In “Broken,” a memoir published in 2006, William Cope Moyers wrote of his near fatal addiction to crack cocaine and his hard-fought recovery. The book proved to be a humble celebration about the potential for rehabilitation, and Moyers became a national champion for treatment and recovery.

But then his addiction returned.

In 2012, while widely sharing his story as a source of inspiration, Moyers was prescribed an opioid painkiller by a dentist after an oral surgery. Quickly, he began craving the pills and soon couldn’t stop taking them.

Now in his latest book, “Broken Open: What Painkillers Taught Me About Life and Recovery,” he describes how he could not shake his new addiction, even as he attended 12-step meetings, prayed and used other recovery tactics that had served him so well for decades.

In a recent conversation, Moyers discussed his struggles with addiction and what he has learned from them. He is the vice president for public affairs at the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, a nonprofit addiction treatment provider based in Minnesota.

Q: The setup for your new book is that you appeared to have things figured out. What’s that story in a nutshell?

A: In the ’80s and early ’90s, I’m hooked on substances — crack cocaine and alcohol. My life spirals downward. I hit my bottom, I climb up. What a story of redemption. I’m a national recovery advocate. I’ve got a wife and three children. I have a nice house in St. Paul. I’m feeling comfortable in my own skin. And I’m a model of success that others aspire to embrace. What’s wrong with that?

Q: What is wrong with that?

A: Nothing. Everything about it was true in the moment. But I stumbled. I strayed outside the moral bounds of my marriage. At the same time, my wife became seriously ill with mental health conditions. And suddenly, it wasn’t so easy anymore. The pressure began to build. And ultimately, the dam broke.

Q: What happened after that oral surgery?

A: I was sent home with instructions on how to manage my pain. That included eat soft foods, get off your feet, take extra strength Tylenol and when the pain is a little bit excessive, take this Percocet. I immediately followed the instructions on the side of the bottle for a couple of days, and then one evening I took two. And then I took one more. A “plus one” moment. And from that moment on, addiction was unleashed again for this addict.

Q: You started asking for extra prescriptions?

A: And not being able to turn off my craving brain. Not being able to stifle my shame. Not being able to articulate what was happening to me and, most of all, perhaps not being able to ask for help.

Q: You describe opioids (and opiates) as different from crack.

A: Crack cocaine and opioids have opposite effects. Crack lifts you up, drives you forward, crashes you down. Opioids release you from your angst, stroke and soothe you, and refuse to leave you. With crack I was escaping, with opiates I was swimming or floating toward some relief that they falsely promised. Opiates are a different beast altogether. And while crack cocaine, alcohol and methamphetamines are dangerous drugs, opiates are a drug that doesn’t leave your brain alone.

Q: This was happening while you were publicly discussing your rehab success.

A: Unlike with every other substance abuse I’d had until 1994, I didn’t disappear. I continued functioning. I continued to look good and sound good, even though I was dying inside. I was breaking apart.

Q: Were you leading a double life?

A: No. I don’t see it that way. I continued to do my job, which was to stand up and speak out about addiction, talk about treatment, talk about recovery. That didn’t change. What I began to slip into my presentations and speeches — I alluded to a “run-in” with pain pills — which was how I tried to lift the curtain up ever so slightly without letting people completely in.

There was a lot of shame. On top of that, there was: ‘Oh God, here I am again, one of those people who is chronically relapsing.’ I’m not sure it was a double life as much as it was the next chapter of my life. Only I couldn’t explain it.

Q: Describe how you were eventually freed from the cravings by taking a medication called Suboxone.

A: It’s an FDA-approved anti-craving medication. I was prescribed it by a doctor in Minneapolis in January 2016. It was a miracle drug. The cravings vanished in a blink of an eye. It took about 30 seconds after I put that thin film under my tongue for the first time. Fortunately, I also had other recovery assets that I needed to restore my wholesome being. But it was no mystery that when I was prescribed the medication, it was case closed.

Q: The traditional 12-step recovery program considers Suboxone to be a drug (it is a low-level opioid that blunts cravings but is not strong enough to induce a high) and therefore inconsistent with abstinence. How have you come to think about that?

A: Addiction is a very complicated illness, particularly with the proliferation of opioids, which is why we had an opioid epidemic and still do. Yet, at the same time, the abstinence approach, the 12 steps that I used to get off crack cocaine and alcohol, worked. Every day for 12 years in a row they worked! I’m an example of the very best that 12 steps can offer. And I’m also an example of the limitations that the 12 steps offer when the illness comes back the way it did for me.