Recovery Road

Inspirational author Melody Beattie examines the ins and outs of codependency in her book Codependent No More. In this excerpt, Beattie explores the intensity of our feelings as a call to action - bringing us face-to-face with reality. We discover how our compulsive behaviors and addictions are often triggered by buried emotions.

In her book Awakening Blackout Girl, survivor and victims' rights advocate Jennifer Storm shares information, tools, and resources for healing from sexual trauma while also in recovery from substance use. In this excerpt, she discusses the importance of self-awareness. We learn that mistakes are what lead to learning and growth, and that a setback does not mean you're on the verge of relapse.

In Love First: A Family's Guide to Intervention, Jeff and Debra Jay provide steps for harnessing the power of family and friends to create a better future with loved ones who have an addiction. In this excerpt, the authors apply insights from the science of hostage negotiation, highlighting the competing pulls of loss and gain that color every interaction with a person trapped in active addiction.

Those of us in recovery often have had fraught relationships with money. We know that our work includes settling both financial and emotional debts. In this excerpt from her book Spent: Break the Buying Obsession and Discover Your True Worth, psychologist and author Sally Palaian outlines signs of financial health, describes how cleaning up our finances can lead to a sense of abundance, and explains how learning to be flexible and trusting is key to our inner peace in matters of money.

In Finding Your Moral Compass: Transformative Principles to Guide You in Recovery and Life, therapist and addictions specialist Craig Nakken outlines forty-one spiritual principles that we can use to guide our behavior. In this excerpt, we learn how separateness can affect our daily lives in an unhealthy way, while connection with others provides opportunities for growth. Nakken also explains how finding the right community will help us progress on our road to recovery.

In the book A Balanced Life, Tom Smith offers guidance for the family and friends of a person with mental illness on how to support their loved one while maintaining emotional, mental, and spiritual balance in their own lives. In this excerpt, Smith discusses why we may have a hard time accepting the limited control we have over others' actions, and how acceptance can help us move toward greater personal peace and improved relationships.

Undrunk: A Skeptic's Guide to AA by A. J. Adams is a perfect read for those of us who are in early recovery or who are having doubts about joining Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). In this excerpt, we hear how Adams's entire life changed - in body, mind, and spirit - after only one year in the program.

Sandra Swenson, in her book Just Dandy: Living with Heartache and Wishes, shares her pain and struggles, strength and determination, as a series of crises - including her adult son's fight with addiction and her unexpected divorce - continue to unravel her world in unexpected ways. This excerpt is a refreshingly honest account of one woman's experience with heartache, acceptance, and re-discovery as she learns to navigate life on her own and finds new strengths and resiliency.

In this excerpt from her book Recovering Spirituality: Achieving Emotional Sobriety in Your Spiritual Practice, Dr. Ingrid Mathieu explores "Spiritual Bypass," defined as the habit of using spiritual language and insights to avoid dealing with the difficult feelings and experiences that are part of every life.

In Sober But Stuck, Dan F. presents the stories of people who are dealing with difficult barriers in their paths to recovery. In this excerpt, we are introduced to a man who has discovered how the lack of intimacy has hindered his personal relationships and how dealing with our character defects can aid in our recovery progress.