Alcoholism Books

This is an excellent biography of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, the character Johnny Depp plays in "The Libertine."

I've read several books about Wilmot in the past two years, and I have enjoyed this more, gotten more out of it, and feel I have finally gotten a handle on the man who was so brilliant and so tragic.

The author, Jeremy Lamb, didn't just sit in some ivory tower, he traveled to where the Earl lived, worked and died. He has quotes from his contemporaries, his letters, his poetry and prose. And this is all very cleverly woven into a fascinating and gripping story of the Earl's life. Unlike the other rather scholarly works I've read, this one gets right into the personality of Wilmot, dissecting it, but not in a dry removed manner, rather it's as if you have an insight into the intriguing and paradoxical Earl.

I suggest you get this book if you want to have a more intimate glimpse into not only the life of John Wilmot, but his period in history and the fascinating people he lived with, loved, and even hated.

If I could possibly rate this book any lower, I would. This is the most insulting, inaccurate piece of literary doggerel I have ever read in my life, made worse by the fact that it actually made it to print. The author has tried to take a modern view of the Earl's life, which is commended, but he has somehow managed to distort even the simplest facts about the poet's life and work. Even some of the poems cited in this book are not by Wilmot at all! If he cannot even get these facts correct, what hope is there for the correct telling of the man's personal life? The answer is none; the author's obsessional views on the "disease of alcoholism" have rendered this book into a blatant attempt to explain away the poet's faults by means of the old excuse "the bottle made him do it". This has been proved to be blatantly false, as anybody who has studied the Earl's life in-depth can see.
For those of you new or old to the Earl's life and work, wanting to read an accurate up-to-date account of his life, the best book for doing so is the modern and revised A Profane Wit : The Life of John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester, which can also be found for purchase on Amazon. I have read almost all of the literary works available on the Earl, so I can tell you from experience how offensive this book is to anybody who knows the real story. Do not waste your money on this trash; save it instead for the magnificently detailed "Profane Wit".
If there was a justice system for books, this one would get the electric chair.

This is probably one of the most useless biographies of Rochester in print. The bibliography is rather dismal and, while the scholarship is adequate, there is nothing available in it that cannot be better found in Greene's Lord Rochester's Monkey or The Debt to Pleasure.

Most galling is the author's chronic harping on Rochester's alcoholism as a means to understand his verse. Last time I was in any institution of higher learning, fanciful modern analysis did not equate to literary criticism. Yes, we all know Rochester was a prodigious drinker in a time of prodigious drinkers. Lamb goes on for pages as though explaining what portion of the AA banner Rochester falls under can really pinpoint his genius. He forgets that the 17th century was a world of drink. Farmers started their day with a pound of bacon and pints of small beer. When observed in context with his time, Lamb utterly fails to make his case, saying more about himself, perhaps, than Rochester.

While his "findings" may have some small merit, they are not by any means the 'way' to either understand Rochester in the context of his world, or his poetry, which is transcendent of time, drink, or illness, venereal or otherwise.

Worse, there is a smug misogeny throughout the entire volume that set my teeth completely on edge. Lamb refers to "female students" and "women readers" with a condescension that is deplorable. His editor should be catisgated for not expurging such passages. I do not recall that gender had any bearing on scholarly literary analysis.

All in all, as a serious student of Rochester's poetry, I was insulted and felt swindled by a book that purports to be a biography and reads like a 12-step advertisement.

Pass on this and instead, read Lord Rochester's Monkey and The Debt to Pleasure. This is a waste of money.

This is an in depth look at the Earl of Rochester's life and death. I have seen the movie twice (at the premiere and then the following short run it had in LA prior to its wide release in January 06) I loved the movie and plan to see it again. I found it extremely helpful to read this book and suggest that anyone planning to see the film read this first! Rochester was a brilliant man and it is a sad but fascinating story. Some of the poems are a little difficult but that doesn't matter. The information you will gain on the man is invaluable to a better understanding of him in the movie. It is too bad that the movie doesn't include more about his children which are barely mentioned. He was a loving father and cared very deeply for them and his wife despite his debauched lifestyle. The only reason it didn't get 5 stars is that there are numerous typos. I imagine that whomever proofed the final galleys was not interested in the text and merely glossed over it.

