Alcoholism Books

I first read this book when I was about 10 or 11. It was the copy that my mother owned, and I still read this book atleast twice a year. It captured youth in so many ways in perfect form.

It chronicles the downward spiral of a high school girl that is trying to find herself with the pressures of society and her own mother. She turns to alcohol, and finds what she thinks is a beautiful world. It's not.

Even if you do not have an addiction problem, of any kind, this book is a must read. If you are a teenager it will help you to realize that you are not alone, and if you are a parent then it will help you to realize that kids need you, own their terms not your own.

i had this book read to my class in early high school, and it has stuck with me ever since. i ended up finding a copy of my own, and have read it over 20 times..and still each time feels like the first. its such a great book, and is highly recomended for everyone,especially for teenagers who are thinking about drinking. i know every time i have a drink or am offered one (even though i am of age now) i think of that book.

While going through my highschools library I stumbled upon the late great me. I couldn't put it down. Geri Peter's charactor takes you along her journey of alcohol to her first sip and to her first AA meeting. This book doesn't lecture about alcohol but allows you to see its destruction through Geri's charactor. I feel this would be the perfect book for educators to have students read while learning about alcohol. This book shows readers how alcohol abuse begins and where it can lead to.

Being a teenage alcoholic myself, this book captured all the exact features like the writer lived it. It does indeed warn about the dangers of alcoholism, but brought back many a memeroies and sips of the bottle. I would 100% recommend it.

I was thirteen the time I read this book and it truly made me understand a lot about alcoholism and how life can be in general for many who suffer from this disease. More than twelve years later this book still remains one of my favorite. I can't tell you how many times I have read it or will continue to read it. I recommend it to almost everyone I know, especially young people. It is definitely a worthwhile book that will make you feel many different emotions from humor to sadness.

This is an AA book addressed not to members but to people who are in deep trouble with alcohol and don't know where to turn.

Long before I joined AA, my sister gave me this book (hint, hint). I was a little huffy about it at first; all I knew about AA was that you could never drink again.

I expected preachiness. And at the time I thought I was a disgusting female drunk and I expected to be treated as such in the book. But from the beginning, the tone of the book was so kind that it made me less afraid of AA.

I know some reviewers found it simplistic, but given that its audience was composed largely of practicing alcoholics, I think it was just right.

I know that this is by far the most useful book I've read for people who are pretty sure their drinking is not normal,but are still afraid to seek help.

I can't recommend it highly enough.

this is an easy to understand, very practical book, especially for those in early recovery. It gives the reader concrete steps, advice, tips for staying clean when a craving to use alcohol or drugs appear.

this book also makes a great gift to give others who struggle with drug issues, without being judgemental.

A great book for people in recovery, especially early recovery. You can purchase them in book stores, too, but with free shipping on certain Amazon purchases, why not have it delivered to your door?

This is a really good book for anyone starting out on their alcohol free life. It's easy to read and has some humor too. I recommend this book.

The truth is that a newly-sober alcoholic named William Griffith Wilson -- a down-on-his-luck former Wall Street hustler who put on airs of having once been a prosperous stock broker -- just sat down, in December of 1938, and wrote up twelve commandments for the new religious group that he and fellow alcoholic Doctor Robert Smith had started. Those commandments were simply a repackaged version of the practices of a cult religion that was popular at that time, something called "The Oxford Group", or "The Oxford Group Movement", and later, "Moral Re-Armament" -- a religious cult that was created by a deceitful fascist renegade Lutheran minister named Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman -- a nut-case who actually praised Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler.

Bill Wilson described the writing of the Twelve Steps this way:

Well, we finally got to the point where we really had to say what this book was all about and how this deal works. As I told you this had been a six-step program then.

The idea came to me, well, we need a definite statement of concrete principles that these drunks can't wiggle out of. There can't be any wiggling out of this deal at all and this six-step program had two big gaps which people wiggled out of.

Notice how Bill Wilson considered his fellow alcoholics to be a bunch of cheaters who will "wiggle out of this deal" if they can get away with it -- which Bill won't allow.

And note how Bill Wilson made himself the leader who was entitled to dictate the concrete terms of other people's recovery programs.
Also notice how Bill Wilson considered 'spiritual development' to be a business deal, with a contract that you can't wiggle out of, something like selling your soul in trade for sobriety.

Nowhere in the Twelve Steps does it say that you should quit drinking, or help anyone else to quit drinking, either. Nowhere do the words "sobriety", "recovery", "abstinence", "health", "happiness", "joy", "love", or "love", appear in the Twelve Steps. The word "alcohol" was only mentioned once, where it was patched into the first step as a substitute for the word "sin" -- Bill Wilson wrote,
"we are powerless over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable",
instead of the Oxford Group slogan,
"we are powerless over sin and have been defeated by it".
And then the phrase "especially alcoholics" was patched into the 12th step as a suggested target for further recruiting efforts:
"...we tried to carry this message to others, especially alcoholics"...
(But regular non-alcoholic people were still fair game for recruiting into Bill's "spiritual fellowship"...)

