Alcoholism & Addiction Recovery, Volume 1: Your Path to Recovery Can Be Simple But It's Not Easy

Recovery from Alcoholism & Addiction, Volume 1 is a compilation of the first three of five booklets written by Robert C. Hickle, M.A. between 1976 and 1980. Drawing on 40 years of experience where he developed employee assistance programs in both the railroad and manufacturing industries. Counseling hundreds of alcoholics and addicts Bob developed his own way of seeing the alcoholic/addict, their families, the addictions profession, and society’s view of alcohol.

His unique view starts from having had parents who were both alcoholic then raised by his grandmother who was a teetotaler and a member of the Women’s Temperance League. If you asked him, he would tell you he never had even a sip of alcohol believing that if he did, he’d go down the same road as his parent. This was quite an accomplishment given that Bob served in both Army and Navy during WW II. Additionally, he served on several boards and committees during the initial development of alcoholism treatment programs in the State of Iowa while also being a Boy Scout Leader, an active member of the Methodist Church and an avid outdoorsman.

His booklets contain his words of wisdom in short chapters with pithy titles like: “Alcoholics Lie a Lot,” “Sober and In Trouble,” “It’s The Progression That Fools Us” as he relates his observations, experiences, and perspectives as he worked mostly with alcoholics. Always coming from the perspective of caring about the alcoholic, seeing himself as much as a student learning from the alcoholic about the nature and course of alcoholism and its recovery.

I was fortunate to be a friend of his for several years then as he prepared for retirement. I, not being one to mince words, asked him what would happen to his booklets after he died. “I guess they’ll die with me” was his response. It was at that point I offered to keep his works alive by keeping them in print first only as a book then as eBooks, Kindle, and now audiobooks. Making allowances for the time in which he wrote and recognizing that most of his work was with alcoholics you’ll find they have endured the test of time and that what he wrote can easily be applied to any addictive behavior. You will enjoy his writing, finding as he said, “I write the way I talk,” clear, to- the-point and jargon-free.