One of my teenaged children's observations when I share the experience, strength and hope Recovery has brought to me, is that I'm "not speaking teen language," so they don't always grasp what I mean. They know the Recovery journey has helped me, they mainly see it in my life, but the language makes it hard to translate to their own struggles, or to the struggles they see their friends experiencing. THE BIG BOOK UNPLUGGED does speak teen language (using some VERY clear language in fact, that may offend those to whom the book isn't geared, but speaks VOLUMES to its intended audience!), and is a clear, conversational format that picks the very best of the BIG BOOK of AA, and presents it in accessible language. Don't know why it took me so long to find this, but it's just what I have been looking for!

Stories remain very personal, the big players in AA are presented in a human, contemporary context, which emphasizes our similarities, even though these founders began "way back there," and I was pleased with the comfortable use of humor and honesty. The style and language are so easy to process, that I would also recommend this book for those who wouldn't exactly view themselves as a "young person" and yet have trouble processing the BIG BOOK, both in size (we call it BIG for a reason!)and content.

Having said that, I would wish maybe for a follow up book, or maybe a few more elements included in this volume, but then that would likely detract from it's slim, non-intimidating size. So overall, it's a great book and a great option!

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:

I work in a substance abuse treatment center, and I have found that people that started drinking or using when they were young relate to this book easily. It puts things in simple terms and uses real stories to portray the points. I feel the language is foul at times, but the author does use it to make a point and relate to younger people. I'm buying this book for my father who has been sober for 15 years through AA, and is still working the program "one day at a time."

Catchy titles and scare tactics are a way to grab the attention of concerned parents, but reduce the quality of this book to the level of a poorly researched popular magazine article. There are more than enough books of this type available; what parents need are well balanced, carefully thought out, science based, and well referenced books that offer guidance and measured recommendations. Suggest that people concerned with ADDHD look elsewhere for help.

Enough books on ADHD try to comfort parents and hold their hands. Any reader with fair analitical ability will understand and gain useful insight to the comorbid symptoms of ADHD from this book. Based on solid research, this book simply makes sense to me. I am not a psychologist, just a parent devoted to diagnosing and helping my child in a sea of conficlting information on ADHD. If you plan on following the advice of any professional regarding you or you child's ADHD, this book will help you ask informed questions and be observant of co-existing behavioral patterns that do appear in many others with the disorder. When a book founded in years of research supports my observations in the real world, I pay attention to it and add it to my arsenal of knowledge to help me help my child reach his vast potential.

This book about recovery from alcoholism appealed to me as someone I value is such a drinker and I wish he would seek help. Life without alcohol isn't dull like your senses are if you drink even locally made beer. It is not dark and gloomy. With clear thinking and not a befuddled mind, the recovered alcoholic will see that the world can be beautiful, people are better-looking (you can learn a lot by people-watching on the buses when you're alert and interested), and you can hold your head up and actually smile back. Some people will talk to you when you do that. This person I knows pretends to listen but his senses are dulled by a hangover, and he ofttimes doesn't even remember seeing you at all. He certainly can't remember what you said and gets on the defensive.

This story about Abby, a woman with alcohol problems, is truthful (not opinions) even though it sometimes hurts to admit the truth. Thoose addicted to any kind of drug can identify and receive hope that, with help from professionals, they too can lead a normal life. Throughout life, you will be the recipient of many broken promises; the longer you life, they multiply because older people still have hopes for love and affection. They're more vunerable to con men after their money, and the majority have no savings and must depend on government aid just to have a place to live. They're not like the homeless who want everything given to them. The poor elderly desire help from their successful children who lead a good life. Sons are too busy to visit, to help with health needs, to just "be there" for you.

Mended dreams is possible for anyone who will look for them. Life takes us in different directions and anyone can learn new skills such as expression, public speaking, networking, dreaming for reality fulfillment, as you concentrate on raising your children. Everyone dreams of glory, but not through the child's successes, in life to make it worth living. All we can do at times is keep up the good fight; something will come along eventually to make us see that what we did in all of life's seasons led us to victory over Satan's efforts to fool us into isolation from the world. Mended Dreams come to you without seeking help in a doctor's office. God in His Mysterious Ways works wonders for those who believe.

