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How to Quit Drinking without AA: A Complete Self-Help Guide, 2nd Edition By Jerry Dorsman ( Three Rivers Press )
Release Date: 1997-10-01
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List Price: $15.95
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Product Description
Now You Can Take Control of Your Own Recovery Process
Alcoholics Anonymous is not the only answer or even the best answer for many people. In fact, seven of every eight people who start AA's 12-step program abandon it within three years. Fortuanately, there are more effective ways to quit drinking—proven methods that will help you be successful on your own terms.
Inside this life-affirming book is the new beginning you're looking for. Certified addictions counselor and 16-year recovering alcoholic Jerry Dorsman offers more than 100 proven techniques to gain control of your recovery. His self-help approach includes the best:
·Step-by-step instructions for breaking the habit
·Foods to help you beat the cravings
·Methods for internal cleansing and detox
·Nutrition information for rebuilding your health
·And much more!
"A thorough approach backed with practical guidelines and techniques."—Addiction and Recovery Magazine
"The right blend of substance and simplicity. Bubbling with resources."—Natural Health magazine
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Amazon.com Review
"Quit drinking on your own terms," urges Jerry Dorsman, addictions counselor and an alcoholic in recovery for over 16 years. Those terms, carefully outlined in How to Quit Drinking Without AA, shift the treatment model away from disease toward holism. In this upbeat and clearly written guide, Dorsman neither moralizes nor locks the alcoholic in the perception of powerlessness. "A part of you remains nonalcoholic, no matter how much you drink," Dorsman counsels. This book aims at reaching the strength and integrity of the nonalcoholic self. Offering a refreshing look at the problem, Dorsman emphasizes habit over disease. If drinking is a learned behavior, it can be unlearned. Each chapter contains worksheets designed to penetrate the alcoholic's denial and exercises to assess the problem. Five simply stated steps integrate psychological and physical realties. A chapter on healing details a regimen of healthy eating, physical exercise, and great activities to substitute for drinking. A chapter on renewal offers auxiliary therapies to drug and alcohol treatment such as acupuncture, massage, and tai chi. How To Quit Drinking Without AA will appeal to those who are ready to take charge of their recovery, seeing it as nothing less than the means to change one's life.
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 Fundamental basis for this book is factually wrong ( robertkeaten )
As a qualifier, I have problems with alcohol addiction, and I am also a chemical engineer. I have tried AA and stayed sober for some time, but in the long run, it didn't work for me. I couldn't accept the first 3 steps of the 12, so I looked for an alternative. Unfortunately, this book is just factually wrong. The basis for the recovery program is based on Dorsman's assertion that alcohol is metabolized into glucose, so that alcohol consumption is equivalent to eating suger, causing hypoglycemia etc. This is plain wrong! Alcohol does have empty calories, but not because alcohol is a sugar. Alcohol is metabolized via it's own pathway through acetaldehyde to acetic acid to carbon dioxide (not glucose!) Your body will preferentially burn alcohol over any other foods since it is a poison and your body is desperately trying to get rid of the poison. As a byproduct of the metabolism, energy is generated.
There are much better books for those looking to quit drinking without AA, Two suggestions: "The Easy Way to Stop Drinking" by Allen Carr and "Alcohol: How to give it up and be glad you did" by Philip Tate.
I also wholeheartedly endorse giving AA a try. It didn't work for me, but it has worked for many people. I truly hope you (and I) can find the path to freedom from alcohol.
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 to each their own...
For those who get what they need from this book; are able to stop or control their drinking... Our hats are off to you!
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Sure - Give It a Shot ( jm14 )
If it works for you - that is, if you stop drinking, and stay stopped - then great.
If it doesn't, you can always go to AA and get and stay sober.
(Whole lot of misconceptions about AA out there. Really, you don't have to believe or think anything in order to be there. Many people don't like AA simply because the very idea of it threatens their drinking. And drinking is something they don't actually want to stop doing; they would just like the pain and suffering to go away and still keep drinking.)
Me, I haven't had a drink or a drug in 23 years, and my life is much the better for it. (And AA was and remains a fine help in that.)
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Didn't work me either ( lti99 )
I read the book a while ago, didn't finish it, and it was interesting but I didn't find very helpfull. They have go on these, from what I thought ridicoulous diets. Anyway, I might give it another go and read it.
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A Little Too Black & White ( frankbluntly )
The title of this book, "How to Quit Drinking Without AA", assumes a key premise - that quitting drinking is the paramount thing for an alcoholic. The title does not mention that its intended audience is the alcoholic, but if one is not alcoholic, then they probably have not come to this book for help. If one is, then the solution they seek must be one that is effective for their disease. That said, I'm writing this review from the alcoholic point of view, rather than some other type of heavy drinker.
If quitting drinking were the paramount thing in solving the disease of alcoholism, then the solution would be simple. Eliminate the physical cravings that are set up by the physical addiction. Any garden variety detoxification unit is your answer - and any local hospital will have a competent detox unit. But, frankly, if all you need is detox, then you're not dealing with the disease of alcoholism.
Alcoholism has less to do with drinking itself, than it does with the root causes that lead an alcoholic to drink. Why would a perfectly sober alcoholic, not suffering the cravings that are symptomatic only of physical addiction to drink, choose to pick up that first drink that then leads to re-establishment of the addiction? It seems like madness - and, it is.
Any alcoholic who has broken the bonds of craving, simply to find themselves led back to the whole vicious cycle, knows the problem isn't simply about stopping drinking. Alcoholics are driven back to that first drink by something beyond physical addiction alone. The only effective type of treatment for alcoholism, then, has to involve something something to treat that obsession that leads one back to pick up that first drink.
Bottom line, AA does not claim to be the ONLY solution to the problem of alcoholism - simply that it has a solution that works for a great number of alcoholics. Perhaps the fellow who wrote this book is onto something - perhaps not. In either case, it will have nothing to do with whether someone should or should not try AA. Nor should this be a subject which is treated with a black and white worldview of "this won't work" - because, when one is at the bottom of their despair, such a worldview could cost their life.
I hope that the individual who comes to rely on this book will find a solution that works. But if they don't, please remember that there are other options.
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