Al-Anon Books

Michael's book is wonderful!!! It is a weekly read for me and has added so much to my gratitude for my recovery. This book truly embraces and passes on to it's readers the BEST of the 12 step recovery rooms. So much wisdom is found in AA, yet... filtering through some of the "nonsense" shared by individuals at an AA/NA/OA,etc. meeting is not always easy for the person seeking recovery.
Seeking "the Wisdom to know the difference" for our recovery is when God truly blesses us with that very GIFT! I suggest we use the Wisdom of the Rooms as a format for some awesome recovery meetings! Michael Z. has given us the perfect book to do that. with!

Each time I read this book I get something new from it. Reading a quote from this book is like attending one of those meetings that changes your soul, and Michael Z's interpretations seem to reach out connect with me on almost every level. The spiritual wisdom in this book touches those in and out of recovery, and the people I've given it to not only identify, but often buy copies to give as gifts - it's that's kind of book.

Quotes like "When fear knocks on the door and faith answers, no one is home", seem to be just the thing I need to read when I pick it up. I can literally just glance at any page and find something that speaks to me right when I need it. Whether I'm struggling with my concept of God, or with my fear, or even with setting healthy boundries ("No is a complete sentence"), it's all here for me.

If you're looking for a book of spiritual yet practical wisdom that can fill your well with faith and hope, this book will become a favorite of yours, too. I love "The Wisdom of the Rooms" and look forward each week to the new quotes Michael Z puts out for free (visit the website: www.thewisdomoftherooms.com) and you can sign up.

This is a must have for those in and out of recovery, and it will enrich any spiritual practice you currently have. For those of you who haven't read it yet, you're in for a wonderful treat. Enjoy the wisdom!

An outstanding spiritual guidebook for those in recovery or those who just want to embrace their higher power. It helped me stay connected to what's really important and not feel so alone in this world. It's one of those books you can read again and again and always grasp something new. Thanks Michael Z!

For an "on the go" person in recovery like me, this is like the blackberry of 12 step meetings. Any page I open in this book, seems to give me exaclty what I need to read at that time, to give me a spiritual perspective on any situation. The way the author explains the quotes with ease, and then allows the readers to internally answer some questions regarding the quote, can bring tranquility to a turbulent head.

I wish more books on recovery were written this way.
Thank you Michael Z!!

I have been in AA for 15 months and love the new life that I have been fortunate to receive. I first became familiar with Wisdom of the Rooms a year ago when a recovery center in Arizona sent me my first one. Since then I look forward to receiving my weekly mailings from Michael Z. When I found out that Michael was compiling a book, I bought 20 of them. The reason being is that there are 12 people who, in my early recovery took me under their wing and helped me to work the program of AA, to have the Promises come true and to have a Spiritual Awakening. The least I could do is share the love that Michael has put into this book with them.

This was very well done, and I think illustrated Lois Wilson's personality. One topic I wish the author had added a little more detail on is the issue of co-dependency.

For all those struggling with loved ones with the disease of alcoholism, this book is excellent.

This book should be available through every public library for those who do not have it on their own shelf.

Excellent book and tranaction. Received as promised and in excellent shape.
Thanks you Seller

The Lois Wilson Story: When Love is not Enough
By: William G. Borchert
Hazelden
Center City, Minnesota 55012-0176

Lois Wilson was an amazing, wonderful woman and the world is a better place because she and her husband were in it. Author William G. Borchert used his words to express this woman's life, her trials, tribulations, and sanctification. Lois Wilson was the co-founder of the Al-Anon, and Alateen fellowships. Her husband Bill Wilson was one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous.

This amazing book about her life starts as a flash back. It begins with introducing you to a very unhappy Lois in the early 1930's. Then it shifts to her beginnings. The book takes your hand and walks you through the entire life of Lois Wilson, her family, and some of her friends. It gives you explicit details about her life, how AA came about, Bill, and Al-Anon.

Lois met her husband Bill, who was four years her junior, in Vermont. This would prove to be a love that stood the test of time and alcohol. They married in January, before he went of to fight in WWI. They had a beautiful wedding in her parent's house in Brooklyn, and they were married for fifty-three years.

Lois's life with Bill was full of ups and downs. He was in the Army, and then an investigator on Wall Street. Bill was a genius. He began his drinking days when he was overseas, and it continued as it was seen as acceptable in his profession. This later carried on into him becoming an alcoholic.

Lois was forced to be the breadwinner of the family as Bill's drinking got worse and cost them everything that they had. Through all the years that she went through with him having this horrible sickness, she began to change and harbor much resentment. To add to her pain she was unable to have children, and when they tried to adopt, a friend put a stop to it because of Bill's drinking. Later Mrs. Wilson came to realize that it was for the best that they did not have children, and she looked at all the alcoholics in AA as her dear children.