The Twelve Steps are not a formula for curing or treating alcoholism, and they never were.
The Twelve Steps are not "spiritual principles" and they never were.
The Twelve Steps are cult practices that work to convert people into confirmed true believers in a proselytizing cult religion, just like Frank Buchman's so-called "spiritual principles" did.

1. The Twelve Steps do not work as a program of recovery from drug or alcohol problems.
The A.A. failure rate ranges from 95% to 100%. Sometimes, the A.A. success rate is actually less than zero, which means that A.A. indoctrination is positively harmful to people, and prevents recovery. Some tests have shown that even receiving no treatment at all for alcoholism is much better than receiving A.A. treatment:
One of the most enthusiastic boosters of Alcoholics Anonymous, Professor George Vaillant of Harvard University, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS), showed by his own 8 years of testing of A.A. that A.A. was worse than useless -- that it didn't help the alcoholics any more than no treatment at all, and it had the highest death rate of any treatment program tested -- a death rate that Professor Vaillant himself described as "appalling". While trying to prove that A.A. treatment works, Professor Vaillant actually proved that A.A. kills. After 8 years of A.A. treatment, the score with Dr. Vaillant's first 100 alcoholic patients was: 5 sober, 29 dead, and 66 still drinking.
(Nevertheless, Vaillant is still a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he still wants to send all alcoholics to A.A. anyway, to "get an attitude change by confessing their sins to a high-status healer." That is cult religion, not a treatment program for alcoholism.)
The A.A. dropout rate is terrible. Most people who come to A.A. looking for help in quitting drinking are appalled by the narrow-minded atmosphere of fundamentalist religion and faith-healing. The A.A. meeting room has a revolving door. The therapists, judges, and parole officers (many of whom are themselves hidden members of A.A. or N.A.) continually send new people to A.A., but those newcomers vote with their feet once they see what A.A. really is. Even A.A.'s own triennial surveys, conducted by the A.A. headquarters (the GSO), say that:
81% of the newcomers are gone within 30 days,
90% are gone in 3 months, and
95% are gone at the end of a year.
That automatically gives A.A. a failure rate of at least 95%. But the GSO does not count all of those people who only attend a few meetings before quitting -- they don't qualify as "members". (That amounts to "cherry-picking".) If we included them, then the numbers would be much worse.

First there is the propaganda technique of "everybody's doing it": "AA or a similar Twelve-Step program is an integral part of almost all successful recoveries".
That is a complete falsehood. The vast majority of the successful people recover without A.A. or any "support group". It's what "everybody" is doing.
Then they use the propaganda techniques of use of the passive voice and vague suggestions: "It is widely believed that not including a Twelve-Step program in a treatment plan can put a recovering addict on the road to relapse."
It is widely believed by whom? And what do those unnamed people know? What are their qualifications? Are they doctors? Medical school professors? Or salesmen for a 12-Step treatment center? Why should we care what some unnamed invisible fools allegedly believe, anyway?
The authors also use the propaganda technique of fear-mongering: you will be "on the road to relapse" -- you will probably die -- unless you practice Bill Wilson's Twelve Step cult religion.
And then the fluff-headed Pollyanna attitude is outrageous: Just going to the wonderful A.A. meetings is supposedly all that is needed to fix some alcoholics.
But since A.A. has a zero-percent success rate above and beyond the normal rate of spontaneous remission, that cannot possibly be true.

"When kids hear I live on a boat, they picture a floating mansion outlined with Christmas lights like the one in the old movie Sleepless in Seattle. They think I sit on the deck under an umbrella while waves gently lap up against the sides, foghorns sound in the distance, exotic seabirds fly overhead." Chance Taylor a senior in high-school wishes this was true but his boat the Tiny Dancer is an old, weather-beaten, thirty-foot sailboat. Chances father an alcoholic Gulf War veteran just lost his job which was the last steady job Chance can remember him having.
Chances escape from this is running. Then one day after he was done running a man offered him 200 dollars week to pick up packages by the beach on his running route. In the beginning chance suspects whatever he is picking up is illegal but continues to do it because he needs the money. As Chances friend Melissa and his dad get involved the danger of the situation become more apparent. In the captivating climax Chances father rises above his own problems to save his son. Deuker gives hints of what are in the packages without really telling you and the suspenseful action that he writes will keep you engaged in the story.

The book Runner by Carl Deuker, is about a boy named Chance who lives with his father in Seattle on his sailboat called The Tiny Dancer. Chance's mother left him when he was little and he hasn't seen her since. Now he is living with his father who can't seem to find a job. Chance and his father are short on money and are always late paying the bills. He tries to help his father by washing pots at Ray's Restaurant but it doesn't pay a lot. One day after going for a run, Chance was walking back to his boat when a fat man who worked in the marina office stopped him and offered him a job. "`You know something? I like your spirit. I really do,' said the fat man. `But I don't have time to play games. So listen and listen carefully. You're in trouble, and I can get you out of that trouble. I'm offering you a job, kid. Very good pay; very short hours. When somebody offers you easy money, you should at least hear him out.'" Chance knows that this man is up to no good, but he needs the money to pay the bills.

