Deborah Day Aikens has a Ph.D in Criminology with a specialization in Social Control and Deviance. She is licensed and certified by the New York State Social Work Board and the Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse (OASAS). She has extensive clinical experience which spans over a thirty year period with a focus on addiction and recovery. Deborah has served as a clinical director and she continues to provide clinical consulting: developing treatment programs and providing intervention to individuals who are suffering from the disease of addiction. In addition, she has been a professor at Mercy College and Bronx Community College for twenty years. At Mercy, she is the director of a Certified Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Certification (CASAC) program, under OASAS. She has developed and instructs substance abuse curriculum for both their graduate and undergraduate programs. In addition, she is the Associate Dean for an OASAS CASAC Program at the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence. Deborah continuously presents papers educating the public about addiction and recovery. Her mantra is: "As I live and breathe, I will here and for ever more, champion the struggle and the challenges of addiction as well as the power and miracle of recovery."