Cool, Hip & Sober by Bill Manville

Cool, Hip & Sober: 88 Ways to Beat Booze and Drugs, Bill Manville. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 2004. e-book, 705 pps.


     For those who don't know, Chit Chat over in Pennsylvania is officially "The Caron Foundation." Bill Manville refers to Chit Chat in his book. He was doing a radio show at the time that this book was published. Many of the questions included in Cool, Hip & Sober came from callers or are composites of questions phoned in by callers to his show.

     The title of the book is a bit misleading. There are not really 88 ways offered to beat active addiction. But there are 88 questions and extensive answers. Manville proposes the standard route these days to recovery; time in a detox if needed, then a rehab using the Minnesota model coupled with attendance at [primarily A.A.] meetings. Manville includes those who are addicted to other drugs besides the drug alcohol in his use of the word alcoholic. While I am not entirely comfortable with that decision, I don't have to be. The terminology works for the audience that Cool, Hip & Sober is aimed at.

     Cool, Hip & Sober grew on me. At first I thought to myself nothing much new here. Yet I kept reading and through the professionalism [which Manville attempts to escape in his answers] quite a bit of common sense shows through. Manville does not pussyfoot around sore subjects. He tells it like it is without giving into that misnamed monstrosity "tough love" that folks not in the know of the history of said phrase appear to relish tossing around.

sapphoq reviews says: Bill Manville's Cool, Hip & Sober holds appeal to a general mixed audience. Recommended for anyone with basic questions about addiction and recovery.

A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen

A Street Cat Named Bob: and how he saved my life, James Bowen. New York: Thomas Dunne Books/ St. Martin's Press, 2013. e-book, 180 pps.


https://twitter.com/StreetCatBob

https://streetcatbob.blogspot.co.uk/

https://www.justgiving.com/jamesandbobcatsprotection/


      James Bowen was trying to get clean off of heroin via an opioid substitution program in London. He was living in what is called "vulnerable housing" and busking with his guitar for a living when he happened upon a cat. James took the cat in with a thought to nurse him back to health. As a result, both James' and Bob's lives were permanently altered.

sapphoq reviews says: James Bowen's first book is a charmer. Easy-to-read, I found myself rooting for both James and Bob. Through Bob, James found a purpose in life. James started to make decisions that would keep both himself and Bob on an even keel.
     Bob is certainly an unusual feline. He is a ginger tom with many of the characteristics inherent to that coloration. [I also love ginger toms and have had several of them. Currently, one is in residence].
     The twelve step programs have become a sort of set of sub-cultures in the United States. Those who are threatened by other ideas about recovery will most likely reject this delightful book based on the facts that James was able to drink in moderation and that he elected not to attend Narcotics Anonymous. Culture is a funny thing. While informing us of where our roots are, it also limits our vision.
     It is clear that we are continuing to hear from James Bowen and Bob in the form of subsequent books and a charity set up for cats. For those who love cats and tales of human triumph over tough adversaries, A Street Cat Named Bob is highly recommended. 

Beyond Belief by Joe C.

Beyond Belief: Agnostic Musings for 12 Step Life: Finally, Daily Reflections for Nonbelievers, Freethinkers and Everyone, Joe C. Toronto: Rebellion Dogs Publishing, 2014, 2013. e-book, 797 pps.



     Beyond Belief is a book of daily thoughts for the rest of us-- those of us who are in recovery from addiction without the involvement of any gods-- who are often neglected or the object of conversion attempts in standard recovery literature. After a quotation, a day's reflection focuses on recovery for those of us who are non-believers. The book is divided into months and days as is standard for meditation books.

sapphoq reviews says: I am currently using Beyond Belief myself as a way to start the day. The writing is of the highest quality and gives me stuff to think about. Highly recommended for the unchurched in recovery and for those believers who consider their religious expressions to be separate from their 12 step recovery.

Clean by David Sheff

Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America's Greatest Tragedy, David Sheff.  New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013.  e-book 339 pps. with additional notes afterwards.

Some folks may have read David Sheff's book Beautiful Boy about his son's addiction and subsequent recovery.  David Sheff's newest work Clean is a somewhat repetitive overview of treatment for addictions based on the idea that the addict is suffering from a condition which interferes neurologically with proffered help to recover from said condition.  David Sheff correctly points out that addiction is not the only condition [he uses the word "disease," a word which I maintain is not precise enough and does not go far enough in describing addiction] that results in a thick layer of denial.  Other examples are some forms of dementia and traumatic brain injury [dependent upon where the lesions are in the brain itself]; and diabetes.

Sheff builds a case for treating addicts as people who are suffering from a physical condition rather than as people who need to find a god, get right with a god, pray, meditate, or look deep within for the defects which caused them to want to get loaded in the first place.  The problem with those who are caught up in active addiction is that their brains do not allow them the cognition which tells regular folks that they have to change what they are doing.  Sheff advises that cookie cutter grouping of addicts in a rehab doesn't work because of this.  Some addicts may be ready before others are to learn about addiction.

