Customer Reviews

Whiskey's Children

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Whiskey's Children touched me far more than Angela's Ashes. It hit me in emotional places I hadn't visited for a long, long time. The prose was brilliant. As Annie Lamott the New York Times Best Selling Author wrote in her forward: "a story so beautifully told it will leave you shaking with wonder". Exactly! When I read the rave reviews on the jacket I was struck by Senator George McGovern's remarks: "Heartbreaking and soaring. A testament of survivial and hope for all who suffer from this affliction". D. May

I believe Whiskey's Children is the most powerful and inspirational book ever written on alcoholism.

Everyone who loves a fast and gripping read should run, not walk, to the nearest bookstore and pick one up.

Jack Erdmann's story of his long struggle back from the strangling grip that alcoholism held on his life, as well as over members of his family for four generations, is a tour de force. This book is not just for alcoholics, or for drinkers who feel that they "don't have a problem," it is for everyone who is willing to accompany Erdmann on a harrowing journey.

For those readers with alcoholics in the family, they--we--find ourselves nodding with recognition, and ultimately uplifted by the knowledge that there's a way up from the bottom. They will find assistance from now-sober alcoholics "with kind eyes, offering hot cups of bad coffee," in the words of Anne Lamott, a recovering alcoholic herself, who wrote the foreword.

You want an "easy, feel-good" book--well, there are plenty of THOSE. You want one that will change your life, or that of someone whom you love, or that will give breathtaking insights into the lives of the alcoholics you know, "Whiskey's Children" is the best effort I've found. There are pathos, self-degradation, guilt, self-loathing, and even a quiet humor in these pages.

If Amazon offered more than five stars, Erdmann and his co-author Larry Kearney would have earned them many times over. Not just for writing, but from their phoenix-life resurrection from the ashes of an alcoholic life.

This is a wonderful book.

"Whiskey's Children" is by far the best book I have ever read on the disease of alcoholism. Mr. Erdmann describes so well the descent and the progression into alcoholic aniliation. And he describes the way out which is nothing short of a miracle. You will CHERISH this book!

Whiskey's Children is a great book, period. While it chronicled the casual horrors and quiet heartbreak of a family damaged by alcohol better than any book I've read, it also tells a universal story of human frailty and persistance. It is shocking, depressing...and funny. Read it for any reason, and then read 'A Bar on Every Corner' by the same author.

Why is'nt Whiskey's Children on the "Best Seller" List? How come Don Imus or Oprah have'nt picked it up? The book is SENSATIONAL !

After reading Whiskey's Children more than a year ago, it still is with me. Jack Erdmann's descent into alcoholism and his strength to rise out of despair and complete alienation is an inspiration that will stay with me a long time

Jack Erdmann tells a story with more ups and downs than a rollercoaster! It's amazing that he lived to tell about it and he provides hope for anyone who's ever considered himself to be a "hopeless alcoholic". It's a story for anyone who's ever struggled with the "love/hate" relationship with an alcoholic parent. Erdmann paints a moving emotional picture in telling his story! An exceptional book!

The revisiting of an alcoholic to his childhood memories is not the tale of woe one might expect. Jack Erdmann and Larry Kearney manage truthfulness without blame, humor without hysteria. The clarity of the telling is not what one might expect from someone who was abused but it is the result of recovery. In this natural drama of one man's history and journey through alcoholism there is a remarkable return to integrity and nobility via needing others and God. The struggle against these cures makes the storyline applicable to all readers, wrenching at core issues numbed by other anesthetics, other addictions besides alcoholism.

The memorable descriptions are vivid, "she was a church-driven woman". The tension and trauma of the subject are delivered smoothly using word pictures instead of verbal assaults. The bitterness is not there. Objective but personal observation keeps the reader neutral but engaged. Anyone who sees generational patterns of pain, anyone in recovery, anyone with a family that hurts will connect here in these pages.

I loved this book.

Jack Erdmann has walked the walk of an alcoholic and takes us inside the mind, heart and soul of the person that is hopelessly addicted. The emotional trauma that is involved in the machine of a family disease is gut renching. I cried and I laughed and I held my breath. Nobody knows the incomprehensible hold of alcohol like this author. I have read many books about the disease of alcohol and recovery testamonials but this book lays it on the line like no other. There is hope for the alcoholic and that comes shinning through in Mr. Erdmann's book. The machinery has to stop somewhere in the family of the alcoholic. It seems to be a genetic, inherited disease that needs early intervention. People do not have to go through the hell Jack did if they will heed the warning signs. Friends and family have a mandatory responsibility to intervene when the signals of alcohol or addiction are waving frantically in their faces. A great book!!!!

Think of all the good things you wish for your children -- health, happiness, safety and love must surely be on the list -- and then realize, if you are an alcoholic, what you may in truth pass on: fear, grief, rage, an inability to love or be loved, and the terminal disease of alcoholism itself. Mr. Erdmann explores his heritage of alcoholism, passed down from his grandfather to his father to him, and the legacy he gave his children. Burdens too big and confusing for their small trembling shoulders, fear, confusion -- so so sad, and so so common. If you are or think you are an alcoholic, do yourself and the people you love a favor and read this. And even if you don't want to quit drinking, find an AA meeting, shut your mouth and open your ears; give your children a chance, even if you never got one.