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CompleteMartialArts.com - First Year Sobriety: When All That Changes Is Everything


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Manufacturer: Hazelden
Average Customer Rating: Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.29286
EAN: 9781568382302
ISBN: 1568382308
Label: Hazelden
Manufacturer: Hazelden
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 142
Publication Date: 1998-09-30
Publisher: Hazelden
Studio: Hazelden

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Editorial Reviews:

The first in a series of three recovery guides for the first three years of sobriety, First-Year Sobriety uses the voices of many women and men who are struggling in the often baffling territory of their first year of sobriety to show that despite their differing experiences, all are united in the process of giving life without alcohol or other drugs a chance.

These are people who are alternately amazed, appalled, delighted, depressed, illuminated, disturbed, or simply thrown by their first days, weeks, and months of sobriety. Kettelhack explores the challenges all seem to face: learning to break through loneliness, isolation, and fear; finding ways to deal with anger, depression, and resentment; and learning how to deal with a new and sometimes overwhelming happiness.

Guy Kettelhack has written seven books on recovery. He is completing a Master's degree in psychoanalysis, and is an analyst-in-training at the Boston and New York Centers for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies. A graduate of Middlebury College, Kettelhack has also done graduate work in English literature at Bread Loaf School of English at Oxford University. He lives in New York City.


Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating: Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5Average rating of 3/5
Summary: Nothing I had already read before
Comment: This book took a lot of entries from the AA's Big Book and the "Living sober" book. I was disappointed because I thought I would be reading new material. If you don't have any AA literature this is a great book for you.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5
Summary: Cult Based Literature
Comment: For that matter, the whole blame game is a bait-and-switch stunt. They will start off by telling you that it isn't your fault, alcoholism is not a moral stigma because it's a disease and you are powerless over it.

" I was a sick person. I was suffering from an actual disease that had a name and symptoms like diabetes or cancer or TB -- and a disease was respectable, not a moral stigma!"

The Big Book, Marty Mann, Women Suffer Too, 3rd Edition page 227 and 4th Edition page 205.
But after you have joined Alcoholics Anonymous and become a committed member, then they will tell you that you are guilty and personally responsible for everything.

The First Step showed me that I was powerless over alcohol and anything else that threatened my sobriety or muddled my thinking. Alcohol was only a symptom of much deeper problems of dishonesty and denial.
Listening to the Wind, A.A. Grapevine, December 2001, page 34.

It's all just a mind game designed to get you to surrender to the cult.

Wilson was serially unfaithful to his wife Lois. Wilson 's affairs with women caused controversy and concern within AA and it was common knowledge in New York AA circles. His interest in younger women increased with his age, and caused Barry Leach and other friends of Wilson to form a "Founders Watch". People were assigned to keep an eye on Wilson during the socializing that followed AA functions and to separate and steer away those young women who caught Wilson's interest. Wilson, like many in his generation, could be sexist, but he was also "capable of treating the women who worked with him with dignity and respect". In the mid 1950s he began an affair with Helen Wyn, a woman 22 years his junior, "in duration, intensity and scope" this was different from his other affairs. Wilson at one point discussed divorcing Lois to marry Helen. Wilson with determined perseverance was able to overcome the AA trustees objections, and renegotiated his royalty agreements with them in 1963, which allowed him to include Helen Wynn in his estate. He left 10% of his book royalties to Helen and the other 90% to his wife Lois. In 1968 with Wilson's illness making it harder for them to spend time together, Helen bought a house in Ireland.

In the 1950s Wilson experimented with LSD in medically supervised experiments with Gerard Heard and Aldous Huxley. With Wilson's invitation his wife Lois, Father Dowling, and Nell Wing also participated in experimentation of this drug. Later Wilson wrote to Carl Jung, praising the results and recommending it as validation of Jung's spiritual experience. (The letter was not in fact sent as Jung had died.)

At a parapsychology meeting in the 1960s, Wilson met Abram Hoffer and learned about the potential mood-stabilizing effects of niacin. Wilson was impressed with experiments indicating that alcoholics who were given niacin had a better sobriety rate, and he began to see niacin "as completing the third leg in the stool, the physical to complement the spiritual and emotional." Wilson also believed that niacin had given him relief from depression, and he promoted the vitamin within the AA community and with the National Institute of Mental Health as a treatment for schizophrenia. However, Wilson created a major furor in AA because he used the AA office and letterhead in his promotion.

For Wilson, spiritualism (communicating with the spirits of the dead) was a life-long interest. One of his letters to his spiritual adviser Father Ed Dowling suggests that while Wilson was working on his book Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions he felt that spirits were helping him, in particular a 15th century monk named Boniface.[18] Wilson believed that the living could communicate with the dead and kept a "Spook Room" in his basement, where he along and others would conduct seances with a Ouijiboard, as well as experiment with automatic writing. Despite his conviction that he had evidence for the reality of the spiritual world, Wilson chose not to share this with AA.
The Harvard Mental Health Letter, from The Harvard Medical School, stated quite plainly:


On their own
There is a high rate of recovery among alcoholics and addicts, treated and untreated. According to one estimate, heroin addicts break the habit in an average of 11 years. Another estimate is that at least 50% of alcoholics eventually free themselves although only 10% are ever treated. One recent study found that 80% of all alcoholics who recover for a year or more do so on their own, some after being unsuccessfully treated. When a group of these self-treated alcoholics was interviewed, 57% said they simply decided that alcohol was bad for them. Twenty-nine percent said health problems, frightening experiences, accidents, or blackouts persuaded them to quit. Others used such phrases as "Things were building up" or "I was sick and tired of it." Support from a husband or wife was important in sustaining the resolution.

Treatment of Drug Abuse and Addiction -- Part III, The Harvard Mental Health Letter, Volume 12, Number 4, October 1995, page 3.
(See Aug. (Part I), Sept. (Part II), Oct. 1995 (Part III).)

So much for the sayings that
"Everybody needs a support group."
and
"Nobody can do it alone."
Most people do.

And note that the Harvard Medical School says that the support of a good spouse is more important than that of a 12-Step group. But A.A. says just the opposite:
"Dump your spouse and marry the A.A. group, because A.A. is The Only Way."

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: I gave this book to my patient - he liked it, while usually it's difficult to engage him in reading
Comment: I gave this book to my patient - he liked it, while usually it's difficult to engage him in reading

Customer Rating: Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5Average rating of 4/5
Summary: First Year Sobriety: When All That Changes Is Everything
Comment: This is a very good beginning for someone who is in treatment and ready to get out. It presents an encouraging, practical viewpoint without overwhelming amounts of rhetoric.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: great choice
Comment: I purchased this for a relayive who is just out of detox. She found this extremely interesting and helpful to guiding her through the trials and challenges she is currently facing. She feels it is a must read for everyone experiencing sobriety and family members too to understand the first year and first time sobriety.
So I give it 5 stars and a review of excellence!


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