Alcoholism Books

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:

Possibly Dick B. should never have used words like "library," "journal," "history," and "books" in his titles. It's too easy to miss their real purpose, pass the books along, and consider them records of the past--a past that's no longer relevant. But Dick B. is an honest historian who likes accurately to describe his subject matter. On the other hand, his passion is to serve the LORD; tell people about God's word, son, and power; and urge them to recover and be cured today just as the early AAs were and just as Dick has done. What about the books owned by Dr. Bob? What do they show? The answer is that their very scope indicates why early AAs had a documented 75% to 93% success rate among seemingly hopeless medically incurable real drunks who went to any length to be cured by the power of God. When Dick discovered Dr. Bob's library in the attic of Dr. Bob's daughter and then later discovered another large portion in the home of Dr. Bob's son, he was ecstatic. And Dr. Bob's kids were equally enthusiastic. At last, people could learn for themselves just how much Dr. Bob had studied and circulated books about the Bible, God, Jesus Christ, Love, life-changing, healing, prayer, quiet time, seeking God's guidance, devotionals, alcoholism and cure, and so on. To know Dr. Bob's library is to know just how solid the early A.A. pioneers were in their belief that their Creator, the accomplishments of Jesus Christ, the truth of the Bible, their prayer life, their studies, and their efforts to help others could back up what they heard repeatedly from Dr. Bob: Your Heavenly Father will never let you down! Here is a nifty compilation of Dr. Bob's entire library, so far as is known today. It's a library that is not located in one place. The daughter sold her portion to Brown University. The son donated his portion to Dr. Bob's Home. And there are others retained by these folk and others. But you can do what Dick did. Once he learned what the books were, he went to the libraries and the bookstores and the internet and studied them. He had verified the originals, but he didn't need to own them. He just needed to study and learn their contents in order to live the abundant life and help others-to salvation and to the truth. Perhaps that appeals to you. It did appeal to me. It's a treasure.

At the very beginning of his 17 years of research into the spiritual history and roots of Alcoholics Anonymous, Dick B. turned his attention to Akron. Why? Because A.A.'s own conference approved DR. BOB and the Good Oldtimers opened the door to a good deal of history practically unknown in A.A. meetings and groups; and it erred in listing the books that Dr. Bob read and circulated indicating wrongly that they had been given away. The A.A. book also told little or nothing about Anne Smith's morning quiet times at the Smith home and nothing of the journal that she kept from 1933 to 1939 and used to teach Bill and Bob and also stimilate discussion at quiet times. Finally, the real Akron beginnings with Sam Shoemaker, Russell Firestone's miraculous cure from alcoholism, the roots of the Akron fellowship in United Christian Endeavor Society, and the real program itself as outlined by Frank Amos were not presented in full. Dick's first book and first edition of Dr. Bob's Library was written after Dick discovered from Dr. Bob's children, Sue Smith Windows and Robert R. Smith, that not only was Dr. Bob's Library still around, but that half of it was in Sue's attic in Akron and the other half was in Smitty's home in Nocona, Texas. Dick inspected them all, probably the first to see the whole group and study the individual items because each of the two children provided him with handwritten lists of the books so that he could track down the books and comment upon them. Dr. Bob's were of particular interest because they individually and in groups showed the various vital areas of interest to the pioneer AAs among whom they were circulated. Thus they covered alcoholism, Bible study, prayer, healing, love, the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, studies of important Bible segments like the Sermon on the Mount and 1 Corinthians 13, the commentaries on these segments, the life-changing books (like those of Harold Begbie, Sam Shoemaker, and A.J. Russell), a Christian classic or two (like St. Augustine and Thomas a Kempis), many works by the top Christian writers of the day (such as Glenn Clark, Charles Sheldon, E. Stanley Jones, Oswald Chambers, Toyohiko Kagawa, the Unity leaders, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Norman Vincent Peale, Fulton Sheen, Emmet Fox, and many others), the writing of William James and Carl Jung, some of the Oxford Group literature, some of the Sam Shoemaker literature, and the devotionals like The Runner's Bible, The Upper Room, My Utmost for His Highest, and The Meaning of Prayer which were in daily use in Akron and, to a very limited degree, in New York. If you are going to learn and paint a picture of the real early A.A. and the Biblical origins of most of the principles practices it utilized, you need to see the scope of Dr. Bob's books, know that they were loaned out, know that they were background for the studies and meetings in the homes, and realize they covered all the rudiments of early A.A.'s Christian Fellowship and recovery program--abstinence, resisting temptation, acceptance of Christ, reliance on the Creator, elimination of sinful conduct, growth in fellowship with God and His son and other believers (through Bible studies, prayer meetings, morning devotions, seeking God's guidance, reading helpful literature, and engaging in religious and social comradeship and, if desired, attendance at church). The trio of Dick's earliest books--Dr. Bob's Library, Anne Smith's Journal, The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous--show you an A.A. with a high success rate, an A.A. that relied on God, and A.A. in which members were cured, and a very simple program whose basic ideas were taken from the Bible. If you take this important first reading and then look at what has been discovered, you see the meat, the bones, and the flavor of early A.A.'s simple program before there were any steps and before there was any basic text. You can also obtain and study the Akron AA pamphlets (4 in all that Dr. Bob caused to be published some 10 or 12 years later) that pointed to all the subjects, roots, principles, and standards that were so much a part of the Akron plan. This Dr. Bob book is a winner. It's content has never been even closely approximated in writings. It should be first on your march through history. And it will give you a perspective of words, phrases, language, and ideas that developed in early A.A. from 1935 through 1944.

