Creative Recovery: A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity [Paperback]

Eric Maisel (Author), Susan Raeburn (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 14, 2008

For writers, artists, musicians, and creators in every field, this book offers a complete addiction recovery program specifically designed for the creative person. Full of explanations and exercises, this book presents ways to use your own innate creative abilities in service of your recovery and at each stage of the recovery process. Topics include: the biological and developmental risks unique to creative people; the special personality traits that can inform the recovery process; ways to approach your recovery much like your art; and exercises that promote your creativity and art that aid the recovery process. This book gives a clear picture of the relationship between creativity and addiction and lays out a complete program so that you can live a fully creative and addiction-free life.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Creative Recovery is a boldly challenging, rich, and comprehensive guide to positive, healthy growth for anyone with creative talents or the desire to look inward for potential and possibility. The authors have provided a ‘how-to’ map to target your creative energies toward self-reflection and action that will enhance your well-being and health, and reinforce and recharge your creativity. They show you how to cultivate, harness, and direct all forms of creative energy towards the positive; how to take the healthy path when you reach the ‘Y’ in the road. Above all, the authors show you how to wake up, pay attention, and to live with integrity and self-honesty. This is a practical and useful guide.”—Stephanie Brown, PhD, Director, The Addictions Institute, and author of A Place Called Self: Women, Sobriety and Radical Transformation

“Creative Recovery presents a rock-solid recovery program that anyone can use and that writers, painters, musicians, and other creative people will find invaluable and for some, even life-saving.”—Bonnie Raitt

“Even seasoned clinicians working with individuals in the creative professions will appreciate the utility of the exercises and questions for cultivating new avenues of inquiry around the process of change related to addiction. I particularly liked that Creative Recovery encouraged inquiry about change and addiction from multiple perspectives and across multiple types of creative activities.”—Nancy A. Piotrowski, PhD, President, Division 50 (Addictions), American Psychological Association



“As lifelong musicians and radio hosts who have interviewed hundreds of singer-songwriters, we know firsthand what havoc addiction plays in the lives of creative people—and how beautifully Creative Recovery will serve musicians and other artists looking for a recovery program tailored to their special needs.”—Vivian Nesbitt and John Dillon, producers and hosts, Art of the Song Creativity Radio

"The authors emphasize that recovery is an ongoing, lifelong process, and they expand upon and reinforce the role played by creativity, which provides an artistic outlet to express the hope, strength, and wholeness of continued recovery—an informative, insightful, and valuable book."— Library Journal

About the Author

Eric Maisel is a licensed marriage and family therapist and creativity coach with degrees in philosophy, creative writing, and counseling psychology. He has written over thirty books including Fearless Creating, The Van Gogh Blues, and Coaching the Artist Within.

Product Details

• Paperback: 312 pages
• Publisher: Trumpeter (October 14, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1590305442
• ISBN-13: 978-1590305447
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.8 x 8.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #473,230 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The most intelligent and compassionate information about the Recovery process ever., November 18, 2008

By 

J. A. Kirk - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creative Recovery: A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity (Paperback)

This is a unique, incredibly insightful book about the courageous journey of recovery. One will understand addictions and be relieved to know that there is a path to a joyful life. There are specific recommendations for the journey, tapping into the oftentimes hidden creative forces within us. Thank goodness for this loving yet instructive book. I have been in the substance-abuse recovery profession for over 25 years and in Recovery myself. I will be recommending this book to anyone interested in the real work and understanding of his/her addiction. Janet K; Oakland, California

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars mandatory reading for artists and their loved ones, December 30, 2008

By 

Happily Anonymous - See all my reviews

This review is from: Creative Recovery: A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity (Paperback)

I am an artist in recovery (24 years sober). I wish this book had been available when I first sobered up, but, hey, it's here now. My path has been the 12 Steps and I appreciate the fact this book acknowledges many different paths while remaining very respectful of the 12 Steps. It has been my impression that there are a lot of musicians, painters, actors, and performers in recovery. The idea that our creativity can be intimately involved in the healing of our addiction really moved me. The exercises are great and worth doing. Most of my drinking, as odd as it sounds, was an attempt to live at a deeper level within myself. I still seek this in recovery without booze and art is a way to spend part of my day at a deeper level. Call it spiritual,... whatever. This book is a manual and set of directions for what I have been trying to practice on my own. I sponsor several guys in our program, and creativity (writing, drawing, music, drama, dance) is a centerpiece of keeping balance in many of their lives. It's a way to let the soul breathe, if you will. I congratulate the authors and thank them for linking creativity and recovery together in a practical, life- and career-saving way. Recommended for people trying to stay sober and clean and live a vital, engaged life in recovery. Recovery is not for wimps but we can learn from one another and this book pulls a lot of accrued wisdom together. Very well written. Exhaustive coverage of the subject but pretty easy to read.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Creatively Addressing Addiction Problems, January 10, 2009

By 

Philip Keddy PhD (Oakland, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Creative Recovery: A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity (Paperback)

It's a pleasure to read this self-help book for creative types who want to look at their relationship with alcohol or drugs. Psychotherapists who want an overview and new ideas about how to work with people with these problems will find this a terrific resource too. As a psychologist who specializes in treating alcohol and drug problems, I am impressed that the approach draws on up-to-date information in the field, but in a fresh way. My favorite chapter is call "The Existential or Spiritual Leap." It shows a deep understanding of the power of AA, but also outlines the existential path for people who do not consider themselves to be spiritual. Philip Keddy, Ph.D., Licensed Psychologist, Oakland, CA.Creative Recovery: A Complete Addiction Treatment Program That Uses Your Natural Creativity