I thought Runner was an excellent book and I had trouble putting it down. This book is very original and exciting trying to learn what the fat man was doing and why he wanted Chance's help. It was interesting reading about Chance's adventure and hearing all of the problems he was going through with money and school, and finding out what he was doing for the fat man. I highly recommend it to anybody. It is definitely one of my favorite books I have ever read.

Chance is teenager living an unusually hard life. His father is an alcoholic who can neither pay the morgage nor face the truth of their tough situation. When Chance is offered a well-paying job, he must either forget the immorality of it or forget the job. The longer he stays in the buisness, despite his slight ignorance, the deeper he gets. When a suicide or possible murder occurs, Chance must be exteremly cautious to let no one get involved, expecially not someone he cares about. But of course he meets a girl- how ironic!!!
Great work of literature. I recomend this novel to all ya/teen readers.

Carl Deuker's RUNNER should attract both teachers of reluctant readers and young readers who feel that reading is not for them. The beginning is interesting enough with its high school bullying episodes and questions of rich (as embodied by romantic interest Melissa Watts) vs. poor kids (our protagonist Chance Taylor, who lives on a small sailboat on a marina's dock), but the book really takes off when recreational runner Chance gets an offer he wants to but cannot refuse -- running mysterious packages in exchange for cash like he and his alcoholic ne'er-do-well father have never seen.

Here the high-octane plot takes off, running away with a reader who can't help but hold on to find out what's happening. Are the packages drugs? Explosives? Money? And who are the mysterious people leaving them behind in the cracks of a retaining wall near a beach on Puget Sound? Chance really doesn't want to know, but soon events take a dangerous turn, and if he cannot work up the guts to seek out the truth, it turns out the truth might be ready to seek him out -- with dire results.

Known for his sports books, Deuker here shows a skill for pacing and plot in a thriller that will keep readers guessing until the spectacular finish. Although it touches on themes of patriotism and social class, RUNNER shouldn't be read for any deep characterization or rich description; realize instead that it is a book meant to entertain with a fast-moving story that should win over even the most reluctant of readers. Teachers should keep it on hand for students who will only try a fast-read, and young readers looking for a quick and engaging plot should "play Chance" by running some packages that may or may not make them an accomplice to a crime.

Chance is the main character in the book called Runner. This book was written by Carl Deuker. Chance and his dad live on a boat in a marina. His dad is having problems paying moorage fees and other expenses. Chance has to help him out. Chance's dad is an alcoholic and a bum spending the rest of his spare change on beer. The father would rather sit out on his tiny boat drinking than helping his son. Chance is having many problems in his life when his mom leaves them to go on and do something more with her life.
Everyone on the pier knows that Chance's dad just got fired from his job. A stranger who nobody has seen before works in the marina office and asks Chance if he needs money to help his dad out. Chance doesn't think twice about this decision. All he has to do is jog a mile to a point, look for a package, then jog back with the package. If there is a package at the point, Chance returns it to the office marina guy. Every week Chance receives $200 dollars for running his normal jog route and returning packages that are there at the point. Chance is desperate for money to keep his boat and his spot on the pier. This job appears easy to Chance. He doesn't think about the contents of the packages and the possible consequences.
In this heart-pounding thriller, Carl Deuker combines global concerns and the threat of terrorism with the everyday worries of a teen who only wants to keep his life together until graduation. Supported by a smart, politically aware girl in his history class, Chance learns there's a lot more to patriotism than just waving a flag, and a lot more to courage than just following rules he knows may be wrong. This timely, complex story will make you think twice about the choices you make and what it means to be brave.
I personally liked this book a lot. It has several good parts in this story and some bad parts too. In life you want to make good choices and not bad ones. The moral of the story is to always think before you act.

Hello - this is actually a second hand review. I purchased this copy to give to parents of a twentys son who is struggling with addiction. They have said that it has answered a lot of questions for them. They are really pleased with the book. The mother said that it was almost as though the writer had overheard conversations with her son.

I enjoyed the language and examples used in this book. Quick read with all the basics of cognitive therapy.

I was assigned this book for my Biopsychosocial aspects of addictions course in grad school for counseling. This is definitely a book I will not be selling back. It is extremely reader-friendly and offers great insight into the way addicts think. Twerski does a fabulous job of explaining addictive behavior and cognitive processes as well as explaining codependency. Whether you're in school and studying addictions, just curious about the topic, or have an addict in your life, I strongly recommend reading this book.

For such a small book, it has a whole lot of insight into how addicts fool themselves into staying in their destructive patterns. I think this book would be useful both for the recovering addict (myself included) as well as family members who are struggling to understand and support recovery efforts. Dr. Twerski writes in a very clear, direct manner, and I find myself wishing the chapters were longer so I could learn even more. He tells of several of his experiences with patients which really help to drive his point home. If you are an addict or know of somebody struggling with addiction, I think this book can help you notice which behaviors should change.

