Hallucinations, dreams, angels, and a miraculous recovery are all humorously but soberly woven into this heart-gripping autobiography. Mark and his cousin Mike were in a horrible crash while bicycling across the United States. Mark literally almost lost his head and was left paralyzed from the neck down. Sixteen years later, through a powerful encounter, the real truth of the crash was revealed.

Drawing on his experiences as a psychiatrist working with the chemically dependent, May details the various addictions and describes the relationship between addiction and spiritual awareness.

Turning down a drink isn't easy. Not only do you have to deal with your own desire for that chilled and glistening glass of white, you also have to tackle the: "Why aren't you drinking?" "Are you pregnant?" "Go on... just one!" And the worst one of all: "You're no fun without a drink!" Well here's the thing: you are fun! And this book shows you how and why you can still be the life and soul of the party, keep your friends, and be sober. Through a broad range of tips and tricks, you'll feel empowered to take on those trigger moments (stressful work day; challenging family life; break ups), as well as classic big occasions (the wedding toast; the bachelorette party; the Christmas lunch). Through the tips, you'll learn more about yourself (why you're giving up/cutting back), how to keep your relationships tight (with your partner, colleagues and friends) and ways to enjoy your new found sobriety, from understanding the benefit to your health to appreciating the improvement in your bank balance.

The authors wrote this book for one purpose: to teach family members and friends of people with substance abuse issues a specific set of skills that will help them survive the stress loving an addict creates in their lives. The authors share with the reader ways to deal with the fear, anger, helplessness, and the conflict they may experience in their attempts to both help the addicted family member and protect themselves from them as well. Most books in this genre focus on how to "fix" the addict. They assume that getting the addict into a treatment program is the final solution to the problem. The authors of this book know from experience that there is no quick fix for addiction. Recovery from addiction is a lifelong project. For this reason, this book focuses on (1) providing accurate and useful information about addiction; and (2) teaching the specific skills that are essential for family members to learn and practice. What do family members need to know, what do they need to do, and how can they go about learning and doing those things? This book systematically explains how to create and maintain healthy boundaries, how to work effectively as a team, how to find and use appropriate support, how to improve communication with the addicted member and other family members, and other valuable skills that lead to a better quality of life. This book is for families to help themselves over a lifetime, regardless of whether their addicted member ever gets help, gets help and relapses, or gets help and stays clean and sober. The skills that enable the family to improve its quality of life in the face of addiction turn out to be the same skills that provide the addict an optimal environment for recovery. The emphasis throughout is on you, the family member or friend of the addict. When addiction enters a family, the whole family embarks on a journey. This book is a unique guide for individuals or groups who want to learn the skills and behaviors essential for negotiating that path with the best chance for a positive outcome.

From Simple But Not Easy For over seventy years the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous has offered alcoholics a solution to their chronic, progressive, and fatal illness. This solution cannot be found in fighting or quitting or any other human effort. Many people abstain from alcohol for months, even years, by going to meetings, reciting the steps, and exchanging complaints about their lives with other abstinent people. For these people not drinking is their only goal. But abstinence is only the beginning of recovery. It is the Program of Action, particularly Steps 4 through 9, that brings about a spiritual awakening and recovery." This small book offers newcomers, sponsors, and even long-time members of the AA Fellowship a new tool to identify and understand the basic principles of the Big Book. Once that understanding turns to action taking the 12 Steps a spiritual awakening and true recovery can be achieved by anyone.

How to be Happy in Recovery from Alcoholism or Drug Addiction.

Have you got clean and sober, but are finding it hard to be happy? Have you relapsed in the past because life was boring and uninspiring? Or maybe you've got sobriety, but you're finding it hard to change your old behaviours and ways of thinking.

The Happy Addict is the ultimate guide to achieving an amazing life after addiction. No more guilt. No more shame. No more feeling held back by the past or low self-esteem.

Finally become what you're really capable of by following the fifteen keys to achieving a successful and happy recovery from addiction.

In this book, you will learn how to look at your past in a positive way, how to move on from negative ways of thinking, and how to and build a brilliant life for yourself.

Each chapter is devoted to helping to change your responses to your problems and improve your mind-set. It's about how to recover from addiction and be happy about it.

The Happy Addict offers some revolutionary new ideas about how you can use your experiences of addiction positively and is the first book of its kind to offer recovering addicts the benefits of coaching, positive psychology and NLP techniques to help you create an amazing future.

Having worked so hard to beat your addiction, you deserve a wonderful life now. Pick up your copy of The Happy Addict and let your life begin again.

About the Author: Beth Burgess is a Life and Recovery Coach and the founder of Sort My Life Solutions (Smyls), providing private coaching, consulting, workshops, training and speaking.

