Customer Reviews

Rewriting Life Scripts: Transformational Recovery for Families of Addicts

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Rewriting Life Scripts" is a long overdue book. While addictions have become better understood and treatments have been developed for addicts, the addict's family has been left in the shadows, wondering "What comes next?" Families have struggled with their loved ones who are addicted; they have tried to help them, tried to control them, and basically expended their energy while developing unhealthy codependent behaviors of their own. Now, when the addict is finally entering recovery, many families are left in a situation that can only be described as post-traumatic. What do families do in this state--how do they make sense of how their loved one became addicted, of the often crazy way they reacted to that addiction, and how do they put their lives back together so everyone in the family unit can again feel stable, healthy, and safe?

It's about time families of addicts had their own book to show them how to deal with their loved one's recovery. "Rewriting Life Scripts" is illuminating in the way it uncovers the roots of dysfunctional behaviors in a family and teaches how to let go of those behaviors now that they are no longer needed. As I read this book, I was stunned by the analysis of family behaviors, the roles played by different family members from being the rebel to the overachiever or the family clown, and how addiction and codependency create, shape, and enable those roles.

Once the addict enters recovery, it is natural the family still wants to help him or her. This book helps the family to cope and to understand what the addict is undergoing, but more importantly, "Rewriting Life Scripts" is a resource for the family members to look inside themselves, to see the toll the addict's behavior has taken upon them, and to put their own lives back in order as well as to be prepared to have a relationship with the recovering addict.

The authors have all experienced their own issues with codependency and dysfunctional families. They are each authors in their own right, having told their own stories and worked in the field counseling people and researching addiction. Now their vast and insightful experiences are joined together to create multiple perspectives on dysfunction and addiction, viewing it from every angle. In addition, many stories are included here from people who have experienced living with addicts; they share how they coped and continue to cope with a loved one's addiction and recovery.

The subtitle of this book includes "Transformational Recovery." I love that term because this book offers so much more than simply "hope" for families. No matter what a person's past has been or the future will be, this book offers a "transformation" for the reader, the family member, that he or she can feel better, can live a happier life, can let go of the pain of the past and be transformed, renewed, and be prepared to re-experience what it is to be a family. "Rewriting Life Scripts" is the most cathartic book I have read in a long time. I imagine people will feel hope and joy and also shed some tears while reading it, but ultimately, they will come away truly feeling transformed and prepared for the good life that awaits them.

-- Tyler R. Tichelaar, Ph.D. and author of the award-winning Narrow Lives

Rewriting Life Scripts
Transformational Recovery for Families
of Addicts
Authors: Liliane Desjardins, Nancy Oelklaus, Irene Watson
Publisher: Life Scripts Press
ISBN: 978-1-932690-97-2

When a family member has an addiction (to alcohol, drugs, etc.) the other members of the family by necessity are forced to change their behaviors, their lifestyle and their expectations. In many cases, these changes have occurred slowly and over a period of years or even decades. When the addicted family member make the monumental move towards recovery, the family often finds itself thrown into a new kind of chaos without expecting or understanding it.

This book is based mainly on using the 12 step addiction recovery process, but everything discussed can be utilized regardless of the method of recovery used. The book is divided into several parts, each dealing with a different stage of recovery. Families will find this helpful, enabling them to study and work through each recovery phrase as it's being experienced by the recovering family member. By completing all parts, the reader will reach a clear understanding of just what changes and adjustments they have had to make in the past and how the family dynamics will now be changing for the better. Topics are covered in a clear and easy to understand manner, explaining all the stages of change, defining the various roles played by family members in both the dysfunctional (addiction) phase and the truly transforming and freeing journey the family members all take as they work together to rewrite and change the family dynamics.

The three authors bring a wide range of life experiences, education and career training to this work. This gives the book a deeper, broader application that will apply to an untold number of families. I highly recommend this book to anyone who works with addiction and recovery, and to anyone and everyone who is part of a family at any point on the addiction spectrum. Excellent resource and promising tool for a happier family.

Authors Nancy Oelklaus, Irene Watson and Liliane Dejardins show the reality that alcoholism is a family disease and finally published a one-step alcoholic recovery book for the whole family. Rewriting Life Scripts has touched my heart after losing a husband at forty-five years of age and a daughter at thirty-nine to this horrible, worldwide disease.

This book described my nightmarish years back in the seventies and eighties and made me painfully face how my past actions with enabling my husband caused one of my daughters to be dramatized through all her growing years. The sad part was that I never knew she had suffered in silence and had become an alcoholic until her last two years of battling this demon.

While reading this book, I felt like I was back in Al-Anon meetings. This is a must read for abusers so they will come to learn how each family member suffers from this demon. The alcoholic needs to know that it's not them we hate, it's the disease. We need to unite as a family and help everyone recover. It's not that this disease may, might or could kill--it will.

Alberta H. Sequeira
(2006) A Healing Heart; A Spiritual Renewal
(2009) Someone Stop This Merry-Go-Round; An Alcoholic Family in Crisis
(2010) Please, God, Not Two; This Killer Called Alcoholism

Length:: 1:55 Mins

A brief overview of why treating families of the addicted is just as important as treating the addicts themselves. Caregivers and family members have their own issues that they need help taking care of. A successful recovery is much easier with a family that is in good shape!

Another book which you might find of interest is Barbara Sinor's Addiction--What's Really Going On?: Inside a Heroin Treatment Program

Rewriting Life Scripts is a marvelous resource for family members of addicts/alcoholics. So much of the focus is on helping the addict/alcoholic during the treatment and recovery process, and yet the family member has suffered a great deal and has their own fall-out to deal with. This book helps family members understand addiction -- what has happened to their loved one, but as importantly, it helps the family member understand what has happened to them as a result of living / coping with undiagnosed and untreated addiction. Rewriting Life Scripts provides guidance to the family member, offering them tools to help themselves, and in the process, help their loved one in recovery. A must read for family members of addicts/alcoholics. Lisa Frederiksen, author of If You Loved Me, You'd Stop! What You Really Need to Know When Your Loved One Drinks Too Much and Loved One in Treatment? Now What!

The collaborative work of academician Nancy Oelkluas, entrepreneur Irene Watson, and clinician Liliane Desjardins, "Rewriting Life Scripts: Transformational Recovery for Families of Addicts" is a superbly organized and deftly presented 184-page compendium practical information on the nature of addiction and recovery written specifically for the non-specialist general reader. "Rewriting Life Scripts" covers frequently asked questions by family members on the issues of addiction, recovery, relationship issues with respect to an addict, and a great deal more. Of special note is the section focused on 'Changing Yourself', including communication and co-dependency. For anyone seeking to deal with problems of addiction within themselves and/or their family members, "Rewriting Life Scripts" is especially recommended as being informed, informative, and thoroughly 'user friendly'.