So what is the self? Baumeister has an early section by that title. but his response hardly seems a clear definition. It would seem that over 2,000 years ago, Buddhism gave more thought to what the self was. And Buddhism is not scientific. One would expect a modern social scientist could do better. "Self can be understood to be a physical entity overlaid with meaning". Seem clear? Seem scientific? Baumeiser is never precise about what "self" is. He overloads it with attributions. It's self-esteem, self-control, self-image,self-whatever-its-convenient-to-call-it-at-the-moment. You know what he means. Don't you?

After all, it is what we are all escaping from, supposedly.

Baumeister discusses some behaviors: suicide, masochism, alcoholism, binge eating and religous exercise. These he asserts are evidence of escaping from the self. Rather than introduce you to these behaviors first so that you could see how the idea of "escape from the self" is derived, he talks about these in the latter half of the book. After he has elaborated on how the self he hardly defines can be a burden and how escape from whatever that self is generally works. He does this as a speculative exercise, asserting what takes place, with little or no experimental support presented. When he discusses the behaviors such as suicide and masochism, he only says a little bit about each one before asserting (a lot) how each demonstrates an "escape from the self".

Saying that it would be "reckless to try to explain all forms of behavior by ... by the notion of escaping the self", he proceeds to note as escapes such activities as distance running, surfing, skiing, and being a sports fan". So he's viewing a lot as possible "escape from self". And with the self not well defined and with escape not well defined, it becomes hard to say why he would view one behavior as an escape and not another.

"Playing a game may provide escape in the sense that one abandons consideration of one's normal identity and submerges awareness in the game". So how does Baumeister see that someone else is doing all that?

I thought science depended on good definitions, good experiments and thorough analysis, so the escape I recommend is escaping this book. Alcoholism, suicide, masochism, binge eating and spirital exercises seem behaviors worth better analysis. Even if these are "escapes from self", what then to do about each? I didn't find that addressed. Baumeister seemed content having asserted each was an escape.

"Escaping the Self" is a manifestly brilliant work of social psychology and social criticism. Reading the book, I recapture the feelings of insight that originally attracted me to psychology.

The main idea of the book is that many difficult to explain behaviors, such as masochism and suicide, result from a need to escape - and that this need to escape is very specific escape from self-consciousness. Baumeister goes into detail about the various motivations for this need to escape and how they motivate different forms of escape, and also details social trends that have magnified the burden of escape from the self.

