Alcoholism Addiction Treatment

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  Charles E. Gallagher posted: 12 Mar at 6:33 am

  Although a therapist and a student of Zen practice for over 25 years, this book gave me a deeper level of compassion for people who suffer a life of addiction. I was impressed with how direct and yet nuturing the book spoke to the everyday difficulties of a person suffering from addiction.

  I found the exercises and the related discussions practical, realistic and powerful. This book can help addicts and their loved ones to experience the great joy of substance free, moment to moment living. As a family member who has experienced the pain of another family member’s addiction, it help me to change my interactions, conversations and start a new relationship based on honest expression and loving actions.

  Read it, apply it and this book with change you!
  Rating: 5 / 5

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  Mark Schenker posted: 12 Mar at 7:36 am

  I found “The Tao of Sobriety” to be extremely helpful on several counts. With over 20 years experience in the substance abuse treatment field, I found Gregson and Efran articulating ideas that I’d been working with in a coherent and practical framework. Their section on establishing “innocence in spirit” among patients who are plagued with guilt about their addiction is especially powerful and has been well received by several of my patients. The use of actual exercises makes the book useful as well as stimulating. The message of this book is relevant whether one is working a 12-Step program, (in which case it fits neatly into the “prayer and meditation” of the 11th Step), or is seeking an alternative approach to recovery. In fact, most of the concepts have relevance beyond the substance abuse area, and have already found a way into my practice with both addicted and non-addicted patients. I recommend this book highly.
  Rating: 5 / 5

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  Janice Digs posted: 12 Mar at 7:39 am

  I love to read and re-read this book. It’s not just about being sober, it’s about being human. I feel like I have a personal private therapy session every time I pick up this book to read various passages. It is like you are being personally addressed and all your issues are diminished and you get “freed up”. I only wish these authors were “on the road” giving seminars or something but, alas, don’t find anything online about that. A truly, loving, supportive, forgiving friend is found when reading these pages. Thank you.
  Rating: 5 / 5

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  Norman R. David Gregson posted: 12 Mar at 7:55 am

  I do not know if this is kosher, but I thought “Why not use this opportunity to discuss (okay, and promote) my book”? Perhaps the most usefull feature of “The Tao Of Sobriety” is the way it deconstructs shame and facilitates radical acceptance or “Life on life’s terms,” as they say in Twelve Step programs. The acceptance of life leads naturally to peace of mind, serenity, the second promise of AA, after sobriety. I do not know of any self help book that directly attacks the cruel and innacurate notion that people literaly choose to do harm and so deserve to be punsished and scorned.
  
  Essentialist guilt and shame are crippling to those with D&A dependencies, and others. In my very first session with clients I say, “Nobody wakes up one day feeling really and truly good about themselves and says ‘Today is a good day to become a drunk, or a junkie.’” I always get a sad laugh at the absurdity of this. Yet, most of us do believe that people literaly choose to become addicted. This is why the Disease Model of addiction is clung to. If uncle Sol has a disease, well, he isn’t a “lousey drunk” anymore; he is “sick.” In “The Tao…” we show how to see and live life so that one does not need to be “diseased” in order to be worthy of compassion.
  
  I work with many in Twelve Step groups and, to the person, they are relieved to find that they are not “sick.”
  
  Since D&A use, including drinking appropriately at a party, is always about changing feelings, moods, what my colleagues and I usually work with are broken childhood hearts. I usually work with the consequences of significant to severe child abuse and neglect. (By the way, we do not blame parents, we do not blame anybody. We are into positve, pragamtic, solutions, based upon up-to-date science.) If I had to fault “The Tao…” I would fault it for not making the links between childhood and addiction more clear. Having said this, in “The Tao…” we offer a direct way out of self hatred, toward the peace of mind that all human beings, none of us really having asked for this difficult life, crave and deserve.
  Rating: 4 / 5

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  david brady posted: 12 Mar at 10:41 am

  Alcoholism and drug addiction are the only two pathologies (character traits) that tell you, you don’t have them. If you think you might have a problem, you do! If you do then I would suggest two books to read, “Alcoholics Anonymous” or “The Tao of Sobriety”–if you’re serious about getting sober. David Gregson’s and Jay Efran’s new book “The Tao of Sobriety” has captured the pain, lonliness and absurd (comic) insanity of alcoholism and drug addiction with compassion and insight. It is a book that should give hope and courage to anyone struggling with addictions. You owe it to yourself to take the time and read it. Its simple straight forward suggestions just might save your life.
  Rating: 5 / 5

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