Addiction-Free: How to Help an Alcoholic or Addict Get Started on Recovery [Hardcover]

Mr. Gene Hawes M.D. (Author), Anderson Hawes (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 10, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0312251823 | ISBN-13: 978-0312251826 | Edition: 1st

A thorough guide about how to get help for a friend or loved one who is having problems with alcohol or other drugs. Provides places, names, numbers--who to call, what questions to ask, and what to expect. This invaluable guide includes six initial options for getting into recovery:

-- The AA treatment program
--Interventions, detox and rehab
--Work related programs
--Al-Anon
--Law-enforcement programs
--Therapeutic communities

A much-needed guide for everyone whose life is touched by addiction.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gene Hawes (Rx for Recovery) and Anderson Hawes, an alcohol-treatment professional, present Addiction-Free: How to Help an Alcoholic or Addict Get Started on Recovery, an exploration of six tried-and-true venues for managing addiction (including Alcoholics Anonymous, detox, workplace programs and therapeutic communities). Aimed at people who worry that a loved one, friend or colleague is addicted to alcohol or drugs, the book explains how to determine if someone is an addict, how to protect oneself from co-dependence while maintaining a relationship, how to get help for themselves and how to help the person with the disease. What if an alcoholic won't accept treatment? Is an outpatient or an inpatient program appropriate in a given case? How can one stop enabling an addict? The authors address these and other key issues in a practical and compassionate manner.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Review

“A primer treating all the major strategies for helping alcoholics and addicts toward sobriety. This book guides its readers to little-known, yet very powerful sources of help.” -- Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

"For anyone who lives and worries about an alcoholic or drug addict." -- Carol Cox Smith, author of Recovery at Work

“Easily readable directions as to how family members, friends, as well as the afflicted persons themselves, can find tremendously helpful assistance and guidance” -- Robert A. Liebelt, author of Straight Talk About Alcoholism

"I have spent twenty-five years working with drug addicts, alcoholigcs, and ex-convicts, and I have a doctorate degree in clinical psychology. No amount of experience or education prepared me for my closest relative going back into addiction. This book is a step-by-step guide on how to detach with love and how to find sanity while you're trying to help your loved one." -- Teri Lynch DeLane, Ph.D., director of Choices Program for Incarcerated Men and Women

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; 1st edition (December 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312251823
• ISBN-13: 978-0312251826
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #500,618 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Inspiring Book on How to Help Alcoholics and Addicts, April 18, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Addiction-Free: How to Help an Alcoholic or Addict Get Started on Recovery (Hardcover)

"Addiction-Free" by Gene Hawes and Anderson Hawes fills a niche in the literature on alcoholism and addiction. Alcoholism and drug addiction is universally recognized in American medicine as the disease of substance abuse and represents one of America's largest epidemics. Studies put the numbers of alcoholics in the U.S. at 18 million, and the numbers of drug addicts at five-and-a-half million. Consequently, one of the greatest imperatives in America today is to help these alcoholics/addicts begin recovery before they ruin their careers, impoverish their families, get imprisoned, kill others on the highway, or finally kill themselves in car crashes, overdose, or liver failure. This imperative is answered in full in "Addiction - Free; How to Help an Alcoholic or Addict Get Started on Recovery." It explains all the little-known ways by which millions of former alcoholics/addicts actually have started recovery, and are recovering today. It tells how to get help with starting recovery in any community, anywhere in the U.S. It guides readers to all of the medical treatment programs there are for alcoholism/addiction. Importantly, it also advises how those individuals closest to the alcoholic/addict can start recovery from the deep emotional injuries they themselves have suffered, while also helping the alcoholic/addict in their lives to recover. For the many millions of Americans who desperately need it, "Addiction-Free" is indispensable and even inspiring. The book is well organized, easy to read and can be read through or used as a reference for individuals, families, and professionals.

8 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ignores alternative methods of recovery, April 7, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Addiction-Free: How to Help an Alcoholic or Addict Get Started on Recovery (Hardcover)

This book focuses exclusively on achieving sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous, and it (unfortunately) ignores any other way to quit drinking. Numerous studies -- as well as common sense -- show that alcoholics/addicts are a diverse group, and that many people benefit from approaches OTHER than those that are based on the 12 steps. AA is fine for people who have a religious or spiritual bent, but other groups (like Secular Organizations for Sobriety and SMART Recovery) are appropriate for alcoholics who want to become sober without relying on a Higher Power.

This book would have been much better if it had been written from a more open-minded perspective.

5.0 out of 5 stars Encouragement for family members and friends of alcoholics and addicts!, February 1, 2010

By 

Anderson R., Hawes - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Addiction-Free: How to Help an Alcoholic or Addict Get Started on Recovery (Paperback)

This is an easy read and inspiring support to anyone troubled by a close relationship with a loved one who drinks too much or who is hurting themselves or other becuase they take drugs. It is a book for someone who wants to help to change that alcohol or drug user to get better. The book focuses on the leading and most proven methods a normal person can influence, encourage and do to concretely help an alcoholic or drug user to begin to change, to continue to change and keep the change going by preventing relapse.

Although there are many things that can possibly work to help an alcoholic or addict, only proven methods that are accessible to most people are the focus of this book to avoid giving the reader false hope. Also, the book reviews important methods that can be very affective when a drinker or drug user has other problems in combination with alcohol and/or drug abuse, like mental illness, depression, anxiety or mood disorders, post traumatic stress from serving over seas, unemployment or poverty, etc.

Get the book and get started to help.