Recommended Reading

A Man’s Way through
the Twelve Steps

In A Man’s Way through the Twelve Steps, author Dan Griffin uses interviews with men in various stages of recovery, excerpts from relevant Twelve Step literature, and his own experience to offer the first holistic approach to sobriety for men. Readers work through each of the Twelve Steps, learn to capitulate negative masculine scripts that have shaped who they are and how they approach recovery, and strengthen the positive and affirming aspects of manhood.

Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others, and Raise Performance

George Kohlrieser—an international leadership professor, consultant, and veteran hostage negotiator—explains that it is only by openly facing conflict that we can truly progress through the most difficult business challenges. In this provocative book, he reveals how the proven techniques and psychological insights used in hostage negotiation can be applied successfully to any personal or business relationship. Step by step, he outlines the seven key factors that anyone can use to remove the blocks that stand in the way of resolving tough problems and shows how business leaders, in particular, can develop and access the skills they need to create trust and a positive mind-set in their companies.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically re-envisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical “condition” distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction.

When we see how far we strayed from the kind of men we wanted to be, we are overwhelmed by how far we have to go to get back on the track. Perhaps we see clearly for the first time how unfair we were or how much we hurt those we love. Maybe we see how pervasive our compulsions are in our lives and how much we missed.

That is when we are most ready to do the work of recovery and become most spiritual. It is helpful at those times to remember that this program is a journey. Although at times the distance seems overwhelming, all of us are on the path. As long as we live, we never reach a point where we can stop growing. The important thing is we are on the path, we have a good part of our journey behind us. Once begun, outside the door, we are progressing like all our brothers and sisters in the program.

Today, I will remember it is the reward of the journey itself, not the destination, that I seek.

Moments of Clarity:
Voices from the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery

Christopher Kennedy Lawford’s New York Times bestselling memoir, Symptoms of Withdrawal, offered readers a startling, first-hand look at his own addictions to drugs and alcohol, prompting People magazine to write, “Few have written so well about the joy of drugs, and few are as unsparing about their drug-driven selfishness.” In his bestselling follow-up, Moments of Clarity, Lawford presents “Voices from the Front Lines of Addiction and Recovery.” With contributions from Tom Arnold, Alec Baldwin, Meredith Baxter, Jamie Lee Curtis, Richard Dreyfuss, Anthony Hopkins and many others, Moments of Clarity is an important addition to the literature of recovery.

The Dance of Anger:
A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships

The renowned classic and New York Times bestseller

Anger is something we feel. It exists for a reason and always deserves our respect and attention. We all have a right to everything we feel—and certainly our anger is no exception.

“Anger is a signal and one worth listening to,” writes Dr. Harriet Lerner in her renowned classic that has transformed the lives of millions of readers. While anger deserves our attention and respect, women still learn to silence our anger, to deny it entirely, or to vent it in a way that leaves us feeling helpless and powerless. In this engaging and eminently wise book, Dr. Lerner teaches both women and men to identify the true sources of anger and to use it as a powerful vehicle for creating lasting change.

For decades, this book has helped millions of readers learn how to turn their anger into a constructive force for reshaping their lives. With a new introduction by the author, The Dance of Anger is ready to lead the next generation.

12 Stupid Things That Mess Up Recovery: Avoiding Relapse through Self-Awareness and Right Action

Are you sabotaging your own recovery?

To grow in recovery, we must grow up emotionally. This means getting honest with ourselves and facing up to the self-defeating thoughts and actions that put our sobriety at risk. Although there are as many ways to mess up recovery as there are alcoholics and addicts, some general themes exist, which include:

• confusing self-concern with selfishness
• not making amends
• using the program to try to become perfect
• not getting help for relationship troubles
• believing that life should be easy

In simple, down-to-earth language, Allen Berger explores the twelve most commonly confronted beliefs and attitudes that can sabotage recovery. He then provides tools for working through these problems in daily life. This useful guide offers fresh perspectives on how the process of change begins with basic self-awareness and a commitment to working a daily program.

Communication Miracles for Couples: Easy and Effective Tools to Create More Love and Less Conflict

Create lasting harmony and keep love alive with psychotherapist and bestselling author Jonathan Robinson’s powerful and simple methods for effective couples’ communication. For anyone who wants to enhance their relationship by learning to communicate with less blame and more understanding Communication Miracles for Couples will show you how.

