Twenty-one million alcoholics.
Three times as many alcohol abusers.
Nine out of ten who quit relapse at least once.
Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud shows why it’s not just once… without pithy slogans or trademarked solutions.
The popular alcohologists on the air or on bookshelves have stellar credentials as counselors but they lose credibility with many in the market because they haven’t had to eat their own cooking. Alcoholics prefer hearing from people who’ve lived it, not just theorists. My effort extends beyond reporting to include anecdotes from a white-collar, two-liters-of-80-proof-a-day alcoholic in recovery. Without being a memoir, I break out why relapse happens and what works from the styles of many counselors because I’m not wed to any of their methods to make a living but to keep living.
Every Silver Lining Has a Cloud tells how relapse feels and what leads up to it. You don’t need a PhD or MD to read this. I cite the meat of the clinical research, but the book reads as a narrative like What the Early Worm Gets rather than a textbook. It dashes along peaks of anger, joy, desperation, relief and hope interspersed with solid data on the disease and guidance for avoiding relapse traps.
I’ve identified Symptoms of Sobriety to describe how relapse feels before it leads to drinking. What causes the Symptoms – and what makes the solutions – is based upon time-honored, evidence-based principles and interviews with more than 280 men and women who’ve relapsed.
Each of the 21 million Alcoholics affects eight more people.... For those 170 million, there’s something here, too, because they’re sitting back witnessing relapse, wondering WHY – after staying alcohol-free – ANYONE would go back to the misery. It’s sometimes easier for them to deal with a drinking Alcoholic than a sober one because with a drinking one they know what the problem is. My book gives them a glimpse into the sober Alcoholic’s struggles, plus how to help.