One takeaway from Clean is that the rehabilitation system ought to stop punishing addicts by throwing them out of treatment for doing things that addicts do.  Another is that legal system ought to quit punishing addicts or furnishing consequences for their behaviors which arise from their abnormal neurological states.  A third is that the sooner we quit treating addicts as if they were bad little boys and girls, the better off everyone will be.  I cannot agree with the first and the second points in their entirety, but I do endorse the third.  Every sick patient deserves basic human respect.  Although the etiologies of some particular cancers are demonstrably related to the quantity of fat consumed in a diet, no cancer patient is asked to confess his sins in order to receive amelioration from the cancer.  Nor is she told that she is being therapeutically discharged for puking after [or sometimes before when anticipatory vomiting takes place] a round of chemo.  There's not a whole lot of people screaming at cancer patients that their condition is their fault.  But there is a bunch of people who are sincerely butt-hurt and angry at the antics of both active addicts and addicts in recovery for a variety of reasons.  The Twelve Steps and their quasi-Christian feel in fact may not be optimal or even integral to the [formal, medical, rehabilitative] treatment of addiction.  If the scientific model of addiction is adopted then it follows that rehabs as we now commonly know them will have to change their methods.

A.A. owes its' roots to the Washingtonians-- who thrived contrary to what Bill W. claimed in his writings-- and to the Oxford group.  The first draft of the Big Book, if allowed to be published in its' original form, has a decidedly Christian slant and would have kept out a bunch of non-Christians from remaining in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.  Indeed, the early A.A. groups excluded women.  Fortunately that changed.  We need more research into how to truly individualize treatment for addicts.  

sapphoq reviews says:  Although Clean was a worthwhile, if wordy, read I had some difficulty with the book.  In spite of the title, Clean deals primarily with alcoholism with the usual passing nod to addiction to other drugs.  I was initially hopeful that Clean would have some things to say about Narcotics Anonymous.  But like many books and treatment programs these days, N.A. is given a pat on the head.  I find this perpetuation of keeping addicts silent to be most distressing.  There are addicts who have barely used or never used alcohol in A.A.  They [usually are somewhat pressured to] identify as alcoholics and say things like, "Everything started and ended with alcohol."  There are also alcoholics who prefer N.A.  But unlike the addicts in A.A., the alcoholic who has never used other drugs is welcomed in the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous.  And the alcoholic almost always identifies as an addict in N.A. willingly, recognizing that the word addict includes addiction to the drug alcohol.
     Sheff does a fairly good job of describing adjuncts to recovery in the form of opiate substitutes, i.e. methadone and other medications.  He also points out the extra liability that a mental health diagnosis can be to the addict seeking recovery.  But he does not clearly offer his vision of what a treatment program using best practices might look like.  This is something that I would have been interested in hearing more about.  Not all rehabs, in-patients, out-patients, detoxes, halfway houses, and three quarter way houses are equal in their effectiveness.  Add to that the manipulation and belittling of addicts in early recovery that occurs by staff people who should know better [and by some folks with longer periods of recovery who have forgotten what they were like in early recovery], it is truly a jungle out there.
     Within the limitations that I have described, Clean is a worthwhile read for those who do not work in the addictions field and for some folks with some time away from active addiction.  Those who work in the addictions field will probably find nothing new [even if they are not implementing some of the suggestions].  And the general audience will probably be lost in the midst of all of the words.  Recommended with some hesitation.  

A.A.? No Way! by Charles Delaney

A.A.? No Way!, Charles Delaney.  Self-published, Smashwords, 2012.  ebook, 59 pps.


Some people find help in traditional [12 step] groups and traditional [based upon the 12 steps] treatment programs and rehabs.  Others don't.  Charles Delaney had been to A.A. and he found the program to be significantly lacking.  The A.A. members themselves appeared to be clones of each other.  Worse, they were not ready to hear Delaney's criticism of the program itself nor what he found in looking for alternatives.

The problem as Charles Delaney sees it is that A.A. has a 95% failure rate.  He states that Rational Recovery has a higher success rate of its members achieving abstinence than A.A. does.  He also states that folks who attempt to quit their addictions by themselves have a better chance of doing so than folks in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and other Anonymous derivatives.  Delaney does quote from some studies but does not provide any footnotes for his stats.  On page 11, he says "The basic idea of those programs are the best of ideas...put to the worst of applications."  He maintains that Alcoholics Anonymous is in fact a Christian and a religious program.  He criticizes the idea that alcoholics are powerless when it comes to alcohol.  He advocates for the assuming of personal responsibility in addressing one's addiction.

