Empowering Your Sober Self: The LifeRing Approach to Addiction Recovery Paperback – April 20, 2009

A MUST-HAVE for ANYONE struggling with addiction, or friends or family of someone doing so, who wants a secular (non-12-step, non-mystical (("spiritual")) approach to sobriety, founded upon logic, science, and evidence. This book changed my life, no exaggeration whatsoever,as well as the lives of many friends. What a breath of fresh air in the field of recovery I found this book to be. Read it, you'll agree, I've no doubt.

Empowering Your Sober Self leaves AA's disempowering approach (that we are powerless & must seek the grace of god, higher power & etc) in the dust. AA, the most famous recovery group suffers 95% of newcomers leaving in the first year and for good reason, its negative approach.There are many modern methods of overcoming addiction, here's a good & positive approach.

Has been two weeks since beginning my new sober life with help from the insight provided by LifeRing. I recommend this to absolutely everyone. AA never sat well with me, I could not come to terms that I was powerless, had a "character defect," and the only answer was a higher power with not taking any real personal responsibility. This book explains the origins of AA and 12-step programs a bit, comparing this approach to that. I really owe my current clarity and road to happiness on this book. I am also beginning the workbook.

Empowering Your Sober Self is a book whose importance is almost impossible to overestimate. The author has two basic goals. The first is to point out the many weaknesses of the 12-step approach to alcohol/drug addiction recovery. He does this several ways. He discusses the religious background of the originator of AA. Because Bill W. was able to overcome his addiction to alcohol by an experience of religious conversion (for 80 years institutionalized in AA/NA twelve step programs), a one size fits all is the hallmark of the vast majority of alcohol/drug treatment inpatient and outpatient programs. The author points out statistics and anecdotal reports that no more than 5% of patients respond to the 12 step approach. Anyone who has been in a 12 step program well knows the rigidity of this approach.Second, Nicolaus puts forward a new much more flexible approach to maintaining sobriety. Group support for sobriety is the hallmark of this new approach (Called LifeRing). Importantly there is a relapse prevention/sobriety maintainance manual developed by LifeRing called Recovery by Choice: Living and Enjoying Life Free of Alcohol and DrugsWorkbook. See lifering.or for more information on this extremely important new approach to the treatment of alcohol/drug addiction.

I have been looking for a secular approach to sobriety for a very long time. The approach is simple and well-referenced - with some great history on the development of the disease model reaching back centuries. Finally - I am so grateful.

LifeRing Secular Recovery has been growing steadily over the last decade and is providing an Alternative to 12 step recovery. Empowering Your Sober Self gives a guided tour through the development and use of Personal Recovery Program or PRP. The core of the LifeRing philosophy is that the best recovery program is the one that is individual to the person using it. This recognition that "one size does not fit all" is consistent with modern research based findings such as found in the extensive "Project Match"study and others. LifeRing believes that the best way to arrive at a custom fit recovery program is for the recovering person themselves to design it using the plethora of self help tools available today. This can include diet, exercise, meditation, yoga, CBT, positive psychology and many other tools that are discussed in the "How was your week" format used in LifeRing meetings around the country. Not only does this result in a recovery program that uniquely fits the individual, it forces the recovering person to take the ultimate responsibility for their own recovery, ironically the essential ingredient missing so often in other programs.

I work a 12-Step program already and I was recommended to this book after I said I'm just not completely on board with the whole powerlessness over everything stuff that I hear so many talk about, and that I found that how I worked my program to be very empowering. Everyone works their program differently, and this book has some ideas in it that might help some, and I was helped by some of the ideas inside. What I don't appreciate is where the author slams on AA and doesn't really even know what he's talking about. But I do appreciate that recovery from substance abuse is so important that people need as many options as possible. However this program doesn't really offer yet anything in the way of fellowship in most areas, and I cannot imagine working on sobriety without many face-to-face meetings. I recommend to those who are intrigued by it's ideas. But just as with anything else, take what you want and leave the rest.

Awesome product and perfect service. Buy with confidence.