The Lessons of Love (Walker Large Print Books) [Large Print] [Paperback]

Melody Beattie (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1995 | Series: Walker Large Print Books

From one of America's most beloved inspirational writers--the bestselling author of Codependent No More--comes a new classic in the tradition of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. At the peak of her phenomenal success, Beattie's life was shattered by the death of her 12-year-old son. After 18 months of despair, she began to recognize that we always have a choice between succumbing to despair and embracing life.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Beattie ( Codependent No More ) here chronicles her grief over the death of her son Shane in a skiing accident in 1991; for two years she found herself unable to work. But with the help of family, friends and her own inner resources, she was finally able to put her life back together. Then, however, she was faced with another test: her daughter Nichole's alcoholism. But this time, from her reserves of spiritual strength, Beattie met the problem head-on. Convincing her daughter to enter a treatment center, she was able to forge a closer relationship between them. Beattie's inspiring message should bring hope to those who think that they "just can't take it any more." 200,000 first printing; author tour.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This is a book about what trendy therapist types like to call "grief work." It's the story of how Beattie, the most popular writer on the controversial new-psychotherapy phenomenon, codependency, got through the experience of her 12-year-old son's fatal skiing accident and its aftermath. Like so many others who've endured the loss of a loved one, she drifted and obsessed, became a trial for her friends to be with and a prey for hucksters taking advantage of her distraction. She got through it all by reconnecting with her capacity to love--much needed because her daughter, drinking and drugging, was in the throes of midteen meltdown. That she's led a generally more melodramatic life than many certainly helps her account sustain reader interest. Those going through similar crises will find companionship and perhaps even solace in her report. Ray Olson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 214 pages
• Publisher: Walker Large Print; Lrg edition (April 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802726852
• ISBN-13: 978-0802726858
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,122,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Melody Beattie is one of America's most beloved self-help authors and a household name in addiction and recovery circles. Her international bestselling book, Codependent No More, introduced the world to the term "codependency" in 1986. Millions of readers have trusted Melody's words of wisdom and guidance because she knows firsthand what they're going through. In her lifetime, she has survived abandonment, kidnapping, sexual abuse, drug and alcohol addiction, divorce, and the death of a child. "Beattie understands being overboard, which helps her throw bestselling lifelines to those still adrift," said Time Magazine.

Melody was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1948. Her father left home when she was a toddler, and she was raised by her mother. She was abducted by a stranger at age four. Although she was rescued the same day, the incident set the tone for a childhood of abuse, and she was sexually abused by a neighbor throughout her youth. Her mother turned a blind eye, just as she had denied the occurrence of abuse in her own past.

"My mother was a classic codependent," Melody recalls. "If she had a migraine, she wouldn't take an aspirin because she didn't do drugs. She believed in suffering." Unlike her mother, Melody was determined to self-medicate her emotional pain. Beattie began drinking at age 12, was a full-blown alcoholic by age 13, and a junkie by 18, even as she graduated from high school with honors. She ran with a crowd called "The Minnesota Mafia" who robbed pharmacies to get drugs. After several arrests, a judge mandated that she had to "go to treatment for as long as it takes or go to jail."

Melody continued to score drugs in treatment until a spiritual epiphany transformed her. "I was on the lawn smoking dope when the world turned this purplish color. Everything looked connected--like a Monet painting. It wasn't a hallucination; it was what the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous calls 'a spiritual awakening.' Until then, I'd felt entitled to use drugs. I finally realized that if I put half as much energy into doing the right thing as I had into doing wrong, I could do anything," Beattie said.

After eight months of treatment, Melody left the hospital clean and sober, ready to take on new goals: helping others get sober, and getting married and having a family of her own. She married a former alcoholic who was also a prominent and respected counselor and had two children with him. Although she had stopped drinking and using drugs, she found herself sinking in despair. She discovered that her husband wasn't sober; he'd been drinking and lying about it since before their marriage.

During her work with the spouses of addicts at a treatment center, she realized the problems that had led to her alcoholism were still there. Her pain wasn't about her husband or his drinking; it was about her. There wasn't a word for codependency yet. While Melody didn't coin the term codependency, she became passionate about the subject. What was this thing we were doing to ourselves?

