Product Description

Recognising that 12-step programs rarely help those in them quit booze or other drugs for good, this book provides techniques to counter the self-defeating beliefs that lead to and foster addictions including addiction to ineffective 12-step groups. It enables those who have gone through Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and formal 12-step addiction treatments to overcome the self-destructive beliefs and attitudes that these programs promote. These include the idea that addicts and alcoholics are powerless, the belief that addiction is an incurable disease, the assertion that people who slip inevitably lose control, and the notion that those who reject the 12-step approach are doomed. Most importantly, this book presents well-supported methods for quitting booze and other drugs for good, for helping individuals to recognise and vanquish negative thinking and to help these people regain control of their lives in a truly self-help, do it yourself format. All this and more without wasting decades sitting through useless meeting.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #491931 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

From the Author
The AA recovery package includes abandonment of your core beliefs and your self-direction. In AA jargon this is euphemistically referred to as, "letting go of your old ideas absolutely." The purpose is to un-learn self-defeating behaviors, turn your life and will over to a Higher Power, and become one of the one-in-thirty-three AA members who succeed in quitting booze (barring occasional relapses).

But doing the opposite of this, standing on your own two feet and thinking for yourself, will be a powerful force in forging a new life of discovery, not recovery. And by enriching your own life, you’ll enrich the lives of others. Whether you are currently in a 12-step program, are contemplating joining one, or feel exploited by the Recovery Group Movement, always remember you have choices. Right now, you can choose between learning from the real experts on overcoming addiction—the 77-82% of the self-discovered who know how to quit, or the "recovering" 3% of AA members who don’t.

So, if you desire freedom from addiction and lifelong recovery, read Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits: An Empowering Alternative to AA and 12 Step Treatment. Get ready to jump off—The Recovery Merry-Go-Round!

From the Back Cover
"Jim DeSena joins a long list of those familiar with alcoholism treatment who note that the king has no clothes-that AA and the 12 steps help a minority of alcoholics at the cost of selling them a nonsensical bill of goods. Jim's journey through the field makes for both fun reading and for important insights about ways out of alcoholism that most people will find more helpful than 12-step mumbo jumbo."
Stanton Peele, Ph.D., Author of: The Truth About Addiction and Recovery

"Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits by James DeSena is a self-help book about quitting an addiction. Written especially for people who are bogged down by AA's approach, DeSena exposes and debunks many of AA's teachings that some people find insulting, absurd, and self-defeating. Then he presents a theory of quitting an addiction that works through effort and a new set of beliefs, which does not rely on religious ideas. If you haven't gotten the help you expected from AA, read this book."
Philip Tate, Ph.D., Author of: Alcohol: How to Give It Up and Be Glad You Did

About the Author
James DeSena is a certified alcohol and drug addiction counselor who has chaired hundreds of non-12-step self-help meetings. He lives in Florham Park, New Jersey.

Customer Reviews

The Truth That Addiction/Recovery �Experts� Never Tell You!
After eight years of "recovering," three stints in rehab, countless AA meetings, countless hours spent with Certified Alcohol Counselors (CAC's), and shrinks----I am finally free----Free from a lifetime of "recovering," free from rehabs, free from AA, free from counselors, shrinks, and most importantly, I'm finally free from my self-destructive addiction to booze. This is a true, gut-feeling freedom I never experienced during my eight-year association with the one-day-at-time "recovering" community of Alcoholics Anonymous. For this, I will be forever grateful for finding Jim DeSena's powerful and liberating book, Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits: An Empowering Alternative to AA and 12-Step Treatment.

DeSena has put into words what clearly many "recovering" people think and feel, but are too afraid, reluctant, embarrassed or intimidated to say: That AA and 12-step programs are NOT the universal answer for everyone when it comes to beating an addiction, or for living thier lives post-addiction. CAC's, therapists, rehabs and the addiction/recovery "experts" are, for the most part, ALL AA "Moonies." It's obvious that those who have found what they believe to be the "spiritual solution" to beating alcoholism/addiction promote it with religious fanaticism. Rarely are addicted folks offered alternative modes of recovery even when it's blatantly clear that the 12-step "recovery" method is not helping them. I should know, I lived it, or should I say, I endured it for eight grueling years.

Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits has opened my eyes to an array of methods and alternative 12-step programs that the addiction treatment "experts" NEVER offered me. And all these alternatives have great things to offer. It baffles me why rehabs and addiction/recovery "experts" withhold this lifesaving information to those needlessly struggling in the 12-step method. Regardless of how many people the "experts" claim AA has "helped," it simply DOES NOT benefit everyone. Do we prescribe only one diet plan to everyone who desires to lose weight? This knowledge alone, that alternatives do exist, has instilled in me a sense of control over my behavior and a peace of mind I never knew in AA, because my struggles with sobriety were ALWAYS blamed on my "denial," or my failure to "work a good 12-step program." It is said that, "God helps those who help themselves." If true, would God really mind if we found our sobriety through an alternative to AA's Program? Would God try to stop us from saving our own lives?

I urge anyone who is struggling in his or her "recovery" to give Jim DeSena's book a careful read. Give yourself the opportunity to free yourself not only from addiction, but also from a lifetime of dreary meetings with a "recovering" community that walks on eggshells, because their "sobriety" only lasts for 24-hour clips. Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits will show you how to beat your addiction for good, not recover from it one-day-at-a-time. As DeSena's explains in his book, "Once you discover what you're actually up against, quitting alcohol and other drugs will become a learned skill well within your ability, like learning to ride a bicycle. Yes, You'll be a bit wobbly at first, but once you've learned---it's over! There's no need for daily practice---or one-day-at-a-time recovery." You have everything to gain and nothing to loose except your self-defeating addictions, a lifetime of "recovering" and the backward looking, disempowering label of "alcoholic/addict" for life.

Great book, but. . .
Overcoming your Alcohol, Drug, and Recovery Habits is an excellent book. It is thorough, scientifically sound, and effective. It is geared mostly to those who have had experiences in 12-step constant recovery, but would also be very useful and helpful to those who have not had personal experiences in the 12 step programs.

Some reviewers seemed to be offended or bothered by the Desena's constant criticism towards AA and its offshoot programs. Those reviewers missed the point, I think, entirely. AA has-- by it's OWN account-- only a 5% success rate. Some studies have put this rate at between 2-5%. Additionally, because AA adheres to the faulty disease model regarding alcoholism and addiction, AAers believe they are ALWAYS sick and ALWAYS in need of neverending recovery, meetings, contact with their sponsors, contact with other self-professed sick people, ad infinitum. AA is dogmatic and encourages members not to think, just do the program. If members continue to think, and question and criticize the AA credo, they are accused of being in denial. It's a lose-lose scenario.

Desena is attempting to educate the public about the truth of 12 step recovery programs. Common belief is that AA works. The truth is that it doesn't work for 95% or more of those who try it. Actually, it might be a lot less than that because that 5% are only those that remain members. Those members that remain aren't counted because they remain sober, they're counted because they remain members. AA expects these members to have occasional relapses. So, we're not even talking about a SOBER 5%, necessarily. We're just talking about membership.

Harvard University estimates that those that quit without AA have a success rate of between 77-82%.

People need to know the truth, and the truth is hard to find unless we're lucky enough to be exposed to authors such as Desena, Peele, Schaler, Trimpey, Ellis, Fingarette, Horvath, etc. The mainstream media accepts the disease model and AA as the "only" effective treatment as do our schools, courts, etc. The word has to get out that not only isn't AA the only effective treatment, it's the LEAST effective treatment. To go a step further, it's not just the LEAST effective treatment, it's downright detrimental treatment! Imagine being told that you are powerless, have no control, are doomed to suffer from alcoholism and/or addiction your entire life, NEED AA to survive, must go to meetings on a daily basis, must do the steps, accept God into your life, have a spiritual awakening, admit your failures to others, spend your social time with other self-professed sick people, must put your sponsor above your family, live only for today (not set healthy goals for your future), are doomed to death or jail without AA, are doomed to relapse in the future, put the fellowship first at all times, stop thinking independently, stop questioning, listen to the same stories over and over again, etc., etc. Imagine this. This is OBVIOUSLY detrimenal, not helpful. Yet, most of us accept this propaganda as truth. In this book, Desena mentions Hitler's concept of the big lie: repeat it often enough, and people will believe it.

