{"product_id":"no-more-letting-go-isbn-9780553383607","title":"No More Letting Go","description":"“Detachment” has been the standard message of most addiction literature for the last twenty years. The conventional wisdom offered to an addict’s loved ones has been to let the addict “hit bottom” before intervening. Now intervention specialist Debra Jay challenges this belief and offers a bold new approach to treating addiction that provides a practical and spiritual lifeline to families struggling with alcohol or drug abuse.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003cb\u003eNo More Letting Go\u003c\/b\u003e, Jay argues that the traditional advice of  “letting go” too often destroys both the addict and the family physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Jay contends that addiction is everybody’s business–not just the addict’s–and addiction doesn’t have the right to trump the welfare of a family. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn short, highly accessible chapters written with warmth, understanding, and compassion, Jay weaves together philosophical and religious thought; new science on the brain function of an addict; the physical and psychological impact of addiction on family members; and poignant, real-life family stories.\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eNo More Letting Go\u003c\/b\u003e is a powerful, informative guide that provides comfort, hope, and practical advice to anyone affected by a family member’s addiction.DEBRA JAY is the co-author of the Hazelden Guidebooks, \u003cb\u003eLove First: A New Approach to Intervention\u003c\/b\u003e, and \u003cb\u003eAging and Addiction\u003c\/b\u003e. A graduate of the Hazelden Addiction Professional Training Program, she currently provides private intervention consultation to families throughout the United States and Canada. Debra appears regularly on \u003ci\u003eOprah\u003c\/i\u003e, has been featured in \u003ci\u003ePrevention Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eMore Magazine\u003c\/i\u003e, and is a national speaker and workshop leader. She resides in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, with her husband, Jeff Jay, where she writes a regular advice column for \u003ci\u003eThe Grosse Pointe News\u003c\/i\u003e.PART ONE\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eQuestioning Our Assumptions\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHitting Bottom:\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA Family Affair\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e       When addiction begins causing serious problems, a family’s greatest fears  turn into reality. They watch with disbelief as the alcoholic continues  drinking while their lives are falling apart. Unable to convince the  alcoholic to stop drinking, families begin searching for answers. In my  years of working with the relatives of alcoholics and addicts, I have  found that families rarely reach out for help until the drinking and  drugging hit a crisis point, and then they are often told: “There’s  nothing you can do until the alcoholic wants help. You’ll just have to let  him hit bottom.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Hitting bottom is an old idea, still imposed upon families as if it were  an absolute. Many families sadly believe that they must wait for  alcoholics to hit bottom before there is any hope for recovery. They  rarely stop to consider that this belief sentences them to years of  unhappiness and devastation. No one ever mentions the fact that alcoholics  and addicts don’t take the trip to the bottom alone—the family goes with  them. Families are never warned that the journey to the bottom takes even  the smallest children.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Hitting bottom should never be our first strategy; it is a strategy of  last resort. Only when every reasonable intervention technique is  exhausted should we let someone free-fall. Even then, there are ways to  raise the bottom, to stretch out the safety net of treatment and recovery.  Addiction always presents new opportunities. The trick is recognizing them  and knowing how to take action.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The premise of hitting bottom is that addicts hit one bottom and, when  they get there, either are struck sober or go running for the nearest  treatment center. But addicts are resilient. They find people to rescue  them. They often bounce along the bottom for years without a flicker of  recognition that they need help. When they find themselves in a tough  spot, alcohol whispers reassurances: There’s nothing to worry about as  long as you have me.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    I was having dinner with some recovering alcoholics, and a particularly  nice fellow in his late fifties was celebrating fifteen years of sobriety.  