I’ve been working on Step 1 and thinking about unmanageability in my own life and had one of those lovely moments of coincidence last weekend when my husband Mark and I went to see Burn After Reading, a funny, clever movie just drowning in unmanageable lives.

WARNING: Spoilers from here on out!

John Malkovich plays an alcoholic who refuses to acknowledge he has a problem, even as his drinking gets him fired from his job at the CIA. His marriage falls apart, his wife locks him out of both the house and the bank account, and his checks start to bounce. Looking…

by Lilian & Murdoch MacDonald

Reviewed by Ginger B.

If you’ve read any of my reviews you will know that usually I am a kind person.  Even if I do not agree with someone’s viewpoint or am not swept away by their prose, I can find something worthwhile in every book I read.  Just the fact that someone took the time to write it is worthy of praise.  However, Lilian MacDonald and her husband, Murdoch, have managed to pluck my last nerve in this 183 page attempt to prove that alcoholism is “a self-harming behaviour problem, (and not a disease),  which can…

written by Beverly Conyers

reviewed by Ginger B.

Beverly Conyers has done an excellent job of sharing her personal experience, strength and hope in her book, “Addict in the Family.” She has been there as the mother of an addict, and her understanding of the disease of addiction and its repercussions within family and friends is right on the money without being condescending, derogatory or patronizing. She tells it like it is; “Addicts persist in their self-destructive, addictive behavior until something within themselves - something quite apart from anyone else’s efforts - changes so radically that the desire for the high is dulled…

by George McGovern

Reviewed by Ginger B.

I was at a conference recently and this book was being given away as a “freebie” so, of course, I put it in my bag, not intending to put it on the top of my list of books to read. About a week after the conference I was at home, saw the book, and picked it up, not expecting a great read. After all, it was written by a politician (I voted for George McGovern in 1972, but a politician is still a politician), the event happened 14 years ago, and the book was already…

by Ginger B.

I just watched a new documentary entitled “The Courage to Change: portraits of men in recovery”, with the subtitle “A collection of short films, audio journals, and other interactive media.” This is a 4 year labor of love by Andy Young, a certified alcohol/drug counselor and licensed professional counselor.

Andy writes, “”My aim was something creative and engaging like an HBO special, yet with clinical content based on my experience as a counselor…”

The DVD is a compilation of videos, audio segments and questions for consideration by the viewer. It is an eclectic source of information for mens’ issues, with…

About 18 or so years ago, the author Lawrence Block wrote a novel called Random Walk, about a young man who begins a journey eastward from Oregon on foot, on what he imagines is a whim.  Along the way he picks up followers, including a murderous character whose coming to terms with his past makes up a powerful subplot.

The book is clearly a parable for the recovery process, as well as a New Age venture into mysticism.  Like all Block’s novels, it is tight and well-crafted.  Unfortunately it fell flat on its face and is now out of print.  Nonetheless,…

by Nic Sheff

Reviewed by Ginger B.

After I read “Beautiful Boy” by David Sheff, I waited a week and then picked up his son’s memoir of the plunge into depravity that comes with a wicked addition to methamphetamines. Nic Sheff is indeed, a beautiful boy - bright, artistic, precocious, athletic - who also battles with the all-too-common demons that many teen-agers face. He is overly competitive, tries constantly to fit in with people he thinks are his peers and is completely unsatisfied with his appearance.

When the book opens, Nic, who has already been in and out of rehab, is, once again,…

by Allen Berger, Ph.D.

Reviewed by Ginger B.

What a great little book! When I received the review galley for this book, I must admit that I said to myself, “Great! Another ‘How to’ recovery book. I’ve read so many of these, I could write one myself.” But my cynical attitude immediately started to shift as I began reading the introduction, in which Berger states that we, as addicts, do stupid things that are self-destructive and not in our best interest, especially in early recovery. He then writes, “So without further ado, here are my top twelve nominations for the stupid things we…

beautiful boy - a father’s journey through his son’s addiction

by David Sheff

reviewed by Ginger Bauler

I started reading this book on a Saturday and couldn’t stop until I was finished on Sunday. This story of a father’s roller-coaster journey through his young son’s addiction to methamphetamines drew me in as no other memoir has done in a long time. To use adjectives such as compelling or riveting does not do justice to the task Sheff has taken on in this memoir. He openly shares with the reader his own drug use as a young man, his inappropriate fathering after an ugly…

By Lee Stringer

Reviewed by Ginger B.

In the spring of 1985, Lee Stringer, through a series of self-imposed, fairly destructive life changing decisions, finds himself being evicted from his one room apartment, and “Half an hour later I’m on the street, clutching a voucher for all that remains of my worldly possessions. Only instead of feeling put out, I feel strangely relieved. Elated even. I have just been released, I realize, from all earthly claims upon me. …Off to the freedom of the streets! Off to whatever happens next.” The next two hundred pages or so are stories about “what happens…

by Brenda Iliff

reviewed by Ginger Bauler

Brenda Iliff, the Director of the Hazelden Women’s Recovery Center has written a straightforward, direct yet sensitive book on issues relating specifically to women in recovery. While the tenets of the 12 step program are a solid foundation for many who choose that path, the language, written 70 years ago, reflects a period when women were not considered (or rarely considered) to be part of the community of “men” who were afflicted with the disease of Alcoholism. Times have certainly changed and I have found that often women are offended at their lack of inclusion…

“Blackout Girl” by Jennifer Storm

Reviewed by Ginger B.

