Customer Reviews

Sober for Good: New Solutions for Drinking Problems - Advice from Those Who Have Succeeded

5 star:		(26)
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1 star:		(10)

 

 

I wrote the review below in 2002. Since then I have passed it on as a loan or sold it for what I paid for it maybe 20 times. I've told dozens of women about it. It is still indispensible. I've studied many texts and read many popular books, but Fletcher's book still stands head and shoulders above the rest!

Sober for Good is a book filled with hope. It offers perspectives rarely seen in alcohol-related materials, and I sincerely hope that it gets wide distribution.

I'm a certified moderator (volunteer small group leader) for Women for Sobriety groups, and this book is a driving force in the sobriety of nearly all of the women I meet. Not everyone benefits from AA, and it's incredibly validating to see that other people similar to ourselves have gotten sober (and stayed sober!) using other methods.

The book is put together in a way that allows the reader to go to the parts that relate most to her/his situation, which is particularly important for people still grappling with addiction or newly sober.

You go, Anne. You have a big fan club in San Francisco!

Anne Fletcher's "Sober for Good" is an outstanding contribution to the literature on alcohol problems. It is written in such a way that the average lay person can undersyand all that the author and her more than 200 subjects are saying. She deals with the many controversies in the field in a balanced and judicious manner. Anyone who wants help with an alcohol problem would do well to consult this book first, as the multiple opportunities for assistance are all well outlined. I strongly disagree that the book has even the "appearance" of AA bashing; a mindset that views any comments on AA that are not gushingly superlative as "bashing" is deplorable. It is an honorable and even remarkable organization, but (as the book amply documents) it is not for everyone. As the author of the foreword to the book, I want to make it absolutely clear that I am not a co-author, as Amazon's listing of the book would indicate. Ann Fletcher is owed the entire credit for this excellent and timely contribution to our knowledge of this area.

As a long term sober member of AA, I approached this book skeptically thinking is would be just another in the 'bashing' series. But it's not. Fletcher does a very competent job surveying the various means of achieving sobriety. This book is a valauble tool for someone who is struggling with their drinking. It shows that there are a range of options for the person and that they have an opportunity to find which approach works for them.

It is also a strength of SOBER FOR GOOD that Fletcher shows how many people with long-term sobriety have migrated thru various programs thru different phases of their recovery. This would be a good book for one who has been sober for a while, but is feeling the need to expand beyond the limits of what their current program has to offer.

The one drawback in the book is the use of jargon in too many places. For example, use of the term 'master' to describe a person who has achieved sobriety smacks of the guru feeling of many other self-improvement books. A good editor would have made Fletcher find other terminology.

All in all, well worth the $12. I went ahead and bought 5 copies for use with my AA sponsees to let them know that if they don't feel comfortable with the work of the program, then it doesn't mean they're doomed to an early grave.

Sober for Good – Anne Fletcher

I was sent a complimentary copy of Sober for Good, and opened it much as one might open a piece of junk mail – casual, uninterested, getting a fix on the waste bin for rapid disposal. Shortly afterwards I was reading avidly.

This book displays the immense variety of ways that people really stop drinking destructively, from the traditional methods of Alcoholics Anonymous to a personal decision, taken and held to. Anne Fletcher calls people who have tackled an alcohol problem and now live comfortably “the Masters”, and I’m one of them, in her terms. The book was created from first person accounts of people who have successfully resolved alcohol problems, using a wide variety of methods, and the author pulls these personal stories together to offer a balanced and very helpful overview of the varied ways that people use to stay sober for good.

The Chapter titles give an excellent précis of the contents.

1 A New Look At How People Really Solve Drinking Problems 2 There’s Not Just One Way: How The Masters Got Sober - And Stay Sober 3 It’s Not How Much You Drink: How The Masters Faced Up To Their Alcohol Problems 4 You Don’t Have To “Hit Bottom”: How The Masters Reached The Turning Point 5 It’s Not Necessarily One Day At A Time: How The Masters Made A Commitment To Sobriety 6 Be Our Own Expert: How Seven Masters Found Their Way With Seven Different Approaches 7 You Can Help: The Masters’ Advice To Family And Friends 8 One Drink Does Not A Drunk Make: How The Masters Determined Whether They Could Ever Drink Again 9 It’s Not Enough Just To Stop Drinking: How The Masters Deal With Life’s Ups And Downs Without Alcohol 10 Recall The Past, Live In The Present: How The Masters Stay Motivated 11 With Or Without A Higher Power: How The Master Handle Spirituality 12 There’s Nothing Missing: How The Masters Find Joy Without Alcohol Appendix A: A Consumer Guide To Recovery Options

A lot of the book deals with familiar and comfortable ideas about alcohol and recovery, but there is also a great deal that I found new and thought provoking. I attended AA for many years, reaching a position of contented sobriety, but decided last year that I should move on. I chose SMART Recovery® as an alternative, and have found it suits me very well. Sober for Good showed me that this type of progression is not unusual, and that it is but one of many options. Others organisations offering help include Secular Organisations for Sobriety (SOS), Women for Sobriety (WfS), Rational Recovery (RR). Several stories came from people who used professional services such as brief intervention, formal treatment or individual counselling. Other Masters used what Anne Fletcher calls “eclectic methods” which I interpret to mean a bit of this and a bit of that, reading, acupuncture, yoga, family and friends’ support – but if it works, it works. I know personally someone who did it on her own and that option doesn’t show up in this book at all! There really are many routes to recovery from alcohol, and all of them work for someone.

