Customer Reviews

In All Our Affairs: Making Crises Work for You

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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is about crisis, and the need for immediate help to one who is in the midst of it. As a long-time member of Al-Anon, I have the found its program to be exceedingly helpful in turning around my life. I've watched it help families and friends of alcholics about making better choices that originally started out with thoughts of violence--such as suicide. It's also helped those who had thoughts of physically turning on the alcoholic, or who were emotionally abusing their children (i.e., neglect) because they were too busy trying to figure out what the alcoholic's next move was.

Those living in an active alcoholic situation often wake up in the morning thinking about what will today bring--and what will the alcoholic be doing that may ruin the day or the future--and their lives evolve around trying to prevent the next crisis. Sometimes that "prevention" compounds it like no one could imagine.

This book is written by real people who have been in real-life situations, and the primary audience is real people who are in Al-Anon. They are very short stories of what it was like, what happened, and what it's like today. Anyone in crisis wants as quick a fix as possible, not a 250-page book with the suggestions hidden somewhere in the middle. Al-Anon members are taught tools for how to survive and recover from the effects of alcoholism, and thus this book focuses those in crisis on the particular tools that can assist them with the crisis.

Al-Anon is a program of attaction, not advertisement. People are attracted to it because of the emotional pain they find themselves in from either growing up in or living in an environment effected by alcoholism. We have sayings for those who have very negative opinions about Al-Anon or who are unable to be honest enough to acknowledge the effects alcoholism has had on themselves: Keep coming back-it works if you work it; take what you like and leave the rest; try 6 meetings before you make a decision about Al-Anon; and you'll be ready for it when you're ready to admit your powerlessness over [the effects of] alcoholism and that your life has become unmanageable [with trying to control the effects]. It has been shown over and over again that those who come and leave wind up in one of two places: 1) back in the program when they're finally able to make that admission, or 2) lives that remain unmanageable.

I'm buying a second copy to pass onto a friend because this book has helped me. I used to be so full of fear and was not a nice person. I've found that by reading the stories in this book, I identify and something good happens to my heart. I learn a lot about myself and somehow, that helps my life be better between my ears, where it all starts. Something poignant about this book - and the twelve steps - has helped me. If this book doesn't help you, feel free to try something else. We all deserve to recover in a way that works for us. But just maybe it will help you like it helped me. I recommend anyone interested in this book also attend a few meetings and get a daily reader to put these stories in context of the overall help from the program.

This book was a great insightful read and left me feeling hopeful. Life dealing with alcoholism can be hard, but many people have learned how to embrace life even in the midst of the chaos and break free. This book reminded me of that.

I haven't read this particular book yet, but I am ordering it, thus the reason I saw Kendra's review. It sounds to me that she is not a member of al-anon, or if she has ever been to a meeting, she did not go with an open mind.

I am a member of Al-Anon, and I will say that my personal experience in attending meetings and reading the literature has helped me tremendously. I have taken to heart the three C's of alcoholism. I didn't cause it, I can't control it, and I can't cure it. I HAVE learned however that much of the way I reacted only made the situation worse.

There is much to be learned by attending meetings and reading the literature, but to benefit from those things, an open mind is a MUST.

Al-Anon wants to be there for YOU. If you are the spouse, parent, child, or sibling of an alcoholic, you are sick. You need Al-Anon. What can I say about this but that this, in itself, is sick, sick, sick. Not only that, it's a bit hypocritical because of the simple fact that you are there because of your relationship with the alcoholic or addict. So, even though Al-Anon is for YOU, the very nature of the program is based on the premise that you are sick because you are in a relationship with an alcoholic or addict-- thereby making the program a little bit about them, afterall.

This book is filled with Al-Anon members' stories. Some of them are a bit uplifting, I suppose, but many (many!) of them are just horrid, and proof to me that Al-Anon is a supreme joke.

Some of these folks have absolutely no boundaries. In Al-Anon, one isn't supposed to call another on his or her lack of boundaries. So, we're not to judge when we read about two women in this book who decided to forgive their husbands after they molested their children? I guess that's the message here. We aren't supposed to think that several women are insane to stay with their consistently untrustworthy and philandering spouses? If you are following the Al-Anon recovery program, I suppose that's right, too.

Al-Anon was started by the wives of the founders of AA, probably since they were stuck at home all night alone since their husbands were out at meetings and trying to save other alcoholics. One of the founders, Bill Wilson, was also a huge womanizer after he became "sober"-- doing what's called in AA, the 13th step. Her choice was to remain married to him.

By the way, AA only has a 2-5% recovery rate. Personally, I recommend Jeffrey Schaler's Addiction is a Choice, Stanton Peele's work, and Albert Ellis' work, as well.

Good luck!