A great story must entertain, inform or inspire, and this book does all three. Susan Waits has created a dramatic narrative with authentic characters that draw breath, laugh, cry, teach and learn in vivid settings drawn from a deep well of personal experience. The plot reflects the inexplicable and serendipitous twists and turns of two women's lives as they come face to face with their addiction to alcohol. Implicitly revealed are the iconic twelve steps to recovery in the illustration and interplay among personal intention, forgiveness, surrender and love. Claire Danner's life was one call for "another round" after another. Finally, at the age of sixty-eight, after decades of broken hearts and broken promises, and a body ailing from self-abuse, she reluctantly succumbs to her family's insistence to enter rehab. There she must face and conquer the demons long suppressed by her self-administered anesthetic. In the face of failing health and aged despair, will she emerge from this crucible with another chance at love and life? From childhood Grace was close to her "Momma Claire," and as a young adult studying art at Rhodes College, she had an unconscious propensity to overindulge. She wondered at times if she was on a collision course with the same fate as her grandmother, a question that would unexpectedly and suddenly be put to a life-struggling test. The parallel journeys of grandmother and granddaughter weave together and culminate in a joint pilgrimage that reveals a final, life-altering surprise.

Nick Charles MBE is a pioneer in treating alcohol dependency. As the founder of both the Chaucer Clinic and the Gainsborough Foundation, he was the first person to be honoured by the Queen 'for services to people with alcohol problems' and his work - over four decades - has helped tens of thousands of people. But Nick's decorated success overlays an extraordinary and unforgettable personal journey, for Nick was once an alcoholic vagrant sleeping rough on the streets of London. In 50 Years of Hard Road, Nick details his time in the abyss of alcohol addiction; a period that despatched relationships, his health, his career, and so much more. Forced to live on the streets for four years, Nick recalls the tough times, the characters he met, and the ever-present call of alcohol, but also how he slowly built up two carrier bags-worth of painstaking research into alcohol and its effects on his fellow man. It was through the documents in these carrier bags that Nick's life was to change forever when, in the mid-1970s, he was taken under the wing of a doctor who cared for those on skid row. This dedicated medic recognised the treasure trove of information Nick had developed. 50 Years of Hard Road is a remarkable, uplifting, and often humorous story of one man's journey from the depths of life-crushing alcohol dependency, to running alcohol clinics and programmes across the country. It describes an incredible life filled with high points, low points, and amazing adventures in-between.

I explore my intertwining of spiritual/soul with my ego/ human make up. Even with opulence due to the family invention of Vaseline, I didn't have an easy life.
Scrutinizing my ancestry to uncover our origin of child abuse, I describe the abuse didn't start with me. I discuss a belief in reincarnation, which started with a near death life changing experience at age thirteen. In conclusion, I discuss behaviors used in the maintenance of my serene, loving attitude. My attitude has been obtained though my difficult life lessons, which are now a transformed powerful, positive force.

The book acquaints the reader with new scientific data showed that alcohol in moderate doses is very effective remedy, which reduces stress, risk of cardiovascular disease, type II diabetes, mitigates depressive state and increases lifespan.

This group of essays is written to provide a series of suggestions to Native people who seek to deal with alcoholism from the perspective of their unique heritages and with an understanding that the pressures to which Native traditions and societies have been subjected may trigger dysfunctional behavior, such as excessive drinking. In doing so, I link the work, life, and example of Handsome Lake, an Iroquois leader of the 18th/early 19th century to strategies of recovery that are geared towards contemporary Native people. The goal is to provide a useful set of tools and perspectives regarding Native people and their dysfunctional behavior, such as alcoholism. This section concludes with discussions of how the method can be used in both therapy and in self-help groups. I present this book as one way in which Native people may be able to embrace their cultural heritage as they seek to recover from alcoholism. Inspired by the example and teachings of Handsome Lake, I have updated his perspectives and explained them in terms of modern sociological and psychological theories. By doing so, a strategy of recovery for Native people living in the 21th century is offered.

"A raw glimpse" (Entertainment Weekly) into her lifelong battle with personal demons and near-fatal addictions--and reveals the shattering truth behind her complex, secretive, and damaging history with her father, the legendary John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas.
Not long before her fiftieth birthday, Mackenzie Phillips made headlines with her arrest for drug possession at Los Angeles International Airport; the actor-musician-mother had been on her way to a reunion of "One Day at a Time, "the hugely popular '70s sitcom on which she once starred as the lovable rebel Julie Cooper.
Born into rock-and-roll royalty, flying in Learjets to the Virgin Islands at five, making pot brownies with Donovan at eleven, Mackenzie grew up in an all-access kingdom of hippie freedom and heroin cool. As a rising Hollywood star herself, she joined the nonstop party in the hedonistic pleasure dome of her father's making, and a rapt TV audience watched as Julie Cooper wasted away before their eyes. By the time Mackenzie discovered how deep and dark her father's trip was going, it was too late.
As an adult, she has paid dearly for a lifetime of excess, working tirelessly to reconcile her wonderful, terrible past and the pull of her magnetic father. By sharing her journey toward redemption and peace, the star who turned up "High on Arrival "has finally come back down to earth--to stay.

We live in a world obsessed with drinking. We drink at work events, lunches, book clubs and weddings. Yet no one ever questions alcohol's ubiquity. In fact, the only thing ever questions is why people don't drink. It is a qualifier for belonging. As a society, we are obsessed with health and wellness, yet we uphold alcohol as some sort of magic elixir. It is anything but.

When Holly Whitaker started to look for a way to recover, the support systems she found for recovery where archaic and patriarchal. Urging drinkers towards a newfound humility is great if you're a man, but if you're a woman and not in a position to renounce privileges you never had, a whole other approach is needed.

She embarked on a journey that led not only to her own sobriety, but revealed the insidious role alcohol plays in our society and in the lives of women in particular. What's more, she could not ignore the ways that alcohol companies were targeting women, just as the tobacco industry had successfully done generations before.

Honest, witty and trenchant, Quit Like a Woman is at once a ground-breaking look at drinking culture, a call to arms, and a celebration of learning how to claim everything life has to offer.

I feel like people leave me abandoned all the time. Sometimes I'm so afraid for what seems like no reason. I just don't seem to have any energy. Why do the same thoughts keep racing through my mind? I usually don't feel happy or sad. If there isn't real excitement, I feel bored. I want to be close to people, but I just never make it. Do you see yourself in this list? Children of alcoholic parents have suffered wounds that affect their lives for years to come. They learn to protect themselves from the pattern of hurt that they have come to expect in life. The results of such constant vigilance against pain can range from ulcers, sleeplessness, addictions, depression and anger to a string of broken relationships. But adult children of alcoholics can go through a healing journey that will help them recover from their painful past and be set free to live as God intended. Daryl Quick takes readers step by step through new ways of feeling, thinking and acting that will replace the ineffective patterns they have been locked into for years. With moving stories and helpful exercises, Quick shows how adult children of alcoholics can find hope and healing. A book for those who want to recover from their past.