The only criticism I have of Desena's book is that his model to quit your addiction is identical in every single way to Jack Trimpey's model in Rational Recovery. Not only is it identical (Trimpey calls the addictive voice the "beast", while Desena calls it "the parasite"), he even uses the same words to describe the addict's feelings (the word ambivalence in a specific context-- not how it's commonly used). This was a put off.

However, at the same time, I found the book very helpful, and the rest of the book was full of useful information, so I gave it 4 stars. Additionally, as good as Jack Trimpey's book is, it hasn't been updated in awhile and some of the information in it regarding his Rational Recovery program is a little outdated, so this is a good book just because it's newer and the information that Desena has IS up to date. Still, the approach to quit IS so identical, I'm surprised that Desena had the nerve to state it was original. It would have made more sense if Trimpey and Desena collaborated on a new book. The other thing is, if you are just interested in the basic program to quit drinking and not the deprogramming aspect of the book, you can find most of the information on Jack Trimpey's site for free. He offers the basic program (which is identical to Desena's) on his website at no cost, and you can get a great idea of how it works. Desena's website is really jsut a sales pitch for the book.

The Real Truth That Betty Ford Will Never Tell You!
After eight years of "recovering," three stints in rehab, countless AA meetings, countless hours spent with Certified Alcohol Counselors (CAC's), and shrinks----I am finally free----Free from a lifetime of "recovering," free from rehabs, free from AA, free from counselors, shrinks, and most importantly, I'm finally free from my self-destructive addiction to booze. This is a true, gut-feeling freedom I never experienced during my eight-year association with the one-day-at-time "recovering" community of Alcoholics Anonymous. I've liberated myself from what DeSena terms, "The recovery merry-go-round." I have reclaimed my life. For this, I will be forever grateful for finding Jim DeSena's powerful and liberating book, Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits: An Empowering Alternative to AA and 12-Step Treatment.

DeSena has put into words what clearly many "recovering" people think and feel, but are too afraid, embarrassed, reluctant or intimidated to say: That AA and 12-step programs are NOT the universal answer for everyone when it comes to beating an addiction, or for living thier lives post-addiction. CAC's, 12-step therapists,people who operate the rehabs and the addiction/recovery "experts" are, for the most part, ALL AA "Moonies." It's obvious that those who have found what they believe to be the "spiritual solution" to beating alcoholism/addiction promote it with religious zeal. Rarely are addicted folks offered alternative modes of recovery even when it's blatantly clear that the 12-step "recovery" method is not helping them. I should know, I lived it, or should I say, I endured it for eight grueling years.

Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits has opened my eyes to an array of methods and alternative 12-step programs that the addiction treatment "experts" NEVER offered me. And all these alternatives have great things to offer. It baffles me why rehabs and addiction/recovery "experts" withhold this lifesaving information to those needlessly struggling in the 12-step method. Regardless of how many people the "experts" claim AA has "helped," it simply DOES NOT benefit everyone. Do we prescribe only one diet plan to everyone who desires to lose weight? This knowledge alone, that alternatives do exist, has instilled in me a sense of control over my behavior and a peace of mind I never knew in AA, because my struggles with sobriety were ALWAYS blamed on my "denial," or my failure to "work a good 12-step program." As DeSena points out in his book, "It is said that God helps those who help themselves. If true, would God really mind if we found our sobriety through an alternative to the AA Program? Would God try to stop us from saving our own lives?"

I urge anyone who is struggling in his or her "recovery" to give Jim DeSena's book a careful read. Give yourself the opportunity to free yourself not only from addiction, but also from a lifetime of dreary meetings with a "recovering" community that walks on eggshells, because their "sobriety" only lasts for 24-hour clips. Overcoming Your Alcohol, Drug and Recovery Habits will show you how to beat your addiction for good, not recover from it one-day-at-a-time. As DeSena also explains, "Once you discover what you're actually up against, quitting alcohol and other drugs will become a learned skill well within your ability, like learning to ride a bicycle. Yes, You'll be a bit wobbly at first, but once you've learned---it's over! There's no need for daily practice---or one-day-at-a-time recovery." You have everything to gain and nothing to loose except your self-defeating addictions, a lifetime of "recovering" and the disempowering label of "alcoholic/addict" for life.