Tag: Addiction

  • EXIT The MAZE: One Addiction, One Cause, One Cure by Dr. Donna Marks – Addiction Recovery, Personal Transformation, Overcoming Trauma

     

    Blue and Gold 2020 Badge for Mind & Spirit Grand Prize for Spirituality and Enlightenment Exit the Maze: One Addiction, One Cause, One Cure by Dr. Donna MarksExit The Maze: One Addiction, One Cause, One Cure by Dr. Donna Marks is a welcoming and comprehensive enchiridion of untapped wisdom that offers a step-to-step guide to getting out of any form of addiction.

    No one sets out to become an addict; it catches us off guard. An addiction can happen quickly or slowly and can affect anyone regardless of intelligence, social class, ethnic group, or religion. With pitch-perfect prose, Dr. Donna Marks invites readers into the root causes of different forms of addiction, while offering pragmatic and evidence-based solutions that are bound to yield results.

    Buoyed by the personal experiences of the author along with numerous case studies, Dr. Marks further offers deep insights into the inadequacies of traditional treatment models. For example, she notes that most rehab centers lack adequate staffing and overstep the limits of their capabilities. Another example is the famous 12 steps of fighting addiction which she believes do help to stop a behavior and develop a solid support system, however, she also sees that the program falls short

    Marks attempts to address the traumas that underlie most addictive behavior.

    This book does not stop there but offers alternative solutions to beat any form of addiction such as facing the pain, releasing it, writing out the thoughts and feelings that are disturbing you, forgiving the pain, letting go of resentment, visualizing a new life for yourself, and eventually exiting the maze. With valuable and reflective questionnaires at the end of every chapter, the result is a comprehensive compendium that is not only educating but eye-opening.

    This guide is divided into twelve chapters that begin with a welcoming and illuminating quote from scholars and other well-known people. Each chapter amplifies the previous ones, resulting in a well-nuanced and easy-to-read self-help journey. Further, Dr. Marks’s empathetic and honest tone creates a much-needed balm for those longing to exit the frustrating rabbit hole of addiction. She closes on the last ultimate step of exiting the maze which includes self-care such as caring for the body, spirit, mind, and relationships.

    The core backbone of this guidebook is the extensive research that Dr. Marks did in preparation for writing it.

    Exit The Maze: One Addiction, One Cause, One Cure offers a unique roadmap to assist readers in discovering true healing and comfort. The book’s suggestions are concise and emphasize the need to deal with unresolved emotional trauma, as it is more often than not the doorway to addictions, as many try to blot out the pain. As addictions and depression escalate in the modern world, Dr. Donna has written a blueprint for living a post-addiction life of serenity and self-love.

    Indeed, this revolutionary guide delivers a much-needed anchor designed to inspire, guide, and steer readers through all forms of addictions including gambling, love addiction, and drug addiction, just to name a few, and exit to the other end, triumphantly and fully recovered.

    Exit the Maze: One Addiction, One Cause, One Cure won Grand Prize in the 2020 CIBA Mind & Spirit Book Awards for Spirituality and Enlightenment Non-Fiction.

     

    5 Stars! Best Book Chanticleer Book Reviews

     

  • BINGE by Anne Pfeffer – Addiction, Contemporary Fiction, Romance

     

    Twenty-seven-year-old Sabrina “Bree” Hunter has the chance to grasp her dream of being a published author, but will her binge eating spell the end of that dream?

    After years of working for a demanding B-list talent agent in Los Angeles, Bree earned a publishing deal with Fast Track Books. She should celebrate, thrilled that her life will finally go down the right path since her graduation from Dartmouth. However, Bree has a problem that isn’t easily fixed. Her publisher expects the skinny beauty on her webpage, a picture taken many years previously.

    Since the days of the photo, Bree has become a compulsive eater. She spends every moment of her day obsessing over junk food. Bree turns to food to comfort her, console her, and to bring her joy. This addiction has caused her to gain forty pounds since college. Finding dieting on her own harder than she expected, Bree agrees to attend a support group meeting. Her sister, Lena’s, boyfriend has recently found success in breaking his addiction to drugs and alcohol.

    Bree just doesn’t believe the sharing and belief in a higher power will help–until she meets Daniel. A successful lawyer and recovering over-eater, Daniel now strikes the figure of a hunk with blue eyes, as if right off the pages of her own novel. With a three-month deadline looming, an unappreciative boss, and her own doubts, Bree must find a way to overcome her compulsion.

    Sabrina’s addiction provides amazing insight into an area most people ignore.

    Compulsive eating is as much an eating disorder as bulimia or anorexia. However, many choose to see it as a choice rather than a real issue. Even Bree herself has a difficult time properly naming the truth of her overeating–as an addiction. The depiction of her compulsion will be a revelation for most readers. From hiding food in her desk to digging in the ladies’ room trash for candy, Bree shows her compulsion. Her behavior mimics that of a drug addict to a sad and astounding degree. Bree cannot see that she loves comfort food like a user on a bender.

    The extremity of Bree’s disorder will affect the reader. The burden of secrecy becomes overwhelming, crushing Bree’s spirit and her willpower at times. Her need to diet on a deadline only serves to enhance her cravings and creates a time crunch sensation. She struggles under the sense of an inevitable disaster with an impending, unavoidable culmination.

    Setting the novel in a place where image rules and only the skinny succeed highlights Bree’s struggle. Bree sinks to shocking depths to fulfill her urges. She must hit that metaphorical bottom before she can admit her addiction and begin to climb away from it. Readers will celebrate with her as she finds her true self in the land of Hollywood fakes.

    The reasons behind Bree’s addiction define part of her story, her growth into a confident, accomplished woman.

    Bree began associating comfort with food when her mother left Lena and her with their absentee father. At only nine years old, Bree raised her baby sister. They waited hungrily for their father to bring home food for them after he finally left work. Lena became both sister and pseudo daughter to Bree, who continues to bail her out even at the age of twenty-three.

    Bree has lost her vibrancy and her confidence, cowering behind her love for and addiction to sweets. Though she has accomplished more than Lena, Bree can only see her sister’s slimness, her perfect ease, in comparison to Bree’s own self-labeled corpulent incompetency. She will do anything, even considering bulimia and fasting, to achieve the same perfection in herself.

    She knows her weight causes her doubt and unhappiness, but she cannot overcome it alone.

    Through the insistence of the sister who works on her own issues, Bree attends a support meeting and begins the program that will change more than the numbers on the scale. When she meets Daniel, she has a hard time believing someone like him could like someone like her. However, spending time with him and the other members of her group soon empowers Bree.

    Bree’s recognition of the imperfection of others begins her metamorphosis. She learns that even those people who have seemingly flawless lives are far from that ideal. She stops bullying herself and being her own worst enemy. Eventually, she fully sees the time she has wasted in pursuit of the unattainable and finds satisfaction in who she is and the potential her REAL life holds.

     

    5 Stars! Best Book Chanticleer Book Reviews