Driven into the ground financially by her husband's alcoholism, Melody turned a life-long passion for writing into a career in journalism, writing about the issues that had consumed her for years. Her 24-year writing career has produced fifteen books published in twenty languages and hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles. She has been a frequent guest on many national television shows, including Oprah. She and her books continue to be featured regularly in national publications including Time, People, and most major periodicals around the world.

Although it almost destroyed her when her twelve-year-old son Shane died in a ski accident in 1991, eventually Melody picked up the pieces of her life again. "I wanted to die, but I kept waking up alive," she says. She began skydiving, mountain-climbing, and teaching others what she'd learned about grief.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Journey, August 30, 2001

By 

V. VanCamp "lovesbookslovesmusic" (Ithaca, New York USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take (Paperback)

Melody Beattie writes a very compelling and heartfelt account of a painful journey through heartbreak. "The Lessons of Love" will touch your soul and your heart. Beautifully written.
The author takes us through her grieving process, her fight with wanting to live and her struggle learning to live again after a trajedy that completely knocks her off her feet.
This book contains tested truths on how to live and why we should live with gusto even after trajedy obstructs our view. Melody honestly and compelling shares with us her trials in darkness, her anger, her tears and her heartbreak. She also shares with us her learning, her hopefulness and her vision of magic.
This book is for those who look beneath the surface of life for those intricate nuances that make us all tick. I highly recommend this book to those of you who are searching and who long to discover some of life's mysteries. Though this book is deep, Melody writes in a very easy to read fashion. You will not get bogged down in big words and you will not need to read between the lines. Even though Melody's story is very sad in parts, this book is refreshingly real and clear.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Melody Beattie's most poignant work, January 15, 2004

By 

Andrew Olivo Parodi (Oregon, United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Lessons of Love: Rediscovering Our Passion for Life When It All Seems Too Hard to Take (Paperback)

Melody Beattie is, of course, the author of the phenomenal bestseller CODEPENDENT NO MORE. Since the publication of that first book in the 1980s, many of us in the recovery movement have come to see her as something akin to a mother figure. We are therefore interested in her life, the challenges she faces, her insights, her introspections, her epiphanies, her triumphs. Melody's writing style is so warm and embracing that it often feels as though we are reading personal messages from a dear friend.

Personal messages do not usually constitute great literature. This is certainly the case with THE LESSONS OF LOVE. The story, her struggle to come to terms with the tragic death of her son Shane, is beautiful, heartfelt, and inspiring. It appeals to me in large part because I care about Melody Beattie as a person. I want to know how she coped with what must be the most painful situation any human being could find themselves in. I want to see her come through. I feel as though I have a relationship with her work. (When I was only 17, she personally replied to my letter regarding Codependents Anonymous groups. Her work has been important to me ever since.) But I definitely would not recommend THE LESSONS OF LOVE to a friend indifferent to the recovery scene. They would perhaps be put off by Melody's interweaving of her personal story with the pick-me-up tone of recovery prose. ("This book is my golden ring for you," she says to the reader in the introduction.)

So, whether you appreciate THE LESSONS OF LOVE may be gauged by how you feel about the genre that Melody Beattie has helped define. This is the closest I've ever seen her come to conventional storytelling, but it is unmistakable that it belongs in the self-help/recovery/personal empowerment section of the bookstore. If you do not find yourself drawn to that section, then you may not appreciate this book. If, however, you are like me, love this genre, view Melody Beattie as a source of comfort, then THE LESSONS OF LOVE is a highly recommended.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Truly a gift & written from the heart & soul., March 28, 1999

By 

JMOmm - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Lessons of Love (Walker Large Print Books) (Paperback)

I read the first few pages and didn't stop until I'd finished the whole entire book in one reading! I cried, I laughed, I shared in Melody's story, joys, sorrow, pain, hardships, and felt I took the journey with her and her family.

Melody writes from the heart and it must have been so painful and probably at the same time cleansing to write about her son's tragic accident [I cried so much at that part I couldn't see!]. This book is good for those who've suffered losses and hardships over and over and feel what is the point, what's the meaning of life etc ... as Melody so wonderfully and magically shares her story, she shares how there is a point to our lives, and that there is meaning and there is hope. You have to read the book to find out more! Melody says it just so beautifully.

It's a wonderful book which I will read and re-read again and again. I only wish that Shane's picture had been published in the book. Thank you Melody!