I read this book, making notations every night before bed for about a week. Since, and during this read, I'm in the process of being able to recognize my own addict-voice, (key in recovery!) who's purpose is to binge. I am extremely grateful for having picked this up, I struggle with addiction, and this has given me another tool to stay on track, there's TONS of good information within this slim and easy to read book!

Thank you to Abraham J. Twerski!!!

This is a thorough book and has a lot of great information. It can be a bit clinical, but still offers insight into the results of dysfunctional family life.

Unless you are a child of an alcoholic or grew up in this type of environment, I would not recommend this book. There are other types of dysfunctional families but they are not discussed in as much detail as alcoholics.

I have worked in mental health for about 4 years now. I am very good at what I do but came to realize that I have been too busy helping others rather than taking care of myself. All of this is pretty ironic to me. This book caused me to open my eyes and see that I have some issues that must be dealt with. This book has given me the motivation and courage to seek help. I never thought I was part of a "dysfunctional" family but could identify with many aspects of this book that really hit home and helped me understand what was going on a little better. As the author says it is very important to keep an open mind, be honest, and let go of our denial that acts only as a defense mechanism to cover up the underlying problem.

This very well written books offers insights about who we are as a person and why we are the way we are. I found the book very comforting because it reinforced what I was feeling inside. This book also gives advice about how to change. I think that even if you don't come from an "abusive" family you should read this book because I know that everyone can relate and learn from it in many ways.

Excellent. A bit dated but timeless content. The beginning and end speaks to AA type meetings but it's not the main focus of the book, co-dependency is, which just about everyone deals with growing up. Quick read. There are a few short stories featuring animals that are sprinkled between the chapters, adding levity and a moment to escape and explore how the new information may serve you. My favorite, The Goose, whose parents told her not to leave the pond despite her feeling sick but she finally did leave and discovered she was right. The family unit unknowingly puts family members into positions and then keeps them there unable to see the dysfunction. Once one family member took action leaving the others behind the others eventually followed. If one family member is acting out and you don't know why it is not always the issue of the one who is acting out, look beyond, look to yourself first. Highly recommended.

Binge by Charles Ferry is about a guy named Weldon who has to have his right leg amputated. At first he did not know about this until the nurse tells him. He is being held under custody by a police officer named Becker. They are all in a hospital and Weldon just came out of a coma and is learning about what he did to get under police custody. The problem is very complicated because he has committed serious crimes and does not even remember all of the details. This is highly irrational for everyone. Weldon is not really a bad person but he has gotten himself into some serious trouble. Charles Ferry is a talented writer in terms of being descriptive and giving a lot of foreshadowing. There is a lot in this book because it involves a guy who is fairly young when he steals a car. He gets into serious trouble for doing something horribly unreasonable. This book is fairly easy to understand. At the same time it is fast moving. I would recommend this book for anyone in high school or maybe mature eighth graders because it is about a drunk driver and a reader has to be mature to try to understand. This story is like another book I read, but this seems more realistic because things in this story happen in the world today. This is a good book from my perspective because it teaches me what not to do when I get a car and how to act around my friends. For example, it taught me not to drink and drive, as well as not to try to act cool, and be careful on the road while driving.

Binge by Charles Ferry Weldon Edmund Yeager Jr. is an eighteen-year-old who likes to drink, smoke, and act a lot older than he actually is. Weldon is originally from Connecticut but moved to Michigan. He had a girlfriend named Livvie whom he hasn't talked to since he moved. Weldon's family goes on vacation to Chicago and leaves Weldon at his friend's house. Weldon is at his friend's house and decides to go for a ride; he ends up at a bar, and he meets a nice guy named Rick Wessell. They stay at a hotel together, and Rick sends Weldon out for pizza. Then, Weldon gets this idea to go back to Connecticut to see Livvie. He ends up getting into a lot of trouble because he's driving drunk and gets in a lot of accidents. Charles Ferry, the author, is able to leave you in suspense. Because of this, you never want to put the book down. This book is good for high school students to adults. The people who read this book might enjoy how detailed it is, and they might enjoy how Weldon loves Livvie and wants to go back and see her again. The book also always has some type of action going on.

Binge is a story about a teenager named Weldon Yeagear and his experiences with alcoholism. This story involves many exciting events and every one of them gets Weldon deeper into his drinking pit. His problems start when he wakes up in a hospital and a police officer is standing at the door. Lieutenant Becker interrogates Weldon, bring him back to that scary and heart breaking night before when he was in that drunken craze and something terrible happened that changed his life. Charles Ferry writes this book in a special way; no other author can prevail in the way the Charles Ferry does. No matter what grade you are in or what reading level you are on, anyone can relate to this book. Because of all the exciting parts this book will grab you and you won't want to stop reading. This book is much like a clipping I read from the New York Times I read about a drinking "Binge" that a young boy was on After stealing a car he drove into an intersection killing four people along with himself. This book can really teach you something as well as save your life.