A.A.? No Way! offers criticism of the twelve steps from a pagan perspective.  There is an outline of "A 9-Step Recovery for Asatru/Odinists" [which begins on page 40 in my ebook] that I personally thought were excellent.  After that, the book begins to fall apart.  Delaney endorses an old book  written by plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz and published in 1960 called Psycho-Cybernetics.  [Psycho-Cybernetics espoused positive thinking, if you can dream it you can do it, and mind-body connection woo-woo].  He then detours into a very rudimentary understanding of brain function and creativity.  A.A.? No Way! finishes up with the idea that there is so much more out there in a life of abstinence than can be found in the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous.

sapphoq reviews says:  Some of A.A.? No Way! rang true to me and some didn't.  To his credit, Charles Delaney was quick to point out that those who have found their help in A.A. ought to remain in A.A.  Although A.A.? No Way! lacks in footnotes and a bit of execution, it is especially valuable for those heathens who want to try some steps written specifically for them.  Quite frankly, except for the woo-woo noted within the book he recommended, I liked this little ebook.  Charles Delaney has the barebones for a longer book within the first 43 pages of A.A.? No Way! .  It is my sincere hope that he will undertake a longer book project related to alternatives to 12 step recovery, complete with footnotes but lacking the feel-good woo-woo and pop psychology that often passes for professional treatment these days.  Recommended for heathens who have failed in A.A. because of its' somewhat quasi-christian approach to recovery.

Addiction

Yes, that's right.  I'm reviewing addiction today, including addiction to alcohol also known as alcoholism.  Because I feel like it, that's why.  And because even though I've read a bunch of books since I last reviewed one, I'm too jazzed up to write about any of them.

I was thinking about Steubenville, teens partying in Steubenville, the sexual assaults in Steubenville on a teen who was characterized as being very drunk, passed out, or "dead."

Not every teen who gets into trouble at a party is an alcoholic or has an addiction problem.  Not every teen who gets raped, even while highly intoxicated, is an alcoholic or has an addiction problem.  The vast majority of teens don't.  Some teens who drink and / or drug heavily will moderate as they get older.  A very very few will be unable to moderate even after they get older.

I qualified as an "unable to."  When I was raped, I was already in the throes of addiction.  I had alcoholic blackouts [not remembering a period of time afterwards] regularly.  I used until there was no more.

Do any of the teens in Steubenville qualify as an "unable to?"  I don't know.  I never met any of them.  And I don't qualify to say.  Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe maybe.  The jury is still out on that one.

There are many lists around of how to tell if one is some kind of an addict-- gambling addict, sex addict, drug addict, alcoholic [addict], overeater, food addict, restricter, binger, co-dependent [addiction to people, supposedly], internet addict [more will be revealed], hoarder [a sort of addiction to junk or sometimes to animals], and so forth.  If you think you have a problem, you might.  Or you might not.  Go find yourself one of the lists and answer the questions.  Seek out a professional if you want to and are able to in order to discuss the results with someone who is objective and not screaming at you.  Find a self-help group if that feels right to you.  Find some other ways to take your life back if a self-help group does not feel right for you.

Yes, here in the U.S.A., twelve-step programs dominate the recovery landscape.  Here is an incomplete list of other ways that people have used to stop addictive behavior: joining an ashram, Women for Sobriety, TOPS: Taking Off Pounds Sensibly, becoming religious and sticking with it, psychotherapy, Recovery Incorporated, continuing to be involved with Drug Court on a volunteer basis after completing Drug Court, Secular Sobriety [S.O.S. groups, or Save Our Selves], quitting cold turkey and never looking back.  The purpose of this review is not to present stats on which way of doing it is best or worse.  I'm just saying there are options.

Some people say that in order to recover, one must find a god or a higher power. That ain't necessarily so. When I stopped using, I was a believer. As the years passed, I lost my mysticism. And I don't want it back. There are people who manage to quit their addictions without any sort of diety. Not many perhaps, but yes we do exist.

Addiction is not freedom is an axiom that I believe.  Here's another one that I also subscribe to: Recovery is not necessarily freedom either.  If I want freedom, then I have to take on some responsibility.  The bottom line is that my addiction is not to be used as an excuse for my bad behavior.  My recovery is not to be used as an excuse for my bad behavior either.  Thinking that I am too fragile to show up at work or keep my commitments or become a knowledgeable citizen of my community and the world is a sell-out.  I did not come into recovery in order to remain trapped by my thinking and worldview.  I stopped using and sought out something better because my thinking and my actions were screwed up. 

We should never leave our brains at the door wherever we go.  We need to think.  One of the ways to get better at thinking is to think.  My best thinking told me that what I was doing was not working.  If I wanted something different, I had to do something different.

No matter where I go or who I am with, I pay attention.  I have found that if I listen carefully, most people will tell me who they are.  Do not assume that everyone sitting at that self-help group is okay or safe just because you are sitting in the same room.  Ask the people who died on the airplanes on 9/11 whether or not they still believe that their fellow travelers are safe-- oh, wait.  They are dead.  Get the point?  Trust has to be earned.  I do not have to trust you just because you and I are on the same airplane together, in the same mall together, in the same park together, in the same room together.

If you are a teen, know that you are a carrier of the future.  What you do today is important.  Make today count.  Because one of these days, us old folks won't be here anymore because we will be dead.  If you are a teen and you are drinking and /or drugging, pay attention to what you are doing.  If you find that you cannot moderate your useage of something or that you are having frequent blackouts or that you have a personality change when you are using, it might be worth a second look.  Whether you are addicted or not, you are valuable.  You are the future.  I believe in you.

sapphoq reviews says: True addiction sucks.  If you think you have an addiction problem, explore your options and get some help.  And be careful out there.  Not everyone has our best interests at heart.  Be well.