In just a few minutes couples will learn to:

• Feel totally loved
• Never argue again
• Get your partner to really hear you
• Repair broken trust
• Learn the secret of the Acknowledgment Formula

Originally published in 1997 and continuously in print with more than 100,000 sold Communications Miracles for Couples has helped hundreds of thousands of couples repair their relationships. Whether you are looking to enhance your relationship or are deeply mired in conflict, these techniques can help anyone develop more effective communication with a spouse or partner.

Messages: The Communication Book

Many people assume that good communicators possess an intrinsic talent for speaking and listening to others, a gift that can’t be learned or improved. The reality is that communication skills are developed with deliberate effort and practice, and learning to understand others and communicate your ideas more clearly will improve every facet of your life.

Now in its third edition, Messages has helped thousands of readers cultivate better relationships with friends, family members, coworkers, and partners. You’ll discover new skills to help you communicate your ideas more effectively and become a better listener. Learn how to:

• Read body language
• Develop skills for couples communication
• Negotiate and resolve conflicts
• Communicate with family members
• Handle group interactions
• Talk to children
• Master public speaking
• Prepare for job interviews

If you can communicate effectively, you can do just about anything. Arm yourself with the interpersonal skills needed to thrive.

Love is never enough: How Couples Can Overcome Misunderstandings, Resolve Conflicts, and Solve Relational Problems through Cognitive Therapy

With eloquence and accessibility, Dr. Aaron T. Beck analyzes the actual dialogue of troubled couples to illuminate the most common problems in marriage–the power of negative thinking, disillusionment, rigid rules and expectations, and miscommunication.

Permanent Partners: Building Gay & Lesbian Relationships That Last

Berzon’s experience as a psychotherapist in the homosexual community for over 16 years most definitely shows in her practical and compassionate advice on ways to strengthen same-sex relationships. Though she is a lesbian, the book gives both lesbian and gay male partnerships equal time. Also included are brief chapters on financial issues, legal issues (covered much more completely in Hayden Curry and Denis Clifford’s A Legal Guide for Gay and Lesbian Couples, 1988, Nolo Pr. 5th ed.), and having children, with addresses and telephone numbers of numerous organizations and advocacy groups provided. An excellent bibliography (current to 1988) is included. With little else in print of a practical nature, many libraries will want this.

Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal

Sexual addictions and compulsive sexual behavior are growing societal problems, with as many as three to six percent of the world population affected. Your Sexually Addicted Spouse shatters the stigma and shame that millions of men and women carry when their partners are sexually addicted. They receive little empathy for their pain, which means they suffer alone, often shocked and isolated by the trauma. Barbara Steffens’ groundbreaking new research shows that partners are not codependents but post-traumatic stress victims, while Marsha Means’ personal experience provides insights, strategies, and critical steps to recognize, deal with, and heal partners of sexually addicted relationships. Firsthand accounts and stories reveal the impact of this addiction on survivors’ lives. Chapters end with “On a Personal Note” questions and propose new paths that lead from trauma to empowerment, health, and hope. Useful appendices list health and mental health care providers and clergy.

National Geographic—Daily Gratitude: 365 Days of Reflection

Filled with striking, natural-world photographs and insightful quotations, National Geographic’s latest inspirational book takes on the most timeless and universal of topics: gratitude. Illuminating the diverse elements that make life precious, this book invites readers to savor what’s really important–from friends and family to adventure and success to the simple comforts of home. For anyone interested in celebrating, reflecting on, and sharing the gift of appreciation, this beautiful book will be a keepsake to treasure every day of the year.

Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith

Anne Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: “Help me, help me, help me” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is “Whatever,” and whose evening prayer is “Oh, well.” Anne thinks of Jesus as “Casper the friendly savior” and describes God as “one crafty mother.”

Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott’s real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers—her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness.

Lamott’s faith isn’t about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, “My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers.” At once tough, personal, affectionate, wise, and very funny, Traveling Mercies tells in exuberant detail how Anne Lamott learned to shine the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life, exposing surprising pockets of meaning and hope.

The Men on My Couch: True Stories of Sex, Love and Psychotherapy

When Dr. Brandy Engler opened her sex therapy practice for women in Manhattan, she got a big surprise. Most of the calls were from men. They wanted to talk about womanizing, porn addiction, impotence, prostitutes—and most of all, love.

Her patients were everyday guys from all walks of life. Among them were David, the Wall Street hotshot and compulsive womanizer; Charles, an introvert who kept pushing away the fiancée he thought was too beautiful for him; Paul, the self-made man who visited massage parlors despite his sexy wife; and the men’s group whose stark revelations about male anger and their search for the right woman will open your eyes. In The Men on My Couch, Dr. Engler allows readers inside those private sessions to witness her exciting and evocative encounters with what men desire and fear.

Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples, 20th Anniversary Edition

Originally published in 1988, Getting the Love You Want has helped millions of couples attain more loving, supportive, and deeply satisfying relationships. The 20th anniversary edition contains extensive revisions to this groundbreaking book, with a new chapter, new exercises, and a foreword detailing Dr. Hendrix’s updated philosophy for eliminating all negativity from couples’ daily interactions, allowing readers of the 2008 edition to benefit from his ongoing discoveries during his last two decades of work.

Harville Hendrix, Ph.D., in partnership with his wife, Helen LaKelly Hunt, PhD., originated Imago Relationship Therapy, a unique healing process for couples, prospective couples, and parents. Together they have more than thirty years’ experience as educators and therapists and their work has been translated into more than 50 languages, with Imago practiced by two thousand therapists worldwide. Harville and Helen have six children and live in New York and New Mexico.

Stage II Recovery: Life beyond Addiction

Sustained abstinence from an addiction is only the first stage of recovery; real recovery begins with Stage II—the rebuilding of the life that was saved in Stage I.

Earnie Larsen has been intimately involved with people in Twelve Step programs for twenty years. He has degrees in counceling, education, and theology, and he lectures, counsels, and conducts workshops and seminars nationally on improving interpersonal relationships. He is the author of thirty books.

Now What?: An Insider’s Guide to Addiction and Recovery

Addiction and recovery insider and expert William Cope Moyers answers the question “Now what?” for addicts and their loved ones along every step of their journey through contemplation, intervention, treatment, and recovery.

As the survivor of multiple relapses and near-fatal experiences with his addiction to alcohol and other drugs, William Cope Moyers knows what it’s like to desperately need, but not know how to find, a good treatment program. As Moyers was struggling, his parents—television journalist Bill Moyers and his wife, Judith—were also battling to understand what was happening to their son and what to do about it. Thanks to a successful intervention, intensive inpatient treatment, and a rigorous Twelve Step program, Moyers has been clean and sober since 1994, and has devoted his life to guiding others in getting the help they need.

Food Addiction: The Body Knows: Revised & Expanded Edition

Are you a food addict?
Do you gain more weight than you lose after every diet?
Can one cookie destroy all your good intentions?
Do you eat when you are disappointed, tense or anxious?
Since its publication, Food Addiction has become a primary resource for food addicts and compulsive eaters. Now it is updated and presented in a revised and expanded edition, with a new chapter on relapse. For a food addict, relapse is an ever present danger which begins in the mind before reaching for that cupcake or other trigger food.

Here food addiction is defined, trigger foods are identified and consequences of food addiction are revealed. A lifetime eating plan demonstrating how to stick with a healthful food plan for the long term is also provided.

“For some people, foods can be as addictive as alcohol,” Kay Sheppard explains. “Gummy bears and marshmallow chicks can be vicious killers whose effects can lead to depression, irritability and even suicide. The terrible truth is that for certain individuals, refined carbohydrates can trigger the addictive process. This book is an effort to help you understand and solve the problems of compulsive eating.”

Hooked on Games: The Lure and Cost of Video Game and Internet Addiction

The multi-billion dollar video game industry is in the business of creating fun and enticing games that can be addictive. As addicted gamers feast on digital indulgences, real life is neglected and their reality crumbles around them.

Headlines related to video games

“New Mexico mom gets 25 years for starving daughter.” — Fox News

“China used prisoners in lucrative Internet gaming work.” — Guardian News

“Online gamer killed for selling virtual weapon.” — Sydney Morning Herald

“South Korean dies after games sessions.” — BBC News

Hooked on Games is written by Brooke Strickland and Andrew Doan, MD, PhD, a physician with a research background in neuroscience, who battled his own addictions with video games. Dr. Doan was an addicted gamer, who at his peak, invested over 20,000 hours of playing games over a period of nine years. Dr. Doan’s reckless compulsion to play games transformed him into a monster that almost destroyed his family, marriage, and career. He shares his expertise to educate others on the dangers of video game addiction and to provide hope for video game addicts and their families. Dr. Doan shares steps for gaming addicts to achieve recovery and steps for families and loved ones to intervene. Without attention to this quickest growing addiction, our society will suffer from the creation of Generation Vidiot, millions of people devoid of innovation and skills to live in the physical world.