Binge

By Charles Ferry

In the book Binge the main character, Weldon Yeager wakes up in the hospital after being in a very serious accident. The story takes place in the hospital with a police officer interviewing him. A result of this accident was he had hit four students, two who had died already and the other two were in critical condition. The whole accident revolved around Weldon Yeager, who had been drinking the night before. Weldon had been intoxicated at the time of the accident. Another twist to this story is one of the people who was injured in the accident was Livvie, the girl of his dreams. Throughout the story Weldon is being interviewed about the accident. The interview goes into great detail about the accident and just like the story has a lot of twists in it. The author of this book is Charles Ferry. Ferry is a great author and if you have not read a book by this man I encourage you to do so. His writing style is excellent. He leaves you at the edge of your seat throughout the story. He goes into great detail and gives you mental images which is why he is such a great author. It is very easy for students to relate to this story. This story teaches you the harms of drinking and driving and you don't even know it. I also think this is a great book just because it is so easy to relate to. This is a very fast book to read and you shouldn't have any problems reading it. Over all, this book is extremely good and is hard to compare to others because I have not read any other book written as well as this one. By Kevin Gomba

BINGE

By Charles Ferry

A drunken man is hospitalized from being in an accident, convicted for murder of the second degree...

Weldon Yeager always was drinking. He also was very good looking, a true Casanova. The story starts in the hospital with Weldon beginning to wake up. He notices a cop sitting by the door. He asks the nurse what happened. She told him he got in an accident and killed two people. Then he realizes his foot is hurting really bad. It turns out that they had to amputate his leg. Throughout the book Yeager is telling the cop everything that happened on his dangerous adventure. He was on his way to Loon Lake to see his old girl friend Livie. He later finds out that he had hit Livie in the big car accident. Weldon was really emotional now. He hopes so much that she lives through this big tragedy. Will she?? This is the first book I read by Chuck Ferry and it was great. After you read Binge you will want to read more books by him. I know I do. Chuck Ferry did a good job of keeping you interested in the story. For a while in the middle of the story it did get a little dull because nothing exciting was going on. The rest was great though. I think that lots of kids and even grownups can relate to Binge because lots of people know someone who was drinking and driving, and the effects it can have on other people's life. You, the audience would enjoy all the action scenes when he is on the verge of being caught. Another great aspect of the story is that it is very easy to read. The only difficult part is you need to know when he is talking in the past or present. If you read this book you will enjoy reading a whole lot more. This story is nothing like any story I have read before. It is my FAVORITE.

This book is excellent if you have recently discovered you are an Adult Child of an Alcoholic. I read and saw so many of the same problems and characteristics that I had been struggling with. At the end it provided information on what to do next and gave me a very upslifting feel of how things can change for the better.

I have never read a single "recovery" book with as much information about the many "experiences and issues" I have dealt with in my adult life that began in infancy and sometimes I wonder if they began in the womb! It is one of those books that seems to have been written by the reader themself. I highly recommend it to all women who grew up in dysfunctional families. It speaks in terms of alcoholic parents but many parents who do not drink, exhibit the same behavior and personalities. Though we know we are not unique in this area, it is reassuring to read the stories of other women who have experienced the same things and feelings; to understand ourselves better and that we can turn our experiences, pain, trauma, etc. into assets if we want to live our best lives. To become the person we were meant to be.

Having recently come to understand the role of my alcoholic parents' habits in my development as an adult, I have been seeking every possible source for information and strategies for dealing with my own behavior problems. I have found some wonderful sources -- Janet Woititz' books, for example. I had high hopes for this book, Perfect Daughters since I am such a freak but what I got was a book written in large print, at a level merely approaching 6th grade, that is 40% this man's clients' letters. His analysis is facile and offers nothing new. Yes, we all feel this way; yes we all share certain qualities, but anyone who's done only minimal research will discover this very soon. This book offers nothing new. I feel ripped off by the book's "promises", insulted by the writers' tone and plethora of marginally relevant quotations clearly pasted from quotes.com. Don't buy this book; check it out of the library and get what good you can from it. There is some there, but not $10 worth.

I bought this book through a suggestion from a co-worker. When I received it at work in the mail, I opened the cover, checked out the chapters and turned to one in particular. I read only half the page and broke down crying. The truth is written in these pages. I have given a copy of this book to my sister. I recommend that if you are an adult daughter of an alcoholic parent, that you read this book. It ISN'T your fault, you are a valuable human being and it's about time that YOU take charge of your life. Get strong, face the truth, conquer your fears, find peace within yourself. No one says it's not going to hurt. Facing ourselves is the hardest part. Getting well is the reward. I can let go of the past and learn from it or I could go on holding a grudge. Good-bye Mom, sorry you were so sick from alcoholism. Hello new life, I am reborn. I am a wonderful human being. Thanks to this book I can say these things. It will take time to heal, but I have a new start because my eyes have been opened and I don't want to make the choices I've made in the past. I don't have to make those choices anymore, I am set free from the truth of my "brainwashing" of childhood.

