Have a look at the following titles Patrick Meninga has to offer:

Overcoming Addiction
Success in Early Recovery
Achieving Long Term Recovery
Action Guide for Recovery
Helping Addicted Family Members
A Program Guide for Rehabs
Holistic Relapse Prevention
Addiction Help Guide
Achieving Recovery and Balance
Avoid Passive Living and Take Massive Action

Click here to go directly to Spiritual River  and download a free e-book of your preference!

Although the book is geared toward couples, it also touches on a range of subjects about how we relate to our partners and people based on our love styles, all of which are a result of how we were raised as children.

I took the survey to determine which love type I was, but I can’t say that I was one type, I seemed to relate to all of them in one way or another!

If you click on ‘Read Past Newsletters’ you will find a ton of useful information to read about relationships, parenting, marriage, sex, addiction, recovery and more.

Click here to go to the Past Newsletter section of the ‘How we Love’ website

This is an eye opening, amazing book that I recommend you read.

Google the title, download it on your IPOD or Kindle, buy it from Amazon or Itunes, go to the bookstore or rent it from the library. Whatever you do, be sure to read it as soon as you can.

I urge you to read this book even if you are not a believer. The author Joyce Meyer shares her own personal struggles throughout the book and you will be able to relate to much of what she discusses.

I am not even done reading the book and I feel renewed. I have been struggling with life lately. There has been many stresses that I have not handled well and without realizing it, I have become passive about some things. This is not how I want to live my life in sobriety nor is it how we are intended to live. This book has opened my eyes to some realities and truth’s about negative thoughts, worries, anxieties and passive mindsets that plague us all. I am thankful for this book and therefore want to share it with you all. Maybe you have already read it, if so, maybe you can share with us what it has done for you.

Also, Joyce Meyer has a fantastic website where you can listen to her right now for free. Watch her many presentations or listen to her podcasts.

Click here to go to the Joyce Meyer website

Enjoy!

When I first embarked on my sobriety journey, reading kept me sane. These are the books that have helped to shape me along the way.

I also have a box of books that are unread. I will continue to recommend any that I think are beneficial.

I hope you enjoy them!

I wanted to share something that Rick Warren wrote that I think is worth thinking about;

‘If you are serious about defeating temptation you must manage your mind and monitor your media intake. The wisest man who ever lived warned, “Be careful how you think; your life is shaped by your thoughts.” Don’t allow trash into your mind indiscriminately. Be selective. Choose carefully what you think about. Follow Paul’s model: “We capture every thought and make it give up and obey Christ.” This takes a lifetime of practice, but with the help of the Holy Spirit you can reprogram the way you think.’

Isn’t that what being sober is all about? Changing the way you think? I think so.

Before I stopped drinking, I had not given much thought to religion in a long time. I used to believe in God a long long time ago. Then I got into my teens and I got further and further away. When my Grandparents died, I was mad with God and pretty much put him out of my mind.

Looking back, the only times I really thought about God was when my life was out of control, which was quite often actually. I would be angry and shout at him and blame him for everything. I know for sure that I threw out a few “f” words at him too.

The last night that I drank alcohol, I was in a right mess. I was drunk, crying, angry, sad, confused. I remember sitting in the driveway crying after having a dumb argument with a good friend (who was also tipsy). I wasn’t crying because of the argument. I just could not cope with where I was at in my life. My drinking was continually out of control. I would turn angry after a few drinks, I was arguing all the time, my self confidence was on the floor. I felt truly awful. I sat in the driveway and I screamed up at the sky. ‘Why don’t you help me????!!!!’ I repeated this many times along with a bunch of other drivel before going to bed in a drunken stupor.

I woke up the next morning. That was the first day of my sobriety. It has been 2 years since then.

Something happened that night. Something in me changed. I can’t say it was my doing because it wasn’t. I had been drinking for 17 years; more than half of my life. I had tried numerous times to give up drinking, including a short stint with AA. I never had any success.

When I woke up on the first day of my sobriety, something was different about me. I knew that I could never drink again but I had absolutely no idea how I was going to be sober, live sober and, stay sober.

God heard me that night. I didn’t realize it at that time but I know it now.

I did not set out to find God. Infact, I didn’t want to be anything like any of the recovering alcoholics that I have read about. The reason I didn’t want to go to AA was because I didn’t want my life to revolve around my alcoholism and recovery. I wanted to be sober but I wanted to be normal. I certainly didn’t want to become like those recovering alcoholics who had found God. Oh No. I did not want that at all. I had an image to preserve (well a somewhat flakey one) but in my mind I had to still be kind of cool and with it and not some bible bashing do-gooder.

I am happy to tell you that it happened. I became everything I never wanted to be with one difference. I love it. I love the second part of my life. I love God. He is totally in my life and he has grown on me like I could never have imagined.

It has taken me months to write this post. There is still the part of me that can not believe this is me and every time I wanted to share my story of how I really got sober, I procrastinated. 

Religion is exciting. A relationship with God is amazing. Things are happening in my life, the answers to my prayers.

I have experienced what so many other believers already know and I can’t believe it has taken me this long.

I just want to say, that if you are sober and struggling then you might want to put your life in God’s hands and begin your own exploration of faith.

If you are interested, I recommend these three essential tools to get you started:

1) The New Living Translation Bible by Tyndale House

2) The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

3) Daily Devotional by Ike Reighard and Zig Ziglar

 Amen!

At age 68 Louis Gossett got sober from alcohol and drugs. This prooves that it is never too late to start over in life. Here is a article from WKAR about his story and a new book on alcoholism that he recently published; 

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)/WKAR- He was not born on the fourth of July, but Louis Gossett, Jr. celebrates it like his birthday, nonetheless.

Not because July 4 is America’s Independence Day. Rather, because it marks the Oscar-winning actor’s own independence from years of living in a haze of freebase cocaine, alcohol and a toxic mold that invaded his house and his body.

Gossett, 74, has detailed his rebirth, which began with a trip to rehab in 2004, as well as details of his remarkable life in a new memoir, “An Actor and a Gentleman,” which hit bookstores in May.

Six years after his own independence day, Gossett, an African American, has regained his health and dedicated his life to erasing racism, which caused anger and resentment in his career and fueled a need to escape through drug use.

“Once you put it through a blender, we are one people. We are all equal, and we need one another to survive and save this planet,” he told Reuters.

But before Gossett could work on what he calls “eracism,” the winner of the best supporting actor Oscar for playing a tough-as-nails drill sergeant in 1982′s “An Officer and a Gentleman” had to go through hell.

His life didn’t start out that way.

In fact, Gossett describes what he considers a charmed life growing up in Brooklyn, New York. While he was raised by working parents in a community rife with gangs, he did not want for much and escaped a lot of violence because, Gossett said, his friends and family members looked out for him.

He was skilled in basketball but had an innate talent for acting that, as a teenager, landed him a plum role in a stage play of “Take a Giant Step.” Gossett took classes at the Actors Studio — the famed school that at various times was home to James Dean, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.

Gossett writes that in those days, when Monroe was married to playwright Arthur Miller, she was one of the best actresses he ever worked with and, if she had lived and been able to explore her acting, she would have won Oscars too.

“He (Miller) made her think deep,” Gossett said of Monroe. “She was born with an instrument, but then her sexuality was used instead of what was inside her.”

CHAINED TO A TREE

Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Gossett made a good living in Broadway theater before Hollywood beckoned with fat paychecks for television work. And while those jobs were good — he won Emmys and Golden Globe trophies — Los Angeles was hard.

To continue reading this article click here

 Eileen P. DeClemente wrote a book about her experience of alcoholism and recovery. What is unusual about about Eileen is that she has alcohol induced dementia. This is the first I have heard about the link between alcoholism and dementia at such an early age.

This is taken from Eileen’s website:

“Eileen DeClemente was 11 years old when she took her first drink. For 26 years she used drugs and alcohol to absorb her pain.
At the height of her addiction she was taking more than 90 pills a day.

By all accounts, Eileen DeClemente should be dead.
�
ALIVE is the inspiring story of one woman’s battle back to sobriety and a family who loved her through the darkest years of her life.
�
This courageous story recounts the details of an addiction so consuming it nearly killed her and destroyed her family. In this raw and riveting memoir, Eileen shares her fight to recover and live.  Finding courage where their was no hope, she shares her defeats, her victories and the story of her present struggle with alcohol induced Dementia.�
�
To anyone who has ever battled an addiction, and to the people who have loved them. This story is for you.”

I have not read the book yet but I thought that many of you mind find this inspiring and interesting. Here is some.

To read more about Eileen or to purchase her book, visit the website: www.eileenisalive.com.

A Sobriety Book Review: I’ll Stop Tomorrow; 

Paul Campbell has hit the nail on the head when he says ‘This book was written by somebody who had everything and lost everything’ and ‘someone who went through the living hell of chronic alcoholism and the tough times of recovery’.  This is a great book on alcoholism.

Author Paul Campbell was once a highly successful advertising executive in Ireland. He had the kind of financial and personal success that many people can only dream of until alcohol nearly destroyed him. Thankfully, he lived to tell the tale. Today, he is a successfully recovered alcoholic turned addictions counselor living in Kildare, Ireland. 

Through a man’s perspective, Campbell touches on the many issues surrounding the alcoholic. Now a addictions counselor but once a chronic alcoholic, he has his finger on the pulse of alcoholism from both perspectives. 

Campbell was asked to write a regular news column about alcoholism for the Irish Book Review. He covers topics such as ‘The Alcoholic Mind’, ‘Alcohol Obsessions’, ‘Handling the Holidays in Recovery’ and ‘Intervention Advice’, these columns provided the basis for his first book ‘I’ll Stop Tomorrow’. 

In ‘I’ll Stop Tomorrow’ Campbell delves into why the alcoholic drinks, he asks if you are an alcoholic and then supplies a test for you to take.  He also speaks of anger, boundaries, the mind of an alcoholic, women and alcohol, relationships, control, physical effects of alcohol, AA, recovery, society, making amends, an extremely useful intervention section, and a subject close to my own heart; shyness and alcohol. 

Time and time again whilst reading ‘I’ll Stop Tomorrow,’ I found myself nodding in agreement with what Campbell had to say about the disease of alcoholism. He has a canny way of making you feel understood. I admire his educated view and personal insight on alcoholism as well as the fact that his style is neither pushy nor preachy.

This effective book will benefit many audiences, especially family and friends of the alcoholic, executives, housewives, husbands, wives, alcoholics, the newly sober and anyone wondering if they may have a problem with alcohol. 

Paul Campbell’s first book is a great addition to the alcohol and recovery genre, I am certainly better informed for having read it. My hope is that he returns with a follow up book that focuses on long term sobriety.

Click here for more information about Paul Campbell   

Click here for ‘I’ll Stop Tomorrow’ by Paul Campbell  

Click here to read Paul Campbell’s weekly columns

I recently read the brilliant book on alcoholism ”Broken, My Story Of Addiction And Redemption” By William Cope Moyers with Katherine Ketcham.

It has taken me a while to write this review and not because I couldn’t think of enough great words to describe the excellent reading experience I had, but because when I approached William Cope Moyers and asked if I could review his book, I had no idea that aside from his story of addiction and redemption, he is also an accomplished journalist in his field and once worked for CNN, he is also the son of veteran journalist Bill Moyers who served as White House Secretary in the US President Lyndon B Johnson administration. I felt a little under qualified to say the least.

 I am an avid reader and I devoured this book in just a few sittings. I realized that both the message and challenge this book delivers is so powerful it has to be shared.

William tells his story memoir style, beginning in his early childhood he describes his young life and a particularly disturbing event. He goes on to detail his descent into addiction which begins during his high school years and continues throughout his adult life.

William’s life story is as interesting as his path of addiction. The fact that William was born into a privileged family makes his story even more interesting. It proves that addiction can happen to anyone.

This is not an average story about someone from a broken home with unsupportive parents who turned to drugs and alcohol then on to crime to feed a bad habit. This is a story about a man who seemingly had it all but who obviously felt the same way most addicts feel, like something was missing, that some part of him was not enough, that he was uncomfortable with his place in life and ultimately that he needed something outside of himself….drugs and alcohol to make him feel better.

William portrays an honest account of how most of the time he fooled the people closest to him into assuming he lived a normal life, yet the reality was that he was spending time in crack houses in the most unflattering of areas with the kind of people society rejects whilst spending enormous amounts of money on his drug habit. Slowly but surely, William’s life unravels as is more often the case when one is inflicted with the disease of addiction.

After a few attempts at recovery, you wonder if William will ever find a place of surrender.

“Broken, My Story Of Addiction And Redemption” by William Cope Moyers with Katherine Ketcham is a truly gripping account of addiction. William’s life story is fascinating and deeply moving. It is inspiring and courageous and will strike a chord with anyone who has been touched by addiction or is suffering from this awful affliction.

Toward the very end of the book, William delivers a challenge to all of us who are recovering from addiction, he asks us to speak up and “To break down the wall of shame, stigma and discrimination that keeps people from finding their paths to recovery, I invite my audiences to take action in their own communities”. He goes on to outline his worthy challenge to us all.

For more information about the book you can visit the website http://www.williammoyers.com/

William Cope Moyers also writes a regular column that I subscribe to and I find extremely valuable, go to this link to sign up:http://www.creators.com/health/william-moyers/parents-weekend.html

Another book by William Cope Moyers is “A New Day, A New Life”. It is in the form of a guided journal and a video.  I saw this book in the very early days of my own sobriety and it was how I first became aware of William.

Additional Info: William Moyers is the vice president of foundation relations for Hazelden Foundation.

I just wanted to share a great little find that I have been making good use of. “Finding Your Strength in Difficult Times” By David Viscott is a little book that you can fit in your pocket or purse, it has a variety of meditations that help to pick you up and give some sound advice for handling different situations and emotions.

I don’t just use this book through the hard times, I find it is equally helpful to read a few pages when I am feeling good too. Each meditation is about 2 small pages long and can change your frame of mind in just a few minutes.  

The author David Viscott was an internationally known psychiatrist and author of many books. He was also an Emmy Award-winning talk show host.

Here are the titles of my favorite meditations:

Understand Your Anger
Be Yourself
Understanding Your Anxiety
Fix your Problems
Express Your Hurt
Live Your Own Life
Be Happy
Hear Your Own Voice
Courage

There are over two hundred of these mini meditations, they are well worth a few minutes read.

Enjoy!