This is not a book about Alcoholism. It is a book about Recovery. The true story of Abby Andrews is a unique and moving testament of hope ... an inspiring account of one woman's struggle for her life - and of her family's loyalty and overriding love - in her fight against alcohol dependency. Sometimes shocking, often exhilarating, it is the vivid odyssey of Aby's painful ascent from her own private hell to the small daily triumphs of recovery...

(0 star review)

Happened across this book in the library, and I thought I'd put in a few words against it, since it's doubtless highly recommended among books to help kids "cope" with alcoholism in the family; that is, if your idea of teaching children to cope is training them to accept their fate, bury it in euphemism, and move on from one depressing day of abuse to another in the shadow of what this book seeks to excuse as a sickness.

The father in this book is typically horrendous, lying and near-abusing his daughter, yet the non-alcoholic mother insists on keeping her child in this situation, breaking down in tears rather than offering a beacon of safety in what must be the poor child's hopeless world.

True, this book is realistic. Yet I cannot imagine any parent or counsellor offering it to a child, since it doesn't offer any real advice besides
a) alcoholism is something to be ashamed of (the girl says she used to not have anyone she could talk to about her father, but now her mother has one friend she CAN confide in)
b) feel free to get out for an evening of fun before returning to the same bad situation.

Yuck, yuck and double-yuck. I'm all for building a body of fiction to help kids cope with issues, but this is a nasty addition to the bunch and could destroy more than a few already-fragile kids...

A girl and her mother deal with the father's drinking during Christmas. The father builds his daughter a beautiful handmade sled, but is then too drunk to keep his promise to go sledding with her. Mother and daughter take theri Christmas turkey to the home of an older woman who is a recovering alcoholic. This woman provides them with a safe haven of understanding and acceptance. She acknowleges the hurt, but encourages the child to find ways to be happy even while her father continues to drink.

The story could help the child of an alcoholic understand that it is not the child's fault.

At the back of the book is information and a phone number for Alanon.

Carol E. Watkins, M.D.

This book is the "Missing Link."

Dr. Tessina is absolutely correct in observing that yes - the 12 steps are an incredibly valuable program - in fact, perhaps even the only way to stop drinking.

However, one does eventually "grow out" of them in some sense. That is, drinking has stopped for a long period of time, all of the steps have been successfully worked, and the concepts are grasped and implemented into daily living. Then what? To use an analogy, AA becomes somewhat of a broken record player. Some people are ready for the next step, but aren't sure what that is.

What Dr. Tessina shares with us is how to address the mental thought patterns and dependence issues which may have triggered escape through addiction in the first place. If this is not addressed, we have nothing more than a dry drunk on our hands - someone who is not actively drinking, but who still displays qualities identified in addicts.

This book helps one to put the focus squarely on themselves, and introduces us to the concept that no one is coming to "make it better." It is our responsibility to meet our own needs. That epiphany alone is what frees us.

Dear Tina,

I am a Certified Addictions Counselor, and someone recently lent me a copy of your book The Real Thirteenth Step. I found it interesting, but a bit misguided. You mention several times in the book how people are put off by 12 Step programs because the person is always "recovering" and never "recovered". There is nothing further from the truth. I can understand you thinking this way if you were relying on heresay, but I'd assume you would have done a bit of research before making this statement. In the forward of the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous it states that the purpose of the book is "To show other alcoholics precisely how we have recoverd....." It doesn't say, precisely how we are recovering. On page 17 it states, "Nearly all have recovered". It doesn't say, nearly all are recovering. When I hear someone with longterm sobriety refer to themselves as a recovering alcoholic, I feel sorry for them. For, if he has worked the steps, etc....he has recovered. It says so in the book. He is not, however, cured. Just like we have recovered from the flu, we can still get the flu again. All we have is a reprieve until the next flu comes on.

If one reads the Big Book thoroughly, he will understand that Alcoholics Anonymous teaches balance in one's life, and does not intend to become someone's life. On page 19 of the Big Book it states, "We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs". It basically demands we get out into the real world.

However, there is a certain danger to your book. You claim that after someone has worked the steps, they should be able to leave Alcoholics Anonymous and not have to attend meetings. In most cases, this sentences a person to relapse. But even more important than that, if all the people with longterm sobriety leave...what happens to the newcomer? A person with no sobriety needs to see it works for people with one year sobriety. A person with 16 years sobriety needs to see it still works for people with 25 years sobriety. If everyone were to follow the advice given in your book...there would be a lot of people dead of alcoholism. I'm an addictions counselor. I know this to be true.

