Chanticleer Book Reviews

Tag: Alcoholism Recovery

  • 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

     

  • RAISING the BOTTOM: Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture by Lisa Boucher – Alcoholism Recovery, Self-Help, Parenting & Relationships

    RAISING the BOTTOM: Making Mindful Choices in a Drinking Culture by Lisa Boucher – Alcoholism Recovery, Self-Help, Parenting & Relationships

    A mother’s wish for her daughter brought this guidebook into being; in it, author Lisa Boucher recounts her struggles and conquest of alcoholism, with specific advice for women trapped in the clutches of the disease.

    Boucher provides ample autobiographical proof of her addiction. When growing up, her mother was “drowning in booze” and many childhood memories center on her mother wrecking the car, burning the supper, or just being nonfunctional. Her father reacted by acting the tyrant, using fear tactics in hopes that he could control his wife’s drinking. By the time she was twelve, Boucher was smoking, using pot, and drinking. Her first early marriage ended in divorce.

    Most alcoholics begin slowly, perhaps drinking only on weekends, using booze as a reward, imagining the warm glow that the drink can provide and gradually spreading weekends out to include the entire week. It took Boucher years, and a dedicated, disciplined adherence to the 12 Step program, to realize that she was better off without drinking.

    Ultimately, she says, alcoholics have a thinking problem – distortion, delusion, and denial constantly crowd in, and drinking suppresses those negative feelings. Her book focuses on women with alcohol addiction, and the first story in her collection of sobriety is perhaps the most poignant: her mother’s account of her years of alcoholism and road to recovery. After a rewarding phase of sobriety and dedication to helping others, her mother began to urge Boucher to chronicle her own experiences on the path up from the bottom.

    Boucher’s work provides direct advice delivered in an accessible manner by someone who has walked the walk to recovery and is well qualified to talk the talk. She understands, for example, that some people can control their drinking, but she offers many clues as to how that perception can also be a deception. She urges a realistic approach: to quit drinking; you have to prepare yourself for the possibility of “losing friends, maybe losing your marriage, maybe losing everything.” Thus far, she has enjoyed nearly 30 years of sobriety spent in a professional and personal quest to assist other women who are carrying the burden of alcoholism. Her journey has led her to present ten stories from other women like herself, whose lives are peppered with violence, arrests, loss of jobs, partners and self-esteem, who now can proudly announce a “sobriety date” and a recovered existence.

    Boucher examines the particular problems of women in the struggle against alcoholism, though her book would have realistic outreach for men also. She writes from hard experience that will be recognizable to anyone who has flirted with or entirely fallen for the false promise of the bottle. Her book can and should be read by women in the throes of the disease as well as those who seek to counsel and assist their sisters in need.