Social Model Recovery Systems, led by the agency’s Chief Executive Officer, Bruce Boardman, is honored to have been a part and sponsor of the 12th Annual Experience, Strength, and Hope Awards. The event took place at Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles on December 7th.
This year, the Experience, Strength, and Hope Award recipient was Danny Trejo. Danny Trejo has had a prolific career in the entertainment industry, yet his road to success has been hard-earned and anything but typical. It has spanned from imprisonment to helping young people battle drug addiction, to acting and producing.
KTLA-TV anchor and reporter, and last year’s recipient, Courtney Friel, presented the award to Danny Trejo. His book, “Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood,” takes readers through his days of crime, time in prison, his struggle with addiction, his recovery, and success in Hollywood.
The Experience, Strength, and Hope Award is given every year by “Writers in Treatment” to an individual who has written a memoir about their career and brutally honest about their journey from addiction to clean and sober living.
The event was hosted by six-time Emmy Award Nominee, Ed Begley, Jr. Performances by Grammy Award Winner Philip Lawrence and comedian Paula Poundstone. Tony Denison, “TNT’s Major Crimes” star, presented the “Annual Reel Film Festival’s Audience Favorite Award” to filmmaker, illustrator, and animator “Evan York” for the short film animation “Fruckus”.
Previous recipients were Academy Award-winner Lou Gossett, Jr.; astronaut Buzz Aldrin; star of “Fuller House,” Jodie Sweetin; Duran Duran’s John Taylor; Emmy Award-winner Joe Pantoliano; actress Mackenzie Phillips; TV and radio broadcaster Pat O’Brien and journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell.
Writers In Treatment is an organization, founded in 2008 by Leonard Lee Buschel and Robert Downey Sr., to help men and women in the writing industry who suffer from alcoholism and drug addiction to get treatment for their disease.
