Sober and Staying That Way : The Missing Link in the Cure for Alcoholism - Hardcover

Powter, Susan

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684815958 ISBN 13: 9780684815954

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Synopsis

Uses humor and personal stories of triumph to illustrate a lifesaving prescription for people with alcohol problems to help them overcome their addiction

About this title

Review:

Alcoholics Anonymous has a 12 percent recovery rate, but what about the remaining 88 percent? "Waiting for the right time to quit, the motivation? Well, there is none," writes Susan Powter in her characteristically direct but chatty style. It's the Powter magic that makes accessible--even persuasive--what has been known in the field for almost 40 years: alcoholism is a biochemical disease. If that's the case, Powter asks in Sober ... and Staying That Way, then why the adamant belief that alcoholism is incurable? Powter's combination of personal disclosure, exposé, and a program for lasting recovery looks soberly at the biochemical and psychological components of alcoholism.

Powter's national prominence as a fitness expert and author of Stop the Insanity! made her disclosure all the more difficult. But it's when Prowter recollects her famous struggle with obesity, drawing from the lessons of goal setting and values searching, that Sober acquires credibility. There was not, she remembers, any instant cure, nor should there be for alcoholism. Recalling the discipline and self-education that preceded her dramatic weight loss, Powter discovered a vitamin-based nutrition program with an 80 percent recovery rate.

Powter presents facts unforgetably: "Did you know that alcohol is one of the richest foods known to man?... This stuff is amazing. It's got calories, it's a food, it gives you energy, but ... it's a food with only calories, nothing else.... Malnutrition. You and I are malnourished." Smart and upbeat--a combination of Powter's triumph over her ordeal with the biochemical and psychological components of recovery--Sober ... and Staying That Way is like a 12-step personal trainer.

From the Publisher:

Millions of people are alcoholics and countless more family members, friends, and loved ones are affected by this insidious disease.

As an eleven-year-old child in a family ravaged by alcoholism, Susan Powter was one of the youngest members of Alanon. In recent years she has had to confront this disease in herself. Her national prominence as a fitness expert and the author of Stop the Insanity! (twenty weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, including nine weeks at number one) made this all the more difficult and shameful for her. But with the same fierce determination that took her on a journey to understand and cure her own obesity, she set out to find the answers to her own alcoholism.

For almost forty years it has been known that alcoholism is a biochemical disease. In extreme exasperation, Powter asks the question, "Why have we just accepted the fact that there is no cure for alcoholism and that the only treatment available is through organizations like AA? Disease talk doesn't cure." Some experts say that Alcoholics Anonymous has a 7 to 12 percent recovery rate. Illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease, and cancer all have treatments. We wouldn't stand for inactivity in the medical professions when it comes to these diseases, so why, Powter asks, do we stand for it when it comes to alcoholism? In Sober...and Staying That Way: The Missing Link in the Cure for Alcoholism, Powter exposes the truth behind the years of documented research into alcoholism.

For the first time, Susan Powter tells the story of her search for answers. What she found was the missing link in a cure for alcoholism. She discovered a vitamin-based nutrition program that has yielded an 80 percent recovery rate. By combining this vitamin-based treatment with other crucial components -- overcoming the shame associated with the disease, proper eating, exercise, and education -- Powter devised a program that cured her and will work for millions of others.

Powter's book is at once a personal story, an exposé, and a program for lasting recovery. As Powter puts it, her book "will take the reader out of the lies and into the truth so that alcoholism can be brought out of the closet and into the light."

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0684815958
• ISBN 13: 9780684815954
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320