As Bill started to recover after many hard years of his illness, Lois was still hurting inside with deep resentment, and anger. Bill formed Alcoholics Anonymous with Dr. Bob Smith, in Akron, Ohio. He found that the only way for him to stay sober was to be with another drunk. This revelation only injured the already wounded heart of Lois even more. She had wanted to be the reason and the one that caused her husband to be sober and to stay that way.

As the fellowship of AA continued to grow, one day Lois went out on the porch and noticed that there were other wives just sitting in the cars that lined the street. She went out to the other women and invited them in. She had a revelation that there were others out there hurting just as badly as she from this horrible alcohol demon. Thus started her little kitchen group. As the years progressed, this kitchen group concept developed into what is now Al-Anon. They followed the same twelve steps that AA did, but they also had their own twelve steps to follow as well.

Once it was realized that the children were being left out Lois, and some of the volunteers who helped with Al-Anon decided that something needed to be done for them, thus the dawning of Alateen. It was headed by one of the original volunteers, and each group was set up to be fostered by an Al-Anon member. Lois took particular interest and joy over the group for the children.

Because of the will and determination of Bill and Lois wisdom, there is now what is called a "cure" for alcoholics, and their families. Alcoholism is a disease that effects all members of a family, co-workers, and even some people in the community. Monumental steps were made by these two amazing people, and none of it would have happened if Lois had not stayed by Bill's side.

This is a story about heartache, pain, stamina, faith, and above all love. God had both Lois and Bill Wilson here for a reason, and I believe that they fulfilled their calling. Mr. Borchert did a wonderful job of telling the story, and letting the reader feel that they also personally knew Lois Wilson. This was a hard life to read about, but I learned a lot from the experiences in the pages. I hope that God will use this book to expand understanding about alcoholism, and the strong family that it takes to support one.

I bought this for my H for Christmas and realized that I wish I had bought it for me too! It's a great book that gives very easy to read thoughts to help in overcoming different issues related to addictions and being the relative of those who are addicted. The thought size is perfect for those times when you don't have a lot of time. It still gives you recovery material to work with even when you are busy and on the go!

This is the best daily reader I've found so far, even among the other Al-Anon books. I struggle with depression, tiredness, and having grown up the child of generations of alcoholics. Sometimes I don't feel that Al-Anon fits what I'm struggling with, and that leaves me feeling lonely - but this book almost always has something that soothes me in a deep way (which I'm despretely seeking when depression tears at me) and helps me feel stronger in that particular moment.

I read a page a day (when I remember), but mostly I use the index. I look up whatever topic I feel fits at that time - acceptance, anxiety, detatchment, fear, gratitude, mistakes, self-acceptance, self-esteem, and so on - and read all the pages on that topic. If I still feel torn up inside I look up another topic and read those pages. By the end of reading, although my problems haven't been solved, I feel a more able to deal with the world.

I've found there are a lot of useful quotes, not just the ones at the bottom of the pages but within the text. All of my copies are dog-eared and underlined, and I write a lot of quotes down to help later because often a simple phrase clicks within me whereas a torrent of wise words cannot.

In summary, this book has helped more than the many self-help books I've bought, probably because I've made it a part of my life. No book can answer my problems and the fact that I inevitably have to deal with them - difficult when I feel I just don't know how. But that's why this book is perfect; it exists to help people survive, one day at a time. It's straight-forward simplicity, without the too-sweet, new-age feel other books can have, is why it is personally indispensible.

After many many years of suffering with my husband through his addiction and then facing the hard-hitting rock bottom he went through...this book has given me the hope that I need so much.
Thankfully, my husband has since found the path to recovery "Courage to Change" helps me go through the day when I feel like I just want to call it quits.
It is also helping me through my own 12 step program...to stop being a co-dependant and living for myself.

I have owned this book since the year it was published in 1992. I have read it almost every night for the last 14 years off and on but mostly on. I am always amazed and brought to tears as to how accurate the message is on any given day. I had a breif relationship with an addict that ended over 10 years ago but this book is the one true gift that I was given from that experience as it truly is a daily message from God and has given me more comfort, solace and strength than I can describe. I plan on purchasing 2 more copies tonight.

If you have ever lived with an addict or alcoholic, this book gives you inspiration and courage to learn how to be independent in your growth as a person.

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

This book is a must have for anyone working the al anon program! Excellent reading and daily reminders

This book is very helpful giving quick guidance for the day. I see myself continually reading it for many years.

Wonderful, inspirational book of daily readings for families of Alcoholics and Drug-Addicts.

Great books-great for daily meditations, great for any of the 12 step programs.

You want recovery? Work the Steps and Traditions. This is the book that will help you do it if you have been affected by someone else's drinking, thinking and/or behavior. As one other reviewer has already stated, if I could have only one Al-Anon book, this would be it. This book is truly a blessing.