This is in many ways the kind of book I would love to write. Baumeister is able to see the implicitly accepted dogmas and flaws of the culture he lives in, much like a Nietzsche, before they are generally recognized. It's interesting that this work is out of print now - and the idea not generally appreciated by those who could best put it to work. This pattern occurs with many 'heretical' thinkers. And since the works details more the downside of our obsession with self - something we do not recognize as a choice, or something unusual - this might explain the book's status.

Easily the most interesting social/behavioral science book I have read in a long time - it also opens many new avenues for scholarship to the careful reader. Highly reccomended.

Whatever your drug of choice, read this! An amazing theorist and scientist who is an aclaimed social psychologist and accomplished writer. Roy Baumeister has taskled issues that are relevant to all of us. He is able to concisely express his theories regarding the actions of the human species...Essentially the "why" of what we do what we do. A great read for anyone, but especially valuable for those interested in psychology and people in general. An essential tool to the "future-counselor." A must read!

This book contains some great references to scripture but was clearly written from a male perspective that is not favorable to women. There are other really good Christian books on alcoholism that might be more helpful and encouraging.

A.A. Author and Historian Dick B. first ran into this book many years ago when he was just beginning his research into the Biblical history of Alcoholics Anonymous. Dick had taken one of his books into a Christian bookstore, and the clergyman in charge handed him a copy of Jerry Dunn's book. Dick was not yet into the "sin" issues about alcoholism and early A.A. So he set the book aside. A number of years later, he shared the platform with Jerry Dunn at the First International Conference of Alcoholics Victorious in New Jersey. Jerry was along in years, but very powerful in his drunkalog and "testimony" as he called it. Impressed with Jerry, Dick was nonetheless still was focused on history more than on the applicability of our rich A.A. Christian roots to recovery today. However, Dick B. has now published 30 titles on A.A. history. And the last few have been heavily weighted in favor of examining the utility of our history in and outside of A.A. and Twelve Step Fellowships today. Recently, he was asked to conduct a four day seminar at a CityTeam Conference in Santa Cruz, California; and in preparation, he dusted off two of his "practitioner" books and dived into materials on Dr. William D. Silkworth and Jerry Dunn. He realized that both men had a strong belief in Jesus Christ. Both men had written some very practical materials on how to approach an alcoholic and what to tell the alcoholic he should do to get well. Previously, he had realized that Jerry's book was shot-through with practical views based on his years in the Word and in his own recovery and in his work helping other drunks. Today, the book has taken on a new and greater dimension for Dick and for me. I now deem this "God is For the Alcoholic" title and Jerry's work, along with that of Dr. Silkworth, to be very very valuable in overcoming the godless trend in recovery fellowships and treatment programs today. And I conclude by recommending Dunn's book highly and by pointing out that Dick B. has discussed at some length the views of Silkworth and Dunn, in terms of their applicability today. You'll find some of this in several of his recent titles. But the best and most detailed coverage is in one of his latest titles, Dick B. "Real Twelve Step Fellowship History: The Old School A.A. You May Not Know." (Kihei, HI: Paradise Research Publications, Inc., 2006), pp. 108-114. You'll gain a great appreciation for the Jerry Dunn book when you learn how practical and spiritual its contents are to this very day.

The principles outlined in this book which helped Jerry Dunn to escape the hold of alcohol on his life are applicable to ANY dependence or additiction a person may have. The book reads well and holds your attention. You see, I have known Jerry personally for the past 20 years. I was fortunate enough to marry into his family and have had the pleasure of knowing that he did not merely "write" a book about what one should do, he lived it out in his own life. What a testimony! Thank you Jerry Dunn!

This book is one of the very few that addresses the need for a non-God based program for treating addiction/alcoholism. For those of us that choose not to believe, or prefer rationality in the treatment of addictions, rather than "surrendering to a power greater than yourself", it is a godsend (pun intended). While AA fits many and is a great program, the needs of free-thinking people need to be addressed as well.
The book provides clear steps to be taken, and sets clear priorities to address. There were a few noticiable typos that should be cleaned up, but the book is definitely a "5 star" text.

