Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic

Author: Sarah A. Benton
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 031335281X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 222

Book Description
Who is the typical alcoholic among the 12.5 million living in the United States now? Many, if not most of us when asked that question, would envision a skid row bum or someone at least out of work or with little education locked into a low-skill, low-paying job. But that is not accurate, according to the results of a national study released in June, 2007 by the National Institutes of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. The NIAAA determined that alcoholics in the United States really fall into five subtypes, including nearly 20 percent who are highly functional alcoholics, well-educated with good incomes. They include corporate presidents, powerful politicians, police, lawyers, doctors, scientists, and other highly-skilled, highly-educated people who are middle- to high-income and by most accounts successful. In this unprecedented book, mental health counselor Sarah Benton takes us into the worlds and minds of so-called high-functioning alcoholics, to understand how people so intelligent and achievement-oriented get drawn into states in which they secretly cannot control their liquor consumption but still manage to excel in their careers. The book includes a look at celebrity alcoholics like singer Eric Clapton and actor/comedian Robin Williams, as well as alcoholics in high positions including Chris Albrecht, former Chairman and CEO of HBO. Other high-profile people included in this book are Miss USA 2007 Tara Conner and football legend Joe Namath. With her own story of alcoholism and her recovery woven into the text, Benton takes us into the lives and challenges of these well-educated and successful people, seeking to understand how, when, and why they became addicted, as well as the reasons their alcoholism is, for most, so hard to admit, cope with, and recover from.

When You Love a Functional Alcoholic

Author: William F. Kraft
Publisher: Paulist Press
ISBN: 0809146797
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 177

Book Description
This title says it all: When You Love a Functional Alcoholic, what is one to do? With good grace, a basis in the twelve-step program, and years of experience, Dr. William F. Kraft guides the reader through this most parlous journey-and back to wholeness and holiness and happiness. The book comprises thirty-three bite-size chapters-since it presumes readers are spending much of their time caring for (or bailing out) the alcoholic they love. Specific cases are described in particular, such as parents who live with teenaged alcoholics; children who have to care for elderly alcoholics; and what to do with that sometimes dry/sometimes even sober alcoholic who always seems to ultimately fall off the wagon. Making the book unique are the many stories of former patients, clients, and members of AA in their own words (anonymously, of course). These testimonies, which do not always end in a pot of gold, make not only for compelling (and sometimes heart-rending) reading, but also add a patina of authenticity to the book: if these people can learn to help the alcoholic they love, then perhaps you can too. Ultimately this is a book of acceptance, forgiveness, and love-all of which must begin with oneself. A bibliography completes the work. Book jacket.

Living with a Functioning Alcoholic-A Woman's Survival Guide

Author: Neill Neill
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780981084305
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 200

Book Description
"Living with a Functioning Alcoholic" is a book about hope, written specifically for women living in the chaos of alcoholic families yet unable to seek help from a psychologist.

Alcohol Research & Health

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Alcoholism
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Book Description

Under the Influence

Author: James Robert Milam
Publisher: Bantam
ISBN: 0553274872
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 258

Book Description
Discusses the symptoms, stages, and treatment of alcoholism. Focuses on the disease as physiological, rather than psychological, condition.

Asperger Syndrome and Alcohol

Author: Matthew Tinsley
Publisher: Jessica Kingsley Publishers
ISBN: 1846428149
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 147

Book Description
Asperger Syndrome and Alcohol exposes the unexplored problem of people with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) using alcohol as a coping mechanism to deal with everyday life. Alcohol can relieve the anxiety of social situations and make those with ASDs feel as though they can fit in. Ultimately, however, reliance on alcohol can lead the user down a path of self-destruction and exacerbate existing problems. Utilising their professional and personal experience, the authors provide an overview of ASDs and of alcohol abuse, and explore current knowledge about where the two overlap. Tinsley explores his own personal history as someone with an ASD who has experienced and beaten alcohol addiction. He discusses how the impact of his diagnosis and his understanding of the condition played a huge part in his recovery, and how by viewing his life through the prism of autism, his confusion has been replaced by a greater understanding of himself and the world around him. This inspiring book on an under-researched area will be of interest to professionals working with people with ASDs, as well as individuals with ASDs who may be dealing with alcohol or substance misuse, and their families.

