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Laurie Dhue
News Anchor & Alcohol Recovery Advocate
Laurie Dhue
News Anchor & Alcohol Recovery Advocate
Biography
Laurie Dhue is Chief Brand Officer at Recovery Education and Applied Learning (REAL), an online educational platform for parents and allies of teens and young adults struggling with the disease of addiction. One of the nation’s leading recovery advocates, Laurie is in long-term recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction. She has worked closely with the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), Faces and Voices of Recovery (FAVOR) and the National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence (NCADD). Laurie has spoken on behalf of many national recovery organizations including the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation and the Caron Foundation. She travels coast-to-coast giving speeches, emceeing events and moderating panel discussions, as well as offering commentary in national media.
Laurie has had the distinct honor of speaking at the White House in 2014 and 2017 on behalf of ONDCP. She was also a featured speaker at the inaugural UNITE to Face Addiction national rally in Washington, DC in 2015. Laurie appeared in the award-winning 2013 documentary The Anonymous People and the Emmy-nominated 2017 documentary Reversing the Stigma, produced in conjunction with OASAS (New York State’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse).
Prior to her work in the recovery field, Dhue enjoyed a distinguished career as an award-winning national news anchor who hosted shows on all three major cable news networks: CNN, MSNBC and Fox News Channel. Her 25 years in news has included interviews with numerous world leaders, politicians, entertainers and prominent newsmakers as well as extensive reporting from the Middle East during the War on Terror.
Dhue is a board member of MARR Addiction Treatment Centers in Atlanta. She is RADT-certified and a member of The Screen Actors Guild.
Laurie is a graduate of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a letter-winning member of the women’s varsity swim team and an academic All-American. She also served on the UNC Alumni Board.
Speech Topics
COVID-19 & Mental Health: Pathways to Resilience
It’s hard to overstate the impact the ongoing Covid pandemic has had on addiction and mental health issues. It is a fact that COVID-19 has led to a nationwide increase in alcohol and substance abuse, as well as overdoses. Increased stress, isolation and uncertainty means increased drug and alcohol abuse, as well as amplified mental health struggles. And while many men and women are drinking and drugging more because they simply don’t know what else to do, the good news is that more people are asking for help.
Laurie Dhue offers important perspective on Covid, Addiction and Mental Health, providing insight on “the pandemic within the pandemic” to a wide variety of audiences. She can share her unique experiences on the consequences of the pandemic, both from the perspective of a person in long-term recovery from alcoholism and drug addiction, as well as that of a group facilitator at a Los Angeles outpatient addiction and mental health facility.
You Have to Surrender to Win: Climbing Your Way Out of Rock Bottom
From the heights of broadcaster stardom to the depths of despair in her darkest periods of alcoholism, speaker Laurie Dhue shares her courageous story of getting—and staying—clean. In this inspirational speech, Dhue offers insight into the battle of addiction and how she finally found her path out of the disease that would have eventually killed her. Through her brave and passionate story, she shows audiences that through failure comes humility—and ultimately triumph.
Addiction as a Modern Health Crisis
Every 14 seconds, someone dies from one of the biggest healthcare issues in this country: addiction. America loses half-a-trillion dollars every year in lost wages, lost productivity, hospitalization, institutionalization, and incarceration due to the epidemic of addiction and the lives it destroys. In this speech, recovering alcoholic and speaker Laurie Dhue reveals how much drug and alcohol abuse is damaging this country and what can—and should—be done to battle this modern health crisis.
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