Lets face it, some of us just don't fall into the 12 step mold. When you find you're using that phrase "take what you want and leave the rest" too much- this book can help make you feel less isolated in the world of recovery.

Yes, this book did promote Secular Humanism, but Bill W's book promotes Christianity (well, if you see through the "you can call your dog God if you want" or "God could be a tree to you, whatever you want"...). A big theory behind our tendency towards our addiction is the "Thirst for wholeness" (see a book titled "Thirsting For Wholeness" by Tom Brady, Jr. (not a secular humanist) is that we search for wholeness through a lack of spirituality. Spirituality doesn't mean "God" to all of us.

This book was my guiding light in early recovery. After the first year when the pink cloud started to fade, this is the book that kept me here.

Some of what the author bring up is that many of us end up extremely disappointed when we do everything "right", and things just don't get easier. Why didn't God help us when we worked so hard. This book is about how no ones going to hand anything to you, you don't "slip" (which when people really slip, it is not a decision- you relapse), and that no God magically takes away the desire to drink for many of us.

Its about personal responsibility, strength, and not waiting for some divine thing to happen that may never happen- that everything you do will help or hurt your life.

I definitely recommend this book to anyone who is still looking, no matter how far along in recovery, and who still feels isolated, and is disappointed in what they feel they've received from recovery. This book guides you to help yourself, rely on yourself, and work optimistically towards what you want in life.

I did not find anything helpful in this book regarding recovery.It seemed to me he was more intersted in promoting secularism then helping the alcoholic deal with an alternative to the 12 Step program.
"Making Sobriety a Priority Everyday" is what I think most alcoholics who want sobriety hope for until their addicted brain tells them otherwise. Those words are simply not enough to help one cope with the stuggle of sobriety.The author tells the reader what they need to do but does not give any helpful strategies on how to do it.
Again, it seems that the author was more interested in hyping his secular philosophy.
Also,the last 50 pages are a waste of paper. They were the reiteration of a journal entry for you to fill in each day. I think it was added to make the book look like it was longer and had substance.
I hope this book can help someone but it most certainly did not help me.

This is not a coherent, well-structured narrative. It's a first-person account of an intelligent person disabled by alcoholism. He's an individual. He doesn't represent everyone in his category. Its value is in the intimate look inside the mind of an addict and how he makes decisions. I was especially interested in the lies he tells himself to get different effects. For example, he says, to stop drinking for two days he must *decide* to stop for a month. His description of the pain that drives him to drink is vivid and heartbreaking.

In this autobiography, Donohue chronicles his peregrinations across the USA while drinking himself silly. He gets a few lucky breaks, some money here and there, a little success, but he drinks it all away. In the end, the book snaps shut abruptly with no conclusion, no climax, no denouement, nothing. Just snaps shut in a very odd way. But then it is just a peek into one man's life, the life of an alcoholic. I definitely had more sympathy for homeless people, even alcoholic homeless people, after reading this book. The potential reader should be warned that it contains a lot of economic theory that Donohue, who actually graduated from college with a business degree, develops. So that stuff is a bit dry and you can safely skip over most of it.

One reviewer compared this book to George Orwell's "Down and Out in Paris and London," a gritty look at the lives of transients in France and England in the 1930s. In truth, this book and its author bear more resemblance to Ted Kaczynski and his anti-technology "Manifesto."

The difference is that Orwell never became part of world he described. Exploring the world of the lower classes, he was constantly betrayed by his "lower-upper-middle-class" mannerisms and tastes. Timothy Donohue is all too much a part of the world he describes--namely, the nightmarish world of the late-stage alcoholic.

On the surface, "In the Open" is about a man who freely admits he's trapped in alcohol's clutches but is somehow able to string together a carefully reasoned argument in favor of food stamp reform, typing his manuscript at public libraries whenever he's sober and has the opportunity.

His thesis proceeds with fits and starts, however, as Donohue--who sees himself as an unappreciated visionary--struggles with simple tasks made monumentally difficult by his disease. Obtaining money, finding and keeping a menial job, avoiding the police and bullies, keeping his few possessions intact--all these things demand increasing expenses of time and energy as the author tries unsuccessfully to moderate his drinking.

