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Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic: Professional Views and Personal Insights (The Praeger Series on Contemporary Health and Living)
 
 

Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic: Professional Views and Personal Insights (The Praeger Series on Contemporary Health and Living) [Kindle Edition]

Sarah Allen Benton
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Alcoholism has many faces and high functioning alcoholics are invisibly among us every day. Congratulations and thanks to Sarah Allen Benton for the courage she displays by showing her face and telling her story." --David L. Rosenbloom, PhD President, National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University (CASA)

"I hope this book will help to puncture the myth that alcoholism/addiction is a condition associated with those with less education or lower incomes. Too often, individuals in powerful or highly respected positions suffer much longer than necessary because they and those around them (including their treatment providers) are blinded by their social status. Professionals may delude themselves despite facing a higher-than-average risk, seeking help only after their careers are coming apart." --Jeffrey Fortgang, Ph.D., CAS Psychologist/Addictions Specialist for Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers

"Sarah Allen Benton's work brings to life and thoroughly examines the risks and challenges that confront one-fifth of our nation's alcoholics, an often seemingly invisible element of our dysfunctional adolescents and adults, the high functioning alcoholic. This work will be a useful resource for lay person, professional and trainee interested in a realistic and professionally informed understanding of high functioning alcoholics and the Twelve-Step recovery process. Those whose loved ones are suffering and living the effects of high-functioning alcoholism as well as HFAs themselves will find important identifying information and resources for hope and change." --Robert M. Klein, MD, MBA Director of Behavioral Health, Northeastern University Health and Counseling Services Assistant Clinical Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine

"Sarah Benton's book Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic is a gift to both clinicians and clients alike. It is a thorough and insightful discussion of an often misunderstood and mistreated clinical group that frequently does not respond well to traditional psychotherapy, or psychopharmacology, or simply Twelve Step approaches. Sarah presents an integrated treatment approach in a highly personal and engaging way that truly bridges the gap between research, clinical work and moving personal experiences. Despite 35 years of working with this population of substance abusers, I was delighted to see how much I learned from Sarah's book. The highest compliment that I can pay her for this accomplishment is that I immediately thought of many clients and therapists that I could give it to." --David Treadway, Ph.D. Addiction Specialist Author: Before Its Too Late: Working with Substance Abuse in the Family

"Through telling case examples, interviews with recovering alcoholics of all ages, accomplished professionals and executives, and through her own reflections, Sarah Allen Benton brings to awareness that the largest majority of alcoholics are high functioning and, too often, go undetected. Drawing on the experience of high functioning alcoholics, including her own experiences, this book is both instructive and inspiring." --Edward J. Khantzian, MD Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School at the Cambridge Health Alliance

"[E]xplores in depth a hidden class of alcoholics that are professionally successful; topics include High-Functioning Alcoholics (HFAs) in high school, college, and as emerging adults."

Fore Word

Book Description

This volume spotlights the thinking of millions of successful people who excel in other ways, but remain powerless against and under the control of alcohol.


Product Details

  • Format: Kindle Edition
  • File Size: 1853 KB
  • Print Length: 224 pages
  • Publisher: Praeger Cloth A Titles; 1 edition (February 27, 2009)
  • Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
  • Language: English
  • ASIN: B0028N5WJG
  • Text-to-Speech: Enabled
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #77,342 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fills an important gap, May 5, 2009
By 
Lloyd R. Fell (Faulconbridge, NSW, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is an important book because it fills a gaping hole in the literature about alcoholism. High-powered executives, leading academics and successful artists and authors can all be alcoholics and the problems they face are not the same as those of a skid-row bum. The experiences they have as alcoholism intrudes inexorably into their lives and the choices they make about recovery programs have not been described before in the insightful way that Benton does in this book. Her use of interviews and personal stories complements the thoroughly professional approach she takes to what is a huge issue affecting health and productivity across the world. Alcoholism is not necessarily regarded as a disease by medical authorities, nor are twelve step programs the only kinds of treatment programs, but Sarah Benton has captured the essence of these two tried and trusted principles that have proven to be the most effective ways of dealing with alcoholism over the years. It is especially significant that this book challenges the traditional criteria used by clinicians for diagnosing alcohol dependence and abuse and provides enough information for these criteria to be updated in a useful way. I recommend it warmly to anyone who works in this field and also to people who may wonder if they have a drinking problem despite being a high-functioning person.
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic, July 30, 2009
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This is an excellent source of valuable, first-hand information on alcoholism. The author, a high-functioning alcoholic in her own right, has the intestinal fortitude to "tell it like it is." I found her grasp of the subject material to be outstanding, and her knowledge, courage and ability to describe in detail what a high-functioning alcoholic looks, acts, and functions like to be fascinating. She describes characteristics and traits, which paint a vivid profile of the high-functioning alcoholic, and draws personal parallels from her own history to close out each chapter. This book is a must read for any leader, manager, supervisor, treatment professional, legal professional, or law enforcement officer.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Informative and Inspiring, May 12, 2009
With Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic Professional Views and Personal Insights Sarah Allen Benton adds an important new voice to the discussion and examination of the curse and conundrum of alcoholism. As an accomplished (highly functioning . . . sorry!) researcher and scholar, Benton offers an array of what I call "stats `n facts" (Benton's "Professional Views") which will amaze and alarm any reader with any interest in the topic of alcoholism. But Benton goes beyond providing a compilation of "stats `n facts." She adroitly uses these "Professional Views" as a framework or structure to support what I feel is the heart and soul of her book: her "Personal Insights." These insights, culled from years of her personal journal entries, recount her own experiences as an increasingly self-aware HFA (Highly Functioning Alcoholic). A gifted and painfully honest memoirist, Benton recalls Caroline Knapp (whom Benton, appropriately, cites throughout) whose seminal Drinking: A Love Story (1996) chronicles another HFA's journey.

By sharing her "Personal Insights," Benton illuminates the "Professional Views" and vividly reveals her growing awareness as she moves, over time, from denial to acceptance and from recognition to recovery. Her honesty is profound and profoundly moving. I found myself reading this work very deliberately: I was torn by my desire to devour the narrative, while also wanting to savor and reflect upon each revelation. In Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic Professional Views and Personal Insights, Benton successfully and courageously crafts an astonishing and deeply personal scholarly treatise.
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Popular Highlights

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&quote;
the cause of the addiction-the sadness and the interior emptiness felt so deeply in the heart of the addict." &quote;
Highlighted by 14 Kindle users
&quote;
alcoholics who end up leading double lives-and sometimes triple and quadruple lives-because they never learned how to lead a single one, a single honest one that's based on a clearcut sense of who they are and what they really need." &quote;
Highlighted by 14 Kindle users
&quote;
Many HFAs and alcoholics in general are always looking for external gratification that they believe will make them feel satisfied, whether it is moving to a new place, dating a new person, or having an exciting night out. A certain restlessness drives many HFAs to drink in this futile search for life fulfillment. &quote;
Highlighted by 11 Kindle users

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