Customer Reviews

Alcohol: How to Give It Up and Be Glad You Did

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Dr. Tate has written a thoughtful, practical guide for overcoming self-defeating addictive behavior. The book is an easy to read, self-help guide, which focuses on the application of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy for quitting alcohol and drugs now and for good. Dr. Tate explains and shows how to take control of your behavior and emotions--without having to attend meetings for the rest of your life. By recognizing and eliminating the irrational beliefs behind addictive behavior, alcohol/drug-free living becomes a natural way of daily life, not a meeting after meeting challenge to try and remain sober, one-day-at-a-time. Alcohol: How To Give It Up and be Glad You Did, is an exceptional book, which answers many of the questions traditional 12-step programs do not. Required reading for professionals and lay-persons in need of alternatives to largely innefective policies of America's Addiction Treatment Industry.

This book focuses way too much on disputing irrational self-defeating thoughts such as putting yourself down for not being able to stop drinking. The books answers your self-defeating thinking with such retorts as "prove it" over and over again. This book is also very ambiguous with confusing statements like this one all throughout the book.

QUOTE FROM BOOK...
" If you only believe you don't want to be deprived of alcohol, would you then believe that life without it is awful? Usually not. If you believe, however, that you must not be deprived, you can easily think that abstinence is awful. If you only don't want discomfort, would you then believe that you can't stand it? Probably not. You may, however, think that you can't stand it when you believe that you must not have discomfort."

huh......?????? what?????

That's how this whole book is written. Also, there's too much emphasis put on how great a feeling alcohol is. That's dangerous thinking for someone looking to get away from it. For someone who has been drinking for many years, the feeling is not that great anymore. This book put ideas in my head that really weren't there before. It focuses way too much on assuming you put yourself down constantly for not being able to quit drinking. I never really thought like that. There are better books out there. This one just didn't work for me.

If you want to read some very helpful books on alcohol/addiction you should read "Addiction Solution" by David Kipper and "Science of Addiction" by Carlton Erickson. Learning what alcohol can do to your GABA receptors and other neurotransmitters is vital information that can explain how issues such as anxiety/depression can be worsened by alcohol use. Information about GABA receptors got me to give up alcohol for good. Another excellent book that will show you the dangers of dehydrating your body is "Water: For Health, Healing, For Life" by F. Batmanqhelidj. Dehydration from alcohol can ruin everything concerning your health.

Very enlightening for people stating, "I don't really want to quit, I've tried to quit and I can't, or I don't really think I have a problem."

Dr. Tate explains how to include rational thinking techniques (REBT) to affect your behaviors. Rather than just trying to solely change your behaviors (drinking), which almost always fails, you must first change your thinking (irrational beliefs). Once understood, the relationship between your thinking, emotions, and behaviors will not only help you battle addictions, but also every day challenges.

Each time I sit down to read the book, I end up reading it cover to cover.

This book is based on Albert Ellis' Rational Emotive Therapy. It's a bit over simplified, but alcoholics typically need that perspective. It is a useful book at the level of attempting to re-frame addictive thinking so that detox is possible.

This book is, in my opinion, the best book on alcohol and drug addiction available. It teaches you Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy both generally and as it applies to alcoholism and addiction. Avoiding the endless debates about is addiction a disease, illness, bad habit, or whatever, the point of the book is that to get over the problems of addiction, the first thing to do is admit it, understand it, and knock it off. This book teaches us to do this rationally and effectively. It also teaches how to deal with life problems that crop up while we're stopping and once we've stopped drinking or using.

I have no problem with AA or the 12 step approach, but it's not the only, or, nowadays, even the most effective treatment for alcoholism and other drug addiction. The old AA saw: Self awareness did us no good, therapy doesn't work for alcoholism, was true in 1935, when AA started. Therapy back then was Freudian, Jungian, or Adlerian analysis. Analysis isn't effective for alcoholism, or anything else really! It's seldom used anymore. Current types of therapy are seldom even about much self awareness. It's more about problem solving and cognitive processes. REBT and other forms of Cognitive Behavior Therapy are often very effective with alcohol and drug addicted people and that's the approach used in this book.

You can use this book in addition to, or instead of AA or other 12 step approaches. It's for people uncomfortable with those spiritual approaches or who haven't acheived sobriety with those approaches. It's for anyone who wants to solve their addiction problems. Period. Get it, read it, and work your butt off on the worksheets and exercises. Keep at it and you'll be successful.

I found this book very helpful for someone looking for another approach to giving up alcohol other than AA.

This is without doubt the worst book I have ever read. It is so badly written, it is almost impossible to finish. I wish I hadn't wasted my valuable time reading it, and I would strongly advise anyone thinking of buying it not to! The Kindle version doesn't even allow you to navigate from chapter to chapter. This book has the ignominy of being the only one I've downloaded from Amazon and subsequently permanently deleted from my library. Poor show!

Dr. Tate's book on how to stop the use of alchol provides an informative and enlightening persective on the application of cognitive-behavioral princples in treating substance abuse problems. It provides clinical and practical information to the clinician and the lay-person/client. Dr. Tate's book is a must for any library on the treatment of alchol abuse/dependence.