It's not unusual for an alcoholic to reason that the problem isn't with himself but with the rest of the world. What's unusual is for an alcoholic to go to the lengths to which Donohue has gone to persuade the world that he's right and it's wrong. There may be some sense to Donohue's economic proposals, but then there may be some sense to the musings of a teenager who talks metaphysics while smoking pot. His ideas are nothing if not grandiose--and grandiosity is one of the hallmarks of alcoholism. There's something about Donohue's economic plan that rings false; perhaps it's our awareness that what Donohue's really trying to reconstruct is not the American welfare system but his own shattered Self. If he can prove (to himself at least) that the system's broken, then who can blame him for checking out?

Donohue is at his best when he's describing the landscape and his immediate surroundings, which are by turns enchanting and menacing. There's no denying he has a gift for descriptive prose. Seeing this gift in the service of such a wayward project, however, is somewhat depressing. If he can hit patches of brilliance while drunk and living on the street, where's the limit to what he could do if he got his life turned around? (On the other hand, if Donohue were leading a "normal" life, he might not feel compelled to write at all.)

Oddly, this book is presented with no commentary apart from what's on the dust jacket. There's no Introduction or Forword to put the author and his plight in perspective. There's no Afterword; the narrative ends abruptly, and the reader is left with many questions. Did Donohue ever get his drinking "under control"? Did he ever realize that he wasn't that much different from other alcoholics after all? Did he ever find a spiritual solution to his torment? Is he even still alive?

Because the publisher, the University of Chicago Press, offers such scant explanation, we're also left wondering why the book was published in the first place. Did the editors find merit in Donohue's economic proposals, or is the book intended as an example of the lengths to which a damaged psyche will go to justify itself? The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions.

I felt that the experiences were related sincerely, and would be devastating to any child. However I was hoping to read of someone who ultimately overcame the dysfunction. The author seems to remain bitter and judgmental, with a lack of empathy for his siblings who lived in the same abusive household. Much of his criticism and language was unncecessary, and shows a lack of recovery. Also it needs quite a bit of editing for grammar and spelling.

I read and re-read this book and each time I find more of myself within the pages. No matter if you are a child of alcoholic parents or know someone who is, you will come away with a first hand account that everyone can relate to. I found it easy to read and understand. This is a book that every person who is, is related to, or knows of someone involved in alcoholism should read. I am grateful to the author for revealing the true grit of his life both past and present.

This book is the culmination of three years of soul searching and seeking resolution to some difficult issues in my life. I am willing to share my story so that it may bring courage and hope to others. As you may know the alcoholic legacy is difficult to overcome and cumbersome to live with. If you have suffered from the abuse of an alcoholic parent and/or a co-dependent family this book will give you some insight into the unpredictable nature of the alcoholic household. It may also offer some help with the undefined anxiety you feel each day. There is hope. Look within your heart for the answers.

Somehow I became the owner of two copies of this book but that didn't make it any less useless. I found the writing convuluted, the insights confusing, the constant references to the authors pets as models of mental health--couldn't he speak about people instead of his constantly harping on his dog? disturbing. Readers interested in learning about the dynamics of the alchoholic family are far better off skipping this one and going straight to the consistently excellent work of Toby Rice Drews.

This humorous, and often painful, account of one man's struggle with addiction and alcohol, is a must-read for anyone dealing with family codependence, or the frustration and anger of living with a substance abuser. It is an insightful, forgiving, and gentle recollection of the reversal of one's march towards self-destruction. Along with Melody Beatty's "Codependent No More" series of books, and those of Toby Rice Drews and Vernon E. Johnson, this gem should be part of everyone's recovery library.

Did you grow up with an alcoholic parent? Then without question you will find yourself in this book. It's almost too painful to read.

Crisman's insights are gently delivered, but still, they slap the reader in the face. Was it really like that when I was growing up? Did I let myself get assigned to that particular role? Is this why my brothers/sisters are this way?