Is Anybody There?

Author: DeFrehn III, George Albert
Publisher: Gadefrehniii LLC
ISBN: 9781495169175
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 330

Book Description
Memoir of a college-educated business person who made significant income and owned many material "things." It has both humorous and tragic elements describing the author's journey from alcoholism to sobriety. If you or a loved one senses or believes that you are having an issue with booze, this book may be for you.

Alcoholics Anonymous

Author: Bill W.
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0698176936
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 418

Book Description
A 75th anniversary e-book version of the most important and practical self-help book ever written, Alcoholics Anonymous. Here is a special deluxe edition of a book that has changed millions of lives and launched the modern recovery movement: Alcoholics Anonymous. This edition not only reproduces the original 1939 text of Alcoholics Anonymous, but as a special bonus features the complete 1941 Saturday Evening Post article “Alcoholics Anonymous” by journalist Jack Alexander, which, at the time, did as much as the book itself to introduce millions of seekers to AA’s program. Alcoholics Anonymous has touched and transformed myriad lives, and finally appears in a volume that honors its posterity and impact.

Reducing Underage Drinking

Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309089352
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 761

Book Description
Alcohol use by young people is extremely dangerous - both to themselves and society at large. Underage alcohol use is associated with traffic fatalities, violence, unsafe sex, suicide, educational failure, and other problem behaviors that diminish the prospects of future success, as well as health risks â€" and the earlier teens start drinking, the greater the danger. Despite these serious concerns, the media continues to make drinking look attractive to youth, and it remains possible and even easy for teenagers to get access to alcohol. Why is this dangerous behavior so pervasive? What can be done to prevent it? What will work and who is responsible for making sure it happens? Reducing Underage Drinking addresses these questions and proposes a new way to combat underage alcohol use. It explores the ways in which may different individuals and groups contribute to the problem and how they can be enlisted to prevent it. Reducing Underage Drinking will serve as both a game plan and a call to arms for anyone with an investment in youth health and safety.

Drinking

Author: Caroline Knapp
Publisher: Dial Press
ISBN: 044033408X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
Fifteen million Americans a year are plagued with alcoholism. Five million of them are women. Many of them, like Caroline Knapp, started in their early teens and began to use alcohol as "liquid armor," a way to protect themselves against the difficult realities of life. In this extraordinarily candid and revealing memoir, Knapp offers important insights not only about alcoholism, but about life itself and how we learn to cope with it. It was love at first sight. The beads of moisture on a chilled bottle. The way the glasses clinked and the conversation flowed. Then it became obsession. The way she hid her bottles behind her lover's refrigerator. The way she slipped from the dinner table to the bathroom, from work to the bar. And then, like so many love stories, it fell apart. Drinking is Caroline Kapp's harrowing chronicle of her twenty-year love affair with alcohol. Caroline had her first drink at fourteen. She drank through her yeras at an Ivy League college, and through an award-winning career as an editor and columnist. Publicly she was a dutiful daughter, a sophisticated professional. Privately she was drinking herself into oblivion. This startlingly honest memoir lays bare the secrecy, family myths, and destructive relationships that go hand in hand with drinking. And it is, above all, a love story for our times—full of passion and heartbreak, betrayal and desire—a triumph over the pain and deception that mark an alcoholic life. Praise for Drinking “Quietly moving . . . Caroline Knapp dazzles us with her heady description of alcohol's allure and its devastating hold.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review “Filled with hard-won wisdom . . . [a] perceptive and revealing book.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Eloquent . . . a remarkable exercise in self-discovery.”—The New York Times “Drinking not only describes triumph; it is one.”—Newsweek