Her missions include helping as many people as possible to achieve an amazing recovery and ending the stigma toward people with addictions.

Visit Beth at smyls.co.uk or bethburgess.co.uk

This book is about addictions and how to get past them. The book is a personal memoir, a cultural history, an instructional manual, and a polemic against all the enabling policies that have such unfortunate currency these days. The book illustrates in dramatic and comic detail that the antidote to addictions is rigorous engagement of the whole person. It is written as an enormous Valentine to the millions of men, women, and children who have recognized their addictions and moved on. It is also a swift kick in the rear to the countless politicians, mandarins, and enablers who have never invested a single penny in treatment or an ounce of human energy in providing the hope and guidance that allows the afflicted to live as citizens. These are the woolly-headed "experts" who, under the flags of compassion and love, are further enslaving the already woebegone.

I have worked in the substance misuse field as a therapist, couples counsellor and family behavioural therapist for ten years and I feel that I have learned a lot about this client group and addictions, both from my colleagues and from my clients. It's very easy to get involved with drugs in this day and age, there is likely to be a 'dealer' within a mile of anyone's home. No matter what type of area you come from drugs are not defined by class. It is extremely hard to come off drugs, once you are entrenched in them, by yourself. It takes motivation, willpower and it needs to be because you want to stop, not other people wanting you to stop. Some people would define substance misuse as an illness, for me that is difficult to accept. Illnesses are things that happen to us that are out of our control. For example illnesses like diabetes, colds and flu, thyroid disorders and cancer. We don't ask for these illnesses, they just come. Whereas substance misuse is self inflicted, we choose to take drugs, we don't choose to get cancer. So maybe we could call it a self inflicted illness. I do believe however that what maintains people's use is ill health i.e. emotional or psychological ill health and/or mental illness. Either due to life events/experiences, issues caused by their drug use or issues that were pre existing their drug use therefore they self medicate. People take illicit drugs for all sorts of reasons, some of which I will be exploring in this book, but what I have learned most from my work with substance using clients is that for whatever reason they started taking drugs, i.e. to experiment, to manage painful emotions, to manage mental health problems, peer pressure and so on, they then continue to take them to obliterate the past, the shame, the guilt for starting drugs in the first place and for all the hurt that they feel that they have caused themselves and others. This then becomes a block to recovery, facing all the people who they have hurt can be pretty challenging when they are clean. What I have also learned is that the media, and society in general have a lack of empathy and can be quite judgemental about drug users. On the contrary they have been some of the nicest people that I have met. My motivation for writing this book is that we are living in an age where therapy is becoming more and more difficult to access, waiting lists are far too long and 'brief' therapy appears to be the answer to everyone's problems, I learned during my own therapeutic journey both as a client and as a therapist many tools that can help us to begin to learn more about ourselves and change the 'things' that are impacting on our lives in a negative way. As in my previous books "I shall wear purple" and "I shall be blue" I wanted to share the tools I have learned and developed over the years that have helped clients to make changes in their drug using behaviours, with therapists and clients to support people in their struggle with substance misuse. Although this book is by no means a tool to replace therapy, nothing can beat the process of a good therapeutic relationship and the excellent work that therapists worldwide do. Nor is it a tool to replace medical intervention, or the great work that drug workers do across the country. It is a tool to start you on that journey, to give you an insight into different therapeutic models so that you can decide which therapeutic model feels the right one for you, (we are all different and what works for one, does not always work for another) and to give you an appreciation on what therapy is about, how it works and how it can change your life and the way that you function as a human being. This way you are in charge of your own treatment journey and can decide which treatment model will work best for you. I hope that this book offers you the above and more.

When you have been the victim of abuse, loving the Self is not an easy thing to do. But in order to live a more satisfying life experience, one must heal the wounds of the past, so that the connection to Self can be made. Once the wounds have healed, and the minds chatter has eased, loving the Self then becomes possible. All love starts with Self-love.

This book provides a framework for implementing a 21st century, effective, addiction treatment program. This non-12 step practice guide is inspired by research evidence about best practices and what actually works. The approach is humanistic and pragmatic and it facilitates natural recovery by empowering clients to make use of their innate strengths. Effective Addiction Treatment: The Minnesota Alternative incorporates cutting-edge, evidence-based best practices including mindfulness, cognitive behavioral strategies, neuroscience, individualized treatment planning, harm reduction, motivational and person-centered care. This succinct and very readable book clearly describes the successful Minnesota Alternative approach to 12 step programs. It is well-organized, well-written, and includes extensive Appendices. It is encyclopedic yet compact, positive and uplifting without minimizing the challenges of recovery, based on hard science and written with the contagious passion of a highly dedicated professional. Effective Addiction Treatment: The Minnesota Alternative is an excellent introduction to the emerging world of alternative recovery. AA/NA and other 12 step self-help groups have helped countless people recover and improve their lives. It works for many, many people. However, there are some people, who for various reasons, have not engaged in the self-help movement of AA and/or who have had unsatisfactory experiences with treatment programs using 12 step facilitation. Alternative approaches are needed.