One of the reasons I liked this book so much is that it combines careful work with kindness. The spirit of the author shines through without being obtrusively personal. It is plain that Anne Fletcher has worked very hard to understand the people whose stories she has gathered and deployed. The result offers a wealth of insights and information that will help anyone who seeks personal recovery or wishes to help other to recover.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has thought they might have an alcohol abuse problem. There are many roads to recovery - not just through AA and this book gives a wealth of knowledge of alternative options. Also great for those that have someone in their life with an alcohol abuse problem - provides insight to understanding the problem. Not trying to be too melodramatic here but this book has definitely change my life forever - sobriety is amazing.

It takes guts to go up against an existing paradigm, but that's just what Anne Fletcher has done in SOBER FOR GOOD. Surprisingly, that isn't what Ms. Fletcher set out to do. Her simple goal was to find out just how folks beat the alcoholism goon.

Her results, after numerous interviews and nearly three years of research and writing, was that recovery is a highly individualized path. This is welcome news for those who are struggling with alcohol but who also don't feel that the established ways, such as AA, aren't right for them.

All in all, this is an empowering book, destined to be a lifesaver for many, heresy for some, and a major step forward in how we perceive and treat one of humankind's most destructive addictions.

Contrary to what some reviewers have written, this book does not "bash" AA. Among the hundreds of people Fletcher contacted about their drinking problems (and their subsequent successful years of sobriety), it is clear that AA worked spectacularly for many of them; for others, not so well. This is because--as this book demonstrates so powerfully--we are all different, and no single approach can work for us all.

What this book does provide, however, is an enormous set of strategies and information for getting clean, from a great variety of "masters"--what Fletcher calls people who have successfully mastered their drinking problems. There is something for everyone with a drinking problem in this book, and lots of great words of wisdom and sympathy from those who have been there.

I recommend this book wholeheartedly to anyone who suspects they might have a drinking problem, or who has a loved one who does. It has everything you need to make an informed decision as to what to do about it, in an approach tailored to you.

Sober for Good, if read in its entirety, has the potential to help millions understand the range of options available to them. When they do understand, they can perhaps begin making sensible choices for themselves whether those choices involve abstinence or moderate drinking.

Because moderate alcohol consumption is mentioned in Sober for Good, some may be concerned that reading it will lead to relapse. But AA's Big Book talks openly about moderation as an option (see pages 20-21, 31, 39, 109, 112, 139), FOR THOSE WHO CAN ACCOMPLISH IT. Sober for Good talks about moderation BY THOSE WHO HAVE ACCOMPLISHED IT. Should we blame the Big Book when someone attempts moderation and does not succeed? As if those with drinking problems have never even thought of moderating, until some book suggests it! It should also be noted that Fletcher approaches the subject of moderate drinking with great caution and stresses that nine out of ten people in the book have elected abstinence.

That some continue not to make sensible choices is not a good reason to withhold accurate information from the rest. We will not eliminate addictive behavior, or stop some people from dying prematurely. But with accurate information available, as in Sober for Good, we might save a few more than we do now.

This phenomenally well-researched book will be so helpful to anyone trying to get on top of a drinking problem because it offers a number of avenues for help. That is, it shows that there are a lot of roads to recovery, which is great because when it comes to dealing with excessive alcohol use, a one-size-fits-all solution is too narrow to accommodate everyone's needs.

Apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks this book delivers -- and provides the backup to make its points. The latest edition shows that Sober for Good has received the Outstanding Contributions to Advancing the Understanding of Addictions Award from the American Psychological Association; the Research Society on Alcoholism Journalism Award; the Distinguished Friend to Behavior Therapy Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies; and a National Health Information Award. In other words, because author Fletcher has really done her homework, millions with an alcohol addiction will be able to get help that previously eluded them.

I think this is probably the best book of its type that I have read. It is like a fresh breath of air because it is based, not on some theoretical position, but on interviews that the author got from 222 people who had been sober for more than five years. For anyone who is interested for any reason in how people can recover from serious problems from alcohol, this book has a great deal to offer. The author does a first rate job of giving the reader really interesting and important information about the roads to recovery of these 222 people. It turns out that there are a wide diversity of routes to recovery--a fact that treatment professionals have known for years but that the average reader may not be aware of--without this book. A lot of myths are exposed and a lot of sound and helpful information about recovery is presented.

Before I retired several years ago, I worked at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in the Treatment Research Branch. On a daily basis, I worked with researcher on scientific findings about drug/alcohol abuse and effective treatment of abusers. I discovered that not many popular books were consistent with the scientific findings, so it is a pleasure to find that "Sober for Good" is. The extra bonus is that the book is well written and interesting. I highly recommend this book.