovery community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://reachoutrecovery.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reachoutrecovery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReachoutRecovery/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reach-out-recovery/
• Youtube: @reachoutrecovery6052
• Other: https://www.pinterest.com/ReachOutRecovery/