Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics

Product Description Rich with insight and awareness, Recovery explores the secrets, fears, hopes and issues that confront adult children of alcoholics. Authors and widely respected therapists and ACOA workshop leaders Herbert Gravitz and Julie Bowden detail in a clear question-and-answer format the challenges of control and inadequacy that ACOAs face as they struggle for recovery and understanding, stage-by-stage: Survival * Emergent Awareness * Core Issues * Transformations * Integration * Genesis. If you feel troubled by your post, Recovery will start you on the path of self-awareness, as it explores the searching questions adult children of alcoholics seek to hove answered: * How con I overcome my need for control? * Do all ACOAs ploy the some kind of roles in the family? * How do I overcome my fear of intimacy? * What is all-or-none functioning? * How can ACOAs maintain self-confidence and awareness after recovery? * How do ACOAs handle the family after understanding its influence? * And many other important questions about your post, family and feelings. Written with warmth, joy and real understanding, Recovery will inspire you to meet the challenges of the post and overcome the obstacles to your happiness. Review Awareness If you only read one book on adult children of alcoholics this year, make this the one. Timmen L. Cermak, M.D. President, Notional Association for Adult Children of Alcoholics Gravitz and Bowden provide the first practical guide for adult children of alcoholics. Their creative description of the stages of recovery is especially useful. At lost there is a rationale for deciding what issues and what treatment services ore most relevant to each individual. Adult children of alcoholics will feel they have mode two new friends by the time they have finished this very readable book. Robert J. Ackerman, Ph.D. Children of Alcoholics Dr. Gravitz and Ms. Bowden have definitely filled a much needed area for adult children of alcoholics in their new book. This is the first book that attempts to answer many of the 'silent' questions of the millions of adult children of alcoholics in our society. Their years of experience, perceptions and sensitivities are obvious in this well-thought-out book. About the Author Herbert L. Gravitz, Ph.D., is a Clinical Psychologist in Santa Barbara, California. He is a founding Board Member of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA), and currently serves on the Advisory Board. He was Executive Editor of "The Network," a publication of NACOA and authored the Children of Alcoholics Handbook. Julie D. Bowden, M.S., is a Marriage, Family, and Child Psychotherapist in private practice in Santa Barbara, California. She developed the first Alcohol/Drug Awareness Program for the University of California system and has consulted on both inpatient and outpatient recovery programs. She is a founding Board Member of the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACOA), and its first treasurer. She currently serves on the Advisory Board. She is the adult child of an alcoholic. Together, they conduct recovery retreats, individual and group psychotherapy, and educational seminars for adult children of alcoholics as well as other adult children of trauma and the professionals who serve them. They began the University of California's first therapy group specifically for adult children of alcoholics. They have authored numerous articles and are coauthors of an upcoming book, Genesis: The Spiritual Dimension of Recovery for Children of Alcoholics and Other Children of Trauma. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Chapter 1 Introduction Leslie was mesmerized. The muscles around her eyes tightened as the shock of recognition crossed her face. The stories she was hearing sounded just like hers! The other people in this group, who looked so picture-perfect, had experienced the same abandonment, the same loss of childhood, the same sense of betrayal