smacked

Sorry, just read it was an old thread, I HATE when that happens! lol..

Oh well I spent too much thought and time on that response to just delete it

Ta ta!!

sandrawg

I'm actually GLAD you didn't delete it! I think if you benefited from the book, what you said might help others up here, so it's all good.

I know it helped me what you wrote, cuz I think my x is where you were at before you read the book. He's going to AA meetings but is too skeptical to get into the program, and he hates the whole "disease" concept. So, should he ever come to me for advice I might recommend this book. So, thank you very much!

brundle

Sorry but there is nothing that can CURE your alcoholic at all until he/she wants to take responsibility for his/her own life and get rid of the addiction for his/herself. There is nothing you can really do to help with that except get out of the way.

Buying the book will just give YOU false hope. This is something your alcoholic should be buying, not you.

AstroGirl

Looks like Smacked and I are in the minority here, but I have found the information in this book incredibly helpful and incredibly consistent with my own history of drinking and sobriety. When I first got sober in 2006 I did AA with fervor - 90/90, sponsor, service . . . all wonderful things and I would NEVER discourage anyone from going to AA or NA. I still go, on occasion. However - I really struggled with the steps, not because I wasn't willing to be honest, but because honestly, I couldn't get a foothold on a lot of the suggestions that were supposed to keep me sober. I drank from the ages of 42-50. Before that my life was built around meditation and yoga, which I consider spiritual practices, as well as being my vocation. With a lot of that kind of experience resentments, character defects and some of the other "key" ideas just didn't have any meaning to me. I did the workbooks and a lot of writing. When I told my sponsor that my primary resentment was that we live in a world that values money more than life - and then began to look at how that manifests in my own life - she just kind of threw her hands up and didn't have much to offer. So - while I totally value the big book and appreciate beyond measure the inspiration that it carries - when I relapsed briefly this spring I got the Prentiss book and am wowed by it's simplicity and accuracy. Four reasons for addiction, all of which I can easily identify in my own life. I have been able to work much more productively around my addiction just looking at these four things, and for the first time getting specific access to things I have used to justify (totally unconsciously) drinking. So without taking anything at all away from the Big Book and the 12-step program - and this book makes it clear that it supports and sees no conflict with working the program and utilizing their suggestions - I really appreciate and have been supported by this perspective of my addiction. Remaining teachable is one of the foundations of the programs, no?

DesertEyes

Thanx for all the opinions, folks. Those of you who have experience with recovery from an addiction, please post in the other forums that are specific to addictions. This forum is for friends and family who are working on _themselves_, instead of working on their alcoholic.

Mike
Moderator, SoberRecovery