I don't wander around in ACA circles, so don't know to what extent this book affects others who grew up in comparable families. But for me, reading ``The Opposite of Everything is True'' was a life-changing event. For the first time ever I realized I was not alone, that the peculiarities within my family weren't caused because I'd been a bad child. I felt like Crisman cut free the shackles binding me to the past.

I have found this to be an excellent resource for every aspect of addiction. Dr. Robert Dupont is emminently qualified to author this text. He does an excellent job of personalizing his writing with examples from his practice. He offers a message of hope for addicts and their families. It is a tome, but a very readable one, and he even includes (in the introduction) a way to "speed read" it in 2.5 hours. I read it twice in a weekend and am about to order my third copy! (I just seem to find people to give them to).

The first red flag - "About the author" at the top of this page. Beware of the authors advertised by the major media outlets.

Among other nonsense, this book promotes a failed AA 12-step approach and other myths such as marijuana being a gateway drug. Do yourself a favor and do some serious research instead of wasting your time here. Pathetic and laughable.

Dr. Dupont is the former head of the National Institute of Drug Abuse (part of the National Institutes of Health). He presents the science of addiction and recovery in a way that anyone can understand. This book was recommended to me by a former private patient of Dr. Dupont's, who had nothing but good things to say about him. I thought the book was excellent, and it really explains what works and why.

I thought it was the best book that I had read in a really long time. The day that I received the book in the mail, I started reading it and could not put it down, and 4 hours later I finished.

This is not my normal taste in books, I tend to read romance junk. I found this book interesting. It was easy to read, informative and it immediately grabbed my attention and kept it. It contains part truth, part fiction and part speculation that is combined for a perfect story line. He researched and wrote informatively. Even if you do not have an addiction, you can read this book and understand what this person in the book experienced. I would recommend this book to everyone.

It was borrowed from someone at work and I had to immediately sit down and read it cover to cover. I ordered 10 copies for friends and family. I constantly recommend this book to those struggling with addiction and in deep deep denial. For those stuck in the hell of addiction, it takes powerful and bold writing to get their attention. This book does that. In fairness, this book shows a journey of quitting for the wrong reasons and quitting for the right reasons. Still relevant in today's comprehension of treatment programs. Rarely do addicts check into a 28 day cocoon treatment program and stay clean and sober forever if they haven't learned how to live in the real world with their recovery. The reality described in this book shows that living with the day to day addiction and recovery for the right reasons is paramount to staying clean and sober. It takes bottom of the glass looking up writing to get the reader's attention and that's what Bill does in this book. It's as important today as it was 10 years ago. This is a good read and shakes up your denial in ways most medical-feel good-you can do it too books out there. Those are dangerous books to an addict! His direct writing style is no-nonsene straight at you-which is what is called for in my opinion. Take it from an addict.

To anyone who has ever grappled with beating an addiction and moving toward a substance-abuse free, gratifying life, this book will be a terrible disappointment. It is nothing more than one man's recounting of what countless, countless hundreds of thousands of people have experienced in their attempts to free themselves of an addiction and find true peace in life.

The book's main message -- a person must WANT to be well -- before his or her program will truly work -- is probably heard thousands of times a day at AA and NA meetings worldwide.

This book offers no new insights into the recovery process. It is a primer for the uninitiated -- and not a very good one at that! Most introductory books dealing with alcoholism (and/or drug addiction) have a great deal of information about the physical effects of drugs and alcohol. Only then do they go on to discuss emotional and spiritual recovery.

You'll love this book, the charectures are relatable and make you wish they weren't having such problems. READ IT OR YOU'RE MISSING OUT!

I know that the teenagers love the drama, but I guess that I personally can only take so much angst and suffering. Sure, Stephanie and her sisters had issues and good aspects alike, but it seemed more like a warning (bless Brother Weyland's soul) against the evils of drugs and alcohol than it seemed a story about a girl suffering from bad decisions.

This is about a girl who has a double life. To her parents she is a good church going girl. At school she is known as the party girl. Then she fianlly gets caught. This is a great gook! I love it!