Charley Warady, CAP
Certified Addictions Counselor

This is an excellent book for anyone with an alcoholic friend or loved one. It is also an excellent book for ministers or others who counsel people with drinking problems. It provides insight to the whole cycle of addictive behavior and temptation and manages to do it with humor.

If you believe in AA you might like this book.
You will read often that Alcoholism/addictions are life time problems when I believe Jesus Christ can take the problem away 100%, you could still be tempted as we all are while we are in our bodies but I believe the Bible is clear on us having victory not bonds.
I didn't look close enough I thought this was CS Lewis's writings put together by the author but they are the authors and he borrows the idea of Lewis's screwtape...

What, Lois? Me go get a job? Oh dear, I can feel an anxiety attack coming on. I think I'm about to relapse...

Bill Wilson would not let even Lois, who was dying to do so, write the chapter titled "To Wives." After all, she was the wife who had endured Bill's drunken years and the houseful of alcoholics he was trying to wrestle into sobriety. "I have never known why he didn't want me to write about the wives, and it hurt me at first," she said.
Getting Better Inside Alcoholics Anonymous, Nan Robertson, pages 70-71.

Bill had a grandiose sense of self-importance, and exaggerated his achievements and talents, and expected to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements, like his belief that he was essential to other alcoholics' recovery, and his wildly exaggerated claims of success in drying out alcoholics, and his years-long nationwide tours, grandstanding and promoting his own legend.

Bill was preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love, like the Oxford Groups' "Absolute Purity, Absolute Honesty, Absolute Love, and Absolute Unselfishness". Bill also liked to imagine that he was launching a movement that would sweep the entire world and save all of the alcoholics. Bill even claimed that A.A. was "the miracle of the century", and "probably one of the greatest medical and spiritual developments of all time."

Bill believed that he was "special" and unique -- the only man in the world with the answer to alcoholism (or, before that, the first American to make a working boomerang, or the only man on campus to truly understand calculus). Bill thought that he understood God, alcoholics, and alcoholism better than anybody else in the whole world.

Bill required excessive admiration.

Bill certainly had a sense of entitlement, and felt that he deserved the best of everything, like all of fame, credit, and prestige, all of the money, and all of the women, and even a house in the country and a Cadillac car supplied by the A.A. organization. Bill also felt entitled to dictate the terms of other people's recovery from alcoholism, and even to dictate their religious beliefs.

Bill Wilson was outrageously, heartlessly exploitative. He used everybody, and he discarded and drove away people when they refused to kowtow to him.

Bill Wilson lacked empathy -- he didn't even think about the welfare or recovery of the women alcoholics whom he was thirteenth-stepping, and he disregarded the recovery of the unbelievers whom he drove away from A.A.. And Bill even disregarded the feelings of his own wife Lois while she supported him for years.

Envy of other people seems to be the only characteristic of narcissism that Bill Wilson did not overtly display, but I think that he was envious. Bill spent his whole life trying to prove that he was just as good as other people. He must have felt envious of those other people who were born with a higher status than him, and who were never cursed with alcoholism, whose honor and morality was never questioned.

Bill certainly showed arrogant, haughty behaviors and attitudes.

Bill strongly displayed "Vulnerability in self-esteem". He couldn't stand criticism. He lashed out in defiant counter-attack whenever he was criticized, as shown in the cases of his wife, his calculus professor, his business partner Henry Parkhurst, and Ed the atheist who dared to challenge Bill's bombastic religiosity. When Bill was criticized, he often nursed a bitter resentment over it for years, until he could get his revenge, or he went into a fit of deep depression that often lasted years.

Bill's interpersonal relations were very impaired due to "problems derived from entitlement, the need for admiration, and the relative disregard for the sensitivities of others". Bill fought with everybody from his wife to his best friend and partner Henry "Hank" Parkhurst to the A.A. members who wouldn't believe in God as Bill dictated. Loud screaming matches were routine behavior for Bill Wilson.

