But despite the unprecedented attention, our understanding of addiction is trapped in unfounded 20th century ideas, addiction as a crime or as brain disease, and in equally outdated treatment.Challenging both the idea of the addict's "broken brain" and the notion of a simple "addictive personality," The New York Times Bestseller, Unbroken Brain, offers a radical and groundbreaking new perspective, arguing that addictions are learning disorders and shows how seeing the condition this way can untangle our current debates over treatment, prevention and policy. Like autistic traits, addictive behaviors fall on a spectrum -- and they can be a normal response to an extreme situation. By illustrating what addiction is, and is not, the book illustrates how timing, history, family, peers, culture and chemicals come together to create both illness and recovery- and why there is no "addictive personality" or single treatment that works for all.Combining Maia Szalavitz's personal story with a distillation of more than 25 years of science and research, Unbroken Brain provides a paradigm-shifting approach to thinking about addiction.Her writings on radical addiction therapies have been featured in The Washington Post, Vice Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times, in addition to multiple other publications. She has been interviewed about her book on many radio shows including Fresh Air with Terry Gross and The Brian Lehrer show.

    Refuge Recovery is a systematic method based on Buddhist principles, which integrates scientific, non-theistic, and psychological insight.Viewing addiction as cravings in the mind and body, Levine shows how a path of meditative awareness can alleviate those desires and ease suffering. Refuge Recovery includes daily meditation practices, written investigations that explore the causes and conditions of our addictions, and advice and inspiration for finding or creating a community to help you heal and awaken.Practical yet compassionate, Levine's successful Refuge Recovery system is designed for anyone interested in a non-theistic approach to recovery and requires no previous experience or knowledge of Buddhism or meditation.

     From the moment she uttered the brave and honest words, "I am an alcoholic," to interviewer George Stephanopoulos, Elizabeth Vargas began writing her story, as her experiences were still raw. Now, in Between Breaths, Vargas discusses her accounts of growing up with anxiety--which began suddenly at the age of six when her father served in Vietnam--and how she dealt with this anxiety as she came of age, eventually turning to alcohol for a release from her painful reality. The now-A&E Network reporter reveals how she found herself living in denial about the extent of her addiction, and how she kept her dependency a secret for so long. She addresses her time in rehab, her first year of sobriety, and the guilt she felt as a working mother who could never find the right balance between a career and parenting. Honest and hopeful, Between Breaths is an inspiring read. Winner of the Books for a Better Life Award in the First Book category Instant New York Times and USA Today Bestseller

    Before Nic became addicted to crystal meth, he was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets. David Sheff traces the first warning signs: the denial, the three a.m. phone calls—is it Nic? the police? the hospital? His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself. But as a journalist, he instinctively researched every treatment that might save his son. And he refused to give up on Nic.

    Because the source of addiction isn't the drug or activity itself but a desire for a mood changer, successful recovery means ultimately changing the way we live, giving up the addictive life-style. Willpower's Not Enough will show you how to change your life-style and to recover from your addiction.

    It explains why a New Age has dawned in human consciousness on planet Earth and explores the interrelationship between subjects that range from the Bible, Buddha, and Jesus to quantum physics, molecular biology, and AIDS. The belief system the book is based upon is exemplified by this quote from The Dance of Wounded Souls: "We are not sinful, shameful human creatures who have to somehow earn Spirituality. We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We are here to experience and learn, to Touch and to feel." The author, a therapist who specializes in codependence/inner child healing, not only explains the big picture of how we are all ONE, part of one Cosmic energy interaction that is unfolding perfectly, he also offers insights into how the individual being can lovingly change their relationship with self and life in order to transform their human experience into a much more enjoyable adventure. This is a life-changing, life-affirming book.