If you are working the steps, this book is a great guide. It offers Insight on the steps, members Experience, Strength and Hope, and some guiding questions.

This is the basic text of the Al-Anon program, and in it you will a new freedom and a new happiness in your life. If you were raised in a home affected by alcoholism, or in a home affected by depression or co-dependency, where you were unable to form healthy boundries, then this book will help you So Much.

I love what someone said in it when they commented on the 2nd Step "Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity." Someone wrote, "Restore me to sanity? How about introduce me to it!" The book is filled with other such gems. Get it today...

Michael Z, author of The Wisdom of the Rooms "A Year of Weekly Reflections"

When I received the book, I was very pleased with the appearance, not bends, or anything in the cover. Delivery was very fast.

Pathways to Recovery is an excellent book for recovery from living with an Alcoholic or just help with having healthy relationships.

At first I wanted to throw this book away. I didn't need it! My spouse was drinking. Why did I need help?

Well I did. I was codependent. I was enabling. I was a mess. I started to go to Al-Anon meetings. I could not find the book for 5 months. I reread it the other night. Reread is too strong - because the first time I skimmed it - the first 2 chapters. Then I came back to it and saw on pages 32 and 33 - how I was UNABLE to control alcoholism. How I was UNABLE to fix the disease in my wife. It said, I wasn't to blame. It said, stop fighting and arguing, you (I) was only making the the DISEASE stronger (more arrogant, more coniving, more deceitful).

I used several quotes in my blog. We have Weekend Online Al-Anon meetings every weekend on my Al-Anon Diary (title) and you can see my life unflod in my ups and downs and my struggle to live with an alcoholic. It is hard

So join us on-line at the Al-Alon Diary and get this book if you are going to Al-Anon.

If you have any questions about the fellowship of Al-anon, I feel you can find most of the answers here. this book goes into detail about the history of the program, the steps, Members experience, strength and hope. It also has Meeting guidlines, the opening, the closing, the slogans ect. It works if you work it! AND YOU ARE WORTH IT!

This book is a wonderful basic text on the principles of the Alanon program, a program of recovery for anyone who has an addict in their lives. It explains how addiction warps those close to the addict, the behaviors that ensue and finally healthier behavior. It's provides a way out of the prison that's constructed when a family or friend faces the frustration of living with and loving an alcoholic/addict. Buy this book for YOU if you're in this situation..and stop the madness.

for those of us who have a drinking or sober alcoholic in our past or present (and god, don't most of us!), this book can help. it's beautifully yet simply written and gently lays out a new philosophy for life, one in which we can learn to keep the focus on ourselves and our behavior, be honest but in an appropriate way, and be kind but firm - with boundaries. this book offered me a whole new idea of what love and life are and can be, and encouraged me to walk forward in a healthy direction like few books have.

another strong plus is that it offers many personal stories - of how and why a wide range of people got into al-anon and how their recovery has been progressing, and each told by the individuals themselves, starting with Lois W., al-anon's co-founder, the wife of Bill W., the founder of AA.

this is a wonderful book and i recommend it highly!

This is the only book in the Al-Anon canon that recommends not reading it right away. It's a series of questions the reader answers and a summary exercise that yields an inventory of a person's character defects and character assets.

I recommend this book to anyone who struggles with self-loathing, for it helped me nail down exactly what I've done, who did it to me, why I responded the way I did, and my role in it. Non-12-steppers can just skip the alcoholism questions. A grueling and incredibly rewarding exercise in self-discovery.

Good tool to use in your recovery. Good way to start the process when you don't know yourself or are confused. Helps to peel away the layers.

This book works with the practice of the alanon twelve steps and traditions, attendance at alanon meetings and a loving sponsor. i have to say though you can purchase it at most alanon meetings which you can find through the alcohol/addiction section of your area phone book. The book [is priced moderately] and should be combined with everything mentioned above. It works if you work it ! Good luck !

Speaking as someone from an alcoholic family, this book helps you "detach, with love" as they say in AA. You realize you can live life for yourself and that you deserve to. The courage to change is needed because the old patterns are familiar and comfortable, but they no longer work. The book brings together wisdom from diverse sources, is divided into 365 short sections corresponding to days of the year, and encourages you truthfully, yet warmly, every step of the way. Read this, it's time to stop beating up on yourself!!

I've been in recovery for five years, and I use this book to start my day. It's full of helpful recovery reminders that make it a very special source of inspiration for me. My relationship with Jesus Christ, the Bible, and this little book make my recovery possible. I'd recommend it to anyone who struggles with issues of codependency.