And Bill certainly suffered from "Major Depressive Disorders":
A one-year-long depression in his childhood when his parents divorced and his mother left Bill and his sister with his grandparents.
A three-year-long depression when his high-school girlfriend died.
Various sporadic depressions throughout his drinking career.
Then, while sober, an eleven-year-long deep, crippling, clinical depression from 1944 to 1955, from indeterminate causes.
And Dr. Alexander Lowen added one more characteristic of narcissism:


The tendency to lie, without compunction, is typical of narcissists.
Narcissism, Denial of the True Self, Alexander Lowen, M.D., page 54.
That fits Bill Wilson too.


A.A. began as a branch of another cult religion called "The Oxford Group", which was the creation of an evil fascist renegade Lutheran minister named Dr. Frank Nathan Daniel Buchman, who actually admired Adolf Hitler and praised the Gestapo leader Heinrich Himmler as a "wonderful lad".

The cofounders of Alcoholics Anonymous, William Griffith Wilson and Dr. Robert Holbrook Smith, were both enthusiastic true-believer members of the Oxford Group cult, and they simply adapted Buchmanism to their own ends when they created Alcoholics Anonymous. For all practical purposes, Alcoholics Anonymous is simply Frank Buchman's cult religion dressed up in a different suit of clothes.

The A.A. religion pushes a concept of God that is worse than medieval.
According to A.A., God is a fascist dictator, an authoritarian, vindictive Old-Testament-style patriarchal God Who will kill you with a painful slow death by alcoholism if you don't
believe in Him, and
constantly confess your sins to Him, and
grovel before Him, and
Seek and Do His Will every day.
According to Bill Wilson, God uses "the lash of alcoholism" to force people into the A.A. religion, where they will find endless "Serenity and Gratitude" while working as slaves of God.

The Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous are not "spiritual principles", they are cult practices that Bill Wilson got from Dr. Frank Buchman's Oxford Groups. The Twelve Steps are a recipe for building a cult religion, not a formula for quitting drinking:
The Twelve Steps do not even tell you to quit drinking, or to help anyone else to quit drinking, either.
The Twelve Steps don't even mention sobriety, recovery, or health, but they do mention surrender to the cult, and going recruiting for the cult, and guilt-inducing confession sessions.
The 12 Steps also mention God, directly or indirectly, in 6 of the 12 steps. The Ten Commandments of Judeo-Christian religions mention God fewer times than that -- only 4 or 5 of the 10 commandments refer to God, directly or indirectly1 -- but the A.A. true believers still insist that A.A. is not a religion.
Seven of the 12 steps, Steps Four through Ten, are designed to induce guilt in members by having them make long lists of every sin they ever committed, and every fault, moral shortcoming, and defect of character they have, and then they have to confess it all to another member and God. Then they make another list of everybody they ever hurt or offended, and confess that, and try to make amends. And then they have to repeat the whole process again, and again, for the rest of their lives.
The Twelve Steps tell people to surrender their wills and their lives to "God" or "Higher Power" or the A.A. group, and to pray to "God" or "Higher Power" or the A.A. group, and then the Twelve Steps tell people how to pray and what to pray for, but the A.A. true believers still insist that A.A. is not a religion.

Twelve-Step enthusiasts declare that the Twelve Steps, just like good old-fashioned snake oil, will cure anybody of anything. They claim that the Twelve Steps are equally applicable to everybody from drug addicts to gamblers, from compulsive shoppers to emotional wrecks to rape victims, from divorcees to diabetics, from schizophrenics to fat people. The 12 steps really do have just as much to do with being a rape victim as they have to do with being an alcoholic -- absolutely nothing.

I think the book may sue me for aubusing it with hilighters. There's a lot in there, and all of it's worth remembering. Meacham worked for the company that put things like "adult children of alcoholics" (ACOA) on the map. So he's well-versed in that "movement" and its many offshoots. (Incidentally, he no longer works for the company so you needn't anticipate any hype for the movements. Au contraire!) He covers the history of that dimension of pop psychology. That itself is an eye-opener. I thought some of those "causes" had been around for a long time. Actually, they're quite young. You know, "Don't blame for for anything. My father's an alcoholic, my mother's a Satan worshiper who ate my little sister who was aborted for that feast. I learned this from my therapist, and if you challenge it, youre 'in denial.'"

I feel close to the issues because (1) I got into the ACOA movement for a short time when I was angry with my father's drinking, and (2) a few years after that I was sent, against my will, to an "alcohol treatment" facility--for downing maybe a six pack of beer a week--the charlatan-priest founder of which, and his inane material, Meacham mentions. All of the assumptions of the facility were transparent, and passionately anti-intellectual, yet it "graduates" scores of believers who've paid tens of thousands for their "cure." Meacham wisely exposes the institution of "treatment" as of a clearly economic--rather than the alleged spiritual or medical--motive.