This book was so helpful with it's insight into the experience of having an alcoholic parent. It is written well, easy to follow and answers questions you didn't even know you had. I highly recommend this book to anyone, but especially to people like myself who are at the beginning of their quest for the truth and don't want to read a book that feels too clinical and complicated.

an amature evaluation that takes too many words to make her point... rather tedious to read but makes some valid points

I did stop drinking when I went to AA. For that, I will always be grateful. However, after a year or so, after being told that I was "too smart to stay sober," told that friends who drank again were "losers" and to stay away from them, and realizing that my choice to back off on meeting attendance brought threats of dire consequences in my future, I just stopped going.
I also realized that the focus on AA as the ONLY treatment method for alcoholics was really standing in the way of finding alternative treatment methods for the majority of people who AA does not help. If any other method of treatment had such a dismal failure rate, it would be retired for some new modality. This is still a mystery to me.
It's important to talk about this, to break this grip that the 12 step programs have on the recovery business.

1. The Twelve Steps do not work as a program of recovery from drug or alcohol problems.
o The A.A. failure rate ranges from 95% to 100%. Sometimes, the A.A. success rate is actually less than zero, which means that A.A. indoctrination is positively harmful to people, and prevents recovery. Some tests have shown that even receiving no treatment at all for alcoholism is much better than receiving A.A. treatment:
o One of the most enthusiastic boosters of Alcoholics Anonymous, Professor George Vaillant of Harvard University, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS), showed by his own 8 years of testing of A.A. that A.A. was worse than useless -- that it didn't help the alcoholics any more than no treatment at all, and it had the highest death rate of any treatment program tested -- a death rate that Professor Vaillant himself described as "appalling". While trying to prove that A.A. treatment works, Professor Vaillant actually proved that A.A. kills. After 8 years of A.A. treatment, the score with Dr. Vaillant's first 100 alcoholic patients was: 5 sober, 29 dead, and 66 still drinking.
(Nevertheless, Vaillant is still a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he still wants to send all alcoholics to A.A. anyway, to "get an attitude change by confessing their sins to a high-status healer." That is cult religion, not a treatment program for alcoholism.)
o The A.A. dropout rate is terrible. Most people who come to A.A. looking for help in quitting drinking are appalled by the narrow-minded atmosphere of fundamentalist religion and faith-healing. The A.A. meeting room has a revolving door. The therapists, judges, and parole officers (many of whom are themselves hidden members of A.A. or N.A.) continually send new people to A.A., but those newcomers vote with their feet once they see what A.A. really is. Even A.A.'s own triennial surveys, conducted by the A.A. headquarters (the GSO), say that:
X 81% of the newcomers are gone within 30 days,
X 90% are gone in 3 months, and
X 95% are gone at the end of a year.
That automatically gives A.A. a failure rate of at least 95%. But the GSO does not count all of those people who only attend a few meetings before quitting -- they don't qualify as "members". (That amounts to "cherry-picking".) If we included them, then the numbers would be much worse.
And also note that the claimed five percent of A.A. newcomers who are still left after one year is exactly the same number as the usual rate of spontaneous remission among alcoholics -- five percent per year. That is, in any randomly-selected population of alcoholics, approximately five percent per year will finally get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and they will just quit drinking. And the Harvard Medical School says that 80% of those successful quitters do it by themselves, alone, without any "treatment program" or any "support group".
If we subtract the normal spontaneous remission rate for alcoholism of five percent per year from A.A.'s claimed success rate of five percent, we get zero for A.A.'s real effective cure rate.
A.A. does not actually make anybody quit drinking; it just takes the credit for the people who were going to quit anyway. A.A. is just taking the credit for peoples' efforts to save their own lives.
o The Twelve Steps are actually a hopelessly bad program for recovery:
X Cult religion is not a good cure for alcoholism, and A.A. most assuredly is a cult religion.
X One of the biggest problems with the Twelve-Step program is the learned helplessness caused by the First Step, where people are taught to confess that they are "powerless over alcohol." This leads many people to believe that once they have a drink, that a full-blown relapse and total loss of self-control is inevitable and unavoidable. So some people go on suicidally-intense binges, thinking that it is pointless to try to resist temptation.2 --
X Step Two is just as bad: it teaches people that they are insane, and that only a Supernatural Being can restore them to sanity -- which means that they are helpless, and cannot heal themselves.
X Then Step Three teaches a lifestyle of infantile narcissism and passive dependency, where A.A. members turn control of their wills and their lives over to "the care of God as we understood Him", and then they expect God to take care of them and run their lives for them, and solve all their problems, and wait on them hand and foot, and do all of the hard work for them from then on...
"Let Go And Let God"
is their official motto, their lifestyle, and their approach to problem-solving.
X Then Steps Four through Ten induce guilt in the members by forcing members to make lists of all of their sins and flaws, and "defects of character" and "moral shortcomings", and confess every intimate dirty little secret to another A.A. member who isn't even ordained clergy, or even sworn to secrecy.
X In Step Eleven you are supposed to "channel" God and receive psychic work orders and power.
X Then Step Twelve tells you to go recruiting, to draft more alcoholics into this madness.
o There is also experimental evidence that the A.A. teachings about powerlessness lead to binge drinking. In a controlled study of A.A.'s effectiveness, court-mandated offenders who had been sent to A.A. for several months were engaging in five times as much binge drinking as the no-treatment control group which got no A.A. "help".
o A.A. boosters and propagandists constantly repeat the Big Lie that A.A. works great, and A.A. with its Twelve Steps is the way that everybody recovers:

Finally, the truth is coming out about 12 step programs. I went to AA for about a year. I did get and stay sober, but believe me, it wasnt because of AA. I tried several different meetings, to see if they all had the same affect on me. Yup, they did. Every time I left a meeting I felt so depressed - I had to be powerless, I would NEVER recover, and I would have to continue go to these really awful meetings and follow the "big book" which is nothing but a bunch of contradictions and coercion to keep going to meetings. Otherwise, I would start drinking again and the result would be "prison, institutions, or death." Leaving meetings, many times, I would want a drink to get over the craziness in the meeting itself! All I saw were old timers that were addicted to meetings and being "in recovery." So many of them were suspicious of people who arent 12 steppers, even if those people dont have problems with alcohol or drugs. Anyway, thank goodness for this book. They should hand it out to first timers in 12 step meetings so they can tell the myths from the truth.

The author does not understand the 12 step program. It is not a program of endless powerlessness. Power is obtained through contact with a higher power. People suffering from addiction learn to become truly powerful by calling upon something greater than ourselves. This book is dangerous because it can confuse people who are successful in recovery.

It is a bit confusing at the beginning, but as soon as it starts up, It keeps you guessing...

LoveSick, is a great read! Accurate and Candid are the descriptions given in the book, of both alcohol abuse, and bulmia. To some it could come across as sickening and not needed, but necessary to help others who have not experienced either understand what both vices can do to your life, and how recovery is always a one day at a time process.

Pick up a copy, it's more then worth the read!!

I think this is the only book I have ever read that I had a hard time picturing what was going on in my mind. The story line and charactors were great but I wasn't really impressed with how the book was written.

I bought this book because if focuses on addiction and particularly eating disorders. I like that this book explores the 12 step premise for both OA and AA.

I liked the characters although I was not overly fond of Erika and her weird, weird thinking (although I can see the relationship between her thinking and her illness) - still some of it was a bit much.

What I did not like and thought was very, very weird was the basic storyline. Just not believable in anyway and fell very flat. I am sure the author could have come up with a better introduction for these two people.

Finished the book in two days and felt cheated somehow. Of course, the ending is also a little too pat.

LoveSick is a story of sickness and love. Ted is a teenage alcoholic, his basketball scholarship to a prestigious college rescinded as a result of a drunk-diving accident. Erica is a freshman at the same college who suffers from bulimia. Erica's uber-rich father makes Ted an offer he can't refuse: send periodic emails with updates on Erica's status, and Ted can have a free ride at the college that his blue collar family couldn't afford.

Jake Coburn's premise is a good one, but the execution is poor and near laughably unbelievable. Erica's father communicates with Ted via an all-knowing ultra-spy intermediary, a man who monitors every financial, medical, and social move Erica makes. If the father has this man at his disposal, why does he need Ted? Communication takes place in a high-tech secret email domain. Erica hides her conversations with her therapist by chatting with him in an online chess room. Coburn mis-uses teenage slang, substituting words like "download" when he means "down-low," as in getting the down-low in information on someone. He smatters the text with unnecessary and detracting pop-culture consumer references.

As for the portrayal of teen addiction, the bulimia seems reasonable at a glance, especially Erica's family's dysfunctional reaction. Ted's relationship with AA, however, is wooden, employing the words Higher Power and Big Book, but with none of the true sentiments of AA as an integral part of the text or his personal philosophy.

This is an excellent daily guide to living a peaceful life. The daily readings inspire deep reflection and contemplation. They are thoughtful as well as instructive. For those who live with inner and/or outer turmoil, the readings are like an oasis of hopefulness, serenity and stillness that can be used as a helpful spiritual guide for each day.

I agree with the reviewer who found this book a little harsh. The advice is "old school" al-anon -- focused on the wife of an AA member. It's all about becoming more agreeable, not arguing with him, not complaining when he spends all his time in AA. If you are an adult child of an alcoholic, there is precious little advice for you here. You might want to check out HOPE FOR TODAY or COURAGE TO CHANGE.

I find this meditation book a little harsh, although there are some strong insights. I prefer the other Al-Anon mediation books: Courage to Change: 1 Day at a Time in Al-Anon II or Hope for Today. Both of these newer books provide similar insights with a much kinder voice. If you are dealing with active addiction in your life, these books will help, even if you decide not to attend Al-Anon. Remember the three C's: "I didn't cause it; I can't control it; I can't cure it." (Paths to Recovery: Al-Anon's Steps, Traditions and Concepts, p. 14)

a great book to read a page of everyday. or read the 22 pages on detachment all at once.

do a google on Orange Papers. I bought the 12 Step snake oil hook, line and sinker for over a dozen years. 12 Steps are a religion. It mentions GOD more frequently than the 10 Commandments. Bill Wilson, co-founder of the 12 Steps did LSD 22 years after writing them. He was also a notorious pathological 13th stepper.