    Roped into chauffeuring his grandma and dying grandfather on weekly adventures, he realized that, sixty-three years later, they were still madly in love."Now, that's the marriage I want!" he said to himself. Fired up to find more success stories, Mat talked his best friend, Jason Miller, a clueless commitmentphobe, into joining him on a cross-country search for America's greatest marriages, which they called "Project Everlasting." The two bumbling bachelors jumped in an RV and embarked on a 12,000-mile adventure, encompassing the beaches of Los Angeles, the skyscrapers of Manhattan, the bayous of Louisiana, and the mountains of Montana, to discover what it takes to make love last -- not from Ph.D.s or therapists but from more than 200 real couples who had walked the walk to more than forty years of marriage. In Project Everlasting, they share their wisdom. Each chapter is dedicated to one of the pressing quest ions the bachelors asked the couples, such as: •"How do you know you've found The One?" •"What's missing from today's marriages?" •"How do you keep the romance alive?" •"What's the most important ingredient for a solid marriage?" The couples opened their hearts and homes to Mat and Jason to reveal intimate and authentic portraits of fulfilling marriage. Couples like the Byrds, in New Orleans, who lost nearly everything they owned in the devastation of Katrina -- except their love and commitment to each other. Or ninety-somethings Ruth and Eddie Elcott in Los Angeles, who spent the first two years of their marriage separated by World War II and the later years of their marriage reading their wartime love letters to each other at bedtime.

    It goes on for all of us as long as we live. To be intimate is to be close, to be vulnerable, qualities that are very different from the survival skills we learned. This book will help clarify the issues for you.You can learn to:Identify family myths to make you wonder whether having a healthy, intimate relationship is possible.Know the questions to ask to find out whether you and your partner have a long-term future together.Be aware of misunderstandings that can sabotage your relationship.Express your feelings and fears so as to avoid misunderstandings.Find our what to do when your relationship is not working.Create good relationships.Acquiring intimacy skills can be difficult, but through understanding and effort, they can be learned. This insightful book is a good place to begin.

    self help, recovery from toxic relationships, narcissism

    Dr. Brandy Engler, psychologist and sex therapist, allows readers access into the therapy room to witness how women are handling dilemmas such as: a husband’s proposal for a threesome, post- wedding disappointment, a new lover’s unusual kink, the temptation to cheat, love vs. singlehood, using sex work to pay for college loans and the ubiquitous loss of sexual desire.The Women on My Couch gives women a voice, and helps them find their voice, in a rapidly changing culture, where freedom is both liberating and confusing, exhilarating and at times disappointing. Women will see their lives mirrored back to them with honesty, warmth and humor.

    The key to introvert/extrovert bliss lies in understanding what makes the other person tick and using your differences to help balance and enrich the relationship.This book offers advice for making it happen:Learn how innies and outies process information and communicate differently Discover ways to create a fulfilling social life for yourself and your partner Find creative ways to blend decision-making and future-planning styles Get past the dangerous question, why can't you be more like me? Turn up the heat in the introvert/extrovert bedroomThe book is based on current scientific research and innie/outie interviews. It is also based upon the authors' personal experiences as a mixed couple—introvert Marti Olsen Laney and extrovert Michael Laney have been happily married for more than forty-two years. They must be doing something right!

    It is an acute and compassionate look at male mid-life crises, female sexual desire, death and the fear of it, children and the trouble with them - all the things we battle with every day.

    It describes how we feel about some of the things we do. We don't wake up in the morning looking forward to giving our evening over to pornography. We don't leave the house each day eagerly anticipating our next one-night stand. These are unwanted behaviors on our part, no matter how compulsively we pursue them.But "unwanted" also can describe how we feel about ourselves--both as a consequence of our broken behavior and as a driver of it. If we have the courage to study our sexual brokenness--to look beyond the shame of it to its roots--we will find that there's a deeper brokenness there waiting to be healed, and a God there waiting to be our healer.

    In this eShort, readers can compare both versions of this iconic work of fiction, gaining insight into Carver’s aesthetic and the foundations of the contemporary American short story.

    Our most casual daily habits can quickly become obsessions that move beyond our control. Damian Thompson, who has himself struggled with a range of addictions, argues that human desire is in the process of being reshaped. Shunning the concept of addiction as disease, he shows how manufacturers are producing substances like ipads, muffins and computer games that we learn to like too much and supplement tradition addictions to alcohol, drugs and gambling. He argues that addictive behaviour is becoming a substitute for family and work bonds that are being swept away by globalisation and urbanisation. This battle to control addiction will soon overshadow familiar ideological debates about how to run the economy, and as whole societies set about "fixing" themselves, the architecture of human relations will come under strain as never before.