About
Over six years into recovery from a decade-long opioid addiction, Ryan Hampton has been rocketed to the center of America’s rising addiction recovery advocacy movement. A former White House staffer, he has worked with multiple non-profits and national recovery advocacy campaigns. He is now a prominent, leading face and voice of addiction recovery and is changing the national conversation about addiction.
With content that reaches over 1 million people a week, Ryan is breaking down cultural barriers that have kept people suffering in silence and is inspiring a new generation of people recovering out loud through his Voices Project. He’s also advocating for solutions and holding public policy makers accountable.
He was part of the core team that released the first-ever U.S. Surgeon General’s report on addiction in 2016 and was singled out by Forbes as a top social entrepreneur in the recovery movement. Ryan connects a vast network of people who are passionate about ending the drug epidemic in America. He has been featured by—and is a contributor to—media outlets such as USA Today, MSNBC, Fox and Friends, the New York Times, NPR, HLN, Vice, Forbes, Slate, HuffPost, The Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and others.
A former aide to President Bill Clinton, Ryan has received praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for addressing addiction as a trans-political issue—crossing the political spectrum to build an inclusive coalition focused on solutions. He worked closely with the White House, Senate Democrats, Republicans and U.S. House leadership in crafting portions of the historic H.R. 6, SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, signed into law in October 2018.
On October 22, 2018, Ryan announced Recovery Voices Vote, an initiative he’s leading to register and engage new recovery oriented voters in all 50 states. In 2016, he created the web series Addiction Across America, documenting his 30-day, 28 state, 8,000-mile cross-country trip visiting areas hit hardest by the addiction crisis.
His first book, “American Fix — Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis and How to End It” published by St. Martin’s Press, was released in August 2018.
Featured Work
American Fix: Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis--and How to End It
Nearly every American knows someone who has been affected by the opioid crisis. Addiction is a trans-partisan issue that impacts individuals from every walk of life. Millions of Americans, tired of watching their loved ones die while politicians ignore this issue. Where is the solution? Where is the hope? Where's the outrage?
Ryan Hampton is a young man who has made addiction and recovery reform his life's mission. Through the wildly successful non-profit organization Facing Addiction, Hampton has been rocketed to the center of America’s rising recovery movement—quickly emerging as the de facto leader of the national conversation on addiction. He understands firsthand how easy it is to develop a dependency on opioids, and how destructive it can quickly become. Now, he is waging a permanent campaign to change our way of thinking about and addressing addiction in this country.
In American Fix, Hampton describes his personal struggle with addiction, outlines the challenges that the recovery movement currently faces, and offers a concrete, comprehensive plan of action towards making America’s addiction crisis a thing of the past.