He talked about living in a roach-infested one-room apartment above a bar  for twelve years, drinking and doing drugs every single day. He said his  life was miserable, but he just couldn’t stop. He came close to dying  several times before getting help. One of the people in our group said,  “Well, you just weren’t ready.” Someone else piped up with, “It takes what  it takes.” Everyone’s head nodded in agreement. Stunned that my dinner  companions thought that this man had had to lose some of the best years of  his life before he was ready to get sober, I asked, “Where was your  family?” He said his wife divorced him and his kids never came around.  “All for the better, really,” he added. “I wasn’t any kind of father worth  having.” I asked what might have happened if everyone in his family, along  with his closest friends, had come to him with a solid plan for recovery  and an outpouring of love. Might he have accepted their help? Could it  have turned out differently for him and his kids? Would his marriage have  survived? He looked at me for a moment and then said, “I never considered  that before. Who knows, I might’ve taken them up on their help. Maybe we  could’ve saved our family.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Do alcoholics ever hit bottom and then climb their way up into sobriety?  Of course they do. But we never know who’ll be the lucky ones or what  price they’ll pay along the way. Three hundred and fifty people a day find  a bottom with no bounce—death. Countless others go to prison, go insane,  or just go nowhere. Families are torn apart, children lose one or both  parents, and relationships are damaged beyond repair. But many begin a  journey of recovery before hitting bottom—the path is tough and rocky at  first but becomes easier to travel as time goes on. Many things motivate  alcoholics to make a turnaround before tragedy strikes, but it is usually  family, friends, or employers. When the Hazelden Foundation asked sober  alcoholics what set them on their new course to recovery, 77 percent said  a friend or relative intervened. Someone cared enough to raise their  bottom.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The best cases against hitting bottom are the real-life stories: A  college-educated, forty-seven-year-old divorced father of three loses  everything, lives in his parents’ basement drinking and smoking pot daily,  and is unable to hold a job. A twenty-four-year-old trades his  girlfriend’s new car for crack cocaine. The police find a  seventy-two-year-old grandmother half naked and passed out on her front  lawn. Babies are strapped in the backseat as a mother drives drunk to buy  more wine; the police stop her, taking the children to protective services  and Mom to jail. A young father goes to bed drunk and suffocates on his  own vomit. A successful thirty-two-year-old woman driving home intoxicated  kills a father and his daughter when she slams into them on the freeway.  All of these stories come from families I’ve worked with, and no words can  express their pain or deep, abiding sense of loss. Waiting for alcoholics  to hit unknown bottoms results in much tragedy and heartbreak.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    “Bottoms” can be temporary. Alcoholics resist getting sober even when  things are going badly in their lives. They are good at weathering storms.  Perhaps they’ll swear off alcohol for a while, but as soon as things cool  down, they begin drinking again. The addicted brain can’t make lasting  connections between alcohol and the problems it causes. Once the problems  go away, alcohol is their best friend again. Addiction is both invisible  and sacred to alcoholics: they deny its existence yet sacrifice everything  to it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    Addicts don’t want to cause trouble or hurt the people they love. Quite  the contrary: they struggle to be the person they think they still are,  the person they were before the addiction took hold. They can’t make sense  of their own actions. As their addiction progresses and troubles mount,  they work harder to manage their lives, but addiction never lets anyone  lead a life free of trouble. There are always problems, big and small. Bad  behavior, poor decisions, and emotional upheaval are all symptoms of this  disease, which affects both the brain and the soul. Families are confused,  too. Not understanding what is happening to their loved one, they mutter,  “When will she learn?” But addicts can’t learn because addiction keeps  tightening its grip, demanding complete allegiance.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e    The apostle Paul could have been describing an addict when he wrote: “I do  not understand my own behavior; I do not act as I mean to, but I do things  that I hate. Though the will to do what is good is in me, the power to do  it is not; the good thing that I want to do, I never do; the evil thing  which I do not want—that is what I do.” As alcoholics try to resolve the  conflict between how they want to behave and how they are behaving, in the  end, the only solution they can see is another drink.","brand":"Bantam","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304011157733,"sku":"NP9780553383607","price":19.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780553383607.jpg?v=1767733810","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/no-more-letting-go-isbn-9780553383607","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}