If I were to choose a "star" of the book (in a negative sense), I'd have to say that dubious distinction goes to John Bradshaw. He's been the grandfather of all sorts of stupid movements related to the above. But he seemed to see the writing on the wall. Many former adherents of the movements have been winning lawsuits against the gurus they once supported. Bradshaw was careful in his later screeds of making too many overt claims lest he learn the meaning of "plea bargain." Oh, and I got some e-mail that Bradshaw hasn't been squeaky clean in the erotic realm but has become tryst-master of some of his disciples. But we'll wait for more volumes to come out on that subject. And there are other co-stars, Anne-Wilson Schaef, for instance, who was for a time successful in making ACOA into an accepted institution and who, surprise, surprise, did not take criticism of her theories well.

There are, fortunately, others of far greater value discussed in the book, those, for example, who've challenged the assumptions of the gurus. One who comes to mind is Stanton Peele whose books are on one of the most important shelves of my libary.

The book makes connections between all of these claims-become-causes, including the many alcohol and drug-related gimmicks, recovered memory, many claims of sexual abuse, various nonsense therapies, even Satanic conspiracies. And those connections helped me to understand them a little better, put them into the context of the times, NOT to justify them. Some, indeed, are comical, except that they have real followers. (One of the last ones covered is called "reparenting," in which adults wear diapers, crawl, and "breast feed" on the movement's founder. And this is ostensibly some kind of cure. For what beyond anxiety of stockholders in diaper manufacturers I cannot imagine. Oh, and that founder has lost licenses to practice in more states than have reconsidered the death penalty. Yet she still has followers).

One happy note from the book is that these causes seem to be on the wane. I'd like be be confident about that, that maybe we're entering into an era of sanity. But, while sometimes idealistic, I'm not naive. There will, boys and girls, be other causes, other alleged maladies from which you'll need to be cured, other "therapies" designed to cure you. So, do read this volume, don't waste your time reading books on ACOA that may--God willing--be out of print. But don't blink because behind every blade of grass is another therapy, another guru to promise us better lives, at a cost.

Maybe this book will help you be prepared for the new gurus...

I have not recieved either book yet you ask me to write a review for.

this is a wonderful compilation of writings on addictive behaviors by experts in the field. It is readable and useful. Great buy!

This book is not worth your time. It is poorly edited, full of cliques, has weak story line, characters who are not fully thought out and a too good to be true ending. The YA crowd deserves better than this. Here's one example of the odd writing bits that abound in this book: "Marguerite shifted her lips to one cheek"

Waves of Grace is a positive, well written novel that touches on issues that unfortunately affect many families these days. Everyone knows or knows of someone who is a victim/survivor today. Grace gives us hope. I commend the author on a wonderful first work!

I think that Helen's review may have been premature, as well as misinformed. I wonder if she has really read this book. More than simply skimming but read it, truly and deeply. My sister and I both have, it was hugely influential to her and encouraged her to begin writing herself. It is the author's first published book, and for a new author was an exemplary effort. I also wonder what was meant by the "cliques" comment. Was that meant to imply "cliches"? The book encourages teens, tweens, and young women to embrace their personal power. To aspire for better things, and not allow their surroundings to prevent them from achieving great things. The station that you are born to in life cannot stop you from doing more. This work is an example of that ideal. A wonderful read.

Waves of Grace deals quite directly with a broken family situation and how a young girl perseveres to find her niche in school and finally reach out for help. It's an inspirational read for tweeners and teens adjusting to a new situation (i.e., new school; etc.), facing trying times, or just trying to define who they are and how they fit in. It's also pretty relevant for any teacher, counselor, or others who work with young adults. The development of Grace's character and those *outside* her nuclear family as Grace's problems come to a head is particularly well written.

I loved the book. I bought copies for several nieces for Christmas. One niece
hates to read, but her name is Grace so she read the book. She not only loved it
but is going to read more. I'm looking forward to his next book. Would Helen be
happier if marguerite had been raped and murdered by her moms boyfriend. The book
is a great read for young teens. I think helens review is off the mark.