Customer Reviews

Powerfully Recovered! A Confirmed 12 Stepper Challenges the Movement

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The title hooked me - a "confirmed 12 stepper challenges the movement". I am a confirmed 12 stepper, too. After 5 years i can tell you that I have taken no more powerful action in my life than entering recovery (AA). And maybe it is just a natural phase of development to start looking a little more critically at the program and how I can continue to progress.
So, I have read just about every book on the subject. SOme books are so anti-AA that it reads like one big resentful self-pitying indulgence. This book had a much more balanced view; more respectful of what AA does accomplish. I felt validated to read some ideas that I agreed with but never felt comfortable saying out loud. The truth is - I DO feel recovered. I understand that I cannot drink alcohol and I understand the importance of nurturing my sobriety and i will continue to do that. Attending AA still nurtures my sobriety so I stll go to meetings. I feel free, though.
In recent months, I admitted to myself that I felt "addicted" to meetings. It had become more of a social club for me than a necessity. I also suspected that I was having needs met through meetings that could be met through interaction with friends and family. In a weird sort of way, AA was helping me to isolate. So, I cut back on meetings. It was hard at first, but I stuck with it. Sure enough, I can report a differnt sort of balance in my life. I seek out others to connect with - a conversation with a co-worker, a call to my mother to see how she is, that sort of thing. Emotional connecting needs can be met more than one way.
And I still enjoy the meetings I do attend.
Like lots of other people, I have job stress, parenting stress and world peace stress.... but I am more stable than I ever dared hope possible. Recovery is a miracle. This book helped to confirm that for me.

The Fellowship and Program of Alcoholics Anynonomous saved my life. I have been clean and sober for over nineteen years. I have, however, noticed a change in the "Fellowship" (meetings) over the past few years, and the author is right on the mark. Her criticicism of the program is constructive and well-though out. It is not "change for change sake" thinking. She goes into great detail to explain why some things need to be changed to reflect the times and attitudes of the membership. I whole-heartedly agree with her philosophy of do the program, recover, and get on with the life you missed out on while in an alcoholic haze. A great read and a real page-turner. I read it in one sitting. Thanks for telling it like it is and how it could be Anne!

Anne Wayman explodes the myths of powerlessness and endless recovering-ness that are part of 12-Step fellowship banter, but never were "Program". Indeed, it is Wayman who clarifies some of the differences between "fellowship" and "Program". The former has gone astray into a nonsensical obsession with powerlessness over everything, and it shows in the 12-Step groups in the form of depression and weaknesses. Empowerment for men and women should be what recovery is all about, and Anne Wayman's book will help people, as it has helped me. No more the myth of powerlessness for me; I didn't buy it when I joined NA, and I don't buy it now. Thanks to Anne Wayman, I no longer feel alone and I have a clear exegetical basis for my gut feelings and personal commitment to gaining more strength and joy in my life.

Anne Wayman has written an important book. Powerfully Recovered! surprised me so much that I had to read it twice. I was expecting a rehashing of the same old recovery issues. What I found was a truly challenging discussion of issues addressing the very core effectiveness of 12 Step programs to carry the message of recovery to women and minorities.

Anne's book helped me understand how the myths of personal powerlessness and never-ending recovery were holding me back.

This is a great book and a must-read for everyone who wants to increase their own personal recovery program and effectiveness as a sponsor of others.

Excellent! I intend to assign Powerfully Recovered to my "permanent" 12 stepper clients. In very different words, we say much the same thing. As a psychologist I speak about "taking personal power" and "responsibility for the self", or "getting at the stuff underlying addiction." Your well articulated account with it's references to The Big Book and clarification of the founders' intent is just what my 12 steppers need to hear, written in their own language.

This book is a gem!

Dr. Irene ...

Anne Wayman is a grateful 12-stepper who makes some thoughtful, respectful, and constructive observations about the "movement." Powerfully Recovered is a passionate affirmation, not just of the 12-steps in general, but also of life, truth, and self-respect. While its subject is the 12-step programs (and particularly AA), it really speaks about the nature of growth and healing. I am not a 12-stepper, but I found much of value in Powerfully Recovered. Many of the observations Wayman makes seemed powerfully familiar to me. I know, for example, that I need to acknowledge my own humanity and to love myself while I take responsibility for my own past, present, and future. I don't know that Wayman's intent was to write such a metaphor for "the rest of us," but she certainly did that. Her ideas are not revolutionary, but she says them in a way that makes it easy to "get it."
This is a very uplifting book. I would not hesitate to recommend it lovingly to anyone who feels the need for some personal encouragement or a compassionate hug.

I did stop drinking when I went to AA. For that, I will always be grateful. However, after a year or so, after being told that I was "too smart to stay sober," told that friends who drank again were "losers" and to stay away from them, and realizing that my choice to back off on meeting attendance brought threats of dire consequences in my future, I just stopped going.
I also realized that the focus on AA as the ONLY treatment method for alcoholics was really standing in the way of finding alternative treatment methods for the majority of people who AA does not help. If any other method of treatment had such a dismal failure rate, it would be retired for some new modality. This is still a mystery to me.
It's important to talk about this, to break this grip that the 12 step programs have on the recovery business.

This book has a really important message for people in recovery. You don't have to feel powerless and defeated - you can recover and feel powerful.

This is an easy read and helps to dispell some of the negative things that are heard at meetings sometimes.

an amature evaluation that takes too many words to make her point... rather tedious to read but makes some valid points

The author does not understand the 12 step program. It is not a program of endless powerlessness. Power is obtained through contact with a higher power. People suffering from addiction learn to become truly powerful by calling upon something greater than ourselves. This book is dangerous because it can confuse people who are successful in recovery.