Jennifer Storm’s account of her dark and disturbing journey through her teens is a horrifying narrative of her tortured youth, and her pin-ball life choices which landed her in situations which were more than disturbing to me as the reader. On page 3, she describes her first rape at the age of 12, and the next three quarters of the book is a chronicle of her cataclysmic demise, almost to the point of annihilation. I have read my share of stories of addiction and Ms. Storm’s tale is among the most unnerving I…

“Sleepaway School”

by Lee Stringer

Reviewed by Ginger B.

“We wee people were all at risk. Every mother’s son of us. Even those of us with overflowing larders and soft, warm beds. Our young hearts like leaves in the wind, we all had to face down the inner turmoil of being, simply children. We were all on shaky ground.”

These few sentences, written in the preface of this memoir, give the reader a taste of what is to follow in this personal, yet often matter-of-fact description of the adolescent struggles of a troubled, young, poor, black boy in an environment that is often inclined…

The Sports Lover’s Guide to Recovery

by Andrew L. Dieden

Reviewed by Ginger B.

I am not a sports person. I’d rather watch mold grow than sit in front of a television looking at hockey players hit each other with sticks, or try to find out who’s got the damn football on any given Sunday afternoon. I know nothing about most sports, except that when I was a kid, Ron Santo from the Chicago Cubs was called Pizza Man. I’ve been to a few baseball games, one college football game (a total waste of a beautiful afternoon) and saw Meadlowlark Lemon play for…

THIS SOBER LIFE

by Dave Breslin

Reviewed by Ginger B.

I just finished reading a book of poetry called “This Sober Life.” The book was self-published in 2002 by Dave Breslin, who, at the time of publication, was about 2/1/2 years clean and sober. Breslin got sober at the age of 19 and writes that he wasn’t even aware that he could be suffering from alcoholism at such a young age. He thought he was just being “a normal teenage kid”, but the depression that ensued when he stopped drinking made him acutely aware that he was battling much more than the average…

The Craving Brain
Ronald A. Ruden, M.D., Ph.D.
With Marcia Byalick

Reviewed by Ginger B.

Why is it that some people can nurse a glass of wine all night long, while others can’t stop until they become totally inebriated or even black out? Why can some people stop gambling after their allotted money is spent, while others continue until they’ve lost everything, over and over again? Is addiction physical or psychological? Is it inherited or learned? Is it a simple choice that one makes or is it a disease that affects countless numbers of people world-wide? These questions have plagued the planet since its…

TIMES SQUARE RABBI
By Yehudah Fine
Reviewed by Ginger B.

Yehudah Fine is not your typical rabbi. After creating a school for children of migrant farm workers in California, Yehudah moved to Brooklyn, founded the Jewish Family Institute and, of course, began working with adolescents in crisis in the recesses of Manhattan, Queens and the Bronx. Donning jeans and a New York Yankees baseball cap, the unconventional teacher would roam what he called “The Way Beyond” looking for kids whose lives have ended up as desolate as the streets on which they are found.

Yehudah’s spiritual message is based on the 8 steps of…

“No More Letting Go”
by Debra Jay
Reviewed by Ginger Bauler

In “No More Letting Go – The Spirituality of Taking Action Against Alcoholism and Drug Addiction”, counselor Debra Jay has masterfully yet tenderly approached the subjects of addiction and intervention in a manner that befriends and benefits all parties involved - the addict as well as the loved ones who suffer from this progressively fatal disease. She confronts the existing tenet of allowing an addict to “hit bottom” and then offering a response of “tough love” with a more compassionate, spiritual approach in which the addict and her/his loved ones join together…

“Dry”
Written by Augusten Burroughs
Reviewed by Ginger B.

You don’t have to be an addict to relish the journey of Augusten Burroughs in his book “Dry.” With the wit of an extra-dry martini (excuse the reference) Burroughs chronicles his life after he leaves his dysfunctional (an understatement) family described in “Running With Scissors” through the next ten years of his life.

At the age of 19, Burroughs becomes an ad copywriter in New York City, earning an ungodly amount of money, and pouring most of it down his throat. Augusten’s skills as an advertising writer are manifested in this slick, yet unfeigned account…

“Broken”
By William Cope Moyers
Reviewed by Ginger B.

When I first saw William Cope Moyers he was sitting in the back seat of a car outside a theater where he was going to be speaking later that evening. He was wearing a starched blue oxford cloth long sleeve shirt and the appropriate red power tie and was speaking on his cell phone. “Great”, I thought, “Here’s a rich kid grown up, having every break money could buy, and he’s going to speak to a bunch of addicts tonight about his journey from addiction to recovery. How could his story possibly relate to…