2011 Reprint of 1954 Edition. Richard Walker, the author of this work, is the second most popular Twelve Step recovery author in total sales, after Bill Wilson. Walker has helped untold numbers of alcoholics through his writings. "Twenty-Four Hours a Day" is a book of meditation, thought, and prayer that is soul inspiring, spiritually uplifting, and filled with sage words of wisdom. While geared toward members of Alcoholics Anonymous to help them in their daily program of recovery, the book has much to offer any individual who is working on self-improvement and personal growth, and who is searching for spiritual uplifting and guidance. The book is divided into the 365 days of the calendar year, offering a thought, meditation, and related short prayer on each day. Much of the material is based on the Big Book and other A.A. literature. A classic work.

"As a thorough guide to helping substance abusers find help, this makes a valuable addition to the self-help shelves."--"Publishers""Weekly" (starred review)

A powerful, groundbreaking book that shows you, in concrete steps, how to help a loved one stop from engaging in self-destructive behavior.

Is your husband drinking himself to death? Is your brother losing it all to gambling? Do you need to get your kid off drugs before it's too late? Or make your spendthrift sister stop maxing out her credit cards? Get your best friend out of an abusive relationship? If you're tired of watching your spouse, child, relative, or friend go downhill, dragging you with them, "How to Help the One You Love "will help you turn their lives around. You don't have to endure behavior that is unhealthy, abusive, or even deadly. You can break down the great myths around change--and help them change for good.

Many books will tell you that you can't change anyone. They advise you to not even try. But they ignore the tremendous power you actually have to change people. If most books about change are written for the person in trouble, "How to Help the One You Love "reaches out to the loved ones: people who know that change is critical and urgent. "How to Help the One You Love is not just a self-help book; it's a help-you-act book."""

"Brad Lamm's book is a must-read for those seeking help "--Nancy Grace, host of the "Nancy Grace "show on CNN

It is estimated that there are 1,300,000,000 smokers...yes, that's 1.3 billion Half of them will die prematurely of a tobacco-related disease. The numbers for children are horrifying. Half of all children in the world breathe air contaminated by tobacco smoke. One in every four adults is a tobacco addict, and this is the vast population to whom KILL THE ADDICTION is addressed. Using a totally new method, this serious work takes the desperate smoker - the one who wants to quit, has decided to do so, but simply CANNOT do it permanently - through all the necessary steps from nicotine slavery to stopping for life. Did you hear that? FOR LIFE. It all begins with what this method is NOT. Run your eye through that list. Looks familiar? These are the "other" methods, the ones that do not work for too many smokers. Then you are led through a list of most of the smoking myths...the most common of the many excuses the smoker uses to continue his substance abuse. Following that, the reader is introduced to some true facts about smoking...made to face them...even the deadly health issues and some of the most terrible ways of dying from tobacco.
By now, the author has got the reader's full attention, preparatory to actually getting started. This unique method first involves accepting a new way of thinking about the smoking addiction. No mind stretch. Very acceptable. Then redefinitions of quitting and stopping, which are key to the process, subtitled STOP SMOKING: WITHOUT QUITTING. This is followed by the method itself, the step-by-step process that takes you from slave to the addiction to the wonder of being smoke-free. The finale is the death of the addiction by an ex-smoker who has the absolute conviction that he will never use tobacco again, and never even miss it.
This is a unique approach to a deadly problem. It has many strengths, such as being completely non-invasive, easy, painless, respecting privacy, totally logical to name only some of them. It leaves its successful graduate with two major bonuses...increased self-confidence and heightened self-esteem. To give credibility to this method, the author smoked for over 50 years, quit unsuccessfully many times then seven years ago devised this method of stopping smoking without quitting It was completely successful. He will never smoke again. Nor will the many others who tested his method.