This little book is chocked full of inspiration

I was one of the first to recieve Joe's Book "Why Don't they Just Quit?,I
truly touched by Joes's struggles through life and was able to help his
son avoid the very same problems he experienced in early adulthood.We all are affected by addictions, the person at work, a distant family member or even our own family. Joe opens his life for everyone to see, and will help parent's and loved ones to look for warning signs and identify steps a concerned person can take, along with a professional's advice.

Joe is committed to anyone with an addiction, to begin recovery and total freedom. I encourage anyone, whether you are a parent, spouse or friend of an addict, or person with the problem, to take advantage of this information and once and for all, break the chains of addiction.

Thank You Joe, For Having the Gut's To Get Real and Intern Save Lives.


Michael Watkins

One of the most frustrating and demoralizing experiences men and women have is watching the horrifically destructive impact of addiction upon the health, life, and relationships of a loved one. Often the disastrous consequences of addiction are so severe that we are led to shake our heads and wonder why the addict cannot simply stop the addiction that has so enslaved and ruined them. In "Why Don't They Just Quit?: What Families And Friends Need To Know About Addiction And Recovery", drawing upon thirteen years as an addiction counselor working in the Colorado criminal justice system, Joe Herzanek (himself a recovering addict who founded and presides over the Changing Lives Foundation) provides answers to more than thirty common (and not so common) questions that non-addicts have with respect to a loved one's addiction. Herzanek explains with illustrative clarity why addicts don't really have to hit 'rock bottom' before they are willing to be helped; when helping an addict is counter-productive; why quitting an addiction is not the same thing as recovering from that addiction; how to deal with an addict who has relapsed; how to obtain a 50% (or more) reduction in the medical costs of addiction treatments; why a parent would leave their own child due to a parent's addiction; why an effective intervention need not be an ambush-style confrontation with the addict. Articulate, 'real-world' practical, thoroughly 'user friendly', and strongly recommended reading, "Why Don't They Just Quit?" is also available on DVD. Counseling centers and community libraries are particularly encouraged to buy a "Why Don't They Just Quit?" book/DVD set for $39.95 to provide their patients and patrons with the alternatives of a book or DVD format.

Everyone's heard an addict's story - in one way or another. But, has anyone ever really understood it? From the opening page of this book, the reader is treated to real-life stories, practical tools and thought-provoking quotes that illustrate the journey to... through... and from addiction. The dynamics of the addict and their social structures are finally explained; from the environments they migrate to, the people they surround themselves with and finally, to the families that suffer as they watch their loved one's battle with addiction. An addict does not have to be one who is addicted to alcohol, a narcotic or a prescription. It could be food, or acceptance, or the overwhelming need to 'save' someone. No one is left behind in their quest for information in 'Why Don't They Just Quit'. This book will help not only the addict who doesn't yet 'recognize' themselves. But, it could also help the family and loved ones who just don't get... why they don't just quit!

This book is a page turning, 'Most-Frequently-Asked-Questions' life-manual for anyone who wants to understand addiction and how it happens. With it, an addict is given the map on how they got that way; and the tools they'll need to find their way back. Family, friends and the addict's significant others are encouraged to face the role they play in the addict's life.

"Don't clean me up... I need to remember - and see - what I have done."

Everyone caught in the web of addiction are allowed, with this book, to interpret their actions and how they may be enabling the addict. Most of all, the addict learns to understand that quitting their addiction does not mean that they are no longer an addict... but that they are a recovering one.

To stop using... does not 'fix' you. You must fix you!

Being clean and sober does not mean 'the cure' has been found. That's when the work really begins - because everyone in an addict's life needs to recover.

"To stop... is to begin."

'Why Don't They Just Quit' is an amazing testimonial to the struggles of everyone involved in addiction. It describes the tools to be 'well'; and prompts the courage to use them! Kudos to the author(s) to understand that people are interested in what the "bystanders" go through when someone they love is addicted. I think there are a lot of books written about/to the addict, but not so many about those whose lives are affected... and how they cope. I think that the "Al-Anon world" would be very interested. Everyone... should be interested in this book.

Review by: Robin R. Rogers - Author of ROCK BOTTOM

The book dates to a time when Alanon was still the ladies auxiliary to a male A.A.. Some days the message could be interpreted as stand by your man and other days as kick the bum out/get out yourself. A few moments daily in the course of a quiet half hour pondering how does this apply to me will be helpful.

This book is a standard, maybe even a classic, and is probably one of the first "daily meditation" type books ever published. I read it looking for ideas that can help me and disregarding those that don't. No direct advice is ever given as to what to do about a particular situation. Instead, the reader is directed to turn to a "higher power" for help when confusion, depression, rage or other problems set in. This higher power is self-defined. In conjunction with the Al-Anon meetings, this book helps me change my life for the better, one day at a time, primarily by improving my own attitudes and behavior. I would recommend this book to everyone.