1. The Twelve Steps do not work as a program of recovery from drug or alcohol problems.
o The A.A. failure rate ranges from 95% to 100%. Sometimes, the A.A. success rate is actually less than zero, which means that A.A. indoctrination is positively harmful to people, and prevents recovery. Some tests have shown that even receiving no treatment at all for alcoholism is much better than receiving A.A. treatment:
o One of the most enthusiastic boosters of Alcoholics Anonymous, Professor George Vaillant of Harvard University, who is also a member of the Board of Trustees of Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. (AAWS), showed by his own 8 years of testing of A.A. that A.A. was worse than useless -- that it didn't help the alcoholics any more than no treatment at all, and it had the highest death rate of any treatment program tested -- a death rate that Professor Vaillant himself described as "appalling". While trying to prove that A.A. treatment works, Professor Vaillant actually proved that A.A. kills. After 8 years of A.A. treatment, the score with Dr. Vaillant's first 100 alcoholic patients was: 5 sober, 29 dead, and 66 still drinking.
(Nevertheless, Vaillant is still a Trustee of Alcoholics Anonymous, and he still wants to send all alcoholics to A.A. anyway, to "get an attitude change by confessing their sins to a high-status healer." That is cult religion, not a treatment program for alcoholism.)
o The A.A. dropout rate is terrible. Most people who come to A.A. looking for help in quitting drinking are appalled by the narrow-minded atmosphere of fundamentalist religion and faith-healing. The A.A. meeting room has a revolving door. The therapists, judges, and parole officers (many of whom are themselves hidden members of A.A. or N.A.) continually send new people to A.A., but those newcomers vote with their feet once they see what A.A. really is. Even A.A.'s own triennial surveys, conducted by the A.A. headquarters (the GSO), say that:
X 81% of the newcomers are gone within 30 days,
X 90% are gone in 3 months, and
X 95% are gone at the end of a year.
That automatically gives A.A. a failure rate of at least 95%. But the GSO does not count all of those people who only attend a few meetings before quitting -- they don't qualify as "members". (That amounts to "cherry-picking".) If we included them, then the numbers would be much worse.
And also note that the claimed five percent of A.A. newcomers who are still left after one year is exactly the same number as the usual rate of spontaneous remission among alcoholics -- five percent per year. That is, in any randomly-selected population of alcoholics, approximately five percent per year will finally get sick and tired of being sick and tired, and they will just quit drinking. And the Harvard Medical School says that 80% of those successful quitters do it by themselves, alone, without any "treatment program" or any "support group".
If we subtract the normal spontaneous remission rate for alcoholism of five percent per year from A.A.'s claimed success rate of five percent, we get zero for A.A.'s real effective cure rate.
A.A. does not actually make anybody quit drinking; it just takes the credit for the people who were going to quit anyway. A.A. is just taking the credit for peoples' efforts to save their own lives.
o The Twelve Steps are actually a hopelessly bad program for recovery:
X Cult religion is not a good cure for alcoholism, and A.A. most assuredly is a cult religion.
X One of the biggest problems with the Twelve-Step program is the learned helplessness caused by the First Step, where people are taught to confess that they are "powerless over alcohol." This leads many people to believe that once they have a drink, that a full-blown relapse and total loss of self-control is inevitable and unavoidable. So some people go on suicidally-intense binges, thinking that it is pointless to try to resist temptation.2 --
X Step Two is just as bad: it teaches people that they are insane, and that only a Supernatural Being can restore them to sanity -- which means that they are helpless, and cannot heal themselves.
X Then Step Three teaches a lifestyle of infantile narcissism and passive dependency, where A.A. members turn control of their wills and their lives over to "the care of God as we understood Him", and then they expect God to take care of them and run their lives for them, and solve all their problems, and wait on them hand and foot, and do all of the hard work for them from then on...
"Let Go And Let God"
is their official motto, their lifestyle, and their approach to problem-solving.
X Then Steps Four through Ten induce guilt in the members by forcing members to make lists of all of their sins and flaws, and "defects of character" and "moral shortcomings", and confess every intimate dirty little secret to another A.A. member who isn't even ordained clergy, or even sworn to secrecy.
X In Step Eleven you are supposed to "channel" God and receive psychic work orders and power.
X Then Step Twelve tells you to go recruiting, to draft more alcoholics into this madness.
o There is also experimental evidence that the A.A. teachings about powerlessness lead to binge drinking. In a controlled study of A.A.'s effectiveness, court-mandated offenders who had been sent to A.A. for several months were engaging in five times as much binge drinking as the no-treatment control group which got no A.A. "help".
o A.A. boosters and propagandists constantly repeat the Big Lie that A.A. works great, and A.A. with its Twelve Steps is the way that everybody recovers: