Books to motivate us to be AF

[BecomingMeAtLast]

Books to motivate us to be AF

Safe-guarding Your Love Affair with the Bottle by Jerry Fite. It's a "tongue-in-cheek approach to getting sober". It's so funny in some places.
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Safeguarding-Affair-Bottle-Tongue-Cheek/dp/089638148X/ref=sr_11_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1207522821&sr=11-1]Amazon.com: Safeguarding Your Love Affair With the Bottle: A Tongue-In-Cheek Approach to Getting Sober: Jerry Fite: Books[/ame]

[Janice]

Books to motivate us to be AF

Mother's Ruin by Nicola Barry

Started this last night and I can tell I'm not going to be able to put it down.....a bit too close to home in parts where my mam's concerned and I had to keep stopping.

[I]As a child, Nicola Barry just wanted her mother Monica to be normal - to make the family's meals, to care for their home, to look after her and her brothers and be a part of her life. But Nicola's mother was a chronic alcoholic and there was nothing normal about life in the Barry household.

A trained medic, the wife of a consultant anaesthetist, Monica drank from the bottle every day. Happily, at first. Then increasingly miserably, Wine, Vodka, Gin, Beer. Behind closed doors, Monica was drinking herself to death. Alcohol turned her from a once beautiful woman into a shrunken old lady. Alcohol distorted family life into something dysfunctional and degrading.

Mother's Ruin is the story of how Nicola loved and hated her mother in equal measures - loved her when she was sober, hated her when she was drunk. It is the story of how a young girl spent her childhood caring for a sick parent, rather than being cared for herself. And it is the story of how that child became an alcoholic too, but, desperate to throw off her mother's legacy, emerged the other side of her addiction - a survivor.[/I]


Janicexxx

[Janice]

Books to motivate us to be AF

Finished the above book and it has had quite an effect on me.....first thing I wanted to do was ring mam. I knew she was drinking - half way down her can of beer but it didn't matter.......she's still my mam who I love no matter what and I know she won't stop drinking now. I also understand that just because she's not there for me anymore, rings me or tells me what I mean to her anymore, it doesn't mean that she doesn't feel those things........its the alcohol.

Reading this book has helped me to see that I need to be more compassionate with mam.....whats done is done and I'm not sure how much more time mam will have. Thank you Nicola Barry for making me see.

[voices]

Books to motivate us to be AF

Perfect Daughters

I recently found this book at a thrift store: Perfect Daughters - Adult Daughters of Alcoholics by Robert J. Ackerman, Ph.D. I'm only half way through it but it really explains some things to me that I do perhaps as a result of being raised with a dad who drank (he quit about 30 years ago). PLUS gives me insight on how I may be affecting my daughters on how they will end up. It is from 1989, so it isn't hot off the press but neither is the problem.

I hate reading textbooks, so this doesn't read like a textbook. It gives lots of stories from the women he interviewed for the book. Some things hit home to me.

Reading anything interesting keeps me from thinking about drinking.

-V

[Tiny]

Books to motivate us to be AF

Thanks Voices -- sounds like a good read...

[nofunwithoutbeer]

Books to motivate us to be AF

I like this one- Getting Real, by Gail Saltz. Mentions alcohol problems within the context of learning what stories we have told oursleves since childhood that end up backfiring on us as adults and can result in several destructive behaviors, like addiction to various substances.

[okydoky]

Books to motivate us to be AF

I owned almost the entire self help section of Barnes and Noble and then one day I got born again and god said all you need is the bible. So I put them all in the dumpster. My son came home and said "Mom, what's Dr Phil doing in the trash?"

[lukalee]

Books to motivate us to be AF

A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

[SunDaisy]

Books to motivate us to be AF

Lukalee,

Isn't that the book that was a sham? I think that's the author who lied about his story. I'll have to look that up. Not sure.

Sun

[lukalee]

Books to motivate us to be AF

It is the author, but not a shame. It is a true story, just embellished a bit. Most memoirs seem to be this way, especially the ones on addiction. With so many blackouts how does one remember completely what happened, so they tend to fill in the wholes the best they can, and of course they will try to make it good for the reader. I love Augusten Burroughs (Dry etc) and he embellishes too. I'm glad he does; it certainly makes it more exciting for me.