A poignantly funny account of humorist and ""Greatest Living American Author"" Neal Pollack's years as a marijuana addict. Beginning innocently enough in his 20s when pot made everything-food, music, sex-better. Getting married, having a kid, and enjoying professional success didn't tamp down Pollack's addiction. As cannabis grew stronger and more widely available, Pollack's dependence was shadowed by the expansion and acceptance of the marijuana Big Business. By 2014, Neal was a correspondent for a national marijuana newspaper, mostly because it meant free pot. Diving into the wild, wicked world of weed with both lungs, Pollack proceeds to smoke, vape, and eat his way to oblivion, leading to terrible public meltdowns and other embarrassing behavior. After his mother dies in 2017, he spirals out of control, finally hitting bottom during a reckless two-day gambling and drug-filled binge, culminating in a public crack-up at the World Series in Dodger Stadium. Three weeks later, he quit. Sober after joining a 12-step program, Neal outed himself publicly as a marijuana addict in a 2018 New York Times op-ed piece, leading to his decision to document his addiction experience as a cautionary tale for the millions of recreational users in the hazy age of legalized marijuana. Often hilarious and equally self-deprecating, Neal continues his insightful probing of his life with Alternadad (Pantheon, 2007) through Stretch: The Unlikely Making of a Yoga Due (Harper Perennial, 2010).

As a full-time research consultant at the N.I.M.H. Center of Narcotics and Drug Abuse Studies, Dr. Tod Mikuriya discovered just how much the English and American medical profession has known about cannabis for the past 130 years. Having access to priceless original documents, he has compiled this authoritative and fascinating collection of medical papers on marijuana. From 1839, when the herb was first introduced into the Western pharmacopoeia, to present research with THC, the anthology offers rich insights into the whole social history of medicine. The studies published herein convey a wide variety of critical information, ranging from laboratory tests performed on animals and human subjects, to anthropological descriptions of marijuana use by African women during labor. A number of unusual and seldom-seen illustrations--from pharmaceutical catalogues in the days when Parke Davis and others marketed legal marijuana as a cure for coughs and corns--are both instructive and entertaining. In the section of clinical and pharmacological studies, a deep look is taken at the range of therapeutic effects attributed to a plant which has had prescribed medical uses for more than 2700 years, and is currently used by an estimated 250 million people. If not always conclusive, these studies nonetheless dramatically show that marijuana has potentially great medical value. The impressive accumulation of information regarding it has been unfortunately relegated to the dust bin for decades by puritanical legislators and medical practitioners ignorant or unheeding of existing scholarship in the field. The final chapter analyzes the reasons behind the 1937 Tax Act which outlawed the use of marijuana, driving it underground, and offers some disturbing conclusions based on hitherto unpublished official hearings and interviews with former government officials. Amidst the marijuana referendums, judicial challenges, and states vs. federal legislation, Marijuana: Medical Papers provides essential information--most of it never before available except in scarce, out-of-print medical journals--on a topic of tremendous current interest.

Addiction is seemingly inexplicable. From the outside, it can look like wilful, arrogant self-destruction; from the inside, it can feel as inevitable and insistent as a heartbeat. It is possible to describe, but hard to explore. Yet in The Recovering, Leslie Jamison draws on her own life and the lives of addicts of extraordinary talent - John Cheever, John Berryman, Jean Rhys and Amy Winehouse among them - to take us inside the experience of addiction, exposing the contours, edges and wholes of an intoxicated life. Part memoir, part group biography, part literary history and part definitive analysis of cultural and social considerations of addiction, The Recovering is a significant moment in the history of post-war narrative non-fiction.

'BREATHTAKING' Dolly Alderton, 'REMARKABLE' Marian Keyes, 'LIFE-CHANGING' Emma Jane Unsworth, 'COMPELLING' Amy Liptrot, 'STUNNING' Cathy Rentzenbrink, 'EXTRAORDINARY' Sali Hughes To everyone else, Terri White appeared to be living the dream, named one of Folio's Top Women in US Media and accruing further awards for the magazines she was editing. In reality, she was rapidly skidding towards a mental health crisis that would land her in a locked psychiatric ward as her past caught up with her. Coming Undone is Terri's documentation of her unravelling, and her precarious navigation back from a life in pieces.

A revised and expanded edition of the recovery classic by Patrick Carnes, Ph.D., a leading expert on addictive behaviours. "The Twelve Steps tap into the essential human process of change and will be regarded as one of the intellectual and spiritual landmarks in human history. "--Patrick Carnes It was out of his reverence and respect for the wisdom and therapeutic value of the Twelve Steps that Carnes wrote A Gentle Path through the 12 Steps , now a recovery classic and self-help staple for anyone looking for guidance for life's hardest challenges. Hundreds of thousands of people have found in this book a personal portal to the wisdom of the Twelve Steps. With updated and expanded concepts and a focus on the spiritual principles that lead to lifelong growth and fulfilment, Carnes' new edition invites a fresh generation of readers to